August & September 2023 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

August & September 2023 TDM

Introduction

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This Test Drive meme is open to all.
Welcome to Folkmore's bimonthly 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.

Current players are always encouraged to tag new people on the TDM!


🦊 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.

[ Prompt One ★ Prompt Two]

Oh How Quiet . ★

Content Warnings: Difficulty seeing, possibility of drowning, forced relocation

Fog & Footsteps

Some Star Children find themselves on land. The air is foggy and damp, blurring and distorting vision making it difficult to tell where they are, what’s real and what isn’t until–finally–Star Children find themselves on wet sand. Continue marching forward and trees begin to form a skeletal border, dark shadows growing and stretching further into their depths. Star Children who have experienced being exiled before can feel a path through the trees should they choose to venture further. Star Children who haven’t been exiled can feel resentment building around them and have greater difficulty navigating the path ahead.

Anyone who glances back may find footsteps in the sand alongside theirs. The more anyone looks back, the more prints appear. They’re inconsistent like their maker hops or flies part of the time or fades in and out of the physical universe… or something else. They may be human, or animal, or something Star Children can’t quite put a name to.

The Will or the Wisp

The longer Star Children dwell on them, the more tempting they are to follow—familiarity, comfort, curiosity, something. The footsteps eventually lead Star Children down a branching path toward a wall of thick, colorless fog. Inside the fog, there are enchanting wisps of light dancing just out of reach, urging Star Children to keep following. Just a little further, the sweet voices promise.

Continue onward and soon outlines appear in the mist, showing just who (or what) the earlier footsteps belong to–distorted human or animal shapes that exist only where fog is displaced by the will-o’-the-wisps they carry like lanterns. They lure Star Children deeper into Exile, all the while making promises they have no intention of keeping...

Salvation comes in the form of a fellow Star Child guided toward someone in distress by shifting sands. They radiate starlight that pierces through the thick fog around them, allowing people to find the sandy forest path toward The Beach. Once Star Children reach it, they will both find an old, sea-battered treasure chest which offers characters a personal item from home and either a nonfunctional compass or lantern. A will-o-the-wisp will fly directly into the item, which doesn’t seem to make it work. The compass needle points toward somewhere in Exile, not north. The lantern doesn’t light up. However, when the Star Child is truly lost, the compass will point where they need to go and the lantern will light up any darkness. Each Star Child can only receive either the compass or the lantern.

A Magical Day

Whether passing directly through the forest path or guided back to it, Star Children find a shoreline extending in either direction. Some water laps against the beach, but farther out is the long expanse of tenuous reality. Come September, it fades into the distance until it can no longer be seen. The beach itself is in Exile, heavy with the weight of magic. It feels reassuring and encouraging. Star Children can indulge in a sunless day at the beach, playing in the sand, and soaking in the magic. Those wishing for a bit more warmth can explore the shoreline north to the Boat Bonanza at the port where the Encantado reaches the ocean.

Key Points:

🦊 Star Children may pass through a thick fog to reach a wet, sandy path that passes through trees and leads to The Beach in Exile.
🦊 If they keep looking behind them on the path they will find footprints following alongside their own. Those footprints will try luring characters deep into fog using will-o’-the-wisp lanterns, leading them into the swamp so they can drown them.
🦊 A fellow Star Child can act as a light to guide lost characters back to the safety of shore.
🦊 Star Children that are rescued from the lure or who rescue another Star Child will be rewarded with a non-weapon memento from home and either a compass or a lantern (not both).
🦊 Star Children that don’t succumb will simply continue forward to The Beach without issue and will have opportunities to find a non-personal item from their home worlds being sold at the market. See below.

Christening Ceremony . ★

Content Warnings: Possibility of drowning, fetch quests

Boat Bonanza

Whether venturing up the coastline from Exile, floating down the Encantado River, or simply being plopped into the water, Star Children new and old find themselves in water. A strong wave rolls up the beach to drag suspecting and unsuspecting alike. Playful pinkish-red dolphins spray people off boats into the river. Or Star Children find themselves treading water deeper than they are tall with no land in sight. No worries, those who need help getting out of the water will get it. Along the shore, spirits in boats will pick up anyone in need of a ride and bring them back through the fog to the sounds of shouts and cheers and music to a large clear spot in the fog.

