folkooc | October 2022 Test Drive Meme

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*tdm

October 2022 Test Drive Meme

OCTOBER 2022 TDM

INTRODUCTION

[ TDM Questions ★ Jump to Comments ★ Full Navigation ]
Welcome to Folkmore's monthly Test Drive Meme! Please feel free to test drive any and all characters regardless of your intent to apply or whether you have an invite or not.

All TDMs are game canon. You can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Each TDM will provide a scenario for how characters arrive in-game that particular month.

Playing TDMs will allow characters to immediately obtain canon items from homes especially weapons or other things they may have had on their person when they were pulled from their worlds! There will always be a prompt that provides some sort of "reward" to characters who complete certain tasks.

Current players are allowed to have in-game characters react to TDMs via the Network or make a log with the prompts. Current players are always encouraged to tag new people on the TDM!

TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.

[ Prompt One ★ Prompt Two]

SHINING

Content Warnings: Possible insanity via freezing. Temporary nullification of abilities.

COLD AS YOU

You were falling...

The world snaps into place all at once; you are laying on the ground, surrounded on all sides by towering bushes that stretch up towards a beautiful sunset sky. The bushes were clearly flowered at one point, but now the flowers have died and all that remains are browning leaves that are beginning to fall. On the chill air you can sometimes hear the sound of music, too faint to completely determine.

As you stand, you are filled with an intense desire to find someone. You might have an idea of who, but chances are you do not - you just know that somewhere ahead of you is someone that you need to reach. Whether they are friend or lover or enemy remains to be seen.

You wander the maze. If you're the impatient type and you have the ability, you might try to fly out but you will simply be vaulted right back down if you do. Something clearly expects you to play by rules which were never actually explained. As you move through the twisting passages of nature, you will notice that there is a frost creeping along the branches on either side of you. This frost brings a deep chill with it, and it encourages you to move faster, to find that nameless person now now now! If you take a very long time to wander the maze you may very well be on the verge of freezing and half mad with the desire to find someone. If you try to force your way through the bushes, the frost will crawl over your limbs and inspire both the freezing and near madness at once.

When you find your Person, the cold evaporates. The air suddenly feels merely crisp, and the leaves on the bushes seem more vibrant. The two of you now can focus on finding the way out - so much easier now - but any sense of urgency will have passed and you may just walk for hours, talking and sharing things about yourselves.

It is possible to solve the maze alone, but it is much easier (and more pleasant!) with someone else.

KEEP YOUR BRITTLE HEART WARM

When you exit the hedge maze you will find a stunning display of lights: hundreds of candles and lanterns decorate the ground and hang from trees, illuminating a clear path over a gently sloping hill. When you crest the hill you can look down and see a beautiful hot spring sprawled out below. It too is lit up by hundreds of lights, all of them glowing under the late autumn sky as it darkens towards night. There are changing rooms where you can stash your clothes (yes, there are bathing suits for the very shy) and bathing stations to ensure that you are clean before entering.

The water of the springs soothes madness and heals physical injuries or any frostbite that may have been sustained in the maze. It also relaxes you, making you perhaps more likely to open up to anybody else present.

The hot spring is staffed by many mice. They don't speak, but they squeak to one another in such a way that it sounds like they are singing - high lilting chants that seem to promise that everything will be okay. They are happy enough to band together to bring you towels or hot tea. The spring is open 24/7, always with lights to fight the cold and darkness of winter.

HIGH STRANGENESS

Content Warnings: Monster sighting, optional violence.

GLITCH

Folkmore has trains and of course the cat bus, but it also has roads, mostly utilized by horses and bicycles. Maybe you're looking for the convivence store, or maybe you just like walking. However it happens, you find yourself on a lonely road at dusk. It is unusually quiet, almost as if the world is holding its breath.

Suddenly you hear the sound of wings. A man-sized creature soars above you, something with huge red glowing eyes. It drops something at your feet: a walkie-talkie. The creature lands some distance away, staring at you, and a thought arises unbidden in your mind:

Help them.

