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TDM: May
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aefenglom's test drive! All threads can be considered game canon, should you choose to do so; regardless of if you pick specific threads to remain canon to the game, the prompts and test drive itself will be. This will be touched on later in-game, so it's fairly important to note! Aside from that, here are some quick reminders:• Reserves Open Today! If you're interested in securing a spot, put one in! We accept applications without reserves too, of course. Reserves will expire three days before the end of the application period, on the 28th.With that taken care of...
• Applications Open The 24th! These will last until the end of the month, the 31st, with the intro log going on up June 1st. The application page can be found here.
• If you have any questions about the game or the world, please refer to the FAQ page; if you still have questions, feel free to ask them! For questions specific to the test drive, please ask them on the appropriate thread.
• For the purposes of the test drive, your character will have access to all magics taught by the Coven if they're a Witch, and as much of their shifted form as you'd like if they're a Monster. Feel free to play around and experiment with each!
• While current players won't be allowed to post top levels on the test drive itself, feel free to reference or play with the dreams in-game.
• Test drive threads can be used as samples for your applications!
You feel like you're floating. Around you, colors and sounds and smells swirl as if trapped in a whirlpool, vibrancy and hue ever shifting. The more you watch them, the less solid they are; they only become clear out of the corner of your eye. The area around you begins to feel more solid as well, until your feet are on the ground, the wind brushes playfully against your face -
and you know one thing, and one thing alone: this is a dream, and an incredibly realistic one at that.
The Eternal Fall
The smell of autumn leaves surrounds you, a myriad of colors sparkling into existence at the same time. Despite the warmth and light, the air feels heavy and stiff, as if on razor's edge. The forest is eerily silent - not a bird, bug, or rodent dares to stir - and when you do hear something, it's the high-pitched crying, whining, weeping, sobbing, howling sounds of something far off. The tunnel of bent branches invites you further with an unpleasant compulsion; though fighting it and turning around finds you in front of a chilly, damp cave alight with the faint, cool glow of bubbling fountains and streams.
 The Compulsion Unable to sway yourself from the call of the forest - or maybe you're simply curious as to where it leads - your feet pull you further and further into the autumnal tunnel. The cry from before grows more distant, but in return, the air weighs even heavier on your shoulders than before. The branches hang lower and lower as well, as if pushed by gravity, until their leaves smack your face, twigs offering small cuts from the thorns protruding from their bark. But you can't stop. Not now. The end of the tunnel seems so close; but it's seemed that way for a while now, you suppose, and you've already come this far - you might as well stay the course, wherever it might lead. The further you go, the brighter everything becomes, and you realize it's the leaves surrounding you; they've begun to glow, encouraged by the sunlight streaming in from above, and the wind begins to whisper in your ear. At first, it's only encouraging things, or silly facts - harmless words, but as the foliage begins to shimmer and reflect your image, the wind's words turn colder. Within those reflections on the autumn tunnel, you begin to see your worst moments - morally, ethically, emotionally. The things you don't want anyone else to know, that you'd feel ashamed or struck for anyone - especially those close to you - to see. The wind becomes louder as the scenes play out one right after another, boldly declaring your true feelings as they were in that moment, good or bad. Worst of all - you still can't bring yourself to turn back, even as your mind begins to free itself from the tunnel's compulsion. Maybe someone else can help out, if they're not too taken by their own memories, or maybe the shock of sharing such private secrets will jolt you and anyone else back to reality. Either way, it's that, or staying stuck watching your worst memories play on repeat for what feels like the rest of your life. |
 The Cry While not compelled by any means, you still feel a curious draw down the path in front of you; as you follow the leaf tunnel, with others or alone, you find another, less-traveled path. Following it reveals a large pond colored orange and gold by the reflection of the area it's in, sunlight and shadows playing on its surface. At a glance, it seems to be rather shallow, but that's hardly the truth. You realize, after a moment, that the crying has continued, evidently coming from the water. Looking closer, the culprit is an infected Merrow, who - upon begin seen - shrieks and dives for whoever's looking at it with the clear intent to drag them down beneath the water. Its claws are extra sharp, its teeth similar to a shark in number and shape, and its scales have turned a pale black; an oil-like substance flows from beneath them and from its gums as well, shimmering the same way gasoline does in the light, and its eyes are the tell-tale white of a Shade. It isn't impossible to fight it to get away, especially as some of you have new abilities at hand, and some of you have a few neat changes to help that along. Once distance is successfully put between you and the infected Merrow, it howls in a wet, warbly voice, visibly frustrated. Unlike ordinary Merrows, who can walk on land and have legs as long as they stay dry, this Merrow can't seem leave its pond at all, and electricity sparks from it like little static shocks in its irritation. It does dive back under once it realizes it can't reach you, resurfacing as your character's most important person in an attempt to lure them back. The expressions are far too real, too genuine; even those aware it's a Merrow might be fooled. While its voice isn't a perfect mimicry, the song it begins to sing has with it notes of yearning and beckoning to join it, join your beloved person, in the water. |
