May 2022 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

MAY 2022 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]

A PLACE IN THIS WORLD

Content Warnings: Possible insanity via cuts by thorns. Temporary nullification of abilities.

DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS

The world comes into focus in one sharp, overwhelming rush. You are laying on the ground surrounded by staggering walls of flowers of all types and colors. Their sweet scent fills the air and the sky above is clear, blue, beautiful, and endless. It would be easy to be lulled into a quiet nap in such a peaceful place. You can even hear a soft, disembodied voice singing songs from some unknown place all around you. After some time, this siren song creates an intense yearning that will eventually bring you to your feet and pull you forward. You are filled with the urge to find someone important. You may know who or you might just have some aimless, faceless person at the forefront of your mind.

All you know is that when you finally find them, you'll know. Is it love? Is it a friend you have always needed? The perfect enemy? Only time will tell, but for now, you must find them. The flower maze is dense and for now, it doesn't seem like flying out and above them is an option. If you try, you just wind up vaulted back into the maze. Nope! This trial is about using other means of exploration. Maybe you can destroy the flowers, but you will find that this flower field is apparently endless. If you get cut by thorns along the way, you will become increasingly hectic about finding this mystery person. Some have been thrown into insane desperation just looking for their People among the flowers.

But once you finally find them, you're both filled with relief and the flowers around you blossom wider. You can then treat the flower maze like a solvable puzzle and get your way out of it. However, some people spend a bit more time in the maze since once you do find your person or people, you will be stricken with the urge to talk to them, to "open up" about your yearning to find them...even if you've never met them before!

OUT OF THE WOODS

Just outside of the flower maze is a little festival set up just on the edge of Willow and partway into Epiphany! Little stalls of food and drinks have been set up - and we mean little! The good folk who set up these stalls are magical cats standing upright and wearing clothes like little people! All the stalls are cat-sized and so are the dishes and food - which means most of the people walking through will likely be quite a bit bigger! That's okay, the cat folk seem happy to serve you bigger or multiple helpings of their yummy soups and bread. None of them seem able to really communicate with the new arrivals, but that's okay, their cute meows are fun to listen to anyway.

The music is a bit more pronounced here and a handful of cat couples are dancing around. Don't be surprised if they encourage you to join in the dancing! Maybe you didn't actually find someone in the flower maze - if not, the cat folk will encourage you to dance with another new arrival to get to know them! Because apparently dancing with someone you don't know is a good formal introduction? Ah well. Sometimes it's just the idea that counts.

There will also be some supplies to help patch people up who have gotten a lot of cuts from the flower maze. Some of the bouts of insanity are probably still going a bit hectic, so you might want to lay down in the recovery area until you feel a bit more stable. Talking to people apparently helps with the stability, so maybe strike up a conversation with a fellow newbie?

ENCHANTED

Content Warnings: Optional selective amensia and/or altered sense of self, possible monster/creature violence, temporary enchantments, forced relocations.

LONG STORY SHORT

You're in a very unusual, specific outfit and in a place you might have seen once or twice in a storybook or in the imagination of your childhood. For some, you might pick up on what's happening immediately. For others, you might be so immersed in the role that you don't realize it - but you're featuring in a classic fairy tale. Maybe it's Sleeping Beauty or Little Red Riding Hood or Tale of the White Snake or The Mirror of Matsuyama. Either way, you're the main character or the main antagonist and it looks like you're going to have to play out the story with whoever you're stuck with!

The other person in the trial can either match up to the other side of the story or just arrive as themselves and have to play along. Trying to just abandon the trial is quite literally impossible! You're stuck in the weird woods or high tower and trying to "leave" just results in you going in repeated cycles until you wind up where you started. You have a role to fill and you might as well get used to playing roles in Folkmore! It's time to understand how these trials work. What lesson are you supposed to take away?

If you're grumbling about it or are left confused, don't worry! Thirteen will appear to those struggling and explain the situation: "You need to play out the story! C'mon. Everyone knows this story...Right? Well, whatever, it's obvious! If you play your part, I promise I'll give you something you want." Can you really trust a fox though? Especially the fox who brought you here? She laughs before you can really pester her for more information and vanishes in a burst of red dust. Foxes really are mischievous, aren't they...At least most fairy tales are incredibly short, basic, and straightforward so most people should be able to figure it out!

In theory.

DAYLIGHT

At least the Fox wasn't lying. When you complete the task of the story, the fairy tale world will melt into one of the settings in Folkmore and you will be brought back into the current reality. You will be left in the weird clothes, but fear not! A mystery trunk has appeared in front of you and whoever you completed the trial with. Inside the trunk, you will find some of your canon clothes and a few canon items. Nearby, there will be some weapons sticking out of the ground: basic swords, guns, shields, etc. These items might not be enchanted, but at least you have something to work with!

Better yet, you don't necessarily have to complete the Long Story Short prompt to find these trunks either! They seem to be dotted around Folkmore and you might find them just by virtue of exploration! The trunks seem to mysteriously know who is opening them so you won't find someone else's stuff by accident, but you might have to fight over who gets the sword in the stone...

A word of caution to those who grab the weapons...You will immediately be tested on how good you are with them. As soon as you have pulled them out of the ground, the ground will begin trembling and a serpent-like creature will form out of the ground. If you're in Wintermute, you have a sizeable icy creature to deal with. If you're in Cruel Summer, meet the fire-breathing snakey nightmare that's going to try and roast you alive. Don't think Epiphany or Willow will have gentler creatures! They might be covered in moss or flowers but they will hit just as hard. You have to defeat the angry creature - or try running for your life. They are relatively easy to beat and people without powers can manage if they are highly skilled or...really lucky...Or if someone far more capable finds them! Good luck. As a pro-tip, maybe don't pull weird swords out of the ground in the future.

