dagung | ☆ TDM: SEPTEMBER

Entry tags:

* tdm

☆ TDM: SEPTEMBER

Test Drive: September

All threads can be considered game canon,

the prompts and test drive itself will be

• 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.

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.

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[ Hua Cheng slows to a stop at the sound of the voice, and twists to give the speaker an almost curious look. He has his own river of blood, a steady stream pouring down his face from under the patch over his right eye. At his shoulder is a figure who looks like they might have gone swimming in it, if not for the dozens upon dozens of open wounds littering the body and the black sword lodged all the way through the chest. That figure's blank white masked face also turns in Maria's direction, but it's Hua Cheng who makes a sound that might be a laugh. ]

A common thing, then? [ Not something he's ever heard but then he also hasn't dreamt in centuries, so what does he know. His head turns slightly, attention caught by some of the moving corpses, but there's a lack of intelligence to them that's almost disappointing. The figure at his side remains completely still, even as one of the corpses reaches out to nearly brush against the edge of his robes.

Warning given, Hua Cheng finally takes a moment to truly take in the scene, something almost thoughtful in his expression. ] So many dead.

[First assumption: This is taking 'being haunted' a bit too far, but she supposes there is a ghost of her own past sort of looming in front of her, down the "street".

She follows his line of sight down toward the corpses, and then presses her lips together briefly.] Yes. I'm not quite sure who all these people are, or were, or if they're more simply supposed to represent people who existed... or perhaps never did, and are simply there for decoration. That is a Nightmare, after all. [She looks perpendicular to where she is, and the streets are still... Aefenglom. Empty, twisted, at night, but definitely not the towering spires of the more Dorchacht-looking city in front of her.]

Is that an effect of the dream, as well? [She doesn't motion toward him but, honestly, he should know what she's talking about.]

[ Ah. That does make sense. Hua Cheng's own nightmare scapes have been a bit more literal, or perhaps he just hasn't had the patience or energy to work out the lines of metaphor in them.

Case in point, the bloody, masked figure beside him. He doesn't glance over at him, but he does incline his head slightly in acknowledgement of the question. ]

Something like that. [ He is, inescapably, a nightmare creation, if one that Hua Cheng hasn't been able to bring himself to face properly. He will have to, eventually. For now, he can indulge himself standing beside a broken parody of the person he actually wants. ]

You seem to have more familiarity with this than most.

Dreams and Nightmares are tangible... things where I come from. Lands, worlds, realms, however you want to call it. [She motions up the street, to the infected sun, and the strange, bloody rocks.] This is a reflection of the Nightmare I knew, though... I do not think they are fully connected, or we'd see more Blood-Drunk Hunters trying to kill us both.

[Though the idea that Aefenglom's dreamscapes and the ones from home could possibly overlap has not escaped Maria. Sometimes, she wonders. Times like these, especially.]

It is familiarity, though it is not as such in any particularly good way. To see a Nightmare within a Nightmare... or dream... Mmm. At least I am not... alone in these things. I would be more worried if all I saw was this Nightmare, and everyone else seemed to be having a normal dream.

[ Dream realms at least strike familiar enough chord and Hua Cheng makes a vague sound of acknowledgement. It's quite the striking image, and part of Hua Cheng wonders exactly what it's a reflection of. Not enough to ask, but it is an intriguing thought. ]

Not alone, no. I suspect most of those who have ended up here have seen more than they'd like.

[ Of their own nightmares or anyone else's. It's a personal sort of thing, or at least Hua Cheng imagines so. This particular dream, perhaps not, judging by Maria's outlook. ]

They say we're supposed to defeat it, somehow.

Easiest way to defeat a nightmare is simply to wake from it. But I suppose if we're not to do that, then I guess the answer is facing it.

[She motions at the nightmarescape ahead of her.] I've no idea what it wants me to do though. Walk inside and up to the Astral Clocktower? Is that enough? If it was a person, or a thing, I would have a better idea, but a place - and just a sliver of one at that - is... such an oddity.

[ Hua Cheng huffs something that isn't quite a laugh, though the amusement that flickers across his face is obvious. ]

The place seems to bleed well enough. Try stabbing it.

[She does raise an eyebrow, and shakes her head...

... Then walks forward, turns her blade point down, and stabs it into the ground.

Surely enough, blood wells up around her sword like she struck oil, but the illusion remains.] I think it will need more than a little splinter in its finger.

