dagung | ☆ TDM: MARCH

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* 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

[Alucard's weapon of choice is at least as same as it ever is in this dreamscape. A long sword, all too sharp, perfectly weighted in his hands. It wasn't on him when he was teased by fae (their opinions on his appearance devolved into a debate about long hair or a cute bob, he still doesn't know what to make of it), but it's here now.

Beasts like this are second nature to him at this point in his life. Night creatures from home are similar in size and behavior, and there's a comfort in that fact. In fact, he's moving forward with all too sure footing when--

--For the love of. No one does this.

He has to move to allow her blow to land, but there's no grace in the reply he offers. The antler may go flying, but now the thing is bucking. Wild. Angry.

The worst possible fucking option.]

Were you intending to de-antler the thing or were you aiming for the neck?!

[There's no hiding the anger in his voice, and the dhampir is quick to put distance between himself and the thing.]

I had a perfectly good line of sight with the thing's neck!

Then fucking get in there and cut its head off, if you're so smart!

[ Ciri snaps back without even looking at him, and without answering his first question. She dodges one of the flailing hooves with a roll, and unfurls like a striking cobra, sword-first. The leg goes flying. Ciri doesn't stop moving, ducking around its opposite side to avoid the spray of black. ]

Just don't get any of that blood on you.

No, I'm going to take a bath in infected blood!

[Alucard's happy to show that he can multitask - being an asshole and doing more than chopping off limbs. There's a low snarl as he considers the movement of the creature, and how the flying leg is likely to impact the thing from here on out.

It bows low, trying to sort out how to balance on three legs and being in great pain. There's a bellow, the head moves just enough to expose an artery and--

--there.

The dhampir mutters something, boosting his speed. (He still hates having to rely on magic to replace the natural abilities he lost in becoming a Witch here.) His sword's edge finds purchase in the neck, but there's always the threat of blood spray in such a movement.

No threat this time. It happens as Alucard draws a line across the thing's throat. He calls no warning, he only assumes sense.]

[ Ciri scoffs audibly, annoyed, but doesn't waste her breath bickering further at the moment. The Shade is lilting right toward him, and she's already sliding out of the way.

No warning is needed; after telling him the exact same thing, Ciri is sure to be well out of the way of any blood.

The problem is, unfortunately, that more Shades area already rushing in to replace the beast that falls in the lake of its own black blood with a dull thud and a fading scream.

Ciri tightens her grip on her sword's hilt with both hands and faces toward the next wave of monsters. ]

Incoming.

[Alucard says nothing as the thing falls. His eyes instead snap up, considering where his sudden comrade currently is. Far enough away, that'll be enough.

Incoming, she says, and Alucard's eyes move to the direction. There's a soft noise, and then consideration for their surroundings. There's a stone wall to the young woman's right. There's an idea.]

See if you can direct them that way. [He tips his head in the wall's direction.] I'll be waiting, and we can close in on them from two sides once that's done.

Got it!

[ Instead of waiting for the small group of Shades to get closer, Ciri dashes forward to start herding them in. Thankfully, though there are a handful of them, they aren't nearly as large as the other beast-- even if they aren't any less crazed and frantic.

She darts around their backs, hacking with quick swipes of her sword from the rear and side to enrage them, then running around the front of them to lead them on. ]

[Ciri moves in one direction, Alucard bolts in the other. He knows how this next part needs to play out, and it is the easiest thing in the world to do.

His eyes catch the technique, but only for a moment. There's no time to admire or offer comment on the approach being used. There is only waiting, standing atop the wall ~~because he's a dramatic fuck~~ until the first of the Shades approaches. It sees him.

It rears up.

It gets a sword in the eye for it's troubles. Alucard says nothing in response to missing his target, there's only battling against horns to ensure that his sword finds purchase in the thing's neck.

The Shade howls. There's a squelch. Then nothing.

Alucard's eyes flick up only once, trying to count how many are left.]

[ Trying to herd them against the wall is a good strategy, but even mindless beasts have instincts; they catch on to the trap and try to scatter. Ciri presses in from the sides and the rear in tighter and tighter formation, darting in between the Shades instead of trying to run farther from them, forcing two of them to nearly crash into each other as they try to chase her.

She's fast, moving like a dancer, spinning around in effortless pirouettes that drive her sword in wide arcs that can slash through more than one monster at a time in close quarters. The deftness with which she avoids the spatters of blood speaks of skill in that particular detail as well, though in the past it's been more out of dislike over getting blood on her clothing when possible, and not mortal danger. Close enough.

