dagung | TDM: May

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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

There's someone else here too.

"I know. You're not telling me anything I haven't considered myself," Toby's been saying, more strain in her deep level voice than she usually allows. Images of her family, her people - big green-black reptilians with built-in curved blades - are flickering in the foliage. Climbing trees, leaping between them, nursing wounds, tending children, sitting in curled spiky balls with their hands over their ears. The wind is cutting in with They were made to be exploited and that's all they can ever be. Even you are just another master. You'll get them killed.

Shaking her head in negation, Toby's casting around trying not to sink any further into the nightmare, and manages to notice Rose with her own problems. She's never seen a human(???) bigger than she is. It's kind of weird. No, it's definitely weird. She's around six feet at the shoulder with a serpentlike neck, even the local humans who approach her height are built differently. Good(?) to know she's not the only one having an unpleasant time in here.

She's been trying, she really has, to be the diplomat she knows she will need to be, but after the past however long it's been there's a harsh tone when she says "Who are you, then?"

Now, Rose would not call herself an expert on organic species, but she has seen a good sampling of them; Toby's appearance is, she must admit a little startling. Then again, to be fair, when suddenly faced with a Hork-Bajir at close quarters, falling over and leaning back away from it is a perfectly normal, natural response.

You have got a lot of pointy parts, Toby.

But then, in the next moment, despite her staring, Rose has forgotten to be afraid. She's still breathing hard, panting, and the panic hasn't yet gone out of her face, but...

"Oh. Who are you?" Excuse her while she sorts out her skirts, going up onto hands and knees, the better to see you, "I'm..."

Who is she? Rose hesitates. And then she breathes deeply, remembers to smile, and meets Toby's gaze directly. No shame, no fear, no worries. It's true, isn't it:

"I'm Roze Quartz. I'm from Earth."

She's been getting used to people recoiling at the sight of her, but it's magnified, made comical, by Rose actually falling over and having such voluminous hair and elaborate skirts. To her own surprise, Toby wants to laugh. She clamps her beak shut on that reaction, but it's there - and there's still an image of her parents rinsing dark blood off of each other after a raid playing, still an unkindness to the whine of the wind and the rattle of the foliage, but she manages to recenter.

"So am I." She curls her tail, rests some of her weight back on it. It's probably better to clarify. "My people are from elsewhere, but I was born on Earth. My name is Toby Hamee. We should escape this place. Cutting through the side of the tunnel would make things worse, do you agree?"

"You were? But you're a person, a real, organic person..."

She wondered at that, awed by the concept of it; an organic species, traveling through space. Those vast distances were empty, and cold, a challenge even for Gem technology— how much more for a species of carbon and water, who needed to air and food and... And born there! She didn't even stop to think of the consequences, of what had happened with the life already there. Humans were so adaptable, after all.

"...I'm sorry, that must seem rude," Rose has completely forgotten about the tunnel, completely absorbed in Toby herself. What a marvelous creature you are! "Oh, the tunnel. Hmm."

Now that she's not panicking, things don't seem so bad. Rose doesn't have the same reaction to blood that most people do, and the intermingling with very alien, organic trauma blunts both. It seems so unreal, now, "If it's the plants doing this, we shouldn't hurt them."

Not because it would make things worse, you see; because they're alive. Rose offers Toby her hand, palm up in welcome.

"Maybe we can walk out, if we do it together."

This degree of interest is new and kind of disconcerting, but it seems more important right now to get away, to not have to consider her father telling stories to the new-frees gathered around a fire (and the voice bringing up her frustration with him parroting things he clearly doesn't understand, and what this new person would think). She's told several people here some things about the Hork-Bajir and their situation, and none of those have included that they were designed to be simple, by human standards. That she's some kind of aberration for being able to think and reason more like an alien can.

Toby hesitates, then stretches out her long arm, blades folded back along it, and takes the offered hand. Her hands are only convergently similar to human hands and almost more resemble an ape's, with narrow palms and long thick fingers. ~~despite what I drew for icons~~ Apes don't have short, strongly curved, sharp claws, of course.

"I'm not sure if you mean to shake or... walk out while linked," she says. "But all right."