 The Cave Pulling yourself from curiosity or compulsion, the cave behind you - in front of you, if you've turned around - gives off an oddly pure feeling. Like an oasis in a desert, it feels refreshing and calm; incredibly safe, compared to the eerie call of the forest it's in. Within the cave are pools of water that glow and glimmer from the magic runes found around them. The runes shift similar to a mirage whenever you try to focus on them; and try as you might, you can't glimpse what they say exactly. It isn't so hard to figure out though, as the pools of water surrounded by them have a pleasingly cold temperature, while those without them are near scalding. A few of the latter have runes around them, but they're not glowing like the rest - feeding a little magic into them changes this immediately, and steam rises in a sudden blast as the water cools rapidly. The opposite can be done for the colder pools too - taking their magic somehow or ruining the runes will make them bubble and boil as they surge in temperature. But that isn't all the cave has to offer. Moving further inward, you get the feeling you're going down - beneath the ground and the enchanting forest. Eventually, the cave widens out to a massive underground lake, multiple waterfalls pouring into it; despite their number and size, the room is completely silent. All tunnels seem to lead to this one room, with a few of them looking more man-made than natural. Traversing other tunnels leads you into a maze that only ever brings you to the lake, or to the cave's entrance, no matter how many different paths you take. Something different happens eventually though; signs of life begin to appear, or at least signs that life once lived there. Leather pouches rotted by the dampness of the cave hang on sharp nails beaten into the cave walls, with boots in similar condition strewn here and there. Torn, soaking clothing lays in piles in the tunnels, and candles burnt down to their wick's end stand in shelves carved from the navy blue and black stone. There's broken toys and books too waterlogged to read, instruments with snapped strings or clogged holes, and - most peculiarly - smooth, round devices that heavily resemble large pocketwatches or hand mirrors. They refuse to turn on though, either due to age or due to the wetness of the air. |
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She does still give him a quizzical look, though, before shaking that off.]
I doubt it. In a place like this?
[She keeps walking, though...]
...We're close to the end. Maybe we'll find out once we get out of here.
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[Papyrus wavers, then hurries to keep up with her. He can't deny the heavy air, or the way the branches feel almost deliberate about reaching down to scratch at them. But the rest of it?]
This seems like a nice place to me. A little quiet, but beautiful! Not a place for crying at all.
Something terrible must have happened, for so much crying...
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[He is, of course. There's something wrong here, and each step makes that more and more clear. The air grows more heavy, stifling somehow, and carries with it the scent of cinders. There's a faint whiff of something familiar, but it's not enough to place it...]
...I don't like the way this is going. Are you...smelling that?
[Can he even smell?]
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The leaves? It's smelled like leaves this whole time. And I think they're glowing...
[There's little flickers of light that don't match up with the behavior of the sunbeams, anyway.]
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[She breathes in, clenching a fist suddenly as a pattern makes itself known in the leaves.
An arena, just a pit in the sands with a crowd standing all around cheering. And a little girl with the same coppery red hair, staring up at a hooded man with a strange sword.]
...Oh hell.
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[Who knew trees could do that, certainly not Papyrus. He leans in closer to the flickering pattern, making out the shapes of the arena, the encircling crowd, the two figures standing off.]
It looks like a fight, but they haven't started yet. And... Uh, I think...
[He doesn't finish voicing the thought, but glances sidelong at Chandra, and the little girl, and back.]
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[Chandra finally manages to halt her advance, forcing her feet to hold as the scene begins to shift and start to play in true-to-life detail.]
...It's my execution. And a massacre.
[The man begins to say things, mouth moving, but the words are largely indistinct, the vision growing red around the fringes. Outlaw, Rebel, Justice, Fire Magic, and Killed your mommy and your daddy are the only coherent words. The girl's hands begin to glow, her golden chains melting away in chromatic rivulets, patting to the ground, and the soldiers lower their pikes, preparing to kill the girl.]
If you have a sensitive stomach, look away.
[Does he have a stomach? He clearly has no eyelids...]
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[Papyrus offers the joke a little weakly, in the face of words like 'massacre' and the grim tone of her voice, if only to alleviate a little of his nervousness. And he half turns away in an attempt to be polite, but the image is spread across half the leaves around them, and it's hard to look away.]
...She seems so... small.
[He knows enough about humans now to know those are the proportions of a child, not an adult. Which means, the humans meant to kill one of their own... for an accident with magic? A terrible accident, if she became an orphan from it. This is the kind of thing that inspired the war in the first place, isn't it.]
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[No sense denying it's her.
Of course, this is hardly the scene of her execution, given that she's a full grown woman standing right there. The ground begins to rumble in the image, and the girl spreads her hands, spinning in a circle. Fire...fire...everywhere. It fills the arena, it engulfs the men, the spectators, every single person that came to watch a public execution. The tiny Chandra lets out an anguished howl of pain and rage and the ground erupts in a magmatic spray that burns everything around it...and the girl disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving the smell of sulfur lingering in the air.]
