February 2023 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

FEBRUARY 2023 TDM

INTRODUCTION

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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]

SPRING BREAKS LOOSE

Content Warnings: extreme weather

the time is near

The earth is awakening.

You are aware of this fact before consciousness truly returns. One minute you were a falling star but as your body reforms you can sense the freshness of spring just around the corner. In your minds eye you can see circling birds in the sky, feel the first warm breeze of the season, and hear icicles melting into crystal puddles.

But something isn't right.

The moment you are truly awake you find yourself in what could generously be described as a shack built in the snowy wasteland of Wintermute. You and another Star Child are at least being kept warm by an electric heater, but there really isn't much in the way of amenities otherwise. More disturbingly, the entire shack has a deeply oppressive aura to it, encouraging the pair of you to leave as soon as you can.

But where can you possibly go?

Stepping outside reveals the answer, as parked not far from the shed is a dogsled, complete with warm winter gear to protect you from the cold.

The dogs themselves are the real marvels; not flesh and blood, the sled dogs are in fact automatons. The winter sun reflects off of their silver and copper bodies and the steady tick of their inner workings breaks the chilly silence. Each dog has a key sticking out of its back, turning slowly.

The oppressive sense you felt in the shack continues to grow. Your thoughts begin to turn negative: sad, paranoid, fearful. It is quite unbearable... until your eye falls on a delicate splash of purple against the snow.

Close to the dogsled, a single crocus pokes out of the ground.

The very sight of it calms you down. Picking it will make you feel happy, and you will find yourself blurting out the first pleasant memory that comes to mind.

The robodogs bark, delighted, encouraging you to climb aboard the sled and look for more of those flowers!

Every crocus you collect will make you feel positive emotions and the urge to share good personal moments with your companion. The more you find, the happier you will be... and you might get quite close to a total stranger as a result as well!

in from the snow

While you are out and about, you'll want to keep an eye on your team of dogs - they can and will lose power after a point. Your job as a good dog driver is to keep them wound up! Yes, you'll have to stop and physically wind the dogs back up when they lose steam.

You are likely to discover weapons jutting up from the snow. These are all unenchanted items, basic swords, guns, shields, etc., but the second you pull them from the snow the weather will take a turn for the worse. You may even be subject to a sudden avalanche! Hopefully you got the dogs wound up enough that they can get you out of there without any damage!

Eventually the dogs will choose to take you to Akhlut Station in Wintermute where you can catch the train somewhere a little warmer.

BUT SO DOES FEAR

Content Warnings: Fungus, spores, live burial, mental confusion and hallucinations.

putting roots in my dreamland

Willow is definitely warmer than Wintermute. The tail end of winter means that while much of the farmland is still blanketed in snow, the more wooded areas have large clear patches beneath the conifers. The ground here is damp and rich smelling. Poking out of the soil are tiny white mushrooms. These fungi glisten wetly, strangely compelling in their little rings of earth. You just want to take a closer look... maybe have a seat under the conifers and listen to the snow melt...

The mushrooms enchant anyone who gets close to them into simply staying put. They cloud the mind, leaving you in a dimly pleasant haze, while your body sinks slowly into the earth. The longer you stay, the more you sink - maybe a passerby can come and pull you out! If you don't wind up suffocated by dirt you will find that your head clears on its own once night falls. You will probably still need a hand pulling yourself out of the ground, but at least now you know what's going on.

The woods at night are not still - there are mice and owls and the usual nocturnal critters. There is also something else, something that moves slowly beneath the trees checking the mushroom traps. About eight feet tall, this lanky creature resembles a human skeleton held together by muscles and tendons of moss and fungus. Its head is a huge mushroom cap, underneath from which glitter a pair of bright blue eyes. If it finds any unfortunates stuck in the traps without anyone to help them, it will push their heads beneath the soil and hold them there until they die.

The sight of this creature inspires feelings of disorientation and hopelessness. These feelings are lessened when you are in close physical proximity with another Star Child, so it is to your advantage to stick together. The mushroom creature's objective remains the same: to feed the living earth with your body.

