dagung | ☆ TDM: MARCH

Entry tags:

* tdm

☆ TDM: MARCH

Test Drive: March 2021

All threads can be considered game canon,

the prompts and test drive itself will be

• The Application Queue is open. Applications run on a rolling queue system. The application page is always open to submissions, and applications will be processed in order of submission. Verdicts will always go out by the final week of a month, though we can't promise an exact date -- we'll get to them as quickly as we can throughout the month! If your application is submitted during the last week of a month, it may be rolled into next month's batch of applications. The application page can be found here.
• We have a brand new Game World Wiki created with the immense help of our Wiki Bards: Noa, Prince, Maruah and Ran. Thank you so much! It's still being updated, but most of the main game info is there for you in an easily searchable manner. All other info can still also be found through our Navigation page!
• 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!
• For current characters, TDM threads can be used for AC.
• And finally, since this is part of our event, characters already in-game ARE allowed to top-level on this post.

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 Calamity

The taste of magic in the air is electric on your tongue, supercharged, bright, a little tart and fizzy like popping candy. The settlement you find yourself in is unfamiliar to you, but you can tell it is bustling, beautiful, a center of culture and activity for its bygone era. The architecture blooms with elaborately carved flourishes, but you cannot shake the feeling of... otherworldliness that it brings to mind. (Perhaps you are a veteran of these dreams and remember a ship with similar embellishments from far away, that came bearing invaders, in a time long ago.) It is nearly impossible to tell what season you find yourself in - pockets of spring bloom with new life, right next to pockets of winter snowstorms; playful fall winds laden with leaves tug at your hair, and in some spots, it feels hot and muggy like the middle of summer. None of these patches of seasonal mayhem are very large, a few city blocks’ worth at most, and they all butt up against each other, tumultuous, fighting for real estate in a place where the magic bubbles freely up through the ground like a wellspring, uncontrolled. In a way, it seems like a wilder version of Aefenglom’s seasons always being opposite the season in the Wilde, similar but more widespread, more disharmonic.

Fit to Burst
The settlement is bustling and full of that otherworldly architecture, spirals and tendrils and vaguely floral embellishments, except... If you look closer, you can see that only a few of the buildings are really made that way. An illusion covers the rest, purely cosmetic, a glamour; it's a shimmering image laid over reality until you look beneath it at the squat, simple houses made by mortal hands out of rough hewn wood or bricks of packed mud. The people are just as disparate as the buildings beneath it all - glittering-eyed Fae, taller, more elongated and insectoid than those seen around Aefenglom, though many of them use glamours to appear more fantastical and beautiful; humans teeming with magic, who use it freely for anything and everything; other bipedal Monsters with rougher, more bestial features than longtime residents might be used to, more in tune with their natural abilities.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to explore your new surroundings, though you're likely to garner attention. Unless the world you come from is a more medieval time period, your clothing, perhaps even your hair or other aspects of your appearance are likely to stand out. What will make you stand out even more, though, is not drawing on your abundant new magical powers, or strong new Monster abilities. That shop there requires flight to get up to the second story front door. That home down the street can only be unlocked with a burst of flame. Torches when it grows dark? No, don’t be ridiculous, you can't light your own way? Your hair looks hideous, darling, why haven’t you put on a glamour?

Reluctance to use these abilities abundantly and freely garners frowns of scrutiny and disapproval from those natives around you. "We're free here under the Fae folk. They've taught us so much, we never go hungry, we’re never beaten down by the weather." Their words hold truth - their twisted-trunk trees are bursting with fruit, their haphazardly laid out crops flourish in a matter of days rather than a season, rain and snow can be directed at will with just an application of the wild, free magic bubbling up from the ground in rivers.

There is a hierarchy in this settlement. The Fae are above all, and can often be found partying into the night with sweet wine and hallucinogenic mushrooms, teaching humans and Monsters to harness their natural talents and the magic of the land by day. Their attitudes are condescending toward these lesser beings they’ve granted their favor to (including you, now, and aren’t you just the most interesting, darling little things?), delighting in spreading their knowledge. The humans and Monsters still seem awestruck by their benevolent masters - a word they mean in the sense of 'teachers' - accepting their gifts, using their magic, and none of them will so much as whisper a complaint. Not when it’s safe here. Not when all is well.

