♥ October 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

[hugtopiamods]

October (Lasohm) Test Drive Meme
Premise ♥ Setting ♥ Rules ♥ FAQ ♥ Mod Contact

Havenwell is normally a beautiful city - all tall spires and pure white stone glistening with gold against a blue sky. Now, it's still quite lovely, but it's marred. The wall that surrounds the city has a large glimmering hole broken through the stone and the buildings are missing bits and pieces here and there. The city is still reeling from the aftermath of its siege when a new set of souls are drawn to its shore. Good luck, new arrivals; and please excuse all the dust.

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❥ PROMPT I: Buddy System

With all the changes and the fear of a secondary attack lingering, the natives are a lot more protective of their newest arrivals. When new characters begin to appear at the temples, they receive the welcome speech, get their communicators and the simple map of the city, and a warning to stay away from the walls. Then they get taken to the front of the temple by a helpful robotic priest. Rather than turn the newcomers loose right away, they pull someone seemingly at random off the street and push the two people together with a cheerful, "It's dangerous to go alone, so please show our newest resident around. Please be buddies!" They wait until they're certain the pair is going to be moving off together before going back inside.

They try to place a new arrival with one of those who previously arrived, but who can keep track of all that, right? Characters may find themselves thrown together with an actual veteran or with another new arrival who only came here a day or even just an hour before them! Good luck helping each other out, offworlders, and don't lose your buddy!

❥ PROMPT II: The Havenwell Archives

Lasohm is another month that belongs to Ohma and after such a vicious attack, a small group of citizens decide that it might be great for the offworlders to help with something important to the feline god. These citizens are marked with a sash with the sign of a quill on it, a decidedly antique symbol considering how technologically advanced the people are. They hand out fliers to any who will take them, offering a small amount of Dora in compensation to any who will help the Havenwell Archives repair, catalogue, and restore any books damaged by the attack.

The Archives is a large building in the south and its doors, which have been sealed shut until now, are slightly ajar, allowing people entry. Head to the Archives and you'll be greeted by one of a handful of robotic citizens, all wearing that quill-emblazoned sash, and directed to a small room where you and other offworlders are put to the task of reassembling history texts that have fallen into disrepair or reviewing work that earlier offworlders completed, fixing any glitches that might occur in the text. Most of the writing is illegible, but it seems that these books are important to the Archives for more than just the information contained within. As you work, you might notice that talking and sharing information about yourself or engaging in physical contact near these books with the other people in your room makes the text on your pages a little more legible, a little easier to read and understand, and easier to fix.

❥ PROMPT III: Virtual Research

After the attack, every part of the city is on repair duty and the means the Entertainment District as well. As new arrivals wander the city, they might be called into one of the numerous Virtual Reality cafes. These cafes vary in layout, but most have areas for the natives to plug directly into the machines and other areas which have older looking virtual reality helmets that allow flesh bodied people experience the games. For those who need assistance with their sensory inputs, basic options like audio descriptions of visual scenes, enhanced audio and descriptive speech, closed captions, and crude mobility chairs are available. A handful of cafes have other options like direct visual or audio cortex stimulation to simulate vision or hearing, or suspension tanks to allow simulated movement, but these are currently unavailable due to damage.

All of these facilities are, unfortunately, under repair. The direct plug-in systems are easier for the robot natives to fix because they can do the most important part of it - testing - by themselves. But for the helmets and other interface systems, they need your help. Naturally, they'll pay you for the work, but they need the offworlders to play the available games and record any areas where they find glitches. Playing with a partner increases your chances of finding and fixing any issues, so feel free to log in for free for once and test any of the following games:

• Big Bass Fishing
The beautiful lake has blue-green waters surrounded by forest and rocky, reedy shores. You and your companion are on a small single-motor fishing boat and you have fishing gear - two poles in the water. As the game starts up a read-out announces the objective: Catch the largest fish before the time limit ends. What's the time limit? ...Well, that's your first glitch because it reads as static. Might as well start fishing though, right? It doesn't take long to catch a few regular sized fish, nothing too exciting, and then? You get the big one - it bows your fishing rod nearly in half as you reel it up. The fish leaps into the air and you realize this is your next glitch because the fish hangs there - the size of a minivan - and yells, "BIG. BASS. FISHING. ATTACK." The fish slaps its fins and tails at the boat and now you and your fishing companion better fight this fish or you'll end up in the lake or worse.


