♥ August Test Drive Meme

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August Test Drive Meme
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As Achtom and Ohnir flow into each other, the skies are still gorgeously blue and dotted with high fluffy clouds that never seem to threaten rain - so long as the weather stays controlled. Businesses are picking back up, the natives starting to cater once again to flesh-bodied people with varied amounts of success. The VR cafes are featuring more helmets so even more people can play along with the ever expanding selection of games. Overall, it seems like Havenwell is quite the peaceful city.

But there are still some issues to be had...

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❥ PROMPT I: Where's the Pied Piper?

All Achtom, the residents have been dealing with things in characters' houses seemingly moving of their own volition to other parts of the house and going temporarily missing, returning chewed upon by the mice that have overtaken Havenwell. By the time the new wave of arrivals come, the worst of it is over, but there are still some pesky little temple familiars running about the city!

The noises at night aren't as terrible as they once had been, but the squeaking and chattering in the walls and ceiling is still noticeable. It's still difficult to sleep at night for all the noise throughout the long night hours. Trying to find the source is a surefire way to drive yourself mad, but it seems that sleeping in the same bed with another person makes it a little easier to bear, especially if you hold hands or touch throughout the night.

Pink and purple rodents of various sizes from panda mouse tiny to chihuahua-sized rats are still popping up all over the city. It seems the only place they aren't is where they're supposed to be - Ainea's temple - and that's a big problem. While many have been returned thanks to the offworlders' efforts, Ainea's temple priests are still out in the city, begging residents both robotic and flesh to peacefully and carefully capture the creatures and return them home to the temple. They pass out soft woven reed baskets to any who agree and thank all participants heartily for their help.

❥ PROMPT II: We Didn't Start This Fire

Throughout the month, pockets of the city experience magnificent dry lightning storms. Before each onset of the storm, an immense clap of thunder booms across the entire city like a siren and the natives hold their figurative breaths until the first strike rains down. A peal of lightning, searing hot, strikes the ground or hits the spires of nearby buildings, cracking stone and leaving nasty burn marks behind. Each storm is only 4 to 5 minutes in length before they suddenly disappear again, but in those few minutes chaos reigns. For anyone unlucky enough to get caught amid one of these storms, take cover! Residents throw open doors and push people inside, even shielding the offworlders with their own bodies if necessary to keep them from getting harmed.

When the lightning and its sonorous booms pass, residents scurry out to repair the damage. They'll be asking nearby offworlders to help as well with patching the stonework or removing broken debris. Most importantly, they put out a call for help in putting out fires that spring up after each storm. Their metal bodies can't withstand the heat for long without melting and the water is dangerous to their circuitry. After the fires are put out and the damage repaired, on occasion, residents will ask for the somber help of pulling a native robot unlucky enough to take a direct hit from the lightning to a local repair shop. Strangely, the natives don't seem sad when their friends and family can't be repaired, and instead start gathering up objects from home to take with them to the temples along with the bodies. When asked, they say it's to pray for a rebirth and go on their way.

❥ PROMPT III: Let's Play the Friend Connection

With all the craziness going on, some people might just want a distraction. A lot of Havenwell's natives certainly seem to think so. Despite everything, the Entertainment District is as bustling as ever and this month the offering is to participate with a friend or group of friends to play a game called: Friend Connection. Rather than the usual plug in and sit configuration, this time the VR cafes have been reorganized into 3 meter by 3 meter square pads with no chairs or furniture available. Players plug in or put their helmets on and they're instantly transported to a garish neon-lighted stage with multicolored spotlights that show a floating, legless robot with a rainbow bowtie and a magnificent mustache. The robot's LED face lights up into the approximation of the :D emote and then a disembodied voice comes from speakers overhead:

"Hail, well met, and welcome to the hottest game show around: Friend Connection! As the studio audience already knows, this game is simple! You and your new friends compete to complete more challenges than the other hidden team. The more fabulously you and your team completes each task, the more points you'll be awarded. At the end of the game, the team with the most tasks cleared and the highest point value will be declared the winners and take home some fabulous prizes. On today's team is..."

And the robotic host waves an arm to a scoreboard behind it, showing your names. The heading "Other Team" has ???? underneath it and a list of challenges is revealed along with a burst of applause. The list reads:

1. Play Twister until someone falls! The longer you go, the more points you win!
   
2. Help each other do a handstand! The Wheelbarrow is acceptable too.
   
3. Recreate your favorite scene from a romantic movie. Take, for example, That Scene from the hit movie, Skytanic! Or hum along to this song as you and your friend make some pottery together.
   
4. Create a complicated Best Friend Handshake consisting of more than 5 moves and do it together 3 times without messing up!
   
