dagung | TDM: January

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* tdm

TDM: January

Test Drive: January

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 28th.
• Applications Open The 24th! These will last until the end of the month, the 31st, with the intro log going up on February 1st. The application page can be found here. As a reminder, this will be our last uncapped application round!
• 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 Prehistoric Wilde

Thick summer heat hangs heavy over the uninfected landscape like a damp blanket, smothering. The jungle around you is thick and wet, full of the sounds of chittering animals and the high-pitched drone of insects. The flora and fauna are like nothing you've ever seen before, large and alien in colors and shapes, though they bear no signs of the Cwyld. Flowers the size of a man's head and brightly colored in rainbow hues curl their tendrils invitingly, and giant mosquitoes buzz through the air seeking a meal. You can barely see the glow of the twin moons through the thick canopy above. There are no signs of civilization - at least, not the civilization most will be used to; only the distant sound of the river, compelling you to follow its winding path. But will you go forward, or will you go back?

Rumble in the Jungle
Making headway through the jungle at night is a chore. The foliage grows thick and the humid heat is oppressive for even those who enjoy the warmth. There are no clear paths here, no easy way through. The canopy of the ancient trees far, far over your head is just as dense, but the faintest moonlight filters through the holes left by the huge leaves in stippling patterns across the musty forest floor. 'Large' seems to be the theme - lining whatever path you pick your way through, there are pitcher plants massive enough to swallow a grown man, with small animals and giant insects being digested down inside the sticky liquid that fills them. The flowers are as big as a man's head, and come in a rainbow of colors, their venomous tendrils curling toward signs of life. The trunks of some of the trees are as thick as houses, and shade the ground beneath them with leaves like umbrellas. The hand-sized mosquitoes thrive in the sticky heat and if not killed first, can make off with a full pint of blood from an unsuspecting person.

At some point in your journey, the ground begins to rumble beneath your feet. The farther you go, the longer you walk, the more signs of life become visible: thick, winding trails of crushed foliage, huge, animalistic footprints in the mud. Luckily, to this world, you are small and insignificant, and may escape the notice of the local Monsters - the massive, prehistoric ancestors of today's Monsters.

They seem like giants, colossal Titanoboa Nagas with hollow fangs like swords, towering Fauns with the lower halves of mammoths, sabertooth Turnskins, pterodactyl Harpies with leathery wings. Even the parts of them that resemble humans (and they have far fewer human-like parts than their modern counterparts) are larger than any actual human being. They operate primarily on instinct, made even stronger by the full moons above, and perceive the strange new creatures as threats - or food.

Sticking to the river seems safest - at least until you run into megalodon Merrow, singing an alien, but alluring, song to draw in prey, or the apex predator of this prehistoric world - Dragons, bigger and scalier than the ones Mirrorbound may know, stopped to drink at the river. All other Monsters flee from the huge reptiles, lest they become food themselves. Luckily you can defend yourself with your new abilities, or your neat changes - you're small, but not totally helpless.

Interesting to note... while all other Monster types are represented, there are no Fae or Chimeras in the Wilde here, and the Vampires are more like huge bat-monsters that traverse the jungle on all fours than humanoid bloodsuckers.

The Natives
Going backward, away from the distant sounds of the sea and against the current of the river, leads you through dense jungle. How long have you traversed the landscape? Hours? Days? Time passes funny in dreams. Eventually the trees thin out, grow taller and less leafy, and the air becomes drier. Instead of loamy soil beneath your feet, you start to feel rocky, harder earth, and spot outcroppings of stone. The sun begins to rise, which makes it easier to spot people on the horizon, a little settlement coming to life in the morning, nestled where the river forks into two.

They're much hardier than the familiar people of Aefenglom, sunburned and dressed in natural, rough fabrics. Their homes, if one can call them that, are shoddy little structures made of sticks and leaves and mud, pressed up against the sturdiness of the stone formations. And, when they spot strangers approaching their village, they scramble for their weapons - crude clubs, stone axes, even just large rocks snatched up off the ground.

The translation magic works on them, thankfully. Their speech is halted and simple, but they get their point across. Tell them who you are, or they'll beat your brains in. Monsters might get their brains beat in anyway if they aren't careful, even though they're much smaller than the Monsters these humans are used to. And Witches? May the gods help you if you use magic in front of these terrified, unevolved people, lest they mistake you for a Fae (the word is whispered with fear and revulsion in their voices) and swarm you with simple iron tools. If you're an actual Fae, an obvious Fae? They'll whisk their children into their huts protectively and then run you right out of the village. Violently.

The truly observant, or those who can see through illusions, among you may notice something strange, though. Some Fae actually seem to live among them, heavily cloaked in natural illusions, with the primitive humans none the wiser. There are just a few, but all of them look young, twelve or thirteen at the oldest, and they are all scared of their secret coming to light. Fae who get caught tend to be burned at the stake around here.