Comments

[mysteljournal]

The Exarch is extremely helpful, obviously.

Kevin seems to have the situation well in hand for right now, and with the man who grabbed him taken care of specifically, the Exarch has a moment to reassess the situation. This man stands accused of witchcraft (still not an actual crime, but whatever), and yet here he is, smacking people with a sword rather than casting any spells. Which doesn't necessarily rule out witchcraft, sure, but it certainly weakens the argument. He'd been knitting something when the Exarch approached him, and, given the circumstances, it's clearly something of great importance.

The fact that approaching the knitting gives him that same feeling in his gut that he had when he first saw Kevin is proof enough that he's on the right track. He lets that feeling guide him, right into wriggling his way into that nettle shirt, in true cat in a sack fashion. Sure, the shirt isn't quite finished yet, but clearly that's why the man the cat transforms into still has cat ears? It doesn't at all explain why part of him is made out of blue crystal, but, hey, can't win 'em all.

Still wearing the nettle shirt over his fine robes, the Crystal Exarch claps his hands for attention, alongside a shout of "Enough!" He doesn't like to raise his voice if he can help it, but this situation calls for all the commanding presence his small frame can muster, so it's a good thing he has about a hundred years of experience with that backing him up.

"What madness has taken you all? You would put a man who has done you no harm to the sword simply because you don't understand the meaning behind his actions? See now the folly of your hasty judgement! 'Twas not out of ill intent that he toiled so thanklessly, but to free me from the curse that had been laid upon me. Now, I bid you all, return to your homes in peace and reflect upon your mistakes, that you may learn from them."

[unghosting]

Kevin almost, almost loses his shit entirely when there is abruptly another humanoid man-person with cat ears and a shaggy haircut where there wasn't before. What prevents this is the way the cat stands up and starts making an eloquent speech, rather than hissing like a horrible gremlin and scuttling around. That's not how Kevin's story goes, which leaves him baffled, and the longer the Exarch speaks the more confused he is. As he recalls, this is the way the fairy tale goes, the siblings transformed and ready to vouch for their sister at long last. But, ummmmm.

That. That guy is not a swan. Like, at all. Does that matter...?

After some waffling, the peasant mob seems to decide it does not. The king Kevin is theoretically betrothed to steps forward out of the crowd, hesitant, his expression full of hope.

"Then...all this time, my bride, thou hast been...working to break some awful curse...?"

"I'm not marrying you," Kevin answers acidly.

"I -- what?" asks the king.

"You were ready to execute me," the swordsman drawls, "so no."

A murmur ripples through the crowd. Kevin does not care very much. If the swan can be a cat instead, he can assert his independence as a strong heroine who don't need no man. Possibly he is a little put out that the cat has sensibly put a stop to his solitary rampage and now he doesn't get to beat up any more peasants.

[mysteljournal]

"Quite the reasonable stance, I'd say," the Crystal Exarch states calmly as he walks over to Kevin's side. He might not have ever been a swan, but between the red eyes and the delicately handsome features, he'd do a pretty good job of passing for Kevin's brother, cat ears and slit pupils aside. It's not Kevin that he's focused on at the moment, though, but the king.

"While 'tis true that a ruler must always put the needs of his people before his own desires, that does not mean he should acquiesce to their every demand. Whether 'twas faith in your would-be bride that you lacked or simply backbone, neither speaks well of your judgement. I would be surprised if the outcome were any different."

The Exarch has Opinions about this, it turns out. One could argue that such blunt criticism is not the wisest thing when surrounded by what was an angry mob just a few minutes ago, but the Exarch is confident that no one in this crowd could do him any serious harm.

[unghosting]

If we are being honest, Kevin zones out entirely about one and a half sentences into this speech. It's not that the flowery language is beyond him -- he enjoys reading, actually, and has something of a poetic streak of his own buried deep down inside underneath all the surly grunting. Rather, the Exarch has a noble bearing about him, which to Kevin's well-trained mind means that the remaining diplomacy is his job and Kevin is now on duty only for hitting more people with his nice new sword, here.

To that end, while the king is making humiliated blustery noises and stupid excuses to the effect of "witchcraft bad" at the cat-man, Kevin hunts around in the background until he finds the guard whose weapon he has stolen and relieves him of his belt and scabbard, too, buckling it around his own waist. Then he takes some other guy's dagger right out of his hand and sets about neatly slicing a foot or so off the hemline of his pretty princess dress. It would not do to trip over it and die before he finds a pair of trousers that actually fits him.

At no point does he turn his back on the Exarch.

[mysteljournal]

The Exarch, by contrast, has no issues with Kevin leaving his line of sight, though the way his ears twitch at the noise when Kevin starts cutting his dress down (up?) to size betrays that he's still being mindful of where he is.

And those same ears shoot up in surprise before flattening back in annoyance when the king (and the rest of the crowd) fade away while he's still in the middle of giving him a dressing down. Such an elaborate performance, and for what? Maybe this curt young fellow has some sort of idea. An adventurer, if the Exarch had to guess, between the sword skills, the still-bandaged eye, and the unsoldierlike willingness to sass off to a royal's face.

"Well!" the Exarch exclaims in a conversational tone as he turns to face Kevin. "Not the most traditional of first meetings I've had, I must admit. I trust you're quite alright?"

The eye is bandaged, sure, but there's no sign of blood, so that just means it's already been taken care of.