Yay! A one-shot!
WILD (I made a character for it here) is a game in which you play folks delving into dreams. The kind of default scenario is a simulation, though...well, I'll just get into it.
The waiting room of ClarIT (pronounced "clarity"), Inc. It's a chic place; trendy artwork on the walls, a water feature, comfy couches, snacks and drinks on the table. Four people sit around waiting to be called in.
Carmen Rose is a flirty online influencer. She's always up for new experiences and adventures, and bring her many followers along with her. She's always the center of attention, and while her parents were pretty neglectful, she always wanted to be daddy's girl. She's here at ClarIT's invitation.
Jessie Jade is another online personality, but she's much more on the tech side of things. She's here intending to scope out the technology. She's also got a kind of frenemy relationship with Carmen.
Scotty Vale was born in a rough neighborhood and grew up surrounded by violence and abuse. He built himself up, though, made his own money, and he bought his own pass to this experience. He's always trying to be a better person.
Avery Thompson is a temp worker, living in a van, and unable to finish one project before starting another. And they have so many projects going on at any one time.
The four of them chat a bit, and Carmen and Jessie take some barbs at each other, and then a door slides open and a young man in a crisp ClarIT shirt introduces himself as Nigel. He gives them the spiel: ClarIT tech was developed by Connor Henderson, after his daughter Clarity had an "accident" at a graduation party and wound up in a coma. She showed unusually high brain activity, and so Connor developed the tech to enter her dreams with the intent of getting her out. That tech has evolved, and now is on the cusp of being commercially available. The four of them are going to enter a simulation of Clarity's comatose mind and try to "wake" her, but the device does allow entering a specific person's dream.
Jessie asks why they're doing a simulation rather than a dream, and Nigel tells her that when you enter a real person's dream, you have to be careful about how weird you let things get. If you're in your grandma's dream, for instance ("that's a scary thought," says Carmen), her experience and worldview is liable to be very different from yours, and if you changing things around too much it can have some disruptive effects. With a simulation, you don't have to worry about breaking anyone's brain.
The characters are led back into the building, and told to use the bathroom before going under. They're shown to a room with several reclined seats, and each one of them has a headset put on them.
Nigel gives them each a quick puff of a sweet smelling gas from a canister, and they all feel floaty and drowsy. He talks them down into sleep, they see blue lights flicker on their headsets as they calibrate, and they fade out...
Location One: The Party. The oneironauts wake up a party! Everyone's dancing, the music is pounding, people are wearing glowing necklaces and bracelets, and they feel a little drugged already. Lights have chasers, voices have a weird reverb to them. People are handing around pills and pipes and drinks, and they see Clarity dancing and clearly a little under the influence. Carmen gets out on the dance floor and starts grooving, while Scotty goes up to the bar and orders a whiskey from the red-haired bartender. Jessie immediately starts trying to poke holes in the simulation. She notices that some of the people at the party are nice and crisp, and have distinctive faces, while a lot of them are just...a crowd, and her eyes slide right off. She strikes up a conversation with one of the crisp ones, who introduces herself as Jenna.
Jenna seems to recognize Jessie and says she's glad to see her. This is clearly a graduation party ("class of '23, whooo!"), but Jessie asks questions to try and screw with the tech and everything stops for a second. It picks up again immediately, and Jessie muses that she didn't think it would be that easy to cause a glitch.
Avery walks the perimeter of the room, trying to see if there's a way out. They find a door with an EXIT sign, but it's closed and there's a bouncer standing near it. They try to ask him if there's a way to open the door, but all he says is "uh-huh." Not getting anywhere that way, Avery heads back into the party.
Carmen, dancing with Clarity, asks if this is her party, or who's in charge. She says that "Killian" is really the host here, and nods to the bartender. Carmen watches her pop a couple of pills, but then she staggers a bit. Carmen brings her to a couch and tries to get her to rest a bit, but there's a fellow at the other end of the couch who looks pretty out of it. His nose starts to bleed, and Carmen dabs it and wakes him up. He mutters something about "the purple ones" and then slumps over, as does Clarity.
Carmen sends Avery to get some water from the bartender. Avery finds Scotty flirting with Killian, and gets a few glasses of water from him, and then heads back to the couch (Scotty follows). Jessie, meanwhile, notices that people are falling over - but only the people with distinctive faces. She walks around the room shoving people over, until she gets bored and goes back to the others.