It's more than they can say for the lands outside of their paradise, even if things do happen here that the Fae do not like to hear them speak of.

Gain the trust of the natives, and you might hear rumors, whispers of a rotting pox hitting other communities far from here, or first hand accounts of how so-and-so witnessed another death just last week, a human woman blew up in town, and some of the Monsters, they been goin’ right bestial. Shh, shh, you didn’t hear it from them! (Don’t let the Fae catch you gossiping. They might just take you and the native both aside, whisper in your ears, let the magic wind its way around your brain until you don't remember any longer what you were talking about or even who you are, where you come from. You were having a good time though, right?)

You can try to leave the settlement, to explore the woods that surround it, but you’re likely to be noticed and warned: "You should stay here, make sure you don’t run into any of the unfriendly locals - they don't care for our masters."

The Emergence
Time passes strangely in a dream. It might feel like a handful of hours, or even a few days, before a change can be felt all throughout the strange, unsettling paradise. If you’ve had a recent brush with it in the waking world, you might recognize the signature of it - the Cwyld. Something in the air feels very wrong, like a chill in the middle of summer, a sudden warm wind in winter; the plant life beneath your very feet begins to blacken in color, with near-indiscernible white lines marring their surfaces, and no matter who you are, no matter the pride you may take in your courage, a shiver raises every hair on your body without fail: Something wicked this way comes.

The wellspring of magical energy flowing like a river beneath your feet takes on a new feeling when you try to draw from it, a dark and heavy sensation, oily and creeping. Reaching for the magic, it feels as though you're reaching into hollow darkness, dried up and consumed, and the disparate plants of different seasons, growing alongside each other, begin to bulge grotesquely and burst, splattering an unknown black substance over anything unfortunate enough to be in the splash zone. Possibly even you. Don't pass under the fruit trees. The infection has seeped into the overtapped leyline, and it bleeds through the settlement quickly, much quicker than it seems to move in the current-day waking world. The plant life, with their roots dug deep into the earth, are only the first casualty, as it spreads rapidly to the animals, and then the natives, blackening and tainting everything it touches.

The village is thrown into chaos. Fae and any who seem to have Dragon in them are the first to show signs of infection, blackened veins visible under paling skin and white film growing over the eyes. Bodies grow brittle and twisted the more it spreads and settles in. Humans with an abundance of magic are the next to lose themselves to it, quickly followed by other Monsters. While in the waking world, infection spreads more slowly, here, it can be almost instantaneous, the process of becoming a Shade, losing all sense of self.

They have no resistance to the Cwyld, and in this dream, neither do you. You're just as susceptible to the infection, and some may find themselves succumbing to the infection spreading to the heart and pumping itself through their veins. Becoming a Shade is a painful experience, a painful existence, as the life is snuffed out of you and your body keeps going. In this dream, you might be lucky (or unlucky) enough to keep your wits about you, to remain sentient and somewhat yourself - or you might become one of the mindless, violent many whose only directive is to spread the Cwyld to everything that lives, including your fellow dreamers. Even if you do stay aware of yourself, it is hard to resist the pull of the Cwyld on your mind, urging you to spread and infect, to leave nothing whole and living.

Before your eyes, the settlement begins to die. You can't help anyone who is already infected, even if you know healing spells that work in the waking world, unless you're willing to put them out of their misery before they become a Shade corrupted beyond all assistance. You might be busier trying to save your fellow Mirrorbound, though, as they try to avoid that fate themselves or fall prey to it in front of you.

And while the earth and plants and people around them turn black and fall to ruin, any of the Fae who managed to remain untainted simply flee, running from the settlement without stopping to help anyone in need, not even the students who so looked up to them.

Note: Becoming a Shade in this prompt is optional, and Mirrorbound Shades may keep their minds or not at player discretion! Infection will not carry over out of the dream. Dying in the dream will put your character back at the edge of the village, uninfected and alive again, to witness the rest of its downfall.