The walkie crackles and you can hear someone speaking, asking if anyone is there. It is another Star Child, brought into this trial as well. They are in danger somewhere nearby; maybe stuck on the edge of a cliff, or trapped on a rope bridge - whatever it is, they need someone else to help them get to safety. If they have any powers, they have been temporarily nullified, but if the rescuer has powers they remain intact. That's where you come in! Using the walkie you must communicate with one another so that the rescuer can reach the person in trouble in time!

But what if you don't make it in time? Or decide that you're not the hero type? Well. The rescue-ee will suffer a terrible fate... for a few seconds. Then the entire world fuzzes and resets, but this time the roles have been reversed. Both parties will remember what has already happened, so if you just ran off into the woods with no intent of helping the first time you miiiight get your just desserts! This process will repeat over and over, people switching sides every time, until someone is finally rescued or the sun rises. Whichever comes first!

If you do succeed at a rescue, you will hear the rustle of huge wings once more. This time you don't see the mysterious creature, but you will find a mystery trunk. Inside you will each find some of your canon clothes and a canon item. Looks like teamwork is rewarded! Nearby, there will also be some unenchanted weapons sticking out of the ground: basic swords, guns, shields, etc.

BAD OMEN

You don't necessarily have to have completed the rescue trial to get some goodies, though! Those aforementioned weapons are scattered all over Folkmore. But if you just go to grab any of them you'd better be prepared to fight; after all, nothing comes for free!

As soon as you have pulled a weapon out of the ground, a tall, man in a black suit and hat will appear from seemingly nowhere and attack you. He has no weapons but he is extremely strong. He's also just really creepy - his face looks like it might be fake, somehow. The only way he can be killed is with a wound to the heart - any other supposedly mortal injury will result in another man in black appearing. It is possible for someone with no combat training to beat these creatures, but they really might appreciate a little help from someone with more experience!

The good news is that they won't mess up your clothes any, as none of these creatures bleed. Because that is totally normal.

Good luck!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Thirteen. That's what the patron goddess of this place calls herself.

[Ariadne's reverence is unapologetic. Gods and goddesses have always been matter of fact for her. As much a part of life as the grass or stones or weeping willows.

But there's admiration there too. She genuinely...likes Thirteen.]

She's the one who brings people here.

[While he's certainly not one to scoff at the piety of others and certainly would never go out of his way to necessarily offend any deity, Jaskier would never consider himself all that particularly pious. He lives his life according to his own tenets and it's served him well enough thus far, after all. There's really no need to bring anything else to it as far as he's concerned. Still, there's a bit of a prolonged pause at that because...]

[Well. The idea that this truly was all a dream was beginning to dwindle and fade the longer this all went on. Much as Jaskier wanted to cling to it, there was far more intense than any dream he's ever had. And not to say that his dreams couldn't become a bit...imaginative, it wasn't like this. Even with his head full of fanciful notions about what it will be like to follow a witcher around, he doesn't think he'd get this inventive.]

Well, I suppose I am then... [he says as the notion this is real all starts to settle in. What sets much quicker is the realization that with his words, that could cause some sort of strange reverence out of her with the way she speaks of this Thirteen. Jaskier's quick to hold out a hand in a placating manner to prevent any excitement at that very vague confirmation. He finds himself a bit surprised he doesn't find it to be quite as cold as it was before.] But I am but a humble bard. Brilliant, of course, and exceptionally talented. I can promise you that I am absolutely meant to be the greatest there ever was. But I am only a bard nonetheless.

[Privately he's praying to whatever gods might be listening that he's managed to avoid this getting any stranger than it already is.]

[Fortunately, Ariadne's piety is a surprisingly small piece to her. The larger piece--the sheltered girl who is still astonished by the simplest of things--easily wins out. He isn't a player!

He's a bard!

She claps her hands together, letting out a delighted laugh, gray eyes getting round and bright as silver coins in a fountain.]

Oh! How wonderful!

[She may be a full grown woman, but she says it with all of the delight of a child receiving a birthday present.]

It's been ages since I've met a bard. A real one, anyway. They have these electronic boxes here that make music, but it isn't the same. Not at all!

I actually teach music at one of the local schools here. Mostly piano. Everyone is utterly obsessed with the piano.

[All the while, the winds seem to be shifting. The cold has diminished. Her breath isn't coming out in clouds any more.

...strange.]

[Oh. Oh? Oh!]

[He's not entirely full of it when he says that he's brilliant or exceptionally talented. Much as his professors would never have likely assumed as much of him based upon his schoolwork (or lack thereof as the case happens to be), they begrudgingly have to accept that fact about Jaskier now that he managed to graduate despite his poor demonstration as a student. And with his youthful optimism, Jaskier ignores whatever insecurities might linger as he's beginning to make a name for himself and simply throws himself into it as deeply as he can. And he believes, gods does he ever believe, that he may have finally found his true start with Geralt of Rivia. As cantankerous as the man might be, there's an endless font of inspiration to be found there. Jaskier can sense it easily with the subtle contradictions that seem to exist between rumor and reality.]

[But even with all that self-confidence and that brushing aside insecurities, Jaskier's yet heard anyone pay such mind to his profession. He hasn't yet experienced any specific sort of praise like that from anyone. Even those wooed by his songs aren't immediately excited by the simple fact he is a bard.]

[If anything, Jaskier's experience this early in his career has been a bit of the opposite wherein he's tolerated and whatever gigs he seems to manage to secure for himself seem to born out of pity that some little lordling will likely starve to death and thus his lord father will subsequently have a conniption. Better to let the boy have his turn at it and then pray he makes enough coin to move on soon enough.]

[Jaskier lights up almost near as much as she does even if he has no idea what an 'electronic box' or 'piano' are.]

Really? I happen to favor the lute! [His hand instinctively begins to reach for the aforementioned instrument, but as he grabs at it and feels nothing but air he remembers he's without its weight. Jaskier's hand awkwardly comes to rest at his hip as he recovers and tries to play it off. There's a mixture of embarrassment for forgetting it isn't there, but also a tinge of longing at it as well. He'd only just received the thing—and as a replacement for the one that was destroyed—but Jaskier had really taken to it! It had an excellent story behind it after all and what could a bard love better than that for his instrument? But it's perhaps for the best it's not here. Gods only know what the temperatures would be doing to its tuning. In continuing to recover from reaching for the absent lute, he quickly continues as a means of distraction,] How fortuitous is it then that our paths should cross? Well, I have some criticisms about the exact location in which we found one another, but never let it be said that I lack appreciation for any of my fellow musicians.

[Except that it probably should be said. To say that Jaskier is incapable of forming rivalries with others would be a complete falsehood. But she is not merely beautiful, but also quite kind and has shown an interest in him as far as his music is concerned. It's more than a little difficult for Jaskier to feel threatened by that. Especially when she's chosen teaching as her profession.]

[Although.]

Tell me, do you compose your own songs as well as teach our aspiring fellows?

[The question still comes with enthusiasm, but it is still important to field one's potential competition!]

[The way his hand reaches over his shoulder doesn't escape Ariadne's attention. Nor does the disappointment, however brief, that flashes through his eyes. And she can understand. In a visceral way, she knows how it is to long for something that's no longer there. As the scars on her back will attest.

Still, there's nothing worse in the world--perhaps the multiverse--than pity. So there will be none of that.

Instead, she clings onto his enthusiasm.

This was most definitely not what she was expecting when she woke up in a topiary maze. But perhaps it's a gift of some kind. Thirteen repaying her for the faith and devotion she's demonstrated as of late. This man, this stranger, there's something about him. What it is, she can't say for sure. She simply feels it.

