dagung | TDM: May

Test Drive: May

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 on up June 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!
• While current players won't be allowed to post top levels on the test drive itself, feel free to reference or play with the dreams in-game.
• 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 Eternal Fall

The smell of autumn leaves surrounds you, a myriad of colors sparkling into existence at the same time. Despite the warmth and light, the air feels heavy and stiff, as if on razor's edge. The forest is eerily silent - not a bird, bug, or rodent dares to stir - and when you do hear something, it's the high-pitched crying, whining, weeping, sobbing, howling sounds of something far off. The tunnel of bent branches invites you further with an unpleasant compulsion; though fighting it and turning around finds you in front of a chilly, damp cave alight with the faint, cool glow of bubbling fountains and streams.

The Compulsion
Unable to sway yourself from the call of the forest - or maybe you're simply curious as to where it leads - your feet pull you further and further into the autumnal tunnel. The cry from before grows more distant, but in return, the air weighs even heavier on your shoulders than before. The branches hang lower and lower as well, as if pushed by gravity, until their leaves smack your face, twigs offering small cuts from the thorns protruding from their bark.

But you can't stop. Not now. The end of the tunnel seems so close; but it's seemed that way for a while now, you suppose, and you've already come this far - you might as well stay the course, wherever it might lead.

The further you go, the brighter everything becomes, and you realize it's the leaves surrounding you; they've begun to glow, encouraged by the sunlight streaming in from above, and the wind begins to whisper in your ear. At first, it's only encouraging things, or silly facts - harmless words, but as the foliage begins to shimmer and reflect your image, the wind's words turn colder. Within those reflections on the autumn tunnel, you begin to see your worst moments - morally, ethically, emotionally. The things you don't want anyone else to know, that you'd feel ashamed or struck for anyone - especially those close to you - to see. The wind becomes louder as the scenes play out one right after another, boldly declaring your true feelings as they were in that moment, good or bad.

Worst of all - you still can't bring yourself to turn back, even as your mind begins to free itself from the tunnel's compulsion. Maybe someone else can help out, if they're not too taken by their own memories, or maybe the shock of sharing such private secrets will jolt you and anyone else back to reality. Either way, it's that, or staying stuck watching your worst memories play on repeat for what feels like the rest of your life.

The Cry
While not compelled by any means, you still feel a curious draw down the path in front of you; as you follow the leaf tunnel, with others or alone, you find another, less-traveled path. Following it reveals a large pond colored orange and gold by the reflection of the area it's in, sunlight and shadows playing on its surface. At a glance, it seems to be rather shallow, but that's hardly the truth.

You realize, after a moment, that the crying has continued, evidently coming from the water. Looking closer, the culprit is an infected Merrow, who - upon begin seen - shrieks and dives for whoever's looking at it with the clear intent to drag them down beneath the water. Its claws are extra sharp, its teeth similar to a shark in number and shape, and its scales have turned a pale black; an oil-like substance flows from beneath them and from its gums as well, shimmering the same way gasoline does in the light, and its eyes are the tell-tale white of a Shade.

It isn't impossible to fight it to get away, especially as some of you have new abilities at hand, and some of you have a few neat changes to help that along. Once distance is successfully put between you and the infected Merrow, it howls in a wet, warbly voice, visibly frustrated. Unlike ordinary Merrows, who can walk on land and have legs as long as they stay dry, this Merrow can't seem leave its pond at all, and electricity sparks from it like little static shocks in its irritation. It does dive back under once it realizes it can't reach you, resurfacing as your character's most important person in an attempt to lure them back. The expressions are far too real, too genuine; even those aware it's a Merrow might be fooled. While its voice isn't a perfect mimicry, the song it begins to sing has with it notes of yearning and beckoning to join it, join your beloved person, in the water.

The Cave
Pulling yourself from curiosity or compulsion, the cave behind you - in front of you, if you've turned around - gives off an oddly pure feeling. Like an oasis in a desert, it feels refreshing and calm; incredibly safe, compared to the eerie call of the forest it's in. Within the cave are pools of water that glow and glimmer from the magic runes found around them. The runes shift similar to a mirage whenever you try to focus on them; and try as you might, you can't glimpse what they say exactly.

It isn't so hard to figure out though, as the pools of water surrounded by them have a pleasingly cold temperature, while those without them are near scalding. A few of the latter have runes around them, but they're not glowing like the rest - feeding a little magic into them changes this immediately, and steam rises in a sudden blast as the water cools rapidly. The opposite can be done for the colder pools too - taking their magic somehow or ruining the runes will make them bubble and boil as they surge in temperature.