Light It Up
Help comes in an unexpected, unwanted form. Those unfriendly locals the residents of this village spoke of previously appear through the morning mists, shrouded in clumsy protections like masks and gloves, and practical, non-flashy spells. The group is made up of grim-faced humans and Monsters, a surprisingly cohesive unit of people who look out for each other as they make their way through the woods with torches held aloft. They are hardier than those indulged, magic-glutted folks who suffer now. These newcomers are dressed more practically, for working land or fighting battles, but they, too, have humans among them who can harness their magic. Their witches keep their torches lit, and work closely with their Monsters, helping each other in a way that will not feel unfamiliar.

They've come today, they'll say if you get a chance to speak with them, however briefly (they're a little busy to answer too many questions), to try and stop this blight on the land before it can reach their village, some miles to the south. They've seen it before, though never this severe. This Cwyld will spread and spread, until there is nothing left.

Best to burn it all down before its tendrils creep too far, before its roots dig too deep.

They fight and destroy the Shades however they can, showing no mercy, though their spells are crude and simple, and their Monsters use their natural forms without any showy abilities, depending on claws and teeth and strength to do their jobs. Working together, with simple weapons in their hands, they are formidable. Even if you kept your mind, kept your speech, they will not let you live if you were infected - and may not let you live even if you weren’t infected, just to be safe. You may join them, if you wish, help them burn down the blackened trees or even Shades that were once people - or you may fight them, but they won't relent. They burn the whole settlement down, leaving wide patches of scorched earth like blackened scars on the land. It’s the only way, they say, from their limited experience. Everything must return to the earth.

As the settlement goes up in flames fully, they retreat, only remaining long enough to ensure the fire stays where it needs to stay, and will not spread to uninfected forest. For those of you who were completely uninfected and may have thus been spared, they are still unwelcoming and will not allow you to travel back to their own village with them, threatening with swords and flames any who are too insistent. They aren't too keen to talk, but you may get a few answers out of them, the basics - some of their parents originally lived here, learned magic from the Fae, though when they saw the dangers, they left, believing that such power should be used more sparingly, more responsibly. Against the Fae, if at all possible, and against their destructive ways. It was just a matter of time, they thought, until calamity struck, and lo.

You just saw what happens, what that much magic can call down in divine retribution. How magic itself fights back against the excesses of those who would abuse it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Fit to Burst

Charlenor has never been in the Emerald Dream before!

That's assuming what this is. He's certain it's a dream, and there's something about the architecture and even the people that suggest to him that this must, in fact, be the sleeping dreamworld of the Emerald Dragonflight and their allies. And given a new place, somewhere he's only heard of in tales and could wonder about but little else, he is taking his time.

And he's painfully noticeable, even in a place such as this. Although his choice of clothing (what little of it there is) is nearly as fantastical, it tilts in a different direction, edged in sharp glowing edges and stirring in unfelt breezes, leaving a great deal of his mana-tattooed skin bare to the rapidly changing weather aside from a delicate crisscrossing of decorative silver chains, and he carries a sword openly across his back. Even that glows with its own eerie radiance, all tilted towards a purplish white. A cat the size of a small lion follows in his wake, sky blue and etched likewise in swirling, glowing runes, seemingly as curious as he is. Both look this way and that, the manasaber occasionally daring to inch closer to sniff something exceptionally unusual though Charlenor's managed to keep his hands to himself quite well so far.

So far being the operative term.

"I say," he declares brightly as soon as he spots someone who looks as out of place as he is, "This Dream really is something, isn't it? I expected more dragons though!" In spite of the sword and the enormous predator at his side, he certainly sounds friendly, and his demeanor likewise doesn't show much sign of deception or even concern about all of this.

Emergence

There's concern later though.

A lot of concern, as black poison begins warping people as soon as they come in contact with it.

He's been in Val'sharah, he's seen what the Nightmare can do, and this is close enough for him that the elf is not going to play games with it. He is however doing what he can to keep others out of the way; as the taint spreads, or fattening fruits prepare to burst and soak everything in rotting horror, Charlenor doesn't even hesitate to bodily grab whoever or whatever is within risk and drag them away as quickly as he can manage. He's a lot stronger than his thin frame might suggest, too, but a few bruises are surely better than the poisonous stain spreading rapidly wherever it can touch.