At his question, she laughs, shrugging up one shoulder.]

I've never really tried to compose before, sir. Although I suppose I did make up a prayer to Thirteen, recently. Mostly because I was desperately afraid.

[It seemed to please her, though. After she whispered that prayer, Thirteen sent a creature to rescue Varen, when he was about to fall into a pit. And again, when Ariadne and Lorna were nearly lit on fire. She sang the song and they both made it through without so much as a singe.]

Mostly, I just sing the songs my father came up with. He was a fine musician.

[Ah, well, perfect then! Jaskier doesn't exactly breathe a sigh of relief, but he might as well with the revelation that she isn't poised to make herself a rival composer. He'd hate to find himself disliking her and the pair of them at odds with one another so quickly. Then again, there could be some fun in that, too, he supposes. If it weren't all that serious of a competition that is. A more friendly rivalry than what he shares with Valdo Marx would give him a bit of motivation given that his latest muse does not appear to be here.]

Well then, I suppose I had best not rest on my laurels even in the absence of my lute, hm? [he says with a playful wink.] Such talent running in a family puts you at quite the advantage even after all my years of schooling.

[She frowns a little, looking him up and down, trying to see any hint of laurel. It's a pungent sort of leaf. Surely, she would have smelled it.

Sadly, Ariadne's deft ability with music does not translate to her ability to understand figures of speech.

They're kind of her greatest weakness.]

I'm not sure now is the time to rest at all, sir.

[A pause.]

Um...what should I call you?

[Still so freshly out of his studies and certainly perceived more boy than man as a consequence, Jaskier has a difficult time not nearly bursting into a bit of laughter as she calls him "sir." "Sir" speaks to a degree of maturity and decorum that Jaskier isn't incapable of, but has yet to particularly adopt and may very well never much to the chagrin of those who've instructed him otherwise. But he tamps down on that reaction to avoid making her feel as though he is laughing at her.]

Oh, forgive me! It would appear when faced with such a vision as yourself all my manners have fled. I am Jaskier.

It is so wonderful that we've had the opportunity to meet...

[Jaskier trails off intentionally, creating space for her to supply her own name in return.]

Airy. Well, actually, my name is "Ariadne," but no one here really calls me that. So it's just "Airy."

[A nickname that suits her. There's a lightness, an airiness to her countenance. And it's more than her voice, more than her disposition. It's the way she moves too. As though gravity is just barely holding onto her. It's as though, any moment, she might spread wings and fly away like some kind of bird.

Which, of course, is a possibility. Although she's already tried that to get out of the maze and it didn't work.

At any rate, she reaches forward, putting a hand on his arm.]

And I can assure you, I'm not a vision of any sort. I'm perfectly real. Although...

[She sucks in air between her teeth.]

Visions have been known to happen here. It's one of the ways that Thirteen likes to test us.

[Okay, Jaskier has met his maximum limits of suppressing laughter. When she takes his words literally and puts a hand on his arm almost as proof she is indeed real, he can't hold back the giggle that emerges. It's simply too endearing and enough that her follow-up about tests and whatnot to really sink in. At least not as much as it probably should.]

Then perhaps we ought to take your advice not to rest here and begin to find the way out, [he says with a tone that settles far closer to playful than anything particularly serious. Yet despite the way he regards the notion of a test without the sort of attention it likely merits, Jaskier still places a reassuring hand over hers on his arm as he glances at their options.] The way I came certainly isn't it and neither is yours, so that narrows it down a bit.

[She can't quite figure out what's so funny. Is it her name? Is her name strange? Perhaps it means something in his culture? Alastrians live in terror of nominative determinism, which is why "Ariadne" translates to nothing at all. But maybe his world is different somehow. Even if he looks like he'd fit in, joining the courtiers of the Valerian palace.

Probably not important. People have the odd habit of laughing around Ariadne almost all the time. Especially Lorna, for some reason. She's not going to let it bother her. At least, not right now.

