February 2023 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

FEBRUARY 2023 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]

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

[da_champion]

I can take care of that.

[ Hawke took a deep breath and raised his hands to the sky. They burned with fire that didn't touch his skin. When he brought them together and then threw them apart the first fireball rained down on top of the mushroom monster.

A second quickly followed. Then a third. And a fourth. Not every one hit their mark. Some of them landed around the creature, only clipping the side of it or smacking into a limb but there was a relentless onslaught of fireballs from the sky for a good few seconds before it stopped.

And the creature was a flaming, smashed husk on the ground. A few things were on fire as well. Small bushes that had survived the winter up to that point. Some limbs on trees. It was not careful work but it had done the job and Hawke was reasonably sure the fire wouldn't spread. ]

Well, that takes care of that. [ Hawke dusted off his hands on his armor and then offered one to the elf. ] Garrett Hawke. Thanks for the rescue and the help. You're very skilled with Force magic.

[ Because that was clearly what the elf had done. Hawke didn't know any elf mages that used the school. He was fairly certain it was only taught in Kirkwall to humans. Because Kirkwall was racist like that. ]

[dunamagic]

[Essek watched the rain of fire from the sky with careful eyes - how it was cast, how they coalesced, the way they fell and burned. It was interesting, similar but different from his own understanding of magic.

As one of the fireballs hit the creature's head, he saw a cloud of spores start to plume out but they too were caught in the burning heat and were reduced to ash. The creature was nothing more than a smoldering crushed mass by the end of the torrent of fire.]

Impressive. [Essek dusts himself off and straightens his clothing before taking the offered hand and shakes it. He considers correcting that the second spell was dunamantic, but decides that force would be within the scope.] Essek Thelyss. And you with evocation.

[Normally he wouldn't bother, but considering his wariness of this place and the potential to attract another creature, Essek starts to wave his hand to prestidigitate the remaining minor fires.]

So, our proximity was why the malignant aura was subdued?

[da_champion]

[ Hawke needs a second to figure out exactly what was asked in that question but he gets there. ]

Oh! Yeah. Usually when you work together with someone the weird effects of this place are pushed back. Thirteen really likes it when we work together. [ He's not concerned with the fires given he can't put them out and it's wet enough that they shouldn't spread too far. ] Come on, there's a camp not too far from here where you can settle in. I can explain more while we walk.

[ He gestures for Essek to follow him. ]

They're called Trials here. Tests to help us grow and change and reach that potential that Thirteen is so invested in.

[dunamagic]

[He remembers the name Thirteen, it's what Vex'ahlia called the Fox. So, this Thirteen valued teamwork and rewarded it by making circumstances require it for easier success. All of this was cultivated to garner people to struggle and learn, to grow into what she believed their potential to be. He wondered what qualifies to meet that.

Essek is about to move to follow when his eyes fall on a wooden chest right where the creature fell - untouched by the flames that are dying and around it. While not completely certain, he was relatively sure that that was not there before.]

Is.. that a normal part of these trials? [Floating towards it, Essek looks about as if stepping into a trap that could be sprung.]

Or another trap like the mushrooms?

[da_champion]

Andraste's tits. You're floating! [ In all the excitement of fighting and a new person Hawke hadn't noticed that Essek is a few inches off the ground. He's seen it now that there's some distance between them. ] How are you doing that? Why?

[ This asked by a man who is splattered with mud on armor that needs a bit of care and polish. He assumes that Essek doesn't want to get his feet dirty in the mud. Why else would he float? ]

The Trials can be anything. I was kidnapped by a dragon awhile ago. Then there was some dancing recently. There's all types. [ He idly spins his staff around just something to do while Essek investigates the dead monster. ] We should be fine now. The thing's defeated and we're still together. Now it's a matter of getting you somewhere safe to help you settle in to life here. It's not that bad, really.