☆ TDM: SEPTEMBER

[faileas]

Test Drive: September

Welcome to 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 is part of our September-October event The Price of Revolution, so it's fairly important to note! Aside from that, here are some quick reminders:



• The Application Queue is open. Apps can be submitted at any time but will only be processed as space opens up and game plot allows. 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!

• And finally, since this is part of our event, characters already in-game ARE allowed to top-level on this post.



With that taken care of...

Mirrorbound who come to the Coven after dark on the 27th, who have volunteered to assist in waking the sleeping citizens of Dorchacht, are ushered into a large room laid with pallets on the floor inside a huge chalk circle. With Nessie are a group of sleepy-eyed Witches in loose robes, their expressions calm and almost dreamy despite the seriousness of the situation. These are the Dreamers, an oft-secluded group of Witches who study Divination and dream magic almost exclusively. They show signs of suffering some of the dangers of dreamwalking - they space out often, or doze off and have to be woken by one of their fellows. Still, they seem to know what they’re doing as they prepare candles and fragrant incense. Magic pulses through the floor, tingling threads of it escaping to reach out harmlessly toward the Mirrorbound who filter in.

Miss Nessie is the one to explain the ritual in a solemn tone as she oversees the final preparations and the other gathered Witches. "You all seem to have an uncanny ability to dreamwalk that we do not fully understand. Normally such a thing is difficult, it is, but the Mirrorbound are capable without even trying." She takes a breath and lets it go, standing straighter, determined. "Hopefully we can trigger that ability tonight. Theoretically, magical energy can be harvested from the dream planes. While you sleep, and dream, we will perform a spell to allow you all to bring back that energy crystallized into a physical form, and that is what we will use to wake the citizens of Dorchacht. The more you can collect, the more people we can help."

Her determination gives way briefly to open worry, and she admits, "We don't know what form this shared dream will take, or what dangers it may hold. With the spell going, any injuries you sustain in the dream will also carry over to your physical body, so be careful, yes? You can still back out, of course, and none will hold it against you. For those who stay, healers will be on-site and monitoring your physical forms."

Those who stay will be given a piece of a very rare lavender mushroom used by the Dreamers called Faecap, which works quickly to induce sleep - and shared dreaming. As they drift off, the sounds of soft chanting fill the large room.

[Due to the untested nature of dreamwalking, IC volunteering isn't necessary to participate in the TDM - your character may simply find themselves in the shared dream when they go to sleep that night, similar to how TDM characters will just find themselves in it.]

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, and a sour wind brushes across your face and through your hair. It seems to claw at your consciousness like chilling, spindly fingers -

and you know one thing, and one thing alone: this is a dream, and an incredibly realistic one at that.

The Nightmarescape

This is Aefenglom, and yet it isn't, at the same time. A large Victorian-styled city of cobblestone streets and close-together buildings, cut through the center by the River Temese. Whether you recognize its specific features and structures or not, you know deep in your bones it isn't meant to look like this. It's subtle at first, but it becomes more and more obvious the longer you walk the cobblestone streets. Everything is... almost gray, desaturated in color. Buildings are crooked, tilting at improbable angles. Clocks are upside-down. Writing is backwards or unrecognizable. The night sky above bears a greenish hue to it, and the stars seem to swim in and out of different formations. The city is also hauntingly empty - except for your fellow dreamers. The space yawns like it wants to be filled with life; it craves, it's hungry for it.

A City Void of Life It does begin to fill, in time. The longer you're present in the dream, the more things shift and slide. You can feel it drawing from you, your memories, your thoughts and feelings, seeking out your fears and anxieties, your worries and your upsets. It slips right into your cracks and it digs out what it seeks. It turns the shadows of your mind into horrifying possibilities. Twisted features from your life overlay themselves on the empty city of Aefenglom - a single room, a building, a creature, a person. Not quite memories, they're all off in some way, adapting to the dream, warping. Don't get taken in by familiarity: whatever has drawn itself from your head is very, very dangerous. Shadows lurk where they shouldn't, once welcoming rooms close in on and threaten to suffocate you, a friendly creature's teeth and claws become pronounced and vicious, the darkened figure of a loved one watches you with blank eyes and malice in their smile. Whatever has appeared, it's a manifestation of your nightmares, and it wants to hurt you and the other dreamers around you. Maybe it's a dark what-if that has whispered in your ear at night, a bad end that you feared but never came to fruition, or maybe it's simply just the ugly representation of your greatest fear. Whatever it is, it's out for blood, and it's joined by fragments from the other dreamers. Hopefully you find a friend to help you out. If there was ever a time for a team-up. It's possible to leave the nightmarescape Aefenglom to try and escape these bad ends and what ifs. Time and space work strangely in this dream, and it's just a few steps to Dorchacht or the Wilde, or a quick tumble to the caverns Underground. Movement seems to be more about intent than direction. But it just gives a new backdrop for your nightmares, because they will follow, they will pursue you doggedly, melding into the scenery.