5. Answer trivia questions about each other and your worlds while holding hands and staring into each other's eyes. The more questions you can answer, the higher your points!
   
6. Do a trust fall into your friend's arms. The higher or further you fall, the more points you'll earn.
   
7. Play two truths and a lie with your friend. If you can guess correctly, you'll earn points for your team!

Are you ready, contestants? You have 20 minutes. Good luck!

At the end of the game, the characters are declared the winners by a slim and, naturally, exciting margin of just one point! And their fabulous prize......? The friendship they earned along the way! Congratulations, players! And don't worry, when the game ends, you'll be in the exact weird position you were last in as the helmets turn off. Hopefully you aren't still in those weird Twister positions because everyone can and has been able to see you. Yup, the entire time.

❥ PROMPT IV: Comic Logic

Although Achtom is waning and Ohnir beginning, Diacht's influence is still going strong. Throughout their day as they go about their daily routines, helping people out or trying to find their missing items, the natives stop looking at them and start looking above their heads. In fact, as characters meet one another, their attention may also be drawn vertically above their companion because floating above every offworlder's head is a faint white cloud. Whenever they move, the cloud moves too. Attempts to dispel it by magic or physical means does nothing and it seems like you can't touch it at all.

It's annoying isn't it? Or maybe you're feeling quite curious about this phenomenon? Or maybe it scares you? Whatever you're feeling or thinking, it shows up in that cloud clear as day. It's not every thought or feeling that shows and attempts to control what appears fails, but you're now broadcasting your innermost self to the world.

For a time at least. Smart characters might notice that after prolonged physical contact with another character, the cloud fades away and stays away for an undetermined amount of time. Sometimes it's an hour, sometimes it's a day, sometimes it's only 5 minutes, and then it begins to reform again. Whatever it is, it's here to stay, so good luck keeping your secret inner workings, well, secret.

❥ PROMPT V: Buddy System

With all the changes going on, it might be hard to be a new arrival to Havenwell. The natives understand! Sort of. When new arrivals begin to appear at the temples, receive the welcome speech, get their communicators and the simple map of the city, 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, "Here's your guide to Havenwell! It's dangerous to go alone, so be buddies!" 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!

---

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 September 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 August 30, 2019 at 10:00PM EST and our applications will run from September 2, 2019 to September 9, 2019 from 10:00PM EST to 10:00PM EST.

♥ Taken Characters ♥ Reservations ♥ Applications ♥

Comments

[unsunderworld]

"And by those same puppet strings are my hands tied," he says simply. "I cannot conceive of a hypothetical in which we did differently. That does not mean I intend to repeat that act here."

He shifts, leaning back against the back of his seat, hands instead lying on the table before him. "For what it is worth," he says, "you will have some time, before your sword arm is needed yet again. Elidibus will be on the back foot, and it will take him time to align plans in order to move forward again. And Varis - should my dear grandson know what's good for him, and it is entirely possible he does not, but I should hope him possessed of some intelligence - should not move forward without that impetus. Of course, he's latched onto some idea of the sovereignty of man, so he may yet be unpredictable in that regard."

[astralera]

"Mayhap I am not needed against any Ascian machinations for a time, but I've other obligations," she hisses. "Such as restoring aetheric harmony to the Empty."

[unsunderworld]

"A noble cause to be sure," he says, "but do not be mistaken and think that that which has waited for a century cannot now wait some few months, or however long this particular detour might last."

[astralera]

Some few months.

Even that is too long for her to consider right now, and there is no hiding the way her face goes pale at the thought.

"It would not do to leave things a third of the way finished. I've four more Primals to create and slay."

[unsunderworld]

There's no mistaking the way his eyebrows go up and his mouth twists at her last comment. Congratulations, hero, you've just raised some fairly significant questions.

"... I will sate my curiosity on that subject at a later date," he says out loud, more for her benefit than his own. It wouldn't do to let her think that he won't come back to the matter of such a thing.

And then he relaxes his expression with a sigh, glancing off to the side. "Keep your secrets if you will," he says, "but do not think that I do not see. Being pulled to the First did not leave you in nearly this state of agitation."

[astralera]

"You can try." Because at the moment Era is decidedly against ever indulging the Ascian's curiosity. Her tail continues to writhe like an angry serpent at her side, and her dream-guide leaps down upon the table (stumbling slightly as its unseen wounds are aggravated), prompting her to begin stroking down its back on reflex.

Again, the contact is an immediate balm to her frayed nerves. The tension eases from her shoulders and colour returns to her cheeks.

"My family was stolen by the First. Why would I be agitated when I was finally reunited with them?"

[unsunderworld]

"And at this moment they are presumably still safe there," he points out, quite reasonably. "So what reason would there be in this place to rattle you so?"