Carmen checks Clarity's pockets and finds a tube of purple pills, but only two left. She Avery to go ask Killian if there's anything to give Clarity to counteract "the purple ones" (since clearly these are bad news), and Killian gives Avery a bottle of pills labeled "WAKEUP." Jessie shoves a few down one of the other unconscious partygoers' throats, while Carmen very carefully gives Clarity one.
The first guy starts to choke, and Scotty quickly gives him the Heimlich. He spits out a bunch of pills and thanks Scotty, and Scotty dresses Jessie down for nearly killing the guy. "It's not like he's real," she points out. Meanwhile, Clarity has come to, and says that she needs some air. They start walking towards the door, but then Clarity collapses. The others see the bouncer start forward to catch her, and hear sirens, and then everything goes fuzzy.
Location Two: The Hospital. The four of them wake up in the lobby of a hospital. The walls are white and blue and everything is fuzzy and indistinct. There are fish tanks on the walls, and they can hear people talking but can't make out any words. Avery, in particular, can't understand anything, including the other characters. They have trouble focusing their thoughts, and wind up just kind of following along without knowing why.
Meanwhile, the others talk about where they are - clearly Clarity OD'd and was taken here. This might even be how she fell into a coma! But now what? They need to find her, and they approach an information desk. No one's there, though, so Scotty tries to get the computer to work. He can't get in, though, and the computer locks him out.
They start wandering the halls, but no sign of Clarity and no one will help them. Scotty decides to dead-reckon his way to the ER, and soon winds up staring at a security guard standing next to a nurse's station. The guard tells them that visiting hours are over, but Jessie talks him into letting her speak to the nurse. Jessie asks the nurse to look up where Clarity Henderson is, and she does, but then her eyes widen and she tells them she can't let them see Clarity. The oneironauts step back to discuss their options ("I could just punch out the guard," muses Scotty) and they realize that Avery is not with them.
Avery finds themself in a hallway, alone, confused. They focus enough to remember they're looking for Clarity, but not why. They see an orderly pushing a cart, and ask about Clarity. The orderly, wearing a name badge that says "Killian," tells Avery that they're all looking for Clarity, but Avery says that they're looking for a person, not the concept. Killian doesn't know where Clarity is, but does offer to look up the information if Avery will help get into the drug storage room.
Avery, as it happens, is a skilled lockpicker, and opens the door easily. Killian loots the place (grabbing a bottle of pills labeled "PURPLE ONES," and then types on a computer to find Clarity. But when the information comes up, he panics and flees. Avery looks at the screen, but can't make a lot of sense of it. They do realize that Clarity is being kept in a "special wing" under the care of "Dr. Dragomir."
Back at the ER, Carmen flirts with the guard (Lars) and waves the others by. They go into the ER and start looking for Clarity, but no luck. Then Carmen has the brilliant idea to use the "Find My Avery" app on her phone (what? Yes, she has one), and they see that Avery is just down the hall. Avery, for their part, finds a door labeled "DO NOT ENTER", but heads down another corridor instead, deciding maybe they should have the rest of the group together before doing through that one.
They meet up, and Avery brings the others back to the door. It's jammed, but Scotty draws back and kicks it open. Lars rounds the corner and spots them, and yells for them to stop. He draws a baton and charges, but Jessie kicks a cart towards him and knocks him over. They all rush through the door...
Location Three: The Ruins. The characters are still in hospital halls, but these halls are derelict, dirty, collapsing, and full of rats. Carmen freaks out a bit at the rats - she just had a dream recently about trying to rescue a puppy from a horde of rats and this is a little too real for her. The characters strike out through the halls, and wind up in what looks like an operating theater...full of rats.
Jessie, curious to see whether these rats will behave like, well, rats, grabs one, but all of the others surround her menacingly. Carmen takes the opportunity to run for the other side of the room. Jessie, not wanting to be munched by a million rats, throws her captive back into the horde. The rats seem to talk to one another, and then charge.
Avery hurls a chair into the sea of rats and gives Jessie a chance to run for it, but the rats turn and swarm all over Avery instead, biting their tender flesh. Scotty grabs Avery and yanks them out of the room (sustaining some bites himself), but the rats don't follow. The characters are now at in a hallway, and talk over which way to go before Avery just strikes off right. Carmen follows, and Jessie, curious to see if the simulation can handle two different threads, goes left. Scotty follows her.