Face Your Fears Those who came here on purpose know what the mission is: to collect the crystallized magical energy present in this dreamscape to wake a city cursed to sleep forever. Let the others know, the ones who wound up here on accident, and maybe they can help you - each fragment of a nightmare contains this energy, even theirs, and can be collected and brought back by the dreamers who will wake at the Coven. The energy presents as black orbs, hard and clear like glass, no bigger than large marbles, with images of your terrors dancing deep within them. Coming by these orbs isn't exactly easy, however. To do so, you have to face manifestations of your worst fears. Defeat them - physically, emotionally, by standing up to them and staring them in the face, there are many ways to banish a nightmare - and they'll condense down into the dark glass pieces. With each defeat, the changes to the landscape sprung out of your head will disappear, and that part of Aefenglom (or Dorchacht, or the Underground, or the Wilde) will right itself, ease back into something normal, the oppressive air fading. The shadows will shorten and color will seep back into that patch of scenery. And hold tight to those crystals if you dare - other nightmares are drawn to them. These may not even belong to anyone in particular, but to the continent of Geardagas itself: grasping Shades of Monsters and Witches both, with white eyes and blackened skin, who wish to spread their infection; half-burned Dryads screaming for help; gleeful, malicious Fae playing terrible tricks, more twisted and insectoid than the Fae most know; a growing, creeping blackness that can only be the Cwyld itself. Even the land you walk on, or may walk on in the future, has many fears. It's a good thing some of you have new abilities at hand, and some of you have a few neat changes to help, or perhaps they aren't new at all. Regardless, use your abilities well and work together, it's time to face your fears.

Flitting Shadows Those who are attuned to their surroundings might notice something off - beyond everything else that is already quite off, that is. The sense of being watched, wherever you go, no matter where you turn, is strong and creeping, until it consumes your consciousness. Always just outside your peripheral vision is a presence, a shadow, lean and cloaked. No matter how quickly you run or how suddenly you turn to catch it, you can never quite get a glimpse of the figure's face, if it even has one. Trying too hard will make you dizzy, nauseous, as it evades and evades and evades. You might not be able to see a face, or much more than the vaguest hint of a shape, but it sees you. Don't let yourself be distracted from your mission, or from simple survival if you aren't the heroic type. If you linger trying to catch the specter at the edge of your vision, the nightmares will find you, readily and easily, vicious and ready to make you fight for your life. Ignore the sound of wings flapping in the distance, a whisper in an indistinct voice, words you can't hope to understand or even separate from the gnawing paranoia that roars in your ears. The presence never reveals itself, and never attacks you directly. You get the sense that it's trying to determine what, exactly, you're doing - and that maybe it's trying to sabotage your efforts to collect the hard glass marbles of energy from this plane.

Comments

[deadvotional]

[ For one, impossible moment, it almost seems like the broken form in front of him calls out, and Hua Cheng twitches with indecision. Is this his penance, for not being able to stop this atrocity the first time? He'd serve it, gladly. But the figure on the altar is still, staring his way, and there is movement behind him.

Hua Cheng is on his feet in seconds, E-ming in hand as he turns to face whatever this is, planting himself firmly between His Highness' body and anything that might come for him.

Just as quickly, he falters to a stop. Because that's His Highness too, whole and steady. Hua Cheng's eye widens, the other side of his face a steady river of blood running from under the eye patch. ]

...Gege?

[ Which of these is the nightmare now? ]

[dianxias]

[ xie lian has barely had enough time to process any of this, but if he's good at anything, it's packing his own trauma down into a eight hundred year deep hole and helping others, especially when it's helping san lang.

if he knows anything, if san lang is here, then everything will be alright. ]

You -- [ xie lian starts, just the single word full of a thousand emotions--care, relief, worry, there's blood streaming down his face, and he wants to run to his side to do something.

however, at the altar, that other body - his body, if you can call it that - has sat up. ] San Lang, you -- ah, look out!