But that isn't all the cave has to offer. Moving further inward, you get the feeling you're going down - beneath the ground and the enchanting forest. Eventually, the cave widens out to a massive underground lake, multiple waterfalls pouring into it; despite their number and size, the room is completely silent. All tunnels seem to lead to this one room, with a few of them looking more man-made than natural. Traversing other tunnels leads you into a maze that only ever brings you to the lake, or to the cave's entrance, no matter how many different paths you take.

Something different happens eventually though; signs of life begin to appear, or at least signs that life once lived there. Leather pouches rotted by the dampness of the cave hang on sharp nails beaten into the cave walls, with boots in similar condition strewn here and there. Torn, soaking clothing lays in piles in the tunnels, and candles burnt down to their wick's end stand in shelves carved from the navy blue and black stone. There's broken toys and books too waterlogged to read, instruments with snapped strings or clogged holes, and - most peculiarly - smooth, round devices that heavily resemble large pocketwatches or hand mirrors. They refuse to turn on though, either due to age or due to the wetness of the air.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Perhaps... we have to tap them in a certain order.

[Papyrus speaks with some authority, having spent his fair share of time studying ancient puzzles. He steps around the damp cave carefully - he's gotten a little more confident in how to use his new claws to help balance on these digitigrade legs, but it's still wet rock. And he peers into a couple of the pools, comparing what he sees.]

Can you make out what they say? They're a little blurry under the water...

[Huffing softly, Weiss stands up straight, hands on her hips.]

If I could read them, I would have figured this out by now! I have no idea what language these are supposed to be.

[Certainly not anything she's seen in Remnant or Atlas.]

They might be pictograms... But they don't look like any pictures I recognize.

[Ordinarily, a device endowed with fire magic or ice magic would have something like a knob for temperature. But whoever designed this cave was going for some other aesthetic.]

I'm as stumped as you! Let's try tapping them with hands, next.

[He demonstrates in one of the cooler pools, but nothing happens when he prods the rune with a finger.]

Aren't pictograms supposed to look like pictures?

[These definitely look like some kind of rune...]

Hands? Really? [She's got claws! But whatever. She'll go over to a rune and tap at it.] It's not doing anything. I think we need magic to activate them.

[If either of their claws scratch the runes and something happens, at least they'll have learned something.]

They already seem magic... but! You might be right.

[Papyrus settles on a rock by one of the runes and focuses at it for a moment, before shrugging in her direction.]

And if you are... we might be stuck. You'd think magic would be super strong in a dream... But mine hasn't worked at all.

[The runes seem to stay rather intact even as Weiss experimentally scratches at one. Nothing...]

I haven't been able to do anything like I could back home since I got here.

[Plus, her body is changing, which is worrisome.]

This is a weird dream if we can't control what we can do.

Well... What if it's not our dream?

[Someone suggested as much earlier, and... Everyone else in this dream seems so real, it's hard to keep believing that they're only figments of his imagination.]

I've never heard of dream magic, but! You never know!

So, like, someone else's dream?

[That would make some sense... she's been in something similar before.]

I'm turning into what I think is a bird, and this place apparently doesn't give birds magic. We better find someone else who can use it.

In my dreams, I can always do cool magical things...

[Plenty of birds can use magic where he comes from, too. And so can skeletons. This dream just seems to be shutting down most magic, for reasons that escape him. Not a very dream-like dream, in his opinion.]

That lake monster seemed pretty magical, but, uh. I don't want to invite them anywhere. We could check the path outside? Or further in the cave...?

I'm not going anywhere until I figure out why someone would bother covering these pool in runes. There has to be a reason.

[And gosh darn it, or well, dammit, she's going to figure it out! Alone or not.]

For... decoration?

[Papyrus doesn't make any move to head in either direction; he's not in a rush to continue exploring just yet. The forest was full of discomforts, and this cave is the first relaxing, familiar place he's found. Homey.

Besides, somebody went to the trouble of setting these up. If it's meant to be a puzzle, it'd be rude to pass it by without at least trying to solve it.]

But... they don't all have runes.

Decoration? That... doesn't sound right.

[Hmmm... Weiss kneels down and puts her hand in the water she's closest to. It takes a moment before she pulls away.]

It's pretty warm. Maybe... temperature control?

Maybe... I wonder.

[If the runes would respond to them, it'd be easy to tell, but since they can't read or use the runes... Papyrus paces around the area, checking on a couple of different pools for whether they have runes or not - and whether the water is steaming.]

Hey! You're onto something. The pools with runes... They're all very hot! Which is a little strange, you'd expect that to be the other way around...

TDM: May

The Cave - A

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