The Invaders
Perhaps you chose to go forward, with the current and toward the distant sound of ocean waves, where the river pours into the sea. More long-time residents of Aefenglom may notice that the shoreline is familiarly-shaped, but wider, bigger, not yet worn down by thousands of years of erosion. There is no bustling Harbor, only the waves crashing on the rocks, small islands dotting the water near the shore. There is no Bright Wall - there is no city, even, only an expanse of beach transitioning gently into an idyllic grove dotted with gauzy, pointed tents, and a beautiful, gilded ship half sunk into the sandy earth.

It seems safer than the jungle, at first - until you notice all the Fae. They're more insectoid than the ones many are familiar with, with big, glittering eyes and either bright, jewel-toned wings like dragonflies or butterflies, or delicate, leafy wings in greens and browns. They're also taller than modern, lesser Fae, though not by much, and they're thin and angular, standing on spindly limbs that barely seem able to hold them.

Characters receive a warmer welcome here, by the band of true Fae that have made their camp in the grove, though the alien-looking beings have a tendency to treat them like toys, children, or both, cooing over their sizes and their magic.
"Look at the little Monsters! Aren't they cute!"
"We should make some of our own! And oh, the little humans have magic! Delightful!"
It's hard to have a conversation with one - they're condescending at best, and at worst, flit off to another entertainment out of boredom while you're mid-sentence.

And entertainments abound in their camp. They're served and tended to like emperors by collared humans - adults and young adults do the heavy labor, including pulling grand little chariots for transportation, though there are some highly-supervised human children running about fetching drinks and fanning their Fae masters with palm leaves.

Farther out, a large, deep pit has been dug out of the earth, ringed by a waist-high barrier of logs, a few Fae gathering at the barrier and leaning over, talking in conversational, happy voices. Down below, Chimera gladiators fight for their amusement, while the Fae keep up running commentary, discussing each warrior's chances, new breeding prospects, interesting crossbreeds their fellows have come up with ("She's trying an Arachne and a Turnskin together, how delightful!"). Trying to disrupt the proceedings will only result in the Fae turning their magic on you - illusions and curses, nasty little tricks. Sit down, silly little ones! The fight is just getting good! Or maybe... Maybe they'll toss you into the pit to see what your chances are in battle.

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Wait. What??

[He gives Adrian a long, hard look. It can't be...

...but now that he is looking, he sees a blending of the features of the vampire lord he knew and the dead wife his lord had lovingly painted.

...the lord he was poised to betray, right before he appeared here.

...the lord with a son who was en route to kill his father and the dark things in his castle....

He tries to school his expression blank, but it's probably obvious that name meant something to him.]

I can find my way from here. Farewell.

How do you know my surname?

[Alucard's question is quick and demanding, hissed out well, like a vampire. Because in spite of this place, he is still his father's son.]

You're not Wallachian, I can determine that much from how you speak.

That name is known beyond the borders of Wallachia.

[That hiss raises his hackles. Hector has perfectly legitimate reasons for knowing about the Tepes family. It's not like the son can act protective of his name, when he was out to kill his father.]

I know more than just your surname, Adrian. I'd wager I could list out most of your major life achievements. Your father was very proud, and he missed his family while he was traveling the world.

[~~IT'S THE THING HE'S SENSITIVE ABOUT~~

The response does not mollify the dhampir. But it does make him lower his hackles just a hair, if only because there's an implication here.

Alucard remembers his father's stories from traveling.]

Where did he meet you?

A little island, east of Rhodes. He took a detour from his route to find me, he said.

[That short encounter was enough to win Hector's loyalty through the better part of a year of atrocities after his wife was murdered.]

I came to stay in his castle, but you were gone by then.

[Aluard's body is nothing but tension. He understands the implication with you were gone by then.]

And did he explain to you the reason for my departure?

No. He didn't speak of you any more after that. I heard the rumors in the court, though. 'Alucard' is what the people call you, isn't it? The son who opposes the father?

[Hector's just being spiteful at this point. The bruises on his back are throbbing and he can't deal with this right now.]

The son who is the opposite. Wallachia's citizens are not especially clever.

[That's two for the can't deal with it club.]

His court. The court helping him commit genocide. Tell me, what comfort have you offered my father in his loss?

[Um, Alucard, you want to open this bag of worms about who was more supportive to Dad? Hector's eyes narrow.]

He came to me and asked me for my help. I stood by his side. I helped give him the power he needed to punish the murderers who burned his wife.

[Hector is so, so uncertain whether that was the right call or not, and he knows the campaign that came after was majorly fucked up, but he's too pissed at this self-righteous dhampir not to double down.]

Did you though? Did you tell him to murder only the man who was responsible, or the whole of Wallachia's population? Because I know which one I advocated for, and he refused to see reason.

[Some part of Alucard is so very relieved to finally have someone to lash out at about this. The unfairness and injustice of it all.]

Did you ask him how my mother would want to be mourned? What she would make of his war? Of course you didn't. So you may have stood at his side, but that earns you no honor or esteem.

And know that you fail. That he dies.