Boats come into view. Boats of all shapes and sizes, from single person kayaks to large houseboats, fishing craft and sailboats. They rise and fall with the waves but aren't otherwise moving. Ropes, planks, and bridges tie the boats together. Whether approaching by river or by sea, new boats explore the outskirts of the great conglomeration of boats and attach themselves—increasing the size of the gathered ships. So many boats are gathered that the shore isn't visible from new boats tying up.

Everyone's welcome aboard and to wander from boat to boat. Starfish spirits offer games of chance at low tables on broad open decks under awnings. There are even holes in the bottom of the deck, so players can dip their feet in cool water. A cephalopod band plays upbeat music other spirits and Star Children can dance to in competition with a scavenging of seagull spirits singing sea shanties as loudly as they can two boats over. Far from them, jellyfish spirits offer places to rest in quiet, with curtains drawn and sound dampened. Many spirits offer food and drink—seafood or seafood shaped candy or in the case of mystery flavored taffy, sometimes seafood flavored candy. Those who don't want freshly rolled sushi or take a chance with the candies can always see the Wandering Dog cart on the shore, where the dogs try very hard to be included.

Flotilla Afterparty

Come September, nymphs pop up in the waters and start shooing the boats away until only the houseboats and some submarines remain. Some go off on their lonesome, but more of them form flotillas that float along the coastline continuing their activities and coming to shore to pick up any who wish to join them. A restaurant flotilla, a meditative flotilla, music performance flotillas, and even gambling flotillas. Should people want off and the boats aren't ready to go to shore, sometimes Catbus shows up, able to leap whatever the distance.

Fetchquest

At any time, during the boat festival or smaller flotillas, Star Children may find non-personal items from their home world for sale. It may be a weapon or magical item. These spirits can sense who is from the same world as an item and will only offer them to those Star Children. These aren’t free! After all, these spirits pulled up these items from chests in the water. Star Children will need to do a few favors or barter something else to obtain the item from home. Star Children who help in Vasilisa’s, now mostly staffed by spirits, will find they have an easier time bartering… unless it’s in the Cuttlefish Curiosities shop. If the cuttlefish spirit smells a whiff of the grumpy old octopus spirit who has taken over as chef, that Star Child will have to do twice the work.

Key Points:

🦊 Explore your way to Nereid where the Encantado reaches the shore or get dropped into the water.
🦊 Enjoy an enormous boat festival! All kinds of boats! All kinds of activities!
🦊 In September, the boat festival will split into multiple flotillas floating around the shoreline.
🦊 Do favors or barter goods to receive a non-personal item from home. It may be a weapon or magical item. A magical gun from your world? Yes. Your personal magical gun with your dog’s name engraved in it? No.

Comments

the will or the wisp

[ruevealing]

But consider!! Another figure in the darkness, beaming starlight brightly enough cut right through the fog, just some distance away.

Dare to follow it to safety?

[zanth]

Zanth is listening to the voices in the fog, uncertain whether to trust them, when the light catches their eye.

She's startled, ear tufts pricking up in alarm, before peering through the fog to try to get a better look.

It's... someone? Something about the size of the silhouette, briefly, reminds them of a bugbear they'd very much like to see right now. But no, that's not quite it. Still, it's someone. After a brief pause they make their way towards the figure.

"...Hello?"

[ruevealing]

"Hello?"

The response is rather automatic, a calm, neutral tone with just the slightest curl of a questioning lift at the end, a voice a touch hazy through the thickness of the fog.

"Is there someone out there?"

Rue is a beacon out there in the haze, but even their starlight can not pierce the fog indefinitely. They raise a great paw to waft through the denseness of it, taking a step forward.

[zanth]

Normally seeing in the dark is second nature, but this fog isn't helping matters at all. Still, they follow the light.

"There is. I'm... not quite. Sure how I got here," they call back. Well, that, and even if the part about the fox is true, they're pretty sure it would sound really stupid if they tried to explain it out loud.

