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Entry tags:
July 2023 Test Drive Meme
July 2023 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 and work like "mini-events". For new players and characters, you can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Current players are also allowed to have in-game characters post to the TDM so long as they mark their top levels ‘Current Character.’
TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.
Playing and interacting with the 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.
🦊 New Star Children meet the Fox still in their worlds, and she brings them into the new realm of Folkmore. As you follow her, your body begins to change and new characteristics emerge. These may stay for a while, or perhaps they will hide away after. And during all of this, the Fox explains to you where you will be going: to Folkmore.
and then... you fall like a shooting star, falling to the land in a burst of starlight.
🦊 Experienced Star Children are already familiar with this time of the month. There are shooting stars all across the sky, and some fall to the land, which means the Fox has brought new arrivals. These newly arrived Star Children will face some tests, but Thirteen wants the more seasoned residents to participate as well.
Perhaps you follow the falling stars on your own, or perhaps the Fox simply teleports you there, but it appears you too will be part of this.
Content Warnings: Reality shifting, environmental dangers.
Star Children new and old wake up in an extremely old building—or an incomplete one, it's hard to tell for sure. Star Children are solid and real and barefoot, but the building itself fades in and out of existence, threatening to abandon their occupants to the outside environment if they're lucky or nothing at all if they're not. Belongings are sparse, too ephemeral to be of any use. Not that shoes exist for even a moment.
Whether it's a home or an office, a train station or a school, what's certain is that it's not a place to stay. Because it whispers admonishments to leave, to pick up the pace, and promises that there is somewhere to go. Within minutes, the structure is gone, and Star Children must make their way across shifting jumbled landscapes toward Folkmore proper. They could travel across water, through tunnels, or amidst any type of land or space imaginable. The one constant is that it's not reliably there and thus difficult to navigate.
Should a Star Child get into a spot of danger, the land hums slightly and guides another Star Child to the person in question. The new Star Child is the only aide proffered, and they must work together to solve whatever conundrum is before them.
Star Children new and old wake up in an extremely old building—or an incomplete one, it's hard to tell for sure. Star Children are solid and real and barefoot, but the building itself fades in and out of existence, threatening to abandon their occupants to the outside environment if they're lucky or nothing at all if they're not. Belongings are sparse, too ephemeral to be of any use. Not that shoes exist for even a moment.
Whether it's a home or an office, a train station or a school, what's certain is that it's not a place to stay. Because it whispers admonishments to leave, to pick up the pace, and promises that there is somewhere to go. Within minutes, the structure is gone, and Star Children must make their way across shifting jumbled landscapes toward Folkmore proper. They could travel across water, through tunnels, or amidst any type of land or space imaginable. The one constant is that it's not reliably there and thus difficult to navigate.
Should a Star Child get into a spot of danger, the land hums slightly and guides another Star Child to the person in question. The new Star Child is the only aide proffered, and they must work together to solve whatever conundrum is before them.
Content Warnings: Liminal space, abandoned building, service industry.
Beach Day
Beach Day
It's difficult to tell exactly when Star Children are back on terra firma. The air is foggy and damp, obscuring vision similarly to reality coming in and out. However, all Star Children who get out find themselves on a beach of wet sand. Keep marching onward, and trees form a skeletal border growing dark shadows stretching further into their depths. Those who have been exiled before can feel a path through the trees should they wish to venture further into Exile. Those who have never been exiled can feel resentment and the promise of further difficulty.No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem
Like Baba Yaga, Exile seems to have walked over into new territory: a beach. Yes, the beach itself is in Exile and heavy with the weight of magic. It extends in either direction, bordering the long expanse of tenuous reality that laps against it. Star Children can do as they wish on the beach: build a sand castle, run or slide down dunes, or soak in the magic (the sun is hiding). And hey, at least no sand is getting in anyone's shoes—as there aren't any.