• A (un)Familiar Experience
Jump into the life of the temple familiars and see life from their perspective! Choose the temple, any temple is fine, and be transformed into a fledgling rainbow dragon, a purple mouse, a white raven, or a blue feline. You're free to move about the virtual confines of the temples and, in fact, you can even interact with other familiars in their temples - who may be other players in this game. Play, climb, try to get your fledgling wings to fly, tumble about with the other mice, enjoy your simple life as an animal! --or you would if you weren't an insane size. Rather than being a small mouse, you're the size of a horse. That fledgling rainbow dragon? About the size of a fly. The building sizes are off, too - one might have door that's 30 feet tall, but a ceiling that's only 12. Everything else seems fine, but those sizes? Well, you better figure out how to get around that.


• Robot Crossing
Logging in with another character will net you a little farm and a variety of games to choose from:
1. Pick and harvest as many Aellyn vegetables and fruits as you can before the timer runs out! The more you pick, the better your score. Work together with your partner to clear the field in any way you can. Strangely, once you finish clearing a tree or a field row of their bounty, they seem to magically refill when you turn your back. Strangely, when the timer runs out? It flashes 00:00 and the game...doesn't? Stop? In fact, the fruits and vegetables just keep multiplying and multiplying and if you don't hurry up you might just get buried in them all!
   
2. With a partner, use the giant slingshot to launch comically large fruits into a garden patch of other colored fruits. Match a line of 3 or more similarly shaped fruits to clear it from the field. The more fruits you can clear, the higher your score - aka welcome to Fruit Crush. Stack lines of 6 or more to get shining clear diamond fruits that clear the entire row and snag yourself some bonus points. Or they should, but whenever you clear away a matching set, the fruits explode, sending fruit bits and juice everywhere - most notably on you and your partner. Still, the game is going on and it looks like it won't stop until you finish, so good thing it's all a computer game, right? Sure feels real though - reeeeeeally sticky.
   
3. You and your partner(s) are given a magical golden pumpkin and it's your job to grow it into the largest pumpkin possible. Why? There's a county fair of course and the largest pumpkin wins! But how do you grow this pumpkin? Well, for whatever reason? This pumpkin is already the size of a grizzly bear and it just won't stop growing! You and your partner better find a way to stop it from growing out of control or you might get (virtually) crushed! You could do a song and dance routine together to touch the pumpkin's soul to teach it moderation or calm its insane vegetable puberty. You could hold hands and share stories and entertain the pumpkin until it feels satisfied that it's grown enough. You could just hack and slash at it in an attempt to reduce its unwieldy bulk. The possibilities are endless and so is the pumpkin's growth, so you better hurry!

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Have fun however you like with the setting! Make a network post, make up other prompts based on the general setting, go wild. Havenwell is your oyster.

This TDM is for the November application round. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to the FAQ or to the Mod Question thread below. The reservation round begins on October 30, 2019 at 10:00PM EST and our applications will run from November 2, 2019 to November 9, 2019 from 10:00PM EST to 10:00PM EST.

♥ Taken Characters ♥ Reservations ♥ Applications ♥

Comments

are you ready [archives]

[pinkmin]

[There is a tiny pink speck pausing near Kyoko, arms full of books. Some of the other offworlders weren't really the kinds that respected that books had proper places to be, so Vianca was doing her duty to make sure they all made it home!

This girl seemed extra new though. At the very least, Vianca couldn't remember seeing her there earlier this month. Hm.]

They get a bit easier to read the more you try.

[daikonrose]

[ Still frowning down at the book she has in hand, Kyoko tilts her head far to the side. The perspective change doesn't help anything, though.

The softness of the voice does remind her that she probably should be doing the same, being in a library and all, so she dips into a lower tone. ]

--Oh, excuse me! But is it really that simple? There's not an ancient language I'm supposed to learn first?

[pinkmin]

Not really. None that I have learned yet, at least.