But the Nightmare had been defeated, hadn't it? Hadn't it?

The manasaber's efforts to pull someone out of a splatter zone doesn't go as well, and the cat recoils with a hiss of alarm as black sweeps up the faun she'd grabbed, twisting and distorting what had once been a friendly form. "Abella, leave it!"

[Will match format! I haven't decided on witch or monster yet, so please leave a note if you're okay with me adding it in as we go; dreams are weird after all. Or decide for me for TDM purposes, and I'll roll with it!]

Edited 2021-03-07 02:04 (UTC)

Ciri had also been attempting to help the Faun, rushing toward them when she noticed the individual had fallen in their flight-- but she's grabbed before she can get close enough and summarily yanked back with surprising strength. She doesn't take it well.

"Unhand me!" Ciri snarls, attempting to jerk her arm free and shove away the person holding her. Just then, the plant explodes, and the strange catlike creature seems to barely avoid the black spray as well, retreating as the ichor covers the poor Faun.

Its form begins to darken and twist unnaturally almost immediately, oily shadows covering fur and wrapping around horns and hooves. It howls, a shrill and piercing cry of terror and pain. And hunger.

(( ooc: feel free to experiment with witch or monster in our thread as you wish! ciri is technically a monster but doesn't have the changes, so she'd just look human. ))

"No! The Nightmare has it!" There's an edge of panic in the nightborne's voice as he works on pulling Ciri away, who is putting way more of a struggle than he expects. "We don't have enough healers to take that on!" Or someone in armor to draw its attention, or more people with weapons and spells to do the damage. That it's pulling a human away, or one that looks like a human, and not leaving her to her fate as any proper Horde member might ... well. The humans helped his people too, just as selflessly.

Charlenor's pull is insistent. It's possible to break away, but as the faun is crippled by the Cwyld and screams in hunger and suffering, one strangely scaly, feather-edged hand loosens to reach back and draw the black and silver sword across his back, the rune-marked manasaber slinking back to his side, belly to the ground. "We must go, quickly! The Nightmare is contagious, and if it takes you, without the druids there is no coming back!"

Ciri stops struggling; it's too late for the Faun now.

"I don't know what this 'Nightmare' is, but it's clear this curse or sickness or whatever the blackness is has gotten hold of that poor creature. You're right."

She sounds unhappy about agreeing, but she does agree at last, with a grim expression and a movement to draw her own sword from her back.

"Let's go."

"..." She doesn't know? How can she not know? How could any--

Oh right, the entire Alliance wasn't necessarily involved in everything, it was absolutely possible she had no idea! ... To be addressed later, when they're not being drooled at by a creature that once was a person and now was just a warped image.

On the bright side they have very similar ideas of appropriate weaponry for this. There's a low muttered word to the manasaber in his native tongue and the creature huddles where it is, ears pinned, staying still. "I ...can't risk my Abella on this, so face tanking it is." Face what? "Please take advantage."

Apparently that means frontal attack, for he pulls out a tiny crossbow with a nauseatingly poisonous smell to its equally tiny arrow, and shoots the thing - which immediately draws its attention with a shriek of pain and hunger, a greenish glow briefly crawling from the spot where the arrow hit. He jogs to the side, intending to see if he can lure it enough away where Ciri has an exposed back to deal with and not misshapen claws and most of its attention; it follows, lunging with a vicious swipe only barely blocked with the black and silver sword. The manasaber nearly rises in an aborted lurch before settling back down, teeth bared and quivering with the effort to obey.

Edited 2021-03-25 02:04 (UTC)

Ciri's not entirely sure what he means, exactly, and some of the wording is unfamiliar to her-- but battle is familiar as it gets, and she's comfortable finding the opening in the creature's guard, realizing what her impromptu companion is hinting at. She's wary of the cat, but understands it's an ally apparently. Moving in counterpoint to both of her current allies, she ducks around behind the shadowy beast when it lunges.