While her companion fells the Shades nearest the wall, Ciri takes care of two more trying to peel away in the rear, leaving only another two between them. ]

I'm about to break this tie. Race you! [ she challenges, shooting him a cocky smirk. ]

[Ciri's technique is remarkable, that much Alucard can process in the few glances up that he manages to make. The way she's able to correctly guess bloodspray is not only artful, but accurate. Clearly honed over the years.

But to the offer of a race, there's only a disapproving noise, lost over a shade leaping atop the wall and the narrow ledge Alucard occupies. He can work with the space, but he is not making death into a competition. It doesn't sit right.]

Simply focus! is the only response he gets, backing up as the Shade begins to use it's horns to force Alucard further and further back.]

[ All right. So he's a spoilsport, should've seen that coming. ]

I am focusing! [ Ciri snaps back, dropping any attempt at banter and dashing forward to help him when she realizes he's getting driven back further on the wall.

If he can't get a clear shot at its throat, the Shade is so distracted by its prey atop the wall that just being the decoy is enough. Ciri gets under it with relative easy, slicing through its belly before rolling away quickly to once again avoid the blood.

Unfortunately, this time she rolls right under the hooves of another of those creatures, this time something like a shadow-slicked horse. Normally, she'd use her sword to kill the creature, but the position at the moment means she wouldn't be able to escape the blood spatter. She has to protect her head and try to dodge or roll free. ]

[Professional kill joy. Can't be helped.

But the quiet is appreciated, letting Alucard focus on the shades that have proven that he alone isn't enough. He's pretty good bait, all things considered, and watching the thing go down from such a precise strike is something deeply appreciated.

She rolls the wrong way. Alucard's swift as he moves to knock the thing off balance. It rears just as the dhampir slams into it from the side, the two of them tumbling perpendicular to Ciri's current position.]

Unharmed?!

[ It gives her enough of an opening to crawl free and jump back up to her feet, sword gripped tight in both hands once more. ]

I'm fine!

[ She yells back, not without gratitude, and jumps back into the fray while the both of them are still on the ground. ]

Get clear!

[ If ALucard can get out of the way fast enough, Ciri intends to jump on top of the Shade and pin it through the throat with her sword. If he's too slow, she's prepared to distract it instead. ]

Understood!

[There's a spell muttered, and Alucard's departure is sped along for it. It is more than enough space for Ciri to do as she intends, and moreover, it is a distraction for the two remaining shades. Weird too fast moving thing? Must investigate!

The dhampir's confident as the larger of the two approaches, taking inspiration from the stomp attempt of it's fellow. Alucard ducks, then rolls under the thing as it approaches, sword behind him. The thing's belly is slit as the sword moves, the splatter all behind Alucard's figure.]

[ They make a pretty decent team, she thinks, as he moves swiftly to take care of the monsters still left. It gives her the chance to jump at full speed as she'd intended, leaping into the air and landing sword-first on the Shade. Her blade slides with a hiss and a crack into the creature's neck and right through its spine beneath.

Careful not to get any of its blood on her when she yanks it free and stands back up, Ciri looks around quickly to survey the situation. ]

[There's enough corpses around for the flow of blood to be a true cause for concern. Alucard himself? He's taken refuge on the wall, the few spots of splatter on it easy enough to avoid.

He's appreciative of that final move though. Not only for the speed, but because it has the precise level of drama that he indulges in from time to time, but only when he feels safe and confident enough in a fight to do so.

Impressive that she feels that way about this particular set of circumstances.]

I don't see any more incoming from up here.

Oh, good.

[ Ciri breathes a sigh of relief for the moment, in that case, and with a powerful swing of her sword shakes most of the blood from it off to the side. The rest, she wipes carefully on some grass, making sure not to touch it, but she doesn't yet sheathe the blade. ]

I'm not keen on running into more of those beasts, but there are people in there who could probably use a hand. I'm going to sweep the houses nearby, see if we can get anyone out. Coming?

(( ooc: sorry about the delay! ok with wrapping up after this? they can split up or we can fade out with them going through the houses together. up to you! ))

--Very well.

[Alucard doesn't quite share the sigh of relief, but this entire situation seems to have hit a lull. He'll take that, as well as the opportunity to find a clean cloth and remove the blood from his own sword.]

((no worries, I had a heck of a week at work that killed any tagging drive on my end. As much as I'm enjoying these two I think concluding here is the best possible option! I had a lot of fun too, thank you for threading with me.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

☆ TDM: MARCH

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