[Vianca moved to set her book stack off to the side, making it easier for her to gesture to Kyoko to come down here.]

Once you get one word, the rest start to shift a bit.

[daikonrose]

[ The shuffling of books next to her draws Kyoko's attention away from her struggle, so that she turns at last to look at this pink haired child. Oh! ]

Is--that how it is? Have you already read all those yourself?

[pinkmin]

Not yet. [But she was working on it.] These ones were left behind at the work stations so I am putting them back.

[daikonrose]

[ That kind of responsibility is still fairly impressive for a little girl, even if it's not on the level of genius child Kyoko had imagined for a moment there. Turning to face her fully, Kyoko leans down to get on her level, hands folding neatly in her lap. ]

I see! Are you in those robots' club, or do they let youngsters have part time jobs?

[pinkmin]

[Vianca tilt her head.]

In their club...? What do you mean?

[daikonrose]

The ones with themed sashes! Whatever club that is.

[pinkmin]

Oh. Yes, I suppose you could call it a club. I think many of the archivists align with Dr. Ohma as well. Their temple is nearby.

[daikonrose]

[ Is this how kids talk? Kyoko doesn't know all that many of them, but still.... Her brow creases a little even as she smiles. ]

So, you... are with them?

[pinkmin]

[No, just this one.]

... Sort of? But I don't know any of their secrets, so not really. We just go to the same place.

[daikonrose]

This is just your hobby, then? [ She sits up and beams. ] Aah, it's good to see the youth be so earnest! Working hard at wholesome academic pursuits!

[pinkmin]

[Vianca gave an eager nod.] It was my job before I came here, taking care of books. Getting a chance to do it again is nice, even if I can't read all of them. Do you like this kind of thing?

[daikonrose]

[ Her JOB, wow, that sort of answers the question, but then there are more. Library duty at her school? Maybe her family owns a bookstore or something? Kyoko nods indulgently. ]

Yes! It's interesting, right? I wanna learn all the ancient secrets~

[pinkmin]

Yes...! Me too. There are more secrets than answers right now. It will be very good to uncover more.

[daikonrose]

[ A child with good taste and good drive! Kyoko grins warmly. ]

Show me what you've uncovered sometime! Since you're the more experienced one, here.

[pinkmin]

[Vianca nodded, making an animated movement to pull out her communicator.]

I have my notes. Everyone has been sharing what they have found out so far.

[It took her a little bit of navigating, but eventually Vianca was able to turn the screen to show Kyoko a snippet of text.]

They have all sorts of things archived, from diaries to scouting reports.

[daikonrose]

[ Oh, this is actually way more than Kyoko expected to be presented with right off the bat. But it's cool! Interesting stuff! The history of an alien world and all! Leaning down, she squints at the screen. ]

Wha-- [ wait no be quieter ] --what, that's amazing! You were able to get this much already, from books like these?

[pinkmin]

Yes. It really makes you wonder what else could be in them.

[So! Many! Secrets!]

[daikonrose]

[ So many secrets! Kyoko leans back, glowing with excitement as she holds back a happy wail. ]

Yeees! I wonder! What kind of people lived in a world like this one! There have to be a few ancient spells or histories of fabulous princesses!

[pinkmin]

Yes...! [Fantasy! Fantasy! Fantasy!]

We might have to go back very far though. Many things are more, scientific. Though I suppose that is unfair to say for any science princesses.

[There's definitely gotta be some science princesses out there somewhere.]

[daikonrose]

Science princesses!!! [ whoops forgot to be quiet again there, but it couldn't be helped! Somehow Kyoko had never considered science princesses, and the prospect of a whole new princess category is just too much. ] You! You're really a genius, no matter how I look at it!

[pinkmin]

[Science princesses were extremely strong!! Vianca flushed a bit though, giving a tiny shake of her head.]

Huh? No, that is a bit too much. It is the princesses that are the geniuses.

[daikonrose]

[ Kyoko shakes her head, radiant with glee. ]

But you thought of something amazing! I've been a princess fan all my life, and science princesses never occurred to me even once before today!

[pinkmin]

Ohh. [Vianca nodded in understanding.] I am sure there must be some. Space princesses too.

I guess if this planet had them, they would be robot princesses now.