dagung | ☆ TDM: SEPTEMBER

Entry tags:

* tdm

☆ TDM: SEPTEMBER

Test Drive: September

All threads can be considered game canon,

the prompts and test drive itself will be

• 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.
• 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Where there's monsters, there's Belmonts. Even if one of those monsters just happens to be a sulky dhampir bastard. GO FIGURE. Rubbing at his head, he deeply frowns to the blond. ]

Shut up.

[ So very mature. ]

What are you doing out here anyway? Hunting for a meal?

[ So very mature. ]

Trying to figure out where we are, Belmont.

[It's nice, bristling against Trevor instead of the situation at hand. He glares at Trevor, like that's going to solve the mystery here and let him annoy the Belmont even more.]

These aren't the woods outside your family's estate. Nor are they woods I recognize from elsewhere in Wallachia.

Well that makes two of us then.

[ He swats at the faerie flittering about before he comes fold his arms against his chest, standing there with the dhampir as if they'd never left home. ]

What do you make of it? Some sort of curse from Dracula for turning him to dust?

It feels too...begin for this to be the work of my father.

[Alucard doesn't like breaching the matter of his father up around Trevor. It's complicated for Alucard, whereas for a Belmont? Far easier to just hate the man.]

Would your family have experienced anything like this in the past?

[ Scratching at his chin, Trevor glances around as he gives the question some thought. ]

If they did, they never told me and I've never seen anything like this before.

[ Real helpful, right? ]

That's...something, I suppose.

[That's nothing at all and they both know it. The dhampir lets out a soft noise of frustration, then his head snaps up suddenly.]

You haven't seen Sypha at all, have you?

No. No sign of her.

[ She and this blond emo dhampir were the first two he bothered to look for upon arriving here and when he came to realize neither of them were around, he decided to just. Explore. Or something. Figure this shit out. ]

But I ran into you. Maybe we'll run into her.

I hope. She's far more inclined to have the skills to figure out what's going on than you or I are.

[Alucard grew up with science nerds, and Trevor is...well, the Belmonts may not have had talent for magic but they were clearly well versed in it going by the material down in the Hold.]

We'll have to keep moving, at the very least. Keep the fae at bay.

Look at you being a poet. Keep the fae at bay~

[ Yeah, this is sure to be. A long walk. For both of them. Maybe more Alucard.

And no sooner does he airily say that, but he gets a lock of his chestnut brown hair tugged on. ]

But yeah, we should get away from these pests.

[ Swat!! ]

[Oh, oh yes it's going to be a long walk indeed if the unhappy glare the dhampir offers Trevor is anything at all to go by. It lingers until Alucard is headbutted by another fae, and then he groans.

Keeps walking.

But the mirrors are...his eyes linger. Sometimes on their reflections, other times on the elaborate etchings.]

It always comes down to mirrors with us, doesn't it?

[ Don't you give him that unhappy glare, Alucard. You should be HAPPY to have your pal Trevor Belmont here with you on this... journey... or something. Because that's what you are, right? Pals. Great pals. Great bickering five year old pals. Without Sypha to reel either of you in.

What could go wrong?

~~Probably a lot.~~

But the mirrors are a thing he notices and he can't help but make a face as he notices at just how many of them there are. Great. Not at all creepy. ]

They're not like the one we used to locate Dracula, are they?

[ What was that called again? Alucard's area of expertise there, yeah. ]

Not so far as I can tell, at the very least.

[Alucard knows that Trevor's referring to the viewing mirror, but he is not giving the Belmont the satisfaction of calling the thing by it's name. He simply keeps walking, because that's going to alleviate at least some of the stupidity that inevitably springs up between the two of them.]

Few have language written on them, as far as I've seen. That's what powered the mirror back home in helping Sypha to break the castle.

So, alright. Someone just strung a whole bunch of mirrors out in the forest like this then. A vain bastard maybe.

[ Seems a little overkill to do but what else are you going to do with your time out here? He follows along, however, glancing to the mirrors as they pass them. ]

So. You just wound up here, too?

I'm sure there's a few such people that meet the description in your family's archives of monsters.

[Alucard may have full reign of the Hold now, but he still doesn't like it. For all the books of magic and interesting things, it is still a library dedicated to the destruction of night things - himself included and spared only by Trevor.

It's still a hard thing to think about.]

Correct. Were you and Sypha on the road or...?

No?

[ He gives a raise of his brow to Alucard at that because... no? ]

We'd just defeated Dracula.

[ And that's when he comes to stop a little ways from the dhampir, looking to him with brows furrowed. ]

Why would we be on the road?

[Alucard pauses, tilting his head slightly.]

You both left after a little while. She wanted to tell her people what happened, so the Speakers could remember it.

[ ...ok. Can Alucard get drunk? Is that a thing with being half-vampire? Because he has no idea what the hell he's talking about since he was right there with them in that room when Dracula was dusted. But Alucard is talking about... something that he hasn't done? Did he and Sypha discuss this together or something when he was happily reunited with the Morning Star? ]

What are you talking about? Did you and Sypha talk about this?

You and she did. You truly don't remember anything after my father's death?

[ Trevor honest to God right now... ]

There was a lot of black smoke or something that disappeared? I don't know. Pretty sure it's over with.

....Trevor, I'm well past that point in time.

[ Yeah this is sure spiraling into something alright. ]

I'm sorry, what?

I mean precisely what I said and--

[Oh this is genuinely too much. Alucard breathes out, and he looks for a place to sit. There's nothing, so to hell with it. He settles down on the ground.]

Good. I'm from further in time than you. Lovely.

Wait. You mean you went to sleep or something?

[ You know. Curl up in that coffin of his again and take a nap for... however long vampires sleep. ]

No. You...

[Alucard gestures at Trevor, trying to ask him to sit down as well.]

Join me. It'll be a little easier like this.

[ Jesus, is he about to get moody again? He's about to get moody again. Sitting around in the dirt. Probably going to grab a stick and start drawing stuff again. Where's Sypha? She's a lot better with the whole... comforting and consoling thing.

Shit.

He rubs at the back of his neck with a hand and looks toward the sky with closed eyes. This is fine. He can do this. He can... power through feelings and stuff. Yeah. ]

You're not going to get weepy on me, are you?

[ Ok. An attempt was made.

But, he sighs and drops himself down onto the ground near the dhampir, legs crossed and chin dropping to the top of a fist. ]

Sorry. Go on.

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