[ and xie lian is acting. ] Ruoye!

[ he starts, and takes off at a sprint. if hua cheng thought this gege might have been ready to attack him, he doesn't run at hua cheng -- rather, he runs past him.

ruoye shoots out of his wrist as if to defend them, and xie lian skids to a stop directly between hua cheng and the mutilated version of himself, protectively, ready to fight off all of his traumas to keep hua cheng as safe as he can. ] - Stay behind me!

[deadvotional]

[ Between one blink and the next, Xie Lian is running at and then past him, and on pure instinct Hua Cheng spins around to grab hold of Xie Lian's outstretched wrist. Gently, but just enough to hold him back if he attempts to make a run at the body on the altar. ]

Gege, it's alright.

[ If Xie Lian can fight down his traumas for Hua Cheng, Hua Cheng will do the same in a heartbeat. But more he very much does not want Xie Lian any closer to what he knows is his own nightmare. He shouldn't have to deal with that. ]

This is...it's a dream. It's not real. [ As if that wasn't made clear enough by the presence of the two of them. ] You don't have to see this.

[dianxias]

[ the hand on his wrist wraps familiar, and the inherently cold touch of hua cheng is grounding, but xie lian doesn't back off, though ruoye hovers at his wrist, ready to strike, just in case. he does stop running, though.

instead, he stays placed firmly in front of hua cheng like a human shield, other arm still out, facing down himself as if xie lian could protect him. (isn't that what he's always wanted, to protect san lang from himself? isn't that really his own deepest fear - that his own misfortune will lead to the death of the first friend he's had in centuries?)

his voice takes on a hint of stubborn insistence. ] People have been injured - dream or not, does that not make this real enough?

[ taizi dianxia's well of compassion runs ever deep. real, not real, it doesn't matter: san lang shouldn't have to suffer. ] It's nothing I can't handle.

[ even if it is the worst day of xie lian's life, sitting in front of him. he doesn't feel terrified, though. without the white no face there hovering overhead, he sees the creature on the altar and just feels... an empathy, a pity bittersweet and familiar, that courses over the initial terror. he knows how that thing feels, and intimately so.

it's not real. hua cheng said so. ] I must have fallen asleep. San Lang, if we wake up, will this vanish?

[deadvotional]

I don't know.

[ It's a quiet admission, and one he hasn't had to make to His Highness very often. He'd made a point of knowing enough to be able to answer any sort of question, back home. Here, where everything is still just to the left, it's much harder to keep up.

But he'd come here willingly, hadn't he. Maybe he hadn't expected this, but he'd walked in with his eye open. His hand tightens reflexively on Xie Lian's wrist before he makes himself relax, but he doesn't let go. ]

Gege...how are you here?

[dianxias]

[ oh, san lang. xie lian's heart lurches for him, and as his hand starts to tighten, he reaches backwards a little to slide his fingers down hua cheng's palm, instead, curling them gently around his, as if trying to be reassuring. the gesture is intimate, and in any other situation, it would be embarrassing, but he's worried. ]

...I'm not really sure. I went to sleep in Puji Shrine... so I think perhaps this is a dream for me, as well. [ his voice softens, a bit, worry melting into compassion, instead. familiar, perhaps, for hua cheng, who was comforted by xie lian many, many centuries ago. even staring down a horrifically mutilated version of his own body, unaware of his circumstances, xie lian finds it in his heart to be gentle and reassuring. ] It's alright now, San Lang. It's just a dream.

[ he takes a step back, closer to hua cheng. ] Let's try to leave.

[deadvotional]

[ There's a brief moment where Hua Cheng goes still with indecision. He's here for a reason, after all, and it's not hard to guess that it has something to do with this.

But Xie Lian...isn't. This is just a strange dream for him, however that's happened, and he shouldn't have to face down this kind of horror. If Hua Cheng couldn't protect him from it the first time, he can do it now. ]

Alright. [ He squeezes the hand in his lightly, too many current considerations in mind to think much about the contact, and gently tugs Xie Lian back towards the shrine's door. It's only after a moment that he recognizes the sound of quiet footsteps behind them.

They're being followed. ]