Rose takes that hand without fear. You'll have to get a lot weirder than that before Rose rejects you, Toby Hamee. When she stands, she smiles, and her hair falls around her face like a lion's mane, vast and pink. Eight feet is pretty tall, for anyone, and Rose is lighter on her feet than anyone her size has a right to be.

"C'mon, then. Let's go," Holding hands is nice, don't you know? It makes it a lot easier to simply hold on, stare into the light at the end of the tunnel, and ignore the rest. Looking neither to the left, nor to the right, Rose steps forward confidently, or at least with a good lie of confidence.

liar! the wind snarls, low and vicious, and she flinches and sighs.

"So," She starts, awkwardly. Anything to escape the banal horrors of the moment, "You were... born on Earth. That must be exciting! Most people aren't, unless they're human. Do... you get along well, with the humans?"

"Why forwards?" Toby asks, reluctant to advance. A foot shy of her adult height and as lanky as a teenager, she's heavy for her size and shape, definitely denser than a human would be. "It only started getting bad in here away from the path."

Her dreams don't tend to feature dream logic, even when there's some fantastical element. She's pretty sure the environment is going to respond to anything she says, too, but she has to say something.

Slowly she explains, "I was named for the human who helped my parents. We don't allow most humans to know we exist, yet, though the time will come. Tobias might well be the best of them."

And he's condescending and doesn't see anyone but you, maybe, as a person. You can't trust aliens, the wind cuts in, and Toby narrows her eyes. She doesn't want that to feel as true as it does.

"In my experience, problems don't go away when you avoid them," Rose clearly considers the here and now as the proper time and place to solve this problem, "No time like the present."

The impulsive, curious present. Also she committed to this and now she's mad enough to see it through. Rose has lived for long enough to know that there's just not enough time for everything.

"Oh that one's true," She tells the wind, then lowers her voice to a stage whisper, "After all, I'm an alien too. And I'm very untrustworthy."

Well, that's obvious, she thinks. It's clear to anyone that she isn't human.

"But I'm sure your human friend doesn't think so. Humans are usually very kind, and amazingly flexible, especially about friends. It's one of my favorite things about them!" She grins. Rose has a lot of favorite things about humans, "They don't know much about us, either. We even have a fence to keep them out! Not that it always works."

Toby responds with a dubious throat rumble, aware of things like the sunk-cost fallacy here, but does not pull away. She considers humans to be aliens, honestly, and never mind that she was born on their world. Alien is a relative term.

"We have a very different understanding of humans," Toby observes. She's less than two years old and her understanding of humanity is dependent on a misanthropic high school drop-out and the material he's brought to her. "Those with power categorize those they perceive to be unlike them as lesser and use that as justification to harm them. This is as true of humans as of anyone else."

She could go into a lot more detail, she has an uncomfortable awareness that the war with the Yeerks is just going to be the start of her efforts to keep her people from being killed or seen as resources, that inside of thirty years she'll be gone and the work will not be done. This is not the time to go into it.

"I've been watching humans live their lives for more than five thousand years," Rose tells her, all indulgent good humor. That too is a lie, but Rose is.. very good at hiding her real self, "Trust me, I know they can be cruel, and harsh; anyone can, if they're afraid. But at heart? Most of them are kind. And they're just so cute!"

So adorably, Toby! So cute. Like a race of little pink squishy......babies!!!

"Anyways, if we didn't protect them, they wouldn't make it for very long without us. They deserve to live, kind or not."

Why do all aliens have elongated lifespans, anyway. What do they do with all that time, besides wage campaigns of war and genocide and exploitation on themselves and each other. ...yeah she's just going to ignore that. Thanks, wind.

Toby's only ever seen pictures of human infants and, honestly: they look like larvae. And they stay like that for ever. She will admit to herself, the proportions of young and adult humans are a little on the cute side once you get used to them and overlook... kind of a lot. Like red blood.

"And there is the difference. I and mine are vulnerable to them and their whims. You, it appears, are not." She huffs out a breath. "They don't deserve to be enslaved by the Yeerks. No one does. But my priority is my people."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TDM: May

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