The Cell: CYOA

[Matope]

Open your eyes and it should take only a moment for you to realize that you are still asleep; the world around you wrong in a way that sends a tingle up your spine, makes your ears twitch and nose shift. The air smells wrong; the sky is the wrong color; there are voices in the way the wind moves through the air.

This is a dream, but it is not your dream.

Instead, you have awakened in the heart of someone else's nightmare, where ash falls around you like rain and somewhere, somewhere not too far off, you know there is a filly who needs your help, a hapless creature lost in the winding paths...  

[Matope]

Rules

You can participate in this event either with one of your kin, or a kin made up solely for the sake of the maze, and the choice is entirely up to you. If you use an existing kin, participation will count toward your legendary requirements.

A new prompt -- a new piece of the maze, a new fork in the road -- will be provided every day until the end of the maze. You must make your decision, or you will be removed from the game.

There is only one correct path through to the end, and there are many hazards along the way. Some of these hazards may result in prizes. Some will simply kick you out of the event, or back to the beginning.

Every prompt, post a short paragraph justifying your decision, and roll 1d20. This roll may or may not be used, entirely at blue's discretion, but it is likely to determine your outcome if you take a wrong fork.

Depending on the number of participants, additional prizes may be handed out along the way in this event, potentially as many as one down every branch....  

[Matope]

Prompt Number One:

If you choose to join this event, you find yourself on a quest to help a missing young kin; your sister? Your daughter? Your younger self? The dream will catch each participant differently, and you are encouraged to write out what it is, exactly, you are thinking and feeling as you step into it.

There is a fork in the road. Due to the ash falling like rain around you, it is hard to see more than a few feet in front of you, but you can vaguely make out your two options.

To the left, the path descends into the mouth of a cave, and you think you can just make out the faint speckle of bioluminescent mushrooms.

To the right, the path remains on the surface, and so everything has been blanketed in a fine layer of snow-like ash, that leaves everything completely silent and muffles kin footsteps as they walk.

____________________________________

You have 24 hours to respond to this prompt!

Please respond with a short paragraph in which your choice -- right or left -- is highlighted in bold, and in addition, please roll 1d20. This roll may or may not be used.  

[Mennykins]

Quiet.

That's the first thing she'd noticed. All sounds of the swamp were gone.

Ash caught in her lashes, gathering on her snout and back. Green glowing eyes slowly opened to take in her surroundings. Soft gray ash fell from an endless plum colored sky.

To her left, the mouth of a cave, black and wide. It reminded her of home. To her right, endless snow covered ground.

One thing was clear- she was not awake. Rot wasn't very alarmed by this, face stoic. Inside, however she felt a strange need, a need to find something that had been lost. No, not a something...

A someone. But who? The idea was familiar and yet unfamiliar. The ash whispered around her, and Rot turned to look at the cave. Better to start with something familiar, she figured, moving her body towards the black, looming mouth to the left.

Her steps were quiet, shaking off the ash that clung to her, the green glow of her eyes vanishing into the cave.  

[Dizzy_Kat]

Fizz shivered from the cold. Was it cold? He felt like it should be cold, but any real sense of temperature was oddly missing. He could feel the little flakes of ash settling in his hair and across his back. He shuffled his feet where he stood, lifting his tail higher as the sensation of it dragging through the drifts of ash made his skin crawl.

He couldn't see Frozen Sweet and he had a sure feeling that she should have been there in this strange dreamland. He'd only shared a dream with her after all and there was definitely someone lost just around the bend.

Fizz did not want to move from his spot... he didn't like this place. He needed to find his sister though. With halting steps... Fizz turned right...  

[So Long Gay Bowser]

Somehow, in her negligence, Roses in Bloom had lost track of her Walking Root. It was not uncommon for them to separate- her friend, after all, did deserve space. But this was a different sort of feeling, she knew it. There was no warmth knowledge of reuniting, no fleeting feelings of finding her love once more. This was dread and worry and loss. The thought made Roses' blood run cold.

And what was falling? Snow? No. Not snow at all. Her muzzle was covered on the stuff, ash which blocked her senses and made her legs feel weary. No matter how she shook to rid herself of the stuff, it seemed a thorn in her side. Standing still wasn't going to rid her of it, nor was it going to find her Root.

The only option, then, was to press on.