So she turns to look the way neither of them arrived.]

I suppose it's a start. Someone once told me the trick to these sorts of mazes was to always keep one hand on the wall. And eventually, you'll--

[She puts her hand on the hedge and is surprised when it shakes a bit of water free. Her entire hand is slick.]

Is it...warmer than before?

Seems to be, doesn't it? [Jaskier asks faintly as he squints up at the nearest bush looming over them. The sky is getting increasingly darker as the sun continues its descent, but rather than intensifying the ice, it seems to be rather quickly fading.] Small graces, I suppose.

[Jaskier's not going to question it all that much in the end given that he has significantly fewer complaints with something above freezing like before. He looks to Ariadne.]

But probably best also not taken for granted. [He nods his head in the direction that seems available to them both.] Shall we?

I'll take point.

[And with a somewhat carefree smile, she turns around, trotting out a few paces in front of him, her long braid swishing behind her like a happy puppy's tail.

She's not carefree, of course. She's quite careful, actually.

But in Ariadne's experience, it does no good to alarm someone you're trying to protect.

Anyway, with Thirteen, there could be monsters waiting at the end of the maze. Or there could be a ballroom and swirling silks. Only one way to find out.]

[Jaskier allows her the couple of paces ahead, following along behind her without any sort of reservations. he doesn't really know if she's all that qualified to be taking the lead necessarily, but she certainly is more so than he is in any case (by virtue of having any idea of how to navigate the maze in the first place) and that's good enough reason to place his trust in her to get them out.]

So, how long have you been her exactly? Not the maze, I mean... [He gestures with a hand to their surroundings, but clearly means beyond this maze. He just lacks a succinct term for it.] Well, you know what I mean.

About five months.

[Not "about." Exactly. She's very precise when it comes to keeping track of these sorts of things.]

Before that, I was in the North Palace of Valeria.

[There's a slightly hopeful tone. Maybe he'll recognize it. Maybe he'll be the first person she's encountered from her world. The odds are probably against it, but she can't help but fish. A little bit.]

I'm apprenticed to the court translator of Princess Amanda Harkin.

[A name that is known throughout the realm. If he doesn't know her, he's not from her world at all.]

[There isn't a single look of recognition in Jaskier's expression at any of the names she gives, but his eyebrows do raise at her mention of an apprenticeship. It sounds like the sort of position that Jaskier would only know his peers—the other children of the nobility in each kingdom—would ever have the privilege to claim as their own. And yet, she said she was not a lady earlier. Jaskier's confusion doesn't stem necessarily from the idea that she was somehow underqualified or incompetent and undeserving of the position so much as it seemed unlikely that any of a more common birth would ever be allowed to perform such an important duty.]

That sounds quite the honor. You must have worked quite hard to secure that apprenticeship.

[The truth of the matter is that she didn't have to work for it at all. Mostly because it's only a cover for her true work, spying and stealing for Aunt Lysia's resistance. Of which Princess Amanda is fully aware.

Ariadne's still getting used to the idea of not having to lie. And she's started to get more open about what she is, who she is.

But, in her experience, people don't like spies or thieves. Even less than Alastrians, apparently. So that part has remained her secret.]

Well, I was born with a gift for language. I can speak all thirty-five languages in the realm. Thirty-six, if you count Hand Speak. Also, I can read and write in both Common and Elvish.

[That last part is a point of particular pride, setting her apart from her brothers and sisters.

Still, she doesn't speak out of pride. Mostly matter-of-fact. She isn't the type to boast.]

Thirty... [Jaskier's eyes go wide as he trails off. Although he's certainly talented in Common as one would anticipate with a bard, Jaskier could not say he had any sort of knack for other languages. He understood the importance, of course. Much could and would be lost without the understanding of someone else's tongue both in the day-to-day experience and in retaining history. But learning Elder was more an expectation than a passion for most everyone among the upper echelons of human society as it allowed for a simple way of demonstrating wealth and good breeding as far as education and intelligence were concerned. (A bit ironic when considering the overall opinion of the elves, too, but if that were not the epitome of the aristocracy...) Jaskier's fluency is only what he'd consider passable at best. He couldn't imagine managing that many languages all at once.] Thirty-six!? And yet you've had time to learn an instrument amid all that?