He has his guesses, but he will give her the chance to come clean about it.

[astralera]

Her hand stills, and she lifts her head to narrow her eyes at him. A thin rim of tainted aether glows bright around her pupils.

"I am a weapon, Emet-Selch."

And there seems to be little use for weapons in this world.

[unsunderworld]

"And?" He folds his hands again over the table. "There was once a time in which none from Amaurot had any concept of weapons or war; now those few of us who remain build both. If you do not fit in the role you find yourself, then adapt. Surely you are capable of that."

[astralera]

"I am Eorzean, not Amaurotine," she says, stroking Ardbert more intently than before. "And I will not lower myself to fit the role this cage needs filled."

[unsunderworld]

"I might say the same of associating with the Sundered, but here we are," he says. And then he closes his eyes, again with a sigh. "Though I do not see what you would consider so far beneath you about this."

[astralera]

"You've had millennia of loneliness to make even a shard's company appealing."

Era thinks about how she was kidnapped by this world, told she was summoned to help it, and then by what means she would help.

She shivers in discomfort, feeling mildly sick at the subtle demand. Even her aether twists as though ill, and the glow of Ardbert flickers.

Insignificant or not, what they ask of her feels so much like it's taking something important from her. She is a weapon, yes. Her body is a tool. But it has always been hers. It had always been her choice to wield herself for the sake of others.

This has not been her choice. And even supposing she could avoid all contact with others, would her duty to help others even allow her to?

"This body is mine," comes her eventual response, though it is not necessarily the answer he seeks. "It is the only thing I have."

[unsunderworld]

"It was duty first," he says, quietly enough that - if the restaurant they were in had even a single other patron but for them - the words would not reach the next table over.

It was always duty first.

And yet even as her answer puts the pieces into place, there is a gap, something ephemeral where his mind doesn't reach. Where, perhaps, it never can or will, not for what he is. Not for those for whom the body is merely a vessel, not a seat of the self.

He extends his hand towards her, palm up in offer, on the table. "And so it is this that you fear," he says - guesses, really, but he knows people enough, knows her enough, to know where guesses might strike true. "This, more than any weapon or spell it might hold against you."

[astralera]

Her eyes dart to the hand he offers, then quickly away. Lips thinning and shoulders sagging, Era cannot look at him, nor can she deny what he says. She withdraws her hand from her dream guide and wraps them around herself again in an utter rejection of her current companion's silent invitation.

This is not an issue anyone has confronted her with before, and thus she has not had any real need to think on it overmuch. To feel shame for this new way she is broken.

For all that Era makes no motion toward the man, now free of its charge's hand Ardbert slinks its way the short distance across the table, carefully touching the tip of one of Hades' long fingers with the damp, unnatural warmth of its weasel nose. Era's heart jolts in her chest and she dig her fingers into the flesh of her upper arms on reflex, startled by the feeling that touch sent through her. It felt unsettling and wrong, but also somewhat... nice? Like a balm to her frayed and weary soul.

It is discomfiting, and she shrinks further in upon herself.

[unsunderworld]

"All things mortal have their flaws and fears," he says, gaze - to her relief, no doubt - dropping from her face to the creature that sniffs and then touches to his gloved fingertips. A moment, as he experiences the sensation, alike and not alike to touching in the aetherial, before he turns his hand over to stroke a finger down the small creature's back.

"But were you to seek my advice," Emet-Selch continues, lifting his eyes back up to hers. "Then I would tell you that your 'guide' indeed has the right of it. If you cannot be free of it, then face it on your own terms, rather than running until you are forced to face it on another's."

[astralera]

Era hasn't the wherewithal to listen to any of his words once his finger runs down the length of Ardbert's back. Her posture immediately straightens, and her eyes lock onto the sight of a white gloved hand against pristine white fur. A shudder runs down her spine in time with the touch he doles out to her dream guide.

It eases something deep within her core, and yet continues to be unspeakably unsettling.

She knows, however, that dream guides are incredibly protective of their dreamers. It would be doing this under the wholehearted belief that this was best for her. Era tries to see it the same way, but the expression on her face is one of confusion, uncertainty, and the faintest touch of fear.

Ardbert also seems happy, something she hadn't seen since it ceased being Eon.

"My dream guide..." she speaks up eventually, voice wavering. "There is a link to my soul within it, is there not?"

[unsunderworld]

It is an almost similarly long moment before he answers.

"There is. It knows things of which you could know not, as you are. Perhaps even were you whole."

[astralera]

"It is discomfiting when you touch it, though less so than if you were to touch my flesh."

Confirmation of what she has suspected for a time, and more information she chooses not to dig into further for now.

"It has been mournful since your death."