The creature is not particularly tough - its flesh is soft and gives way easily. You can defeat it easily with weapons or even your fists provided you can get close enough without succumbing to the disorientation and hopeless feelings. Oh, and you may not want to hit it on the head...

The mushroom cap, when struck, showers spores everywhere. These spores burn if they land on your skin, and if they get in your eyes they cause vivid hallucinations of ghostly figures reaching for you, trying to immobilize you. These hallucinations are so real that it is likely you will act as if they are real, standing still as if you are restrained.

If you defeat the mushroom creature, it will dissolve into the ground and leave in its place a wooden chest. Inside each of you will find some canon clothes and/or an item from your homeworlds.

coast is clear

Not far from the forest treeline, a bonfire burns merrily in the center of a circle of light green tents. The tents are kept warm by portable heaters, with some containing food and drink, and others offering small packs of seeds as gifts. These seeds are for common earth flowers and vegetables. One of the tents provides first aid supplies, in case you got roughed up fighting a giant mushroom or something.

The tents are staffed by squirrels and chipmunks. Just plain old ordinary squirrels and chipmunks. They don't speak - only chitter and occasionally screech - but they will help as best as their tiny paws allow.

This is a good time to recover, and also to talk to any other Star Children you may see.

Comments

[forestwatcher]

[Now that is something Tighnari would like to see - and possibly something that he could help with - but for now he goes with the plan he has in mind. He tosses the grenade bottle forcefully forwards and as it hits the ground at the creature's feet it explodes into a thick cloud of hallucinogen-laced vapour.]

Back up-- back up.

[The last thing he needs is for his companion to get a head full of the stuff with how adept he looks with that weapon of his. As for the creature they're facing - the effect is almost immediate. It falters and looks around, as if confused.]

... Huh. I wasn't sure if that would work.

[He's going to have to write that down.]

[ilqaras]

[it's curious, watching someone else's abilities at work, especially from one who's of a different world. he's never seen anything like... whatever it is Tighnari had thrown at the creature, and it seems to have worked on distracting it. however, what the man says next has Dohalim a little alarmed]

You mean to say, that could have backfired?

[rather bold of him to experiment on something right now when they should be practicing diligence in the face of potential danger. despite how slow the monster is, it wouldn't do to underestimate it. honestly, the way Tighnari says it just reminds him of the scientists in Lenegis, and how their search for knowledge is prioritised over anything else.

despite that, Dohalim turns his attention back on the now confused mushroom monster, thinking of his next plan of attack. he can't strike at close distance, not with the cloud of whatever was in that sphere looming over the monster's immediate area, and he's not entirely too sure how his magic would work in this place. it seems like his strike artes haven't been affected too much, so maybe...

he holds a hand up as he gathers whatever ambient energy he can to cast a spell]

Resonate with the earth! [at least he can feel the rumble of the ground beneath his feet, a familiar feeling whenever he draws earth astral energy] Stalagmite!

[rocks jut from the ground in pulses under the monster, tearing at its feet and legs. it may look a little like overkill, but at least there's no way of it escaping the entrapment]

[forestwatcher]

Backfired? No.

[It simply might not have worked at all, and given that the majority of the hallucinogens that Tighnari has access to are also mushroom-based he wasn't sure if it would actually have any effect at all on the creature they're currently facing. Luckily it does, and it gives them just enough breathing room to plan their next angle of attack.

Running is an option. Running is always an option, but Tighnari thinks they are both of the same mind in neutralising this threat before it can cause harm to anyone else.

Even if he doesn't entirely understand what Dohalim is doing, he recognises the signs of someone gathering their energy to use some kind of ability and he hangs back with his own and nocks another arrow into his bow. It has the look of Geo manipulation, but there's something different about it.]

Can you keep it trapped like that?

[Does he have an idea? Maybe, but it's going to depend on the creature not moving.]