For those who walk the shore and explore the beach, they can eventually catch sight of a fading sign reading Vasilisa's swinging in a faint wind from a wooden post. Coming closer, there's faint signs of a fence having lived there back in the day. Lone picket teeth tilt haphazardly around a yard with weather worn beach furniture. Chairs hunch around tables flashing their back legs in the air for all the world to see. A stone path, half buried under sand, weaves between them toward the lone building on these empty shores.
The building clearly used to have bright colors some time, but it's faded and cracked to show the wood beneath. A covered porch crowds with tables for a break from the sun weakly illuminating the foggy scene. The front door creaks but opens to an empty host station and further seating within the beachfront restaurant. A giant chalkboard taller than most humans and many times wider looms over one side between two windows. Menu is written in flowing script atop the chalkboard, and several thick pieces of chalk rest on the ledge before it. All it needs is to be filled in.
No spirits greet anyone or man the kitchen. It's empty, though well stocked with pots and pans, mixing bowls and measuring cups, shelf stable ingredients and fresh ones. None of the food is rotten or bad. It's simply waiting. The only way for the restaurant to run is for Star Children to step up and run it. Develop a menu, cook dishes, seat guests, take orders, clear dishes, wash dishes… There's no shortage of ways to help out.
So come and enjoy the restaurant, whether to work in it or to enjoy the labors of those who do. Whoever helps the restaurant in any capacity will find, when they take a moment's break, a small chest containing an item from your homeworld. This may even be a weapon or magical item.
And shoes.
ii
.. sorry, Prompto. Seems like you're being greeted in a way that's perhaps a little bit too chipper here.. Considering the girl almost seems to come out of nowhere, yet the volume of her voice is so loud, and her smile is so wide that it's almost blinding. A near jumpscare.
Look, maybe she's overcompensating a little bit with the cheeriness, okay. But Minako's smile doesn't falter or turn into a frown as she's looking at the crouching guy in the sand.
Her smile does shrink a little bit, but it's more just to be a little less overwhelming as she asks with some actual concern: "Are you alright?"
He looks shakey from her point of view. Just a touch, though.
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Yes, it was definitely not his fault for not paying attention.
"Uh, yeah, I'm good?" Prompto offered a little smile, but honestly he was exhausted. He was well into being awake for more than twenty-four hours and he definitely needed a rest.
The beach however didn't look very restful to him.
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"I was just wondering," she instead explains at his answer to her question. "You know, since coming here was so.."
She makes a few vague hand gestures, since it's hard to put that entire experience in words. She went through the same thing, after all, even though she's been here on the beach for long enough to adjust a little after that entire deal.
"And I don't think I've seen you around before."
So if Prompto is actually new, then Minako can imagine it might be double as strange.
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"Yeah, things got really weird there for awhile." He admitted, wiggling his toes in the wet sand. This was just weird, if one asked him.
"Uh, no." He shook his head. "I'm Prompto." He would offer to shake her hand, but honestly he really needed to clean up after a night of daemon hunting.
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She doesn't seem too bothered about the lack of handshaking. Honestly, he seems kind of shaken up from her own point of view, so she gets it.
"Well then, Prompto.. Is there anything I can help you with? If you have any questions, I can try to answer them.. Or, you know, big emphasis on the try there." Minako follows it up with a half-dismissive hand gesture. She knows she's still new enough to this place that it's certainly not like she knows everything there is to know.
She wonders if anyone does, given the random things that seem to happen here all the time.
"Or are you maybe looking for someone? You know, sometimes you're not the only person from a place to pop up here! There's someone from my home here too."
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"Am I dead?" That seemed like the first possibility to rule out, and also the most likely as far as he was concerned. He wondered what killed him.
"I guess if I'm dead I'd rather not see anyone I know. If I'm not, guess I'd be looking for Iggy or Gladio."
He swallowed thickly. Noctis was likely a lost cause.
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Not that she even realises any of it might be a nickname to begin with. But rather than leaving it at that sad news, she shakes her head, adding with that same smile: "But I don't know everyone here! I'm still kind of new here too, so maybe I just never ran into them?"
She doesn't just want to straight up kill this poor new guy's hope so easily when Minako herself truly isn't even sure if his friends are in Folkmore too or not..
"But the good news is that I'm pretty sure you're not dead!" .. she pauses for a moment, her smile dropping in favour of something half-worried, though she's still trying to keep it at least a little light.. "Unless something happened to make you think you might be dead?"
It's not like she knows what Prompto's circumstances were like right before being taken along by the fox, after all.
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"Oh no, well I don't remember dying or anything, but I was fighting and you never now." Prompto said with a bit of a smile.
"Glad to know I might not be dead. I'm guessing you're not either?" He thought she might just be another person. Maybe she was an angel though, or an avatar of the Six? Hard to say.
She didn't look particularly touched by the divine, but that didn't really mean anything.
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Minako laughs a little bit as she says it, like the idea of it is quite silly. Though it's honestly exactly because she has died multiple times by now, so she likes to think she has a pretty good idea what it feels like to die or to be dead.
This sure doesn't feel anything like it, which is why she can be so confident about it, just smiling right over at Prompto.
Not that she wants this to get too serious though - or for him to wonder why she's so sure - so Minako instead playfully winks at him, joking: "Why? Do you think I'm so beautiful that I look like an angel?"
Yes, she's dramatically posing her hands near her face as she says it. The effect is important!
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Okay, well, Prompto didn't know. He wasn't dead yet.
Then Minako said something so incredibly flustering, Prompto blushed and flailed a little bit.
"Um!" He squeaked. "Yes- but no- but yes, I mean, you're very pretty and um, and a-all that, but um, I mean, you could be an angel? Oh but not like- not like weird pretty, I'm not- I mean..."
Oh he was flustered. Please Minako, he was way too old to flirt with her!
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At least she doesn't seem to push it. Instead there's a satisfied grin appearing on the girl's face, like someone who's revelling in their victory.
"That's right, I am very pretty." M-Minako, please, is this really the right time to boast.. The poor guy's clearly still confused! "You're pretty lucky to have ran into the goddess of love and beauty herself out here! Your beautiful guide to everything in the not-afterlife!"
She throws a determined fist up into the air.
"By the way, it's a good thing that you know how to fight." Since he did mention he was fighting before ending up here.. "Things can get pretty dangerous here. I had to already fight a monster on my very first day here."
Even if the beach looks rather quiet in comparison. So far, anyway. Minako doesn't really trust it to stay that way, despite the way she's looking totally carefree and ditzy right now.
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Yep, he wasn't even going to question that. It made as much sense as anything else.
While he got his heart to stop racing, thank you anxiety, he nodded. "Yeah, I've been fighting. 'Bout ten years straight, but last night was probably the worst of it." It truly was. They didn't necessarily pull all nighters all the time. This was one.
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Besides, it seems that she finds the rest of what Prompto says much more interesting or important, since the girl speaks up about that much more a moment later.
"I'm sorry to hear that." Her voice is still a little light, despite the heavy subject, but she just doesn't want to make Prompto feel too bad. He must still be feeling the effects from last night, anyway. It definitely makes him lucky that the beach is at least quiet, even if the method of getting there wasn't exactly ideal. "Do you think we should find a spot for you to rest at?"
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"I'll rest when I find somewhere for it." He promised. "I can push through it for now."
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.. is this quite possibly the most hypocritical thing Minako has ever scolded someone else for? Probably, really, since she would have said the exact same thing in Prompto's shoes.
On the other hand, she does believe in taking a break when it comes to other people, which is why she's apparently not going to let him get away with it so easily.
(At least it's no harsh scolding. Minako almost seems playful as she says it, despite meaning the words - even the finger she wags at him is more dramatic than angry.)
"What's the worst thing that could happen if you'd sit down for five minutes right now?"
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He considered that.
"Well, daemons could attack, but it's daytime, I think. It's not that dark here, they shouldn't be able to. What about wild beasts?"
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Sure, Minako knows about daimons, which is close, but she's pretty sure that no one except people from her own world would ever have heard of those. Not to mention those appeared in the daylight plenty of times.
"Some sort of monsters? I don't think you have to worry about those. They might only exist where you come from, you know." Apparently this bit of reassurance also comes with a bit of culture shock, huh..
B-But in the end that's still a net positive? Maybe?
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He tilted his head. "Really? You haven't seen any?"
That would be incredibly novel to him at this point.
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"You'll be surprised how many things here are different than what you're used to," the girl follows it up with. Granted, she can't give too many examples, because a lot of what makes her own world unique is the stuff she's trying to keep hidden, so she can't exactly compare it to that..
But she knows Folkmore is weird enough that it'll show it to Prompto.. promptly, if you'll pardon the pun.
"There's plenty of monsters here just wandering around in the light. I mean, not here--" She gestures at the beach around them as she says that, "--but just in general."
Minako sure already fought one well in the daytime before, after all. That means it can't be the kind of monster Prompto is talking about.
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"Probably need hunters right?" He's certified and everything, he has his own dog tags around his neck, under his uniform. Prompto doesn't know what to do about getting out of there because he had to obviously right? But in the meantime, he had to eat.
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This place seems to take in people from all sorts of worlds, after all. And though Minako is very much used to fighting herself, she is supposed to keep up a front of not having the powers she actually has, so she could claim to be in that position here herself.
"So I'm sure they'd appreciate the help in being kept safe." Minako winks, before adding: "You know, like perhaps a specific beautiful girl? Who's otherwise out on this possibly dangerous beach all alone?"
Minako, please, you know he might fluster even when you don't actually mean it in a flirty way!! Stop making these jokes!
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"Well, uh, of course! Don't worry! I'll protect you."
He didn't need a weapon to do that, he'd punch a monster if he had to.
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Though in the sort of way where it actually makes the girl worry a little about him, even if she doesn't show it. It's a dangerous combination, okay, being both brave and way too helpful. That's the sort of thing that gets people into trouble!
Maybe that's why she adds, even though it's still in the exact same playful tone: "Well, maybe we should wait with that until you have something to fight with, huh?"
Look, punching a monster with bare fists?
Probably not a good idea. Especially when Minako has seen what monsters tend to be like in this place. Not exactly punch material.
"What are you used to fighting with?" You know, a very normal, casual question. It sure wouldn't be a normal casual question where Minako comes from, but fighting seems to be a little bit more normal to Prompto, so she figures she can get away with it, despite looking like a normal girl in absolutely every single way.
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That's exactly what he would do.
"Oh yeah, I mean, I can probably manage okay if I had to, but a weapon would be better."
It was definitely normal as far as questions went for him, but still after all these years, the barest of hesitations. "Guns, actually." Lucians didn't typically go for firearms, that was more of a Gralean thing.
"I'm handy with a hunting knife though, and any machinery I can pick up."
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Clearly the most normal of things to muse about. But, you know, if Prompto can talk about it so easily, then she figures he won't think it's too strange when she speaks of it relatively easily too, a shrug of the girl's shoulders.
"I've seen knives though? You know, not.. out here on the beach, but in general." It would be kind of weird if there was just some random weapon lying in the sand.
.. wait, that thought seems to make something snap together in Minako's brain, the girl staring at Prompto with slightly wider eyes as she continues.
"Oh-- Wait, if you do see a weapon randomly lying around, don't just grab it! The last time I did that here, a monster just appeared out of nowhere!"
Clearly a very normal warning. (Look, this place is weird, Minako can't help it!)
But she figures it's for the better if Prompto is at least warned for these sorts of things ahead of time.
(no subject)