[S/lay w/Me] The Vale of Roses

[greyorm]

Back when I had first met my now-wife, Deb, and we lived two-and-a-half hours apart, we played a game of S/lay w/Me via e-mail over the course of three months. Deb played "I", and I was "you." We also started but failed to finish a second game, where I would have been "I", and she "you". We discussed scenes/situations via chat when it was necessary, and otherwise worked out scenes at our leisure and e-mailed them to one another.

Beyond one frustratingly abortive attempt with my ex, which ended too quickly when she insisted she was "too embarrassed" to play and "not good at telling stories", this was my first time playing. The rules felt opaque in places for both of us, and led to a lot of discussion in chat of what we thought they meant or how things were supposed to proceed.

Throughout play, Deb occasionally expressed annoyance with even having rules--she was very much more interested in the back-and-forth storytelling taking place, and not much in the rules, so there wasn't much strategizing going on, and I was mainly in charge of keeping track of what to do when in terms of what few mechanics there are. As to Matches, since she wasn't thinking about mechanics and told me to just handle it, I just said when I thought a Go seemed to indicate a roll should happen. After the game ended, this did lead to a pretty neat discussion of the creative void and creative constraints.

Anyways, specifically, I recall I wasn't certain when the Lover was actually supposed to appear, and I think we messed up on starting the Match, starting it a round later than it should have. We wished there were more examples of play to see the rules in application (plus it would make for a neat little collection of short-stories), but we forged ahead as we thought best.

Neither of us remembers what Deb named her character, but her description was "I am myself. I am canny, brutal, experienced. I laugh at the gods. I delight in life. My foes meet death swiftly. I am a demon's child and heir to its power, but I am beautiful and good. A dark haired willowy pixie, a chameleon in my surroundings. I am in the Forest of Flowers. I grew up here with my mother and step-father. They were taken by some of my father's minions. I must rescue them, but I must first find out where they were taken and by who."

I used my go-to setting, describing the forest as the Vale of Roses, sometimes called the Vale of Thorns, the trees watered by the elfin lords who rule there on the blood of those who trespass into its depths, and "...they came in the fog and the pre-dawn dark, their faces the antlered skulls of deer, their grey nightmare steeds breathing out fog and fume, killing silently with black-silvered blades...leaving many riven bodies marked with gruesome red flowers..."

The book says "first Go" for the Lover, but it didn't quite fit for me to drop him right into the bit where I opened things, so I waited until she responded to the development of the scene, describing how she followed the reaver-band into the forest, then introduced him on that Go, as an elf who crept up behind her and put his knife to her throat, then changed his mind for reasons she could not tell, "...tall and handsome, wrapped in dark, cured leathers with a tattered cloak and hood made from the skin of a silver wolf. An old, white scar cuts from his high forehead to his smooth, narrow chin, straight through his left eye...an orb of mithril silver..."

I decided to have the elf be both the Monster and the Lover. As the Monster, he sought to kill her himself, slowly, with deceit, but civilly, and as the Lover he desired she love him wantonly, and wished to manipulate her, make her helpless, to gain her forbidden love. The Lover score was 1, the Monster score was 5.

The elf Monster/Lover was named Da'emon Serj, and was seeking to use her unrealized magical power to unlock a Faerie Well and force those who had long-ago imprisoned him to bend their knees to him instead, that he could begin a bloody crusade against the mortal realms.

He even revealed to her who the raiders were and who he was, but presented it as though he were speaking of someone else rather than himself, "...they are the goblins of the Netherdark. They tunneled up from dark faerie caverns below like maggots and freed Da'emon Serj from his crystal in the Prison of Souls..."

Promising his elven band would free her parents, he led her off to his hall built under the roots of the trees.

The fact the Lover was the Monster made it so I felt I couldn't communicate completely with Deb when things looked like they might go sideways with her description of Da'emon's behavior, since I didn't want to spoil the eventual reveal, and it felt a little more difficult to play through, having to retroactively figure out the hidden meanings of his actions regarding her. Despite this, it all tied together pretty well, since there was a dual-nature to his character already.

Once they were supposedly safe in his elven hall and sitting down to feast, his very servants attacked them, seemingly the victims of a powerful curse sent by his enemies. It was one she was mysteriously able to partially dispel, which also allowed her briefly to see through the illusion of light and life Da'emon had filled the halls with, though at the time she did not know what she saw actually meant.

The two of them fled from the ensorcelled assassins, and Da'emon fought off an undisguised lust for her, "...he seals the way behind you, twisting the dark roots over it with cruel, beautiful elfin words...and looks down at you, crushing you to his chest, 'Give yourself to me! I know your blood surges with the desire for it...I can smell it...'," but ultimately managing to control himself and claim it was merely an after-effect of the curse.

When they stop in some forgotten corner, he 'reveals' to her that her parents were not taken at random, but because Da'emon Serj wanted her specifically. Again he's playing with her by telling her the truth, but leading her to believe he is speaking about someone else. He also leads her to believe their pursuers are Da'emon's servants sent to fetch her, when in reality they are other elves bent on capturing and returning Da'emon to his imprisonment. And they are led by her real father, an elven lord. (She's a "demon's child"--this fits as men here consider the elves to be demons.)

She finally asks his name, but he won't answer, "...names have much power, little changeling. Especially here in the Vale, and especially among her lords and mistresses. And given what powers lurk within you, a name would be a helpless animal to it's designs..."

There's also a lot of heaving bosoms in the scene alongside statements that reveal an internal torment accompanying Da'emon's dual-role, showing that he still seeks to use her yet clearly finds himself attracted to her, and is even ashamed of himself for one of those reasons, "...I found myself being studied, though this time there was concern and self loathing in his face. I reached out for his shoulder in an effort to comfort him...a long moment before his finger hooked my hair over my ear and he leaned in slowly...I reached up and threaded my fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and pulled him to me..."