...
[The present day Chandra says nothing, but looks over at her traveling companion, as if waiting for some comment. She's not keen on sharing the story of her life with a stranger, but she wasn't exactly given the choice. Just like back then, when her Spark had ignited. Nobody like her had clean hands, Spark ignition could cause cataclysmic changes, but that didn't mean she liked it.]
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...W-well. Anybody would want to disappear, after such a bad day.
[It's strange how the glowing leaves can emit so much of a memory. Not just the pictures, but sounds, a sense of heat, even a hint of the smells. It's not quite so real that it feels like he was there, but if it was his memory playing, maybe it would. He shakes it off, and tries to smile at her.]
But! You're not small anymore, you're a lot bigger than you were then. And... a lot bigger than what was, I suspect, one of the worst days of your life...? Good job, keeping going.
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[Not the worst. Not by a long shot. But definitely in the top five.
She has the grace to exhale and shuffle a few steps away, in case he's bothered by it in some way. She wouldn't blame him for it.]
...Sorry, not usually something I like to share with a stranger. Definitely not the best way to make a first impression.
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[He keeps deflecting the seriousness with little jokes, and there is a bit of discomfort in his skull, but it's already fading.
He can't judge too harshly. At least one of his friends is a repeat killer - probably not a murderer, they might all have been in self-defense, and another is a monarch preparing an army for an indiscriminate war.]
Some first impressions aren't very informative, anyway. If you'd rather leave it in the past, and do better things, then I won't push you about it!
[The glowing leaves around them may have other ideas.]
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[Chandra probably doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, because she's quite happy to have killed Baral, her would be executioner, rather recently. But that was part of a war that her rather not-dead mother started.]
What's your name, anyway? I'm Chandra. And...I guess since we're going to go through this crazy tunnel together we should at least be chummy, yeah?
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Oh! Right! I'm Papyrus, and I love being chummy. Let's do that!
[He glances around for a sign that there's a good or bad direction to go down, in this leaf-congested path, and starts to step forward again.]
So, new chum, do you think... the trees will keep doing that?
[There's still echoes of whispering voices, some in voices he recognizes, some in ones he doesn't - but assumes she does. And he's not a fan of the idea. His memories might not be as objectively terrible to experience, but they're still private.]
Plants that echo bad memories... They're just the worst. I prefer plants that tell me warnings of the future, with their own voice!
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[Really, really not. That's probably the memory she has that makes her look like an actual monster but the idea of exposing someone who seems really nice to visions of the Eldrazi or the Eternals is not particularly high on her to do list.]
It's not like I enjoy this.
[As they walk, things do start to thin out a bit at least, the tunnel seeming to widen and the plants closing less around her. They may gravitate towards him...but they may also decide that once was enough.]
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[They're still too deep in the path for the plants to let up, just yet. The leaves continue reaching in, brushing against Papyrus' shoulders as he walks, and the whispers continue - though the voices and words are changing.
If you're not willing to kill anybody, I can't let you out there! I can't protect you like that, a woman's voice rings in a distant shout. Papyrus' skeletal smile goes even more rigid, and he begins taking longer strides.]
...Maybe going for a jog, instead...
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A jog sounds nice. Exercise never hurt anyone.
[...Well, he's a skeleton so it can't help either.]
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You'd never know it if you asked my brother! As far as he's concerned... Exercise is a vegetable. That he's allergic to.
[If nothing else, being a skeleton means he doesn't need to gasp for breath, and he's up to the challenge of talking loudly over the echoes.]
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[Onions, peppers, garlic. Strong flavors.]
What's his name?
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My brother...? Oh, his name's Sans!
[Around them, the lights in the leaves jump from branch to branch, flickering in an attempt to keep up with the joggers. The further they get back the way they'd came, the more the lights begin to lag behind... but as they do, there's views of a kitchen with electrical appliances and nautically-themed wallpaper. An image of Papyrus cringing as he talks with a blue fish monster, whose face begins to crumple before she turns away from him.]
A-A skeleton, of course. He's shorter than me... and so unhealthy it's no wonder!
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She does her best to focus on Papyrus rather than the shifting images, though she does notice the fish woman and all. It's not her pain though, and so she pointedly turns and starts walking backwards so he can have her full attention.]
An unhealthy skeleton, huh? Is it weak bones?
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[This is about the best topic for distracting Papyrus from the ominous whispers. He rants with the free enthusiasm of someone who has hundreds words more on the topic, and only rarely a willing audience for it.]
If he just ate better, he could exercise more... but he enjoys terrible food too much. I despair of him, sometimes.
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[Not that she thinks they don't. But it seems like a good distraction.]
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With... our mouths...? And forks, except when it's finger food. Small bites...?
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[Does it just fall out the bottom?]
You don't have organs, do you?
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