—TDM 001.

[shadowovershiokawa]

TDM 001.
( FULL NAVIGATION )

» ARRIVAL.

It could happen at any point, anywhere: glancing into a reflective surface steals you away from your home.

You're left dreaming and paralyzed; there's fire and the slow-creep of dread across your awareness. There's the feeling of being watched.

When you awake, you're soaked through with salt water, lying face down in sand... The sun is just coming up, but that light doesn't help you feel any less horrified and unsettled. The lighthouse, a ways off, makes you feel even worse, sick to your stomach somehow...

There are other people on the beach, in various states of rest or wake, like you. You feel a sort of kinship with them already... Maybe you can hunt for answers together... You find that the grasp of their hand in yours puts a calm into your soul, just a little.

»

The curse you've been afflicted with sends most townsfolk running, which leaves you to the company of your fellow cursed. You'll be in various states of ill and well, sane and off your rocker. How to ease the curse, or get rid of it entirely?

»

You've been sorted into a Coven upon arrival, feeling a thrum of familiarity humming between you and the other members of your Coven.

» URBAN LEGENDS.
WARNINGS: gore, suicide mention.

A few days into your stay at your new home, you start hearing high school kids talking about a game called Aka Manto.

A student died last week, throat cut and left bleeding on the cold school bathroom floor. Apparently he had played the game. You feel compelled to investigate and, after some poking and prodding around town, you learn some things.

Aka Manto is a "Bloody Mary"-like game where one runs into an impossibly tall man with a blank-look mask. He's in the last stall of the boy's room on the second floor of the high school. Or maybe he's in the teachers' break room. Or, some kids will tell you, he's actually in the classroom where that girl hung herself last summer.

He asks you what color paper you'd like, and your answer will either be your death or your salvation.

"RE... d... pAPer... OR BlUE... pa... PEr?"

If you answer red, the color of his coat and the stains on his brandished knife, he nods at you and disappears in a flutter of red papers. The papers have Lorem Ipsum printed on it, with a few that have a web address, and a few still with the repeated names of dead students...

If you answer blue, the color of the sad and wide sky outside, you're dead. He draws his blade across your throat, agonizingly slow, and you bleed out on the floor.

If you answer, "I don't want anything from you!" then you have a chance to fight. His mask flies off, leaving a void of a face in its wake. The only way to kill him is to stab him with his own blade — even though blades are scary to you because of the Old God's rule — right in the heart.

» REALITY CHECK.

The ways to keep yourself sane:

» Break a mirror, cast the shards in the sea. Men at the bar near the shore will tell you this, but so will kind mothers at the park, noticing your distress and unease.

» Tell your secrets to the sea, or better yet: someone you haven't met yet. You might feel compelled to do this on your own.

» Sing the song bouncing around in your skull. A child — wide eyed but grinning, making you feel peaceful — will tell you that you should.

» "Do something that scares you," an old man tells you, "With the ones against you." You know immediately he's talking about someone from another Coven, the one that makes you shiver and shake.

» BULLETIN.

The web address from the Aka Manto game?

It leads you to a post on the network from a user posting as "J.H."...

in an impossible place, where
fire meets forest meets moon,
there's a mausoleum. i've found it and
left it unlocked.
won't you visit?

won't you dream?

won't you tell us all about it? (:

Feel free to comment on the post, though J.H. will never answer. But now that you've read the post, you can't help but feel like you need to find that impossible place...

» FIRE, FOREST, MOON.
WARNINGS: grace desecration and fire/burning.

It's in a clearing in the forest, seen only in the witching hour, only when a fire is lit.

The mausoleum itself looks like it's survived a fire and, indeed, the door is open. When you go in, you'll feel compelled to open the coffins inside and look through the bones and dust. But when you reach the back of the crypt, you'll find there's a coffin with your name on it.

You want to climb inside and sleep.

So maybe you do, or maybe you were smart and brought someone with you who can talk some sense into you. Better hope your friend doesn't find their own coffin, or you'll both be committed to sleep there and dream of hellfire until someone kind enough happens by to rouse you awake...

Should you get your wits about you in one way or another, you'll be rendered sick from the air of the mausoleum. You'll want to find it again; all you can think about is getting in your coffin and sleeping. It's all you want. Eventually, you'll talk of burning — it feels like you're on fire.

The way to calm down someone who has been afflicted so is through either physical contact and a genuine desire to help them, or to bring them to the sea and push them in. They'll be fine, but maybe a little irked at being so wet.

» NOTES.

TDM threads can be considered game canon if all parties agree to it.
Ask questions below if you need.
The Coven you choose now doesn't have to be the one you end up with, so don't feel locked down.
Have fun with it, feel free to play around with the symptoms of your characters' curse, their sanity, etc.!

code bases by tricklet

Comments

1.

[exaltruist]

( Dimitri is of Bane; he feels an odd feeling when he regards Mahiru. It's not quite the same as the warm, true hum between him and others -- others he can tell are Bane.

No, now he feels like she is something to be protected, or maybe someone to hurt. He doesn't like that those feel like his only two options.

His voice comes out a bit choked: )

You ... Ah, you just washed ashore.

( He clears his throat, ignores the urge to shield or harm and instead puts on his personable voice. )

I've been keeping watch over the shore. Can I help ... you to town?

[truenoonsyndrome]

[ Mahiru startles a little at his voice, gripping her camera tighter as she turns towards him. She relaxes only slightly at his offer for help. He may seem trustworthy, but perhaps it's best that she remains on guard. ]

I... if you'd like, you may.

[ She lets go of her camera, letting it rest against her hip once again. She'd like more than anything to get out of here entirely, but getting away from the beach will have to do for now. ]