[Hector's anger is rising, and he's just waiting for Alucard to pause so he can start retorting everything this traitor son is saying....

...until he drops that particular bomb. Hector freezes.]

What?

[No, there's no way.]

Dracula can't die. You're wrong.

[No, even knowing that Carmilla is poised for her coup d'etat, Hector can't believe it. Dracula is too powerful. Hector had been waiting for some catalyst to wake him back up, some watermark he would finally reach in his revenge so he could return to himself.]

I would not lie about the death of my remaining parent.

[He lies by omission for the time being. Doesn't specify that he's the one responsible. Only that it is done.]

I cannot speak to what is happening within the court at the moment, but I have come out the other side of his madness and what it meant for all of Wallachia. It ends with his death, and so many things to put back to rights.

Oh, so you still claim him as your father?

[He can mourn later. Anger is easier.]

You understand nothing. Lord Dracula was the only thing keeping the vampire generals from running amok. The humans are going to retaliate against anything supernatural, even the benign ones, the vampires will scramble to seize the throne.... Don't act as though Wallachia is saved. Whoever killed Dracula doomed it.

[Was it Carmilla? And Hector had helped her. Gods, what an idiot he'd been. Forget the blood already on his hands. He might have truly destroyed Wallachia.]

[Alucard holds back a snarl, knowing it'd come out too feral. Too furious.]

I understand nothing?!

Would the vampire lords have entered my father's domain brazenly if they had not been invited with promises of blood and slaughter? No. Would the humans rise up en masse against night things if my father did not summon an army from hell to descend? No. My father, in his grief, declared war on the living and created new and infinitely worse circumstances than simply killing the bishop who was responsible for this in the first place. The thing I advised doing as to honor my mother's wishes and yet still bring justice for her senseless and pointless death.

What do you know of my family, Hector? What do you know if our home before it was shattered? What my mother's wishes would have been?

Until you have those answers, hold your tongue.

What do I know of your family? [Other than what Hector would have given, for a family like that??]

I know your mother was murdered because she was left unprotected among humans. Where were you when it happened?

[If Alucard is going to take the low shots, Hector will as well.]

And that wasn't your father's plan. He was supposed to make the world safer for the outcasts of society. Rule over them to prevent anything like your mother's execution from happening ever again.

[He doesn't know if that was a lie Dracula told him or if the descent into madness came on more slowly that that, but it's easier to believe that there had been noble intentions from the start.]

Doing errands that she asked me to accomplish, and then rendered powerless to help her because she was held in a church.

[Travel as men do applied to both Tepes men, not only Dracula. He was away. He returned too late. Just as his father had.]

Yes. Because that's what he said to the people of Targoviste after he appeared in the flames that consumed my mother's life. That was what demanded he raise an entire army from Hell itself.

He died the moment my mother did, and spent a year convulsing in his death throes, lost to madness of grief.

[The only grace right now is that Hector has not asked how Dracula died.]

Oh, do church thresholds actually keep your kind out?

[Sounds like a steaming piles of excuses to Hector.]

How am I to know what he said to those people in the heat of the moment? I know what he told me, that he would need power to take control of the humans. You've seen what humans do when left to their own devices.

[He jabs a finger back in the direction of the village, where he'd been attacked on sight.]

Yes.

[FUCK YOU BUDDY.]

I've seen that and plenty more. Yet I do not bring the entire underworld to the surface!

No, instead you sulk around, doing nothing while your parents died. You can take your self-righteous bullshit and stuff it.

[GO FUCK YOURSELF PAL.]

You know nothing about my work, or about my creatures. If it had been only vampires to lay siege, there would have been more death, more UNDEATH. No one would have survived.

Oh, is that how you comfort yourself about your own choices at night?

[Alucard please for the love of God stop.]

What did happen in my father's court then? You weren't there when we invaded it.

When you invaded?

[Umm, WHAT?

Hector goes still. Last he’d heard of Dracula’s disappointment of a son, he was hanging around with a Belmont. But there’s no way he could have...]

Who was it? Who killed him?

[Silence is the response. Stone cold. Alucard's eyes meeting Hector's, and while there is such grief in them, there isn't a flinch either. Alucard cannot disown what he did.]

[Oh? OH?? That’s rich, Alucard, you absolute hypocrite.]

He loved you. The only pause in his campaign was to order that no one pursue you, no one harm you.

[Dracula protected him, trusted him, and he turned around and betrayed him? Hector is seething and also wracked with sudden guilt. They are a matched pair, aren’t they? Traitor son and traitor general.

He turns away from Alucard.]

You disgust me.

[He disgusts himself. Can he go drown himself in that freezing stream now?]

[That one hurts.

Alucard nearly physically recoils. There was enough sense in his father to give that order. Yet it implies so much more. That there was still some sense left to him. That...

well, never mind. He'll dwell on it later, away from Hector. He'll wake with a new part to his grief, and ride it out as he has all his other sorrow

(Alucard will drown.)

There's no response. Only a noise of acknowledgement of the words, and then? He simply begins to walk away.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TDM: January

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