Cursed Night Market

[pantheraliam]

Welcome

You’re not sure how you got here, but you don’t seem to mind. You feel a pervasive sense of calm with regard to your environment. You have entered what appears to be a night market. Perhaps the concept is familiar to you, or perhaps it isn’t. Colorful stalls, glowing with lantern light, line the path before you. You know what you need to do to return to where you came from. Investigate the various stalls - buy and sell what you have, until you’re able to purchase a path back. The merchants will take any currency that you have on hand. If you don’t have any, you will find some coins of an ambiguous nature in your pocket.

Rare Items

The first stall that you encounter boasts that you can buy and sell rare items. After trading a coin, the merchant hands you something - insists you take it. You don’t recognize the item, but the person behind you does. It is something extremely dear to them. If they check their person, they will find the item missing. If you attempt to return the item to them, you will find that you are unable to. Helpfully, the merchant offers that the person the item belongs to must tell the buyer a story about the item before it can be returned.

Fortunes

The second stall you encounter claims to buy and sell fortunes. Trading a coin, the merchant will relay to you a fortune, but, as you listen, you realize that it isn’t your fortune at all. With a cackle, the merchant explains that you must deliver the fortune with the person behind you. Neither of you can leave the booth until you have revealed to them their future.

Memories

The third stall you encounter claims to buy and sell memories. You can choose to sell the merchant a memory you would like to forget, or you can ask to buy someone else’s memory. Selling your memory will transfer it to the person behind you. In return, you will gain one of their memories. Buying a random memory will instead cause you to forget one of the people most important to you. In some instances, you might feel a great urgency to find someone, although you don't know who it is.

Dreams

The fourth stall you encounter claims to buy and sell dreams. Trading a coin at this stall will cause you and the person behind you to be transported into a shared dream. The dream may be about the highest point in your life or the lowest. It may also be about a close friend, there or gone. It may reveal your greatest desire or your greatest insecurity. Or any number of other things!

OOC notes

Suggestions on prompts: if you’re going to write one where someone will be seeing/receiving something from your character, it’s helpful to describe it in detail in the brackets in your TL. I know some of these prompts are probably a little confusing, but, I mean…it’s roleplay. Just fuck around. No one’s gonna police how you do things here.

Please feel free to top-level, tag in, and share this meme wherever you’d like - it is open to anyone. The four stalls mentioned are prompt suggestions, but you can go crazy and have any stall do basically anything you want. Please see/use subject line CWs. This musebox doesn’t have a dedicated rule list because it’s just for my personal shit, but please be kind, follow standard RP rules - just be nice! Do the right thing! If you have any questions, hit me up here.

code by Flyleaf ❖ inspired by event code by 10billionghosts ❖ background via unsplash

Comments

[letmewin]

But, if we don't read it... I don't think the fortune teller will let us leave.

( They have to give up parts of themselves to get out of this situation. It certainly wasn't a place for the feint of heart.

Asriel will be fine. He's already experienced giving up most of himself. But, what about Basil? Humans have so much to lose, and it doesn't take all that much for most of them to lose it all.

He takes the fortune, eyes looking over it for a moment before looking up. It's vague and a little difficult to know if it's anything good or bad. )

"A conflict with a friend will eventually lead to a new path."

[bellismortis]

A-ah…

[Well. That’s a fortune that’s already come true, hasn’t it?

[“A new path”… can be promising. Basil tells himself it is. He never expected to end up in a place like this, after all. Maybe Heaven is real....

[And if this is his new path, good. He hopes he doesn’t see a single familiar face here, then.

[He nods, small. The doubt on his face falls away in pieces, dead leaves in autumn. When the path clears, he’ll see it. That’s all he needs to know.]

Th…thank you, Asriel.

[He feels eyes crawling on his neck.]

A-and I should tell you, too, that… there was more to your fortune. [Basil reaches for the goat boy’s hands.] Is that okay…?

[letmewin]

( He feels relief wash over him. That's... good, isn't it? He thanked him. Even if it sounds like he's going to fight with a friend, he's glad to hear that it wasn't as bad as it could've been.

He stops when Basil mentions the other part of his fortune, tilting his head a bit. Why did he keep it to himself until now?)

Ah, really...? ( Clawed hands reach carefully then, putting his hands into Basil's. Holding someone's hands like this is nostalgic. It's... something that he misses. )

S-Sure, heehee. What is it?

[bellismortis]

[Asriel’s not the only boy missing soft palms in his. Claws or not; Basil’s touch is light. It has to be, or he’d grip hard enough to strangle every pulsing vein.]

I-it was, in full…

[He swallows.]

“Someday, you’ll be reborn. You’ll see your best friend, in the after… and you’ll change your world forever.”

[No conflict. Maybe worse....]

[letmewin]

( ...

Was the place messing with him? Didn't they have anything better to do? What a sick joke.

His grip on Basil's hands loosens, and he releases the grip. His smile doesn't reach his eyes. )

I won't die.

( And he will never see Chara again, either. Chara was gone, no matter how much Asriel wanted to see him again. He tried so desperately to keep their memory alive, but it was a useless endeavor. Funny, how he wanted to try so hard despite how little he felt. )

[bellismortis]

[Asriel lets go.
[Basil’s not surprised.

[He can recognize a fake smile when he sees one; hell knows Basil wears one (used to) all the time. That’s familiar.
[“I won’t die.”
[But that....]

You… won’t? [It’s a small question, ever uncertain. How can anyone say that…?]

[letmewin]

Heheh, don't worry.... It's complicated. But... Monsters like me are special. They live life differently than a lot of humans do.

( He doubts that much'll change for him when he ends up home. Not that he's in a rush to go back, either.

Ah, he didn't tell Basil that he was a monster. But then, he didn't ask either. )