Her intent had been to help the person it had been a few minutes ago, but she has fought a few of these by now. She knows there's no other choice once they're consumed. In her heart, she offers up a silent apology. But she does what needs done without hesitation.

With a powerful slash of her own silver sword, Ciri aims to sever the monster's spine at the waist, above its shadowy-distorted goat's legs.

The danger of the Shade is its infection, which seems to spread even where its hooves touch the ground, nauseating little patches of blackness slowly creeping along the dirt. It isn't more resilient suddenly, simply more unconcerned with harm, and as Ciri's sword bites deep, it shrieks and tosses its horned head, twisting to lash at her with claws as well, only to leave an opening for Charlenor to likewise strike from the front as its legs weaken from underneath it. If the spine hasn't been severed, it's certainly damaged badly - but that's not blood leaking out in fetid rivulets.

Its struggles turn feeble very quickly, but the fact that it is indeed still struggling is somehow grotesque on its own, scrabbling at the ground and at the air in the desperate effort to get at either of its attackers. More of those toxic little darts are put to use, but watching the way the taint spreads even upon the ground, the Nightborne is reluctant to get close again.

"'Ware the ground, stranger." That.. that's not the only threat going on either, even if it's incapacitated and slowly dying; there's other screams, more panic, and ... is that fire in the distance? He steps back and away, teeth bared in a grimace of mixed horror and disgust. "I.." Uncertainty, hesitation-- "I'm .. going to do what I can, this is .. the Nightmare is everywhere. You should run while you can." He scrubs his face with one hand, grimacing. "But if you'd rather stay, I don't care if you're human, help is help."

Scandalous words, and ones that would earn him a rightful attack from many of his allies, but this is more important than that.

The beast screams and flails wildly, but Ciri is fast, spinning away in a pirouette that deftly brings her sword around to the other side for a second strike across its ribcage, underneath one thrashing arm.

She sees the shadows too, and heeds the warning with a grunt, leaping back and landing in a half-crouch like a coiled snake ready to spring. Sword still raised, she waits a beat, only to be sure the beast they're fighting is truly down. But it's not the only one.

"Run where?" She scoffs, shaking her head, tossing the wisps of white-gray hair from her eyes. "No. I won't run. If you'll deign to fight beside a human--" (though she can't tell what he is, it's said with a faintly mocking tone) "--then I'm of the same opinion. There are people in there who are far less equipped to help themselves. Go. I'll watch your back."

"Away/ The Dream is vast, it can't be everywhere." Surely not! Not that she was really asking, but he answers anyway, because she might change her mind and lingering ... lingering might come with a death sentence, and he knew humans didn't really last long. She might be very.. very young. Too young to die to the Nightmare.

He shakes his head, hunting something to wipe his sword on briefly. "I haven't forgotten what your people did for mine. I don't think any of us ever will, our allies aside we will be forever grateful." And he means it, there's something in his tone and bearing that conveys some level of earnestness. There's a long story there and... Ciri won't know it. She's not from the right planet, and isn't even the right kind of human. He turns, listening, head tilted, for whatever might be closest, and plunges into the growing smoke and mayhem. The manasaber springs up and follows him without hesitation. "But we are Horde now, and all that requires of us!"

Blood and honor, blah blah blah - he's going to settle more strongly on the opinion he owes the world a vast debt, and would see it paid if he can. This time when Charlenor makes a grab for a struggling monster and yanks hard back and away, it's before one of those disgusting exploding fruits can splatter them both with Cwyld. He makes a brief gesture at the swelling, putrescent plant, the runes etched on his own skin flaring bright - but no magic happens. This earns a hiss of displeasure; something's gone wrong. "Don't suppose you're a fire mage?"

Ciri doesn't question it; now isn't the time. She doesn't try to explain she isn't from here (and hasn't entirely caught on yet that he isn't either), but she's a bit more used to meeting people from different worlds than most. She's also no stranger to battles, and not foolish enough to try to hold any sort of in-depth conversation in the middle of one. Whatever Horde he's decided they're both part of, all she really cares about is getting out in one piece -- and if they can help a few of the villagers on the way, even better.

