![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
October 2022 Test Drive Meme
OCTOBER 2022 TDM
INTRODUCTION
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.
Content Warnings: Possible insanity via freezing. Temporary nullification of abilities.
COLD AS YOU
KEEP YOUR BRITTLE HEART WARM
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.
Content Warnings: Monster sighting, optional violence.
GLITCH
BAD OMEN
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!
no subject
[it would be a stretch to say that she was perfectly sane. one didn't endure years of Kirkwall and Kirkwall problems and claim that. frankly, the environment wasn't healthy. but she'd always had the tendency to think out loud and at least try to use humor as a defense mechanism. not that she would've known what a defense mechanism was, but it was close enough]
no subject
[To say the look Jaskier gives her is incredulous is perhaps a bit of an understatement. Jaskier also has to do his very best to stifle any bit of laughter that threatens to slip out. It's there in the very edges of his tone as he says,]
Well, I hope you weren't rude to them. Considering how much effort it would take them to start their own brewery at their stature, I don't imagine they'd be capable of providing you with an ale.
[Jaskier concludes that she is, in fact, absolutely mad. But he's willing to play along.]
no subject
she's kept Sebastian from challenging people to so many duels]
Of course I wasn't rude. Being rude is dumb and says more about the person being rude than it does about the person who's the target of the rude. The mice were sweet.
[mad? probably. but anyone would go mad after playing referee between the various members of the Frankensquad for years]
no subject
[Jaskier still isn't treating it all that seriously and his tone continued to not keep that fact a particularly well-guarded secret. But still, he avoids telling her the idea of mice serving tea at a hot spring to be utterly absurd.]
Small talk, [he continues before he can't hold it in any longer and he snorts at his own joke.] Very small talk, I suppose, given their size.
no subject
...are you calling me a liar? It happened. All that and more. I'd swear on my mother's grave, so don't fuck with that.
no subject
I don't recall calling you a liar. But come now, Lady Hawke. You must hear yourself in all this. Mice? Serving you tea in a hot spring? It sounds more fantastical dream than reality.
no subject
and it takes a moment, but she relaxes finally]
Yeah, well, that seems to be a bonus feature of our new home. And being served tea by singing mice wouldn't even crack my top ten of 'weirdest shit that happened to me.' Seriously.
no subject
(CW: PTSD, insomnia, disordered drinking)
no subject
Not at all. When not at home, I've spent my time at university. Which, of course, get a group of students drunk enough and something odd is bound to occur, but nothing quite like what you've experienced or you're implying.
no subject
But anyway, it's fun? Lots of parties?
no subject
[Jaskier opens his mouth to say no to the parties, but that's not entirely true.]
Well, our professors would box our ears if we ever tried anything like that. But... They couldn't exactly control what didn't happen on university grounds and Oxenfurt has more than its fair share of taverns.
[He grins, leaving the implication that was an excuse for most of the drinking and cavorting and other associated mischief. Particularly if it ended up spilling into the dormitories.]
no subject
she'd met the Tevinter mage the Inquisition had. he was nice. not mustache-twirling at all, even though he sure had the mustache for it. Tevinter was shorthand for excess in every way for Thedas, but she'd heard rumors on her long trek back from the Anderfels that there were voices for change, his being among them]
Nice. There's nothing like a familiar tavern to make someone feel like they're home. Or at least get drunk enough to convince myself of that. And if anyone gets a little carried away, well it was--was the exuberance of youth!
[she grins back. she can remember so many nights at The Hanged Man, drinking rotgut whisky and listening to Varric spin tales.
then they'd all go out and clean up the streets. and by "cleaning," it was killing local gangs who never, ever got the message that they were supposed to run away from the bitchy mage and her armed-to-the-teeth friends]
no subject
no subject
no subject
I see no harm in still enjoying life beyond when I suppose they expect you not to any longer.
no subject
That's the spirit! Nothing pisses people off as much as defying their edicts and doing what you want!
no subject
no subject