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TDM: July
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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 will be touched on later in-game, so it's fairly important to note! Aside from that, here are some quick reminders:• Reserves Open Today! If you're interested in securing a spot, put one in! We accept applications without reserves too, of course. Reserves will expire three days before the end of the application period, on the 28th.With that taken care of...
• Applications Open The 24th! These will last until the end of the month, the 31st, with the intro log going on up the 1st. The application page can be found here.
• If you have any questions about the game or the world, please refer to the FAQ page; if you still have questions, feel free to ask them! For questions specific to the test drive, please ask them on the appropriate thread.
• For the purposes of the test drive, your character will have access to all magics taught by the Coven if they're a Witch, and as much of their shifted form as you'd like if they're a Monster. Feel free to play around and experiment with each!
• Test drive threads can be used as samples for your applications!
You feel like you're floating. Around you, colors and sounds and smells swirl as if trapped in a whirlpool, vibrancy and hue ever shifting. The more you watch them, the less solid they are; they only become clear out of the corner of your eye. The area around you begins to feel more solid as well, until your feet are on the ground, the wind brushes playfully against your face -
and you know one thing, and one thing alone: this is a dream, and an incredibly realistic one at that.
The Living Forest
It feels warmer than it should be. Hot, dry, dark. The sky above all but black- save for the ominous orange glow against the distant horizon. In the gloaming there’s a resonant smell of decay; of musty pine and sun-baked wood and, more worryingly, the distant scent of smoke, of ash. There’s no wind to speak of, and yet… something whispers. The shiver of leaves, the crack of dry branches- and if you listen long enough, almost… the sound of voices in the trees.
 Controlled Burn The forest you find yourself in is still alive- for now. Ash filters through the browning leaves like snow, dotting the path you’ve found yourself on in bone white fragments. Following the rustling leads it to grow all the more frantic, whispered voices speaking without words- or perhaps you simply cannot understand. You feel as though you’re being watched, the tree clusters growing thicker, tighter and- is it just your imagination, or… are they moving? Suddenly before you an old oak splits with a thunderous crack- followed by a deafening scream. Gnarled, blackened hands reach from within the tree, scraping at your clothes, agony wrought through every striation of her features as the infection spreads. Before you, the tree withers as the nymph falls into the dirt, long fingers tearing up the earth as she crawls towards you. Understanding comes to you in stark clarity: the noises through the trees are a cry for help. Before your very eyes the leaves of her once lush hair dries; cracks and breaks away, falling to join the ashen forest floor. With pleading eyes she gazes at you, before her eyes roll back, and she collapses, utterly still. And she’s not the only one; the forest is alive, the very trees reaching for you, roots clawing up to crack open the earth itself in their desperation. Don’t let them touch you, though. The infection spreads quickly. Branching through your veins and leaving your limbs sluggish, heavy, and brittle. The feeling is utterly agonizing, reminiscent of having poured molten lava into your blood. The longer the infection is left untreated, the more, and faster it spreads, the worse the pain becomes. The trees know, they whisper the truth: the only way to cleanse yourself is through the fire. |
 Creeping Fire Not all nymphs have met such a terrible fate. Not yet, at least. Some huddle together, their branching arms clinging to one another as they softly weep. Others walk willingly towards the distant orange glow with grim determination. Still others implore you with wide, fearful eyes to do something- anything to help them. Surely these new abilities you’ve found yourself with must be good for something. They lead you to a natural amphitheatre; the slow sloping blackened earth sinking into a gully bordered by a high rock wall. The heat is the most bearable here; the area cooled by the towering stone. Wilting nymphs huddle together along with sympathetic faun. Those who have skills in manipulating water are a welcome relief; these tree spirits are desperate for it. But this temporary refuge won’t last for long. The infection wants to spread. Like rabies, maddening its’ hosts and raising their aggression. And where better to draw from than the root of this sanctuary? Where the stone wall rises and provides shelter from the fire, so too does it trap these refugees in… Defend against the infected, before all hope is lost. |
 Staging Area Past the disease, the horror and cries for help, there is a genuinely quiet place. It isn’t much, compared to how things used to be, but there’s a clearing scarred at the edges with scorch marks instead of Cwyld, with the beginnings of plants sprouting once more. Baby grass clusters in small groups, small stems pushing out of the ashen ground with hopeful buds. Some earlier bloomers already casting vibrant colors to what was once a meadow. It’s serene, it’s peaceful, it’s an area that’s been cleansed by fire and Cwyld kept at bay by Witches at least a century out of fashion, though they don’t seem to respond to outside presences with how focused they are. Those taking breaks from their turn on the edge offer greetings and air worries about the spreading taking root in the forest, but (like the Fae in the first dream, for those who recall) don’t say much else unique, wondering if they’ll be able to return home anytime soon and if this was truly worth the effort. Of course it is, an older one might snap back. In a war of attrition, all efforts are worthy. However, this isn’t the only camp they’ve set up. There’s one not too far off that begins with frost and ends in a frozen area of land, sound muffled by cold and everything from the trees to nymphs so iced not even a dragon’s flame could melt it. Inquiries about this area result in some sheepish looks, and the answer of how some Witches became a little excited at the idea of putting surviving nymphs and the rest of the flora into a form of dormancy and overdid it, a bit. |
Thor Odinson | MCU | Post-Endgame - some minor spoilers may happen in this thread
The world brightened and filled out and suddenly his steps had weight, and purpose and stride and... and he was dreaming. He could tell this. He had had visions before and the merging of the way this vision worked made him know this is a dream, but also more. This was a reality. He shuddered as he looked around him, the world much different than the cold metallic ship he had just been on..