"If you say so," she agrees again with a noise that sounds almost like a laugh, though not a rude one. The earnestness is charming, even if they don't seem to be exactly on the same page in all the details. At least where it matters, though, they're in sync enough.

Once again, Ciri dodges the spatter of the plant, moving with amazing swiftness for a human -- though not the magical kind. She finds she can't do that anymore.

"'fraid not. Are you supposed to be? Something wrong with your magic?"

The monster pulled out of the way, a vaguely battish, pale woman, seems awfully grateful regardless when she sees what the Cwyld is doing and wisely flees as soon as she's let go. Maybe she'll even make it out of town, if one of the Shades doesn't get her.

"It's not working at all." Which is impossible for a nightborne! They lived and breathed magic! That it isn't working at all, that he can't even sense it ambiently is frightening in a way this hellscape isn't, but he has mundane skill to back up the lack at least. And some clever little goblin toys that can at least do something about the lack of fire.. "What did they do to the leylines?"

It can't be a problem with him, or have anything to do with the feathers he sports. He rolls a number of tiny spiked balls in his hands before offering them to Ciri. "Here. Throw these at something and they'll explode, hopefully cause a fire. I have more." Where? Where on his utter lack of baggy clothing was he keeping those?? He has no idea if it'll work against everything but fire's a fantastic way to get rid of plants, and there's a lot of those infected right now.

That there's outsiders who have the exact same idea of 'burn it' isn't yet known, but to demonstrate one of the wildfire bombs is thrown at the bloated, infected plant. It does indeed explode, and is engulfed in flames in the doing, little flaming bits of Cwyld-tainted plant scattering in a small radius. This time at least, it's not spreading further.

Now that's an unusual looking cat.

In truth, it is the manasaber and not Charlenor himself that catches Vex'ahlia's attention, the bright runes and unusual fur colouring turning her head in the professional interest of a ranger. Not that he's easy to miss once the beast catches up to it's master, and the half-elf turning dragon scoffs very slightly at the declaration from the taller, broader blue elfman.

"Oh, they exist. Here, that is. Just probably not here at the moment."

Mind you, Vex never thought to look into what past relations between the Fae and Dragons had been back in the day. Perhaps she'd work on correcting that when she woke up.

She sidles up beside him, her head tilting; silver scales are evident at her throat and at the corners of her eyes. Ridges peek through dark hair, with bright blue feathers visible at her temples. She has more scales along her arms, fingers ending in sharp claws, and though she lacks wings, a long tail tapering to a sharp point flicks behind her.

"Do dragons often show up in dreams where you're from?"

Ah, that just proves what he was certain of, that this is the Emerald Dream. He nods slightly, as if this explanation solidifies everything; he'll still have to keep an eye out, he's only really ever seen blue dragons, the green ones however.. it would be proper to offer some token of respect when he's in their domain!

What, exactly, Vex even is eludes Charlenor. There's something of the elf there, but elves don't generally have scales, feathers or tails for that matter. The result of illusion? If it's an illusion.. what is she hiding beneath it?

"Dragons control the dream, as far as I have ever heard," is the easy enough explanation. She hasn't attacked him, so either she has no hatred for the Nightborne or she's simply not with the Alliance - either way he'll take it. "But while it is their domain, I have never encountered one there. I admit I'm also not usually this ... lucid ... in my sleep."

Lucid might not be the right word by his uncertain tone. All of this is terribly strange and he's not usually that ... inventive. The manasaber settles in a light crouch at his side, watching Vex'ahlia with steady glowing eyes. He turns a hand palm-up, frowning at it. It looks normal enough to him. "The magic here, the leylines and ambient mana.. it's invigorating but there's something not quite right. I don't know why I would dream such a thing."

Edited 2021-03-18 14:00 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

☆ TDM: MARCH

Charlenor Arsenault | World of Warcraft OC

emergence.

I am very sorry for the delay, iRL went bonkers on me. :(

honestly, same... :( thanks for waiting!

And to think, tomorrow is when apps 'close' for a month. Eek!

right? aah!!

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Fit To Burst

I apologize for the delay. :(