[ As if the entire city before them is one entity. Fair enough, a single sword can't be more than a pin prick. Hua Cheng's eye narrows at the scene, but managing anything larger is somewhat beyond his current capabilities. Oh, to still be a ghost. ]

You know this place. Anything better?

Nothing I wish to think about, really.

[She motions to the looming building in the distance, at what seems to be the source of the blood river, considering the way it winds through buildings beneath the odd not-sun.]

But I'd guess there's probably something in the... Cathedral. Perhaps Research Hall.

Perhaps Astral Clocktower.

Better to just walk laterally and go back to Aefenglom, I think.

[ That is an option. Hua Cheng tips his head slightly in acknowledgement, one side of his mouth curving upwards slightly. ]

As long as nothing in it follows you.

[ Partially a warning and partially a tease, though Hua Cheng is very firmly not looking towards his blood-soaked companion as he says it. He's being followed because he's allowed it. Presumably the situation is not the same here. ]

I don't think the skeletons can move. They never ambulated before. So I will assume I should be alright.

[So, Maria turns away from the length of the river of blood, and toward one of the "shores", then steps forward.

Surely enough, when she gets to the buildings hemming things in on either side, it's just... the nightmare of Aefenglom. The light shines from between the buildings, illuminating the river as it drains into the River Temese, but otherwise... it's just Aefenglom.]

... I'll leave it as is. I'm sure it will be gone by the time this particular dream is over for us as Mirrorbound.

[ Hua Cheng follows out of a lack of any better ideas, other than not particularly wanting to be trapped in someone else's nightmare. His bloodstained companion follows at his heels as it always has, a white and red shadow, and Hua Cheng seems to take that as expected. ]

Will it? [ An absent question, half genuine half rhetorical. The dream has to end some time--he can't imagine the coven would have knowingly sent them into that kind of trap--and everything in it will eventually fade. It's something he's been trying not to think too heavily about. ]

I suppose there are other things to see.

And if it does not, I suppose then we'll have to figure out how to root it out with finality. This doesn't feel like a dream of which we will return to. Not in its literal form, at least. There have been dreams based on real places. We already know Aefenglom. It leads me to believe this is more temporary; only here to harvest dream energy from.

[She narrows her eyes a bit, looks at the phantom following her companion, and then looks down the street. She swears she can see a fleeting shadow make an escape down a different side-street.]

Other than your literal companion, have you noticed us being followed otherwise? By something you... cannot see so easily.

I hadn't.

[ But he'll be the first to admit he hasn't been paying much attention either. Part of him still expects to be aware of everything, whether he means to or not. Bad habits, he supposes.

Hua Cheng focuses now, looking past his bloodstained companion for something flickering flickering at the edges of his awareness. Now that she mentions it... ]

Interesting. Not from your dream city?

No. Beasts are never so subtle, and most Hunters lack the capacity for it anymore, either.

[You know, owing to the fact that most of them are pretty much Beasts themselves.]

But I keep seeing a shadow out there in the distance. Yet every time I go to look at it, it's gone. Either an illusion, or, perhaps... something else is following us.

Not illusion.

[ That much he can say with certainty. Not a spirit either, or at least not like one Hua Cheng has ever seen. He tips his head, watching the shadows for any flickers of movement. Whatever it is seems content to simply trail them for now. ]

Have you seen it before?

Not as such. I kept thinking it was just a peculiarity of the dream, but I realize I'm not seeing it every time.

It's almost as though it's only when it wants to be seen? Or is being careless enough to edge into my view.

[She presses her lips together, and looks around again. Nothing, still.

Odd.]

Wants you to know it could be there.

[ It's an idle offering, more of a hypothetical than a statement this time. Whatever it is continues to flicker in an out of sight, and Hua Cheng does his best to keep watch out of the corner of his eye. It'd be easy enough for the thing to stay in his blind spots, the fact that it isn't makes him decidedly more curious. ]

A threat? Or a warning?

Perhaps neither; perhaps it is merely curious? A manifestation of someone else's nightmares, or...

[She frowns.] ... I wonder if it could be a denizen of the Nightmare of Aefenglom. The city seems abandoned otherwise, but it is a very lively city in the waking world. Why would it be so abandoned here?

The nightmare can't have pulled everyone in.

[ He doesn't sound particularly concerned about it, though. These shadows have done nothing threatening yet, and if they do Hua Cheng has his saber ready for them.

Not to mention the silent imitation of a martial god at his side. ]

Or it's just another scene. Meant to upset someone, undoubtedly.

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☆ TDM: SEPTEMBER

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