The two of them come to a door with a push bar, and behind it, a much cleaner room. Several ALIS headsets hang on the wall, and Jessie excitedly puts one on. The HUD informs her that she can swipe down to go "deeper," and she does...and collapses.
Scotty checks her and finds that she's asleep. Figuring that the only way to get her back is to follow her, he puts on a headset and swipes down.
Meanwhile, Carmen and Avery enter a hallway with a chemical smell. They press on, but start to feel dizzy. Avery tries to find the source, and does - it's being pumped from a jet in the wall. Trouble is, Avery winds up taking a big whiff and blacks out. Carmen tries to go back the way she came and winds up in a laboratory, with a guy in a surgical mask and gown. Carmen asks for a mask, and he says she can't have one - she's not supposed to be here. Carmen spots Avery on a gurney in the corner and tries in vain to wake them up, but makes so much noise that the Chemist hands her a mask. She puts it on and realizes it smells sweet...and then passes out.
Location Four: The Riverbank. The characters all wake up on the bank of a rising river. A levee is barely holding it back, and the levee is being shored up by a bunch of people in reflective vests. A tent nearby fills thermoses with a hot beverage, while is then doled out to the works.
The characters, though, take a moment. They splash a little water on their faces and recenter, and Jessie relates what she found. She wonders if the simulation put them all together because it's easier that way.
They decide to check out this levee and the tent, but are quickly asked if they wish to volunteer. Scotty, always ready to be helpful, starts adding sandbags to the levee (and Jessie pretends to do so), while Carmen and Avery check out the tent. The thermoses are full of tea, and a quick sip reveals it to be...tea. The group decides to split up again; Carmen and Avery head upriver, while Scotty and Jessie head downriver.
Carmen and Avery note that the landscape doesn't change much as they walk, but then they both come to a threshold. They can't see it, but they feel it - if they keep going, they will be somewhere else. They decide to press on.
Location Five: The Lake. Carmen and Avery find themselves at a lake, which feeds into the river. A bunch of children are playing in the water, and a bored-looking lifeguard idly surfs on a computer. They go and talk to him (he says his name is Ryan), but he's not a lot of help - he doesn't know Clarity, he doesn't know where these kids' parents are, he's just looking at his screen in a bored sort of way.
They decide to go swimming and will themselves to have swimsuits. They float on the water and talk to the kids, but the kids just tell them that they don't know Clarity either (but suggest asking Ryan; "he's so boring!"). Carmen swims down into the lake, but feels another threshold. She doesn't want to leave this area like that, though, so swims back to Avery. They decide to get on some inner tubes and drift back downriver, but as they do, they look ahead and realize they can't see the levee. Avery warns Carmen that dropoffs are dangerous, and they both start paddling to shore, but the tubes capsize and...
Nigel removes the headsets from their heads. They wake up, blinking, and find that a little tray with crackers, chocolates, fruit, and a glass of orange juice is sitting next to them. Nigel explains that they woke up - it happens sometimes, especially if water or falling is involved. He points to the brain scans of Scotty and Jessie, who are both still in the simulation.
Location Four: The Riverbank. Scotty and Jessie walk downriver, and they find that the riverbed is strewn with trash. Red Solo cups, pill bottles, hospital gowns...this all looks like detritus from earlier in the dream. Jessie looks more carefully and finds letters from Clarity to her father, old tests and papers, and dirty, chewed up stuffed animals. She muses that dreams are supposedly the mind's way of clearing away the junk, so maybe this is that junk in a literal sense. But it's not cleared away, it's just lying around.
They arrive at one of those thresholds, but rather than keep going, they decide to go back to the levee and blow it up. The levee, after all, is preventing the river from washing all this crap away, and maybe that's what Clarity needs? They get back and Jessie thinks up a brick of C4, and sneaks out to the middle of the levee to plant it. She does, but the workers catch her and grab her. Scotty charges in and punches some dudes, but the levee blows up.
The river sweeps them away, and pushes all the trash away as well. They both find themselves in a kind of serene, suspended peace, and then everything fades...
Nigel removes their headsets, and points to the monitor displaying Clarity's (simulated) brainwaves. "You did it," he said, "you woke up Clarity. Nice job."
Nigel tells them that he hopes to see them back at ClarIT again (Avery says it's not likely, but the others are game). Carmen invites everyone to come on her IG feed so she can ask them about their experiences.
