♥ 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

[whenyouneedme]

[Magolor is Magolor. There was a high chance that he might have already twinkled his way through her life. A real go get 'em kinda guy. It didn't seem like this was the case, but just you wait, Kyoko.

Kai gave this a ponder though.]

I think there's a big dog fella, but I don't think he's a mascot. Just. An actual big dog fella.

It's not really a theme park, so there's not like... anyone dressed up for that kind of thing.

[daikonrose]

[ Big dog fella doesn't necessarily sound like the President's style, but that would really depend on the, well, style of the dog fella in question. So, a potential lead? But also, it's sounding like she shouldn't get too attached to the mascot search. Maybe he's just hiding out somewhere else. There are probably cameras all over anyway!

Kyoko is turning her darting eyes upwards to scan for such things when she realizes her buddy is still talking. ]

If it's not a theme park, then... a movie set, right? Something like that. So he could also be in the crew again....

[whenyouneedme]

No?

[Not that he was aware of, but hey. He'd already heard of something like that happening to other people that ended up here, so Kai supposed he couldn't write off the possibility that this was something else that was getting filmed for Entertainment, Somewhere.]

I don't think so, anyway. You know somebody here already?

[daikonrose]

[ Not a theme park or a set? Surely getting her to hold hands wasn't worth constructing all this from scratch. Kyoko frowned, turning everything over in her head again. ]

I mean... he's probably here, somewhere, if this was his idea.

[whenyouneedme]

Uh.

[Kai rubbed the back of his head. How... to put this.]

Listen, I dunno if this'll actually make things better or not, but you're not like... getting pranked or something.

[daikonrose]

Huh?

[ 'Prank' wasn't really the precise word for the kind of things the president did to her, but the idea was similar enough that Kyoko couldn't avoid understanding. But then: ]

What else would this be?

[whenyouneedme]

I mean guess you can call it a divine prank or somethin'...

[That one was just a mutter. Kai shrugged, pulling his hand forward to scratch his cheek.]

A weird stroke of luck, I guess. Which kind is up to you. We've all been kinda plopped down here to "help solve the problem."

[daikonrose]

[ "Help solve the problem," he says. That sounds like... ]

Not... the thing they were telling me when I woke up, right? About worshiping the gods? In... that specific way?

[ That's not legit, right? ]

[whenyouneedme]

[That made it sound. Really. Uh. Hm. Kai's brow furrowed a bit, confused.]

Uh. Just what kind of specific way did they mention to you? Nobody's gotta go real extreme or anything.

[daikonrose]

How is it not extreme, telling somebody to go out and touch other people?! If it was money or blood I would understand perfectly, but skinship? Are there even any rituals involved? It doesn't make sense!

[whenyouneedme]

[Blood.]

We're not summoning demons, y'know.

[... He didn't think so, anyway.]

[daikonrose]

[ Her head tilts back, brow creased in confusion. ]

Huh? No, but I didn't say anything about that?

[ Blood has many uses. ]

But I'm sure there are demons who would accept such physical gestures as a suitable sacrifice for summoning them! Definitely! They exist!

[whenyouneedme]

Huh. Yeah, I guess all of those things could really go either way for both gods and demons, huh.

[He shrugs.]

Y'don't actually have to though. With the touching, I mean. I don't do it that much. It just kinda makes things easier sometimes.

[daikonrose]

[ So it's a real thing, but not enforced? Kyoko is frowning, turning all this over her head yet again. ]

So, these gods... they brought us here just to do that kind of thing, and that's all? And we don't really even have to do it? No... no tricks or catches?

[whenyouneedme]

I guess that depends on your definition of a catch. It's a little more complicated than just 'yes' or 'no.'

[Rubbing the back of his head, Kai made a sweeping gesture towards the rest of everything else.]

Did you want help getting anywhere? We can walk and talk.

[daikonrose]

[ That is not a terribly reassuring answer, but at least it sounds more like he's not lying. Kyoko looks up, following the sweep of his hand. ]

Oh! Um... was there somewhere I was supposed to go? It's not like I have any business here, but--ah, for that matter, don't feel like you actually have to stick around and babysit me!

[whenyouneedme]

Don't worry about it. It was confusing figuring out where stuff was on my own, so it's nice to point people in the right direction if I can. A lot of the buildings kinda look the same at first.

[daikonrose]

Yeah, there's definitely a style to everything here....

[ She had been looking around, for a moment, taking everything in again, but now she pulls her gaze back to actually take in the person in front of her. He's a total stranger, but he's been obligingly talking to her and now he's offering to help more, while she's barely even looked at him. Jeez.

Low-key punk aesthetic aside, he seems like a solid enough person. Awfully calm for someone in a kidnapping situation. Probably not even much older than her? ]

... Well, since I don't know where I'm supposed to be, for now, I'll just tag along to wherever you were going before all this? If it won't be a problem.

[whenyouneedme]

[S'all good, Kyoko. He was used to that. Even without the usual tendency to be overlooked, it made way more sense to be paying attention to all the things that were new around them anyway.]

Mmm, that's fine. I was headin' back up to Rawna's to help with clean up.

[Out of sheer force of habit by this point, Kai was already holding his hand out to her for her to take. He seemed to realize this in the middle of doing it, blinking down at his hand. Oh. Huh. It hovered there awkwardly for a second before he decided to keep moving it, making a vague gesture north.]

This way.

[daikonrose]

[ The hand just gets a stare; it takes a moment for the meaning behind it to click, and then she has to frantically wonder if she should actually go along with it. Sure, she's not particularly inclined to just hold hands with a guy she met like ten minutes ago, but considering the circumstances, is it extremely rude to refuse? It probably is, isn't it? Aaaa could she compromise and just shake his hand, or does she have to actually hold it for a while? How long is acceptable? She doesn't know the social rules here!

But she doesn't make up her mind in time to act on anything, before he's moving things along. This can only be classified as a failure. Folding her hands in front of her a bit meekly, she nods and moves to follow him. ]

Rawna? Um, a friend of yours...? [ Won't it be kind of awkward having her along, then? --Wait, actually, she kinda remembers that name. ] --No, that's... one of the gods here, right?

[whenyouneedme]

[Barring that awkward start, it was easy enough to keep going and lead her along the city street.]

Right. I usually hang around his temple. Far as I can tell, there's no where we're really supposed to be... we've been left to a lot of our own devices up to now.

[daikonrose]

I... see. [ That kinda brings her thoughts back to where they were before. ] So there's really nothing at all they ask us to do besides the physical contact thing? We don't have any other purpose here?

[whenyouneedme]

Doesn't seem that way. Some people have been working towards their own stuff, saving up money to start their own businesses and the like.

... Oh! But you get paid for the contact, so there's that.

[daikonrose]

[ Kyoko has to stop right where she is, because this revelation is just too much to think about while also walking. 100% of her brain is occupied. ]

Paid? For--for--no, explain it to me again! What kinds of physical contact are expected? What's the price for each one?

[whenyouneedme]

[Kai blinked, pausing to give a little half-step turn towards her.]

Y'know, the usual kind. [... Just, give him a second, he'll get there.}

[...]

[...up went one of his hands in a 'STOP' gesture.] They don't have to be any more than platonic. All I've really been doing is holding hands.