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☆ TDM: SEPTEMBER
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aefenglom's test drive! All threads can be considered game canon, should you choose to do so; regardless of if you pick specific threads to remain canon to the game, the prompts and test drive itself will be. This will be touched on later in-game, so it's fairly important to note! Aside from that, here are some quick reminders:• Reserves Open Today! If you're interested in securing a spot, put one in! We accept applications without reserves too, of course. Reserves will expire three days before the end of the application period, on the 27th.With that taken care of...
• Applications Open The 24th! These will last until the end of the month, the 30th, with the intro log going on up October 1st. The application page can be found here.
• If you have any questions about the game or the world, please refer to the FAQ page; if you still have questions, feel free to ask them! For questions specific to the test drive, please ask them on the appropriate thread.
• For the purposes of the test drive, your character will have access to all magics taught by the Coven if they're a Witch, and as much of their shifted form as you'd like if they're a Monster. Feel free to play around and experiment with each!
• Test drive threads can be used as samples for your applications!
You feel like you're floating. Around you, colors and sounds and smells swirl as if trapped in a whirlpool, vibrancy and hue ever shifting. The more you watch them, the less solid they are; they only become clear out of the corner of your eye. The area around you begins to feel more solid as well, until your feet are on the ground, the wind brushes playfully against your face -
and you know one thing, and one thing alone: this is a dream, and an incredibly realistic one at that.
The Wilde
For once, the forest that comes to view isn’t flecked with autumnal colors, with leaves that fall without the touch of wind. Each branch blossoms with life, flowers of all shades dotting their surfaces as spring rears its head, and you’re tugged from the edge, through a worn path, and deeper than ever before. The gentle laughter and chatter of living creatures filters in through petals that you brush past, hanging from flowering vines winding downward like delicate curtains.
There’s something new to this though, eyes that see and a growing excitement among the forests’ inhabitants: You’re more known to them than you might guess, it would seem.
 Outskirts The meadow where you find yourself is fresh and green, an explosion of color and the sweet scents of flowers and rain. Wildflowers dot the grass, all beginning to open, in sprays of purple and pink and orange. To one end, the stream flows clear over smooth river rocks into a small pond dotted with vibrant blue fish and turtle-shelled ducks floating without a care in the world. To the other, the forest begins with tall, white-barked trees and saplings in various stages of new growth, pushing out tender green leaves. It's pleasant, but strange, because... There is next to no sign of the Cwyld here in this idyllic patch of the Wilde, no blackened foliage or shadows hiding white-eyed Cwyldtid. The wildlife seem similarly unaffected, even thriving - watch out for the mama petalwolves with their brilliantly-colored floral coverings. Most of them camouflaging themselves in the thickets of wildflowers are followed by bushy, green-leafed cubs, and they're widely known to be aggressive when threatened. The most inspiring sight, however, is one not seen in the Wilde of Geardagas for many years, due to the wide spread of the Cwyld. A silvery, equine creature emerges from the treeline, trotting slowly toward the pond on iridescent hooves. A single white horn protrudes from its head, and its mane shimmers pearlescent in the morning sunlight. Following it is a smaller, clumsier unicorn with a gold-tinged coat, happy to be out and about. Unicorns are known to be exceedingly rare - to spot a foal in the Wilde is unheard of. You're all very lucky to see the way the forest is healing. While some may know that the Coven itself has a unicorn in its stables, this wild one is unused to the hands of humans and may hold her ground in protection of her baby, threatening with her horn and performing small feats of magic to that end -- illusion and physical enhancements are its more core offensives, though it can do healing and shields on the other side. The foal, for the most part, doesn’t seem to have a lick of self-preservation (perhaps it’s been living in safety for too long) and won’t mind bounding up to something, or someone, new and interesting, nickering in asking to play. |
 The Path Through Onward and inward, traveler. The healing forest is vast, but a particular route is clearly outlined to lead toward something. As you head past the treeline, more saplings of varying heights and ages shoot forth from the ground between the large-trunked trees that survived. Warm sunlight dapples the ground in an irregular pattern of light and shade, and shines off a series of mirrors, each about the size of a large hardcover book, hanging from the tree trunks to either side to form a path. No two mirrors are alike. Similar to the mirrors within the Looking-Glass House, each is framed in different decorations and different materials, with different engravings or embossings, but unlike the Looking-Glass House, all the mirrors' decorations are visible to passersby. They're well-cared for out here, polished to a shine and picked clean of leaf-litter and outdoor debris; distant, happy voices reveal that the area is far from abandoned. Each of these mirrors is placed in honor of a Mirrorbound, and all contain an enchantment that, when the surface of the glass is touched, causes it to display short, silent 'moving pictures' of that Mirrorbound's heroic deeds, in Aefenglom, in Dorchacht, or maybe even from the character's home, whatever they may have done to earn this high regard. Whether the retellings are true to life, or completely dramatized, it's clear that much care was put into remembering their individual stories and personalizing the frames of their mirrors. The path between the mirrors serves the dual purpose of memorializing, and leading the way deeper into the forest... |
 Within the Wilde ... Where the sound of creatures grow louder and more plentiful, shaping into actual words as characters step into a clearing, more familiar to those who’d dreamed the first dream than most: There may be no long tables set up with food and drink, but the sight of Fae flitting about and gossiping is certainly something all its own. They, along with Dryads, seem to be plentiful in comparison to the waking world, and once they’ve taken notice of the new faces... immediately begin to ask questions. From whence did they come? Were they filled with new magic power, or had they already begun to change? It’s exciting -- they haven’t had new connections to the world in some time, most of the old Bound having returned beyond their glass some time ago, and while it could mean there was trouble on the horizon they don’t seem too bothered by that fact. “Most” returned, it’s said, because there’s plenty of creatures who claim to have been descended from those who helped to restore the balance of the world, proudly claiming so to any who spend half a minute with them. While they can be spoken to in a sense, characters won’t get anything too crazy out of them -- they’re willing to speak on present happenings (or what’d be present for characters in game) and how that played out, such as how Dorchacht was far more free than it had been centuries hence in example. Anything more pressing, such as how it may have come about, is unable to be understood despite everything else being able to. They tease new dreamers that those of old were brought here, as far as the stories go, to help cleanse the world and return it to what it once was, and joke that they’d better prepare for the same trouble -- what a laugh, their Wilde as it is now, desecrated once more. But the Fae in particular are tricksy and prefer pranks to actual conversation, picking on anyone in sight to see how true it was that Mirrorbound -- you, apparently -- had powerful magic and amazing abilities as Monsters: Give it a shot, cast a spell or two, show off your more Monstrous talents, they’ll find it a genuine hoot. |
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[Yes, that makes more sense, doesn't it? A different kind of graveyard, perhaps with bones under all the mirrors, perhaps not. Alucard folds his arms over his chest as he considers that notion, and he finds himself liking this concept of tombstones far more than how churches take care of the dead in Wallachia.
Admittedly, he has a lot of very strong and unkind thoughts about churches in Wallachia, but that's not the point at the moment.]
I suppose not. When you say reasoning though, what are you referring to specifically?
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I can't begin to imagine why someone is collecting these reflections of the proud moments of still living people. Unless this is some sort of strange means of appreciation...
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[Alucard folds his arms over his chest, putting one finger to his chin and considering.]
But it is unnerving. As well as something that requires a very large amount of magic, based on the volume.
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The magic itself seems to be coming from the land around us. I can feel it, myself, as a witch. Like this entire land is mana-rich and seems to just be giving it off, as if we were right on top of a leyline, or even within one.
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So he listens. Carefully.]
So the magic allows for the creation and curation of such a place. That's well and good, but to what end?
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This is as far as I've gotten. But I think I heard someone mention that this is fae territory? Which both explains not enough and a whole lot at once...
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I doubt staring into more mirrors will produce results either. Not when there's no other identifying information with them.
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So maybe it's best to err from touching them less we disturb anyone's privacy, really.
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[Cursed mirrors wouldn't surprise the dhampir in the least.]
Although it is in our best interest to determine how far down the path these mirrors go.
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If you don't mind, I'd like to accompany you. The fauna here are plenty peaceful, but it's still more safe to move in numbers, right?
[ A small, nervous laugh. Really, she just didn't like being in the dreamscape without her Bonded around... Alucard wasn't exactly exuding charisma, but he was friendly enough, and it felt safer around him than otherwise. ]
M-my name's Ursula, by the way.
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[Alucard's not sure why her laugh has that nervous note in it, and there's a quiet effort on his part to make sure his movement is as relaxed as it can possibly be. He usually moves quickly, perhaps overly so, hinting that he may not exactly be human.]
I am Adrian Tepes, called Alucard among my countrymen. [They aren't in Wallachia though. That has more meaning than she may realize.]
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[ He said by his countryman, but she couldn't really tell what country that was or if it meant it was okay to call him that. Although she couldn't help but feel she recognized something about that surname... ]
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Adrian is fine. I'll always respond to either.
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[ She didn't miss that shift in his tone. She couldn't pretend to know the significance of it, but if it really had to do with names, well... she could relate, in a way. Not that her two names had the same story behind them, she figured. And she pointedly was still not giving out her real name to anyone besides those closed to her. ]
Did you have questions about anything else here? I try to be as helpful as I can...
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My nature allows for...unique capabilities which feel as if they are struggling to work as they normally do at the moment. I've not known this to happen before. Is there an explanation?
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Mana and magic don't work dissimilarly to what I know, but nothing I'd learned in my own world really functions the same way here, if it functions at all. It'll make more sense once you've left the dreamscape and are pulled fully through the Mirror.
... Well. If you are. Not everyone in these dreams makes the transition.
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I see.
[He has always been half of his father's people and half of his mother's. To be fully human is something Alucard has never wished for, and for it to be forced upon him is even more terrifying from where he sits.]
You said sort of. Does anything carry over at all?
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... It sounds like I've given you some bad news, haven't I?
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[No, it's bad, Alucard's just trying to be nice about it. There's a moment where he simply falls silent, tutting softly.]
I'm mostly familiar with the mechanics of magic from the outside looking in. Do the mechanics here run entirely on will or intent?
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[ Ursula reached to pull her wand from its holder on her side, giving a small incantation before light began to gently pour from the tip of the wand, spreading out in the air around her in brilliant verdant ribbons that traced about, mostly formless for the moment. ]
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[There's a small open handed gesture from Alucard, the kind that is truly inviting to go further and demonstrate what is being discussed. Magic is hardly an easy to understand thing when it is only discussed in the abstract.
His eyes linger on the ribbons as they come forth, but soon Alucard's eyes are drawn to the wand. Sypha's never used such an item, and he suspects she has never needed to. A thoughtful hum comes from the dhampir, and his eyes remain on the wand itself.]
And from there...?
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Oh, this is just basic evocation. It's coalescing mana around me into a visible, maleable energy form. In this case, it's just light... I could make it brighter, broader, or turn it into something more charged and potentially dangerous, but for the moment, it's just...
A show. Kids love it. [ A small chuckle. ]
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[Alucard repeats the two words with a certain soft surprise embedded in them. The idea of using magic as entertainment is how one gets well, the attention of the church and all the attendant awfulness that goes with it.
But that says so much about the place Ursula came from, and so Alucard focuses on that instead.]
Do you perform such shows often? Or was that just the first example that popped into your head?
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N-no, no no, I'm definitely no performer. I just... we're in fae territory, apparently, and they get a kick out of magic demonstrations, so...
I-it's nothing special, I just figured it was the safest way to do so. That's all.
[ She's such a practiced liar on this topic that she's pretty sure it was difficult to scrutinize her response, and she did have the convenient excuse of the fae being around. But it was still very much a lie. ]
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But Alucard's far too caught up in his own problems (and, frankly, aware he's hit on something uncomfortable) to go any further with questions.]
I see. Well, if that's the case then I hope that any other fae we come across will be...distracted and entertained enough to leave their tricks behind. I can't say I enjoy any of the antics from them I've witnessed thus far.
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