Her dark eyes took a moment to assess her options- looking both to the left and the right. There was a cave, and there was an ashen path. What lay that way, Roses wondered? Her darling, cold and alone and waiting for her? Perhaps she had ventured too far, had worn herself weary in this relentless fall...

But no. That seemed too unlike her Root. That was a decision- a mistake- that she herself would make, not her darling.

Rain or snow, Walking Root would find shelter should it prove unbearable. And while Roses was a delicate doe, she could not see her dearest friend tolerating this fall any longer than was necessary.

The cave, then. Straightening her back, Roses pressed forward, taking the left path towards the cave. Her Root was no fool!

And swallowing heavily, Roses hoped she was no great fool herself in undertaking this quest.  

[Appeal]

Forgotten Feathers opened her eyes in a haze of confusion, her ears twitching intensely and her nose bringing her whole body up from the ground where she'd previously laid. What was that smell? It didn't smell normal, it didn't smell right. Her eyes fell to the cry and she tilted her head to the side with confusion. What time was it? The sky looked a really weird colour.

The white doe with the glowing blue carbuncle marking on her chest and the wings on her back that haunted her own hopeful dream of flying instead of falling. She didn't wan to be forgotten and left behind as she had been so often and knowing there was a filly lost out here conquered, relatively, the fears she had about remaining here.

She got up, slowly and hesitatingly, worried about what could be around the next bend. The cave reminded her of Fire Made Flesh and with that memory in her mind she refused to barge into another could be home of something that wanted to attack her. Instead she took the path on the right with what little confidence she had.

 

[Vesperiie]

Wrong. Everything was wrong. It was that wrongness, which had seeped into her bones and her unconsciousness, that stirred her, golden eyes blinking at the falling... snow? No-- ash. She shook it from her head, her shoulders, her back, as she got to her hooves. A lucid dream, she thought to herself, bemusement in her smirk, but her humor faded as a feeling of need trickled into the edge of her consciousness. Not a dream, but a nightmare. Not her's, but her's. A filly, a stranger at that, but in need for help so dire that even Edge couldn't fully play it off as curiosity when she started down the path she somehow knew to take.

The fork was where the knowing stopped though. Left down to a cave, right to stay along the surface, and nothing but her own sense to guide her now. She paused, but only for a moment, before turning right to continue deeper into the wrong-world.  

[LOLLI qAq]

A familiar ache throbbed in his heart; his Secret was gone. This was not a new thing, but something about this instance made it seem more urgent. More raw. The world was different as well, and that left him feeling more concerned than anything else. What was his beloved doing in a land so foreign to the both of them?

These were not his trees. They were not held by the roots he had so carefully looked after. The sky was not filled with their air. Flakes of ash floated down from the sky to coat his hide and the life that claimed his back as it's habitat. The snow of death. He was familiar with this as well. Old eyes looked around with more urgency than their owner was used to exerting.

With not a word, but a snort of nostrils to clear yet more ash, he headed left. Underground was no place for a tree, and so normally he avoided caves, but they housed roots and kept them safe; so, with reluctance he headed towards the dark mouth and glittering mushrooms.  

[Whippie]

Dream opened her eyes to a gray world. Her thoughts drifted. Quiet. Grey. Swirls. Sky. Wrong. Cold. Disjointed chaos was her mind, but that wasn't unusual. She could tell she was dreaming. When had she gone to sleep?
She couldn't say. She had a strange feeling that she had lost something. Someone? Who was it? Small. Tiny. Helpless. Needs help. Crying. Her thoughts drifted again. No, she needed to try and focus. It is hard. She looked around her once more. Two paths fell from her feet. A cave? Something shiny? A light? That was down, to her left. Stretched before her, to her right, a path smothered in the grey. Snow. Ash. Why ash? Her thoughts fled her. She stood, her mind scattered. Slowly she collected herself. What was she doing? She had to find someone. A small, helpless someone. Left to the cave? Right to the path?
...Right, I think. Right is right, after all. She turned and walked beneath the falling ash towards an unknown destination.  

[Sarano_Krem]

Feral Storm found himself in a strange place covered in ash and improper colors. As he moved along the path, he caught a glimpse of a white and red doe, who disappeared from his vision as quickly she had entered it. It felt familiar to him, reminding him of the doe he had encountered in pursuit of a very cunning boar.

Making his way to the spot he had seen her, Storm found nothing, not even fading hoof prints in the ash-coated ground. He looked about, hoping to spot her again, hoping to perhaps challenge her again, but still, nothing.

Ready to turn around and leave this odd land, Storm heard a cry in the distance. He sprinted after the sound, hooves launching clouds of ash behind him. As he got closer, he slowed to a trot as he came upon a splitting path. The world went quiet. He waited for what seemed at least an entire day, expecting her to call out again. It were as if his presence intimidated the world around him into a stoney silence.

In front of him, the path continued, possibly forever. Storm figured that if he continued down the baren wasteland, the path may spilt several more times in several more directions, getting him lost. Being a hunter and a warrior like him, Storm was sure that she had the same the thought.

To the left of him, there was a cave with a sinister looking darkness within. Not fearing the dark, he quickly made his way to the stone opening, finding strange mushrooms that lit the path before him.  

[Tiarana]

Even in dreams Hollyhock was blind, but a different kind of blind; in her dreams, though she could not see, she knew. But this dream was different. In this dream, she was merely blind, as she always was; the only thing she knew was that she was in a dream. She was walking inexorably down what seemed to be the only path. A smell like bad memories made her nose wrinkle. A fine dust was falling from above, and the world around her was as quiet as if a fresh snow had fallen. But the dust was thick, choking; it made her eyes water, so she closed them, the better to focus on what was happening.

"Holly!" She heard, or thought she heard, an unmistakable voice: the voice of her sister, crying out to her in pain. Hollyhock hadn't visited her sister in some time, but it seemed she needed to find her now.

"Stumble!" Hollyhock cried out in answer, but heard no reply. Breaking into a run, she dashed recklessly down the path until a soft crunch told her she was off it. Hollyhock stopped to catch her breath, and trotted around in a circle. The path split, it seemed, but she could only guess what lay in each direction. After a moment of agitated circling, she started down the path to the right.  

[Ruriska]

His eyes snapped open.

He took one breath and then rose to his hooves in one swift, rolling motion. On high alert, his ears swivelled and his eyes narrowed, taking in the strange landscape. The ash drifted around him, settling in his hair.

A dream.

He turned in a slow circle, a quiver running up his spine. Everything about this place felt wrong. The knowledge nagged at him, screaming at him to wake up. But Killing Moon was here for a reason.

The buck started moving, feeling the pull towards the friend he was hoping to save. She was out there somewhere, waiting for him.

The path forked and he inspected both choices before continuing right, further into the field of ashes.  

[Blinded By My Silence]

When Cross My Heart had bedded down, the sounds of night had swirled around her in a conforting breeze. As always when trying to sleep, she would play one of her many little games, putting names to each sound. There, the chirping of crickets, one, two... Maybe four. And over there, the rustling of leaves in the light wind. By her side, as always, the easiest sound to identify, Hope to Die's steady breathing.

But suddenly, all sound ceased. Heart's wide, blue eyes fluttered open, dispersing the ash that had accumulated on her long, elegant lashes. Her surroundings were the same, she was still in the thicket, that tree over there, she recognised her sister's horn marks. But it looked as though all the color had drained from the place. The air was deadly still and, slowly, ashes fell like the tears of the dead, dry as dust and light as air. This place was boring, she decided, not one of her dreams for sure. More like something out of her sister's mind...

"Speaking of Hope, where did she go?"

Her voice didn't ring, but echoed off the faces of every dead tree. And as the echo reached her dainty ears, a voice mingled in them.

w a n n axxp l a y ?

The voice is young and small, a filly, she deduced. And familiar... Behind her. Heart turned slowly, curiously, and her own wide blue eyes met with a matching set peeking out at her from behind one of the trees. There was no color in the young thing's smile as she grinned. Heart blinked and the filly was gone. The time started. The game had begun.

Find the filly. It had a ring to it, she grinned, and turning left, making her way to the tree where she had been. Stepping up to it, she noticed that the trees grew closer together and the light was quickly fading. Suddenly a great mouth opened up, swallowing what little light remained. Excitement bubbled in her stomach, a cave, how fun! Inside, mushrooms shone a dull blue and a faint giggling echoed. Who was this little doe? What prize awaited at the end of this rabbit hole? And just who's dream was this anyway? Heart loved questions, and she stepped forward, eager to solve them all.

After all, she was never one to decline a game.