dagung | ☆ 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

[he reaches up to collect it, placing it on his head with a scoff.]

Putting someone to so much trouble. Does it delight you?

[he knows that was no accident. he knows there are small creatures laughing in the trees, and it is them that made his hat come back. instead of letting them see his irritation, he takes a deep breath, and then holds out a white gloved hand to encourage her to come down.]

[ Some heart-ripping sense of déjà vu stuns her into remaining stationary, one foot on a sturdy branch and the other hovering midair. She can't place where the feeling comes from, though, and looking a bit befuddled, Paloma descends with more care than she'd climbed.

Bit rude to treat his hand like it'll bite. With that same odd, bemused look on her face, she accepts the unnecessary but very courteous help for that last leap to the dream's untainted grass.

If it makes her feel queenly for a moment, nobody has to know. ]

Thank you... [ Shaking her long skirt out, with its blacks and vivid reds, and plucking the shawl from its branch to fiddle with and avoid residual awkwardness. Eye contact isn't currently viable. ] Well, that felt useless. You may want to keep a hand on your head.

[ There's a tiny grin, aimed at the shawl. ]

The next trick from these creatures will not catch me so unawares. Still, I thank you for your attempted assistance.

[he nods his head to her, and checks his pockets to make sure no one has secretly taken away his items while he's been preoccupied. not yet, it seems.]

Perhaps it has served for enough merriment to have them leave us alone.

[ French. When did she last hear any recognizable accent? Paloma suffocates the mortifying impulse to pester him with questions angled to invoke nostalgia for a country she's never seen in a world that might not even be her own.

This close, the scent of his cigarettes isn't overpowering, but it couldn't be more clear that he's a habitual smoker. She tugs the sheer fabric tighter around her neck, darting a look from Dantes, with his paleness and black layers of clothing, to a distant point in the woods past his shoulder. ]

Yeah, m—

[ Yelp! The pixie-shaped thing drops its concealment magic the instant it winds a dark curl around its spindly fist, yanking so viciously it snaps her head back. Paloma's maw opens into an unladylike hiss, fangs out and gleaming, but they click short of the fleeing fae. ]

Again! Little asshole!

[the fangs are a curiosity, but already she seems a kinder sort than certain other Servants. her nature is nothing he will deride if it stays such, and so instead, his glare at the retreating creature is all he will do, keeping his eyes courteously fixed on her own.]

We might walk on, and leave their gathering place in exchange for being left well enough alone. Another traveler shall fall to their mischief soon enough to take their attentions away.

[ Dantes lacks the tantalizing blood-scent of a witch, and therefore he is less liable to experience how very selfishly unkind Paloma can be.

It's regrettable that the polite steadiness of his eye is only bearable for a few seconds at a time before she needs to look elsewhere. Protecting her hair with a slight change to how the shawl drapes, her mouth moves now only in such a way as to hide the length of certain teeth. That violence had been stupid. ]

I like your idea better than chasing after invisible bugs. [ You heard me! says the narrow scrutiny of their corner of this clearing in a rejuvenated Wilde. ] Okay, a walk.

This might be a dream, but after we wake up, I'll remember your name. If you want to share it? [ Thrusting out her hand to shake. ] Paloma is mine.

[the handshake he gives in return is polite, firm, but lasts not too long.]

You may know me as Avenger.

[nerves, he guesses, are why she looks away so quickly. there is nothing for that but to remain civil for the time being, and to carry on with the plan to get out of the fae's grasp.]

[ Her end of the handshake is the same, with extra care not to make his joints creak. She sticks to his side at a distance that's inoffensive, not too close to a stranger who's introduced himself as Avenger (good god) but not so far to imply wariness. It's all very... courteous.

Chittering, taunting giggles spill out several meters behind them, and Paloma's shoulders jerk in humiliation. ]

Alright, Avenger. I'm sorry you're here. If where you come from is worth seeing again, I hope you'll wake up there and never have to be in another of these dreams. The last one was... [ She clings to the shawl. ] Full of fire.

Yet to be in the depths of fire would be to have returned home. Such I know how to navigate with ease.

[turning over his shoulder, out of her sight, the gaze he fires at the little creatures is fierce enough to freeze blood. the sounds mostly die off, and he resumes walking alongside her, measuring his steps to not leave her behind.]

By comparison, this dream is Elysium.

[ She can't, from her position on his opposite side, see that look. What Paloma knows is that after Avenger moves in an understated way, the mockery fades. And she wonders. ]

... Yeah. Sure is. We might be dreaming about the future. Pretty hopeful, if it's true. The woods aren't generally this beautiful or healthy or... safe.

We couldn't take this walk.

[ Criss-crossing tree branches, leaves either in shadow or reflecting moonlight off their edges. A deer path enabling their little stroll off the traveled road. No sickness.

Safe. ]

☆ TDM: SEPTEMBER

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