As I recall, we also spent a little bit of time in chat rewriting bits of the above scene to flow together less confusingly. We had both misunderstood one another at key junctures and needed to go back and make sure the fictional content of the scene in our head was the same as in our partner's. (I think it was triggered by a "Wait, why would she say that?" question, which led to a "Ah, I thought you meant..." and such.)

Before he can seduce her further, or she push him for his name, the sounds of pursuit reach them, and they make an escape through a secret passageway leading into the forest depths above, where he warns her to stay close or else "...the forest will devour you and never let you go." Given all the legends she has heard of the forest, she does as he says. He tells her they will head deep into Faerie, into forgotten kingdoms, where his enemies won't be able to find her, where her father won't be able to do the horrible things HE plans to do to her...

She finally realizes he isn't talking about her step-father, but the elven demon who impregnated her mother, and given up until now she's believed it is Da'emon Serj seeking her, everything becomes even more confusing. When she starts asking questions, a demonic *thing* appears behind them, chasing them as they attempt to reach a circle of ancient stones on a hillside above. It flows like magma through the trees behind them, uprooting the forest, burning and devouring everything, chasing them down.

She has also become woozy in reaction to the thick magic in the air of the place Da'emon is leading her into; once inside the circle, she unleashes an incredible burst of magical energy that simply dissipates the pursuing thing(s). What she does not realize is that it was an illusion crafted by Da'emon, though she notices the forest is pristine and untouched despite the damage she saw done by the pursuit. She thinks maybe her magic healed it.

Then she collapses to the ground, and before she passes out, Da'emon shows her a mystic vision of the goblins slain, the elves triumphant, and her mortal parents saved, all due her actions...but while she sleeps the forest gives her her own vision, trying to warn her the elf is not to be trusted...but apparently the message isn't clear enough.

She awakens "...naked on a thicket of soft grass that spreads around you like a bed amid the worn megaliths. Thorny vines wrap their stone bases, blooming with blood-red roses...a purplish haze still lingers in the air...lost and hidden in their thick leaves, twisted in their vines you notice skulls...human skulls...piled like rocks..."

Soon after, she and the elf make passionate love. She still can not get his name from him. While he sleeps, she runs her hands along worn glyphs she has found in the stones. At her touch, a natural stair down is revealed, "...a vast, green glowing cavern...shadowed by the haze of distance...as though you are at the bottom of the world...surrounded by wondrous stalagmites and massive beams of crystal there is a still pool of utmost blue that deepens from cyan, to midnight at the center...across the surface sweep tiny faerie lights..."

But Da'emon is awake and has slipped down after her, and puts a knife to her throat. He boasts how he protected her from her depraved father, and thanks her for opening the Faerie Well for him in return, that he will now make those who imprisoned him in the crystal pay and will bring a crusade of death to the mortal kingdoms. That he needs her blood to do this...and is sorry.

But so near the Well, she finds her power is incredible, and the waters resonate with her mind. The illusion Da'emon had been keeping around her fails, finally, and his antler-masked goblin servants are revealed, crouching and crawling everywhere. He also finds he can't touch his knife to her skin. Furious at him, she unleashes a wave of energy from the Well with "...the thunder one would hear if one were inside the rolling thunder cloud...I watched as the skin was ripped from the bodies of everyone else in the cavern. Now the thunderous roar was joined by the pitiful screams of the horde and the tortured scream of their leader. Another surge of anger and their limbs were wrenched from their bodies, which landed on the floor in smoking red and blackened piles..."

The Match totals ended up being 14 each, so she didn't win the goal, though she had two Good Dice. Apparently we did the denouement via chat, as I can't find the e-mail.

I do know that her elven father arrived (whether it was to save her or recapture Da'emon he did not make clear), appearing at least not to be an evil bastard, and that Da'emon didn't actually die, as "...unseen, the pile that moments before had been Da'emon Serj rose from the floor, gelatinous at first, but...reassembling itself. It slowly turned, holding the socket the mithril eye had once occupied, and disappeared deeper into the cavern."

I believe she chose to use her two dice to Recover from Harm, rather than be consumed by the power of the Well, because she wanted to play the character again. So she still did not know who REALLY took her parents, or if they were safe, etc. The Monster lived, someone died (her parents? The Lover as a lover?), and she really gained nothing beyond just simply surviving. Things were not tidy, and there was a whole lot of room to continue in another session of play with her character.

In case this wasn't obvious, we wrote up paragraphs to one another rather than doing just brief snippets of back-and-forth. Neither of us avoided playing either character, though she concentrated on her character and I concentrated on the elf on our respective Goes. We both threw minor characters in and around, and created places and situations without any sort of up-front negotiation needed. No one got "GM-y" or "player-ish" (she wasn't a gamer before I met her, just a writer). Also, upon re-reading it, I notice it has a definite "romance" vibe, and less sword-play than other play accounts I've read.

In summary, it was fun. It made an interesting little story we could certainly build off of. And play worked really well via e-mail.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Raven,

That is slashfic flirting which would have given J.R.R. Tolkien a massive hard-on, disguised as playing S/Lay w/Me. My poor little game feels dirty to have been employed in such a fashion; its author thinks that's hilarious.

A portrait of the Lover as well as the hero would be awesome (an eyeball made of mithril, how retro-LOTR 70s metal is that?), and a picture of anything else you described would be ... appreciated by many who visit the gallery, I'm sure.

You did the opening scenes correctly. The "I" player describes the opening location, the "You" player says how his or her hero enters it, and only then do the Goes begin, the first of which must include the Lover. Those first two narrations aren't Goes. So yeah, that was fine.

Best, Ron