As he walked, he saw trees rise up around him, and the air felt as if he had walked into part of Surtr's realm suddenly. But the sky was black and bleak and silent, and he felt like there was some darkness coming. Like a flash, on the horizon, he suddenly saw fire, or a glow that seemed like it, and he hefted his axe, and began to run toward it. As he did, he noted, in some part of his mind that he felt smaller, and itchy, as if he had been scratched all over.
The scent of ash reached his nostrils and he ran faster, feeling like he is not moving as quickly as he should, but finding that his leaps over brush seemed to meet with even more success than usual. Ash seemed to be everywhere as he ran.
A sound reached his ears like whispers and moans half heard and yet sure. And he felt he could not understand any of it, but somehow... somehow he knew it was something very bad. Something very wrong. He stopped, and moved, looking around.
"What terror is this? Who are you that seeks to strike against Thor, God of Thunder?" And he tightened his grip on his axe.,.. and suddenly realized that his reach out of will was being met by nothing. The thunder and lightning were not responding to his call.
His shock was immediate. His power had been ripped form him again! And even as he felt like the trees were moving, a mighty tree erupted before him and he fell back,. hand rising before his face, and another shock following as he stared, seeing fur on his arms, and claws on his hands.
"What manner of trickery magic is this?" He immediately would have suspected Loki, had his brother not been dead. And he roared in renewed grief and rage as his eyes fixed on hands of gnarled darkness reached out for him.
With a glad cry for having something to hit, he slammed into them with all his might, hand and axe hitting with every ounce of force he had left. But at his attack, out of the darkness came a woman darkened and hurting and looking like she was lost, he realized she was not meaning to attack, and with a cry of grief and fear, he hurled his axe away and reached for her.
The tree and the woman fell over together before he could touch them, and darkness that was as black as midnight and yet not flooded over her like a plague, and he swore an oath and fell back again, eyes wide. The entirety of the nearby forest around him seemed to cry out, and start to all flow with the same thing, also reaching from him.
"Madness! What is this plague of fear and death?"
His axe he lifted up once more and he began to cut his way free, away from the darkness and the trees that would kill him. After what felt like hours, he staggered out, and spotted someone, and something that made him feel as if release and relief had come at last.
Some nymphs huddling together, not yet dead and not yet mad cried out for his help, and he nodded.
"I will go for aid. Come with me, and let me help you." For he feared he might not be able to, but how could he resist their call? How could he fail someone again? He could not, of course, and he charged forward, running, cry8ing out his words of fear and rage.
Ahead, there is a bowl of blackened earth and a high rock-hewn wall. The heat is the most bearable thing here for the stone wall rose and seemed to provide shelter and solace both. He tapped it, touching the wall and hoping for more relief and for a cure for these beings. Nothing answered his reach.
He huddled there, and waited for a short time, breathing hard as he had not in a long time, and then rose again, and started forward, and heading toward the next area, hoping he can find something more
And he came out, suddenly, finding a small area, cleared of all trees, with strikes that looked like firefalls or lightning scars all around it. He sank to his knees within it, touching the ground with grateful hands, and he wept, now, surely, fearfully, as he changed, pain wracking him and shivers sliding along his skin, until he could not deal with it anymore.
The pain grew to a relief almost and he cried aloud, a cry that became a roaring howl, a yowling sound unlike anything he had ever done. And he raised his head, eyes gone catlike, and ears now catlike as well, and stared into the darkness, seeing farther than he had ever before as his tail snapped back and forth in his anger.
He was changed, he knew, and he knew not how this had happened, but as he pushