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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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I'm certain I've been here for hours. Were you lost?
[Oh, he'd have a few things to say if he knew just what Steak had been so taken with before this.]
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(Whether he is angry for any good reason or just because being angry at Red Wine is less weird than this place is up for debate though.) ]
Of course not! I don't get lost.
[ hMPH. How could he ever be lost, he's perfectly at home exploring wildernesses. ]
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Ah, you don't? Then where are we, oh learned explorer. Do answer me that.
[He might be mocking, trying to draw out an argument or a fight, but there's something in the question that's very genuine. Red Wine would very much like to know where they are, and if Steak knows, then...]
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You bastard! Nobody knows that!
[ Not knowing where he's been abducted to is not the same thing, jerk. He does, however, know how to find a damned path and follow it. Ergo, he is not lost. ]
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[If you don't know where you are, then you're lost. A path is fine, but without the knowledge of where you came from and where you're going, you're lost. Red Wine lets out a soft sound of disgust through his teeth and pulls sharply away from his companion, striding to one of the mirrors and tapping his finger against the side of it.]
And these. I assume you know what they show already?
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[ Steak, my man, just take the L on this one. Y'all don't have a clue what's going on beyond some absurdly realistic dream, you're lost.
But fine, let's move back to the mirrors, and allow Steak his hands back (without even throwing a punch at the jerk he's been stuck with these last two centuries). ]
Parts of our lives. [ It can't be the last thing they remember, though the scene of himself and Bloody Mary would fit, otherwise he wouldn't have seen Red Wine with the Baronness. But parts of their lives nonetheless. ] What about it?
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(Who are they fooling. No one.)]
... So, that's where you went.
[To the castle, to Bloody Mary, to--]
I told you it was nothing. Why did you do that?
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After all, it's bothering him too, given their constant travelling together. ]
I followed an answer to deal with a nuisance and a criminal. What would you have me do?
[ Oh boy. This is not going to go well. ]
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[Hadn't they come close enough to losing everything when it had been the two of them together against that wretch? Hadn't it shown Steak well enough that Bloody Mary is not a Food Soul that one of them can take on alone?
But Steak is brash and bull-headed, and Red Wine should have known better than to think he wouldn't find out who kept sending those threatening letters. Who kept attacking him.]
What was I supposed to do if he caused you harm? When you told no one where you were going?
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And, honestly, Steak would be far safer walking into that trap than either Gingerbread or Red Wine. Bloody Mary's obsession isn't a fatal one... yet. ]
I would have returned regardless! [ He's hardly a weak Soul, and even the weakest Soul is incredibly difficult to kill. Any injuries would have fixed themselves within a couple of days rest, Steak is sure.
And if, just if, the worst happens, Red Wine knows he's second in command of the Knights. He can move on, continue their work with Gingerbread. ] And nothing happened, idiot!
[ Why are they arguing hypotheticals again? ]