[She turns around to walk backwards. A bit of a gamble, considering where they are and what they're doing, but so far, Ariadne hasn't actually picked up any signs of life.

Other than her very, very lively companion, of course.]

Music and language are more or less the same, if you think about it. It's just a matter of patterns. Sounds that convey meaning. And sometimes emotion.

[Wisely, she decides to face forward again, stopping herself from walking into a hedge. Which would be any number of levels of embarrassing. As it is, she has to stop short, trying to make it as casual as possible, before taking a turn.]

In a way, it's sort of sad that this place translates everything for us. You should hear some of the languages I know in their natural state. They're a bit like singing.

Then again, I think it's probably lucky we all understand one another.

[Fortunately for Ariadne, if she had been in danger of walking into anything, Jaskier absolutely would have warned her or otherwise tried to spare her the embarrassment. But she manages it just fine and faces around the right way before he can say or do anything, and so he says nothing of it even as her casualness is a little feigned.]

That's certainly much better, [Jaskier agrees with a nod.] There's probably already enough room for misunderstandings without bringing a language barrier into it.

But it is a shame. I would've liked to hear you speak all those languages. [Crooking a grin at her, he continues,] But I suppose I shall have to settle to perhaps one day hearing you sing.

[Although he very clearly doesn't think that's any amount of settling for anything. Her speaking voice alone is lovely enough that he can easily imagine what it would sound when she sings. Especially given that there's no doubt she's had at least some training in it, informally or formally given her father's passion for music as well.]

Well, if we're stuck in here much longer, that may come soon. I'll have to start praying to Thirteen for guidance.

[Again, she's rather matter-of-fact when it comes to the presence of gods. She knows Thirteen is here. She believes in her power. And when she's in doubt, she resorts to prayer.

The thing of it is, all of Ariadne's earlier doubts feel oddly subdued right now. Ever since she's encountered this stranger she feels calmer. Relieved. Like a pressure has been taken off of her.]

I recited a verse to her once when my friend and Varen and I were trapped in a...well, it was some kind of manor house that was haunted by spirits. Varen nearly fell into a pit, but then Thirteen sent a rescue.

A giant snake, if you can believe it.

[Jaskier snorts a little at that. It's not out of real amusement though because if Jaskier contended with a giant snake right this moment, he'd rather continue wandering. Helpful or not, a giant snake is a giant snake.]

Thirteen couldn't have chosen something a bit less...scaly?

[Scaly or scary? In this instance, it certainly feels interchangeable.]

[She shrugs, genuinely puzzling it out for a few seconds...]

Well, some people do call her 'the Fox.' I suppose a fox would have been a more logical choice.

Although I don't think gods are usually concerned with logic.

[They tend to be a bit more about faith.]

Do you have them, where you come from?

Foxes?

[Jaskier is stalling a bit, admittedly. He's not so dense as to not truly know she means to ask if gods are real where he's from or not. But Jaskier hesitates to provide an answer because it never goes particularly well when one denies the existence of a deity to one so seemingly pious as her. It always leads to a much larger debate and one that Jaskier doesn't feel equipped for even when he isn't one to outright deny their existence so much as...not exactly blindly believe in them either. It's much like Destiny to him in that regard. The possibility of it isn't completely erased, but he remains on the fence.]

Oh, no. I apologize.

[Because she takes his question at face value. Or, at least, gives the appearance of doing so.

Ariadne is far too polite to call a stranger out for lying, after all.

She looks back, over her shoulder at him, the very face of concern.]

I mean gods and goddesses. Some worlds have them, some don't. And in others, they're not entirely sure.

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