Fortunately, it's not too long before she finds herself close enough to make out the stranger; although what they're seeing doesn't necessarily make sense. They could almost be another owlin, but those have wings... and aren't that big.

Whatever the stranger is, they're impressive. Zanth's expression is more fascinated than anything else as they tilt their head to the side for a moment.

But it's probably rude to ask, so she doesn't. Besides, there are rather bigger issues at the moment.

"Do you. Know where we are?"

[ruevealing]

For how often the question is posed, Rue would hardly think it ride at all. But the polite urge to hold one's curiosity back is appreciated.

"More or less. I believe it is called Exile, though I hardly understand the full behind what it truly is. What I do know, is that the beach is just through these tress and it is safe, free of this terrible fog. Will you follow me there?"

[zanth]

"Well, that's... not terribly elucidating." Their voice was pitched low and even, but they sounded incredibly tired. Any frustration was likely more at the situation than the stranger, though.

The question made them hesitate, briefly. They have no reason to trust anyone they ran into here, regardless of how glowy they were. On the other hand, staying in the fog sounded worse.

"The certainly. Sounds better than staying here. I... thank you," they add. It sounds sincere, if a bit of an afterthought.

[ruevealing]

The tiredness is to be expected. Rue has hardly stepping very much into the dense fog and they are already exhausted. They can't even imagine having traveled so much further.

"I think you have made the better choice. Staying here, allowing yourself to be swallowed up by the fog, it could only lead to ruin. Here, this way, my friend, we shall see our way through this haze together."

And Rue turns back from where they came, the fractured starlight lighting the way ahead of them, before they are taking off back towards the beach.

[zanth]

They're not entirely sure how sincere the stranger is being, what way to take friend. There's something that strikes them as performative about the tone, but whether that feels like a good or bad thing to them is... complicated.

But then, reading tone has never been their best thing in any case. And right now their new 'friend' has a point; it certainly seems like the better option.

They're quiet, for a long moment, as they start to follow, before speaking up again.

"I'm... Zanth." Perhaps this wasn't the best time to give their real name, but they might as well find out if they really as far from home as they were told.

"From Black Creek." A name which ought to be known to anyone from their world.

[ruevealing]

If nothing else, the starlight makes it an easy journey onwards, each step closer to the beach feeling lighter, as the heavy magic of the fog seems to lose it's hold over them.

"A pleasure, Zanth. My name is Delloso de la Rue, but I must insist you call me Rue." A gentle beat, as Rue holds a long branch out of the way for Zanth's path with ease. "Everyone does. I have never heard of Black Creek before. We must be from different realms."

[zanth]

They notice the change, though perhaps less of a change than it would be someone who hadn't been exiled from, among other places, their childhood home. Not that this means anything to them.

"Rue, then," they say, as they step around the branch. Again, they're not entirely certain what to make of the tone. But there are more important things, like the fact they don't enjoy that next piece of news at all.

Their feathers ruffle in stress and irritation.

"Dammit." The irritation seems, at least, less at Rue and more at the universe. "I was hoping that wasn't..." they make a soft, frustrated chirping sound and run their claws through the feathers on one of their arms.

"I don't. Suppose there's actually a fox involved?" They were really hoping that part wasn't real.

[ruevealing]

Naturally, having come to save quite a few from the heavy fog already, Rue knows to not take outbursts like that at all personally. It is a normal reaction, to the current situation itself and to the knowledge that they've been transported to an entirely new world.

It's quite a lot to take in.

But even in the face of Zanth's irritation, Rue's tone is as calm as ever, guiding her out of the forest, back towards the sandy beaches.

"I'm afraid that everything Thirteen told you is quite correct. We have been taken from our former worlds and brought to this land together, to seek out our true potentials." A gentle beat. "Whatever that means. I haven't a clue."

[zanth]

Zanth's feathers ruffle again, and they pinch the bridge of their beak before letting out a drawn out sigh.

"I don't. Know if I'm glad I'm not... the only one who doesn't know what the hell that means." A part of them is, but a larger one is disappointed that Rue doesn't happen to know a better explanation.

"Either way," they add, dryly, "my 'true potential' can wait." There's a faint edge of something bitter in their tone, even beyond the exhaustion.

While she isn't sure she puts any stock in how a fox deity defines potential, she certainly doesn't feel she's lived up to her own yet. And lately her own goals are very much on the back-burner.

Priorities have been staying alive, not getting arrested, helping Swan, researching hags... but now isn't the time to get in their own head about that.

"I need to get home."

[ruevealing]

Rue would certainly apologize if they had any inclination of Zanth's disappointment in them, but as it stands, they have only been in this realm but for a week or so, so the topics of things that the owlbear does not fully understand is sadly quite long!

As they lead her onward, the owlbear's cheek pinches in thought. Even with so little time spent here, this is not the first time Rue has heard such a sentiment directed outwards. They wish they had a better answer than the absolute nothing they have to offer.

"I'm afraid that I do not know how to help you with that. I am still new myself, but there are others who have been here for quite some time. Perhaps they'll have the answer you seek. But for now -"

And finally, they burst free into the sandy beach, escaped from the fog. "There! Now that is much better!"

[zanth]

Zanth falls quiet again, considering the fact that people being 'here for quite some time' isn't necessarily comforting. But they suppose it could be by choice. After all, they haven't seen enough of this place to know if they like it. It's just that that doesn't matter.

They're distracted soon enough all the same, blinking a few times against the light before looking around.

"Different, at least." They're a bit hesitant to count on better, but they'll take the lack of fog and strange lights as a start.

[ruevealing]

Well, Rue is much easier to please, but they'll take an empty, peaceful beach to the hellish wall of fog they've just trudged through. At least, if nothing else, they are both safe here.

(Hopefully.)

But further down on the shoreline there is the sound of music and people mingling together. Rue gives a gentle wave of their paw in that direction.

"If you keep heading north along the shoreline, you will find others with more information to assist you in your return home. I'm sorry that I could not help more, but I wish you the best of luck on your way."

[zanth]

The sound is surprising, after the oppressive silence of the fog; Zanth's hearing is good enough that they should have noticed it, logically, but then, they already doubted that was ordinary fog.

Either way, they nod, but once they've looked around enough to relax, they turn their attention back to Rue. They weren't sure, before.

But now... that's an owlbear. That's definitely an owlbear.

Something which was, where they grew up, a monster. Not an abstract, fairytale one but a real and present danger to a society who made their home in the wilderness.

Their sister still has a scar across her face from one of the few incidents they remember of the Disciples crossing paths with one.

They also remember being disappointed they didn't get to see it.

Zanth suddenly realises she's staring, and while it's more about the fact Rue is interesting and beautiful than the fact they're terrifying, she glances away quickly all the same. It's rude to stare, and it would be rude to ask. (Much like it would be rude to ask someone if they were any sort of creature Zanth had grown up afraid of.)

"Ah, right. Thank you again. Sorry if I'm..." they don't really make it clear if they mean the way they were looking at Rue, or the fact they're just kind of grumpy. They raise a fist to their face, resting their beak against is briefly while they collect themself, before smoothing some of their feathers down.

"It's lovely to meet you."

[ruevealing]

Whether it's for the staring or for that grumpiness, Rue does not seem to be too terribly fazed either way. Zanth so sweetly apologizes and the owlbear accepts without hesitation.

"It is lovely to meet you as well." Another owl-beast, how could Rue not be delighted to see another. "I quite like the shade of your feathers. It's beautiful against your eyes."

[zanth]

Zanth looks a little surprised by the compliment, and unsure how to handle it, but smooths their claws through the feathers on the back of their neck.

"Thank you," she says, her voice a little softer and less clipped. "I like your... well, everything to be perfectly honest."

They sound like they're trying to choose their words carefully, because they're not quite certain what sort of compliment would be right, but sincere all the same.

[ruevealing]

It was certainly not Rue's intention, to catch the woman off guard like this, but it seems like an extra bonus effect, to hear that some of the clipped tension in Zanth's voice has lessened. Even if Rue can not help them with what they have asked for, they truly do wish the best for her.

Who knows? Perhaps she will be one of the lucky ones who manage to find their way out?

"Thank you, that is very generous of you. Please, if there is ever anything else that you need, do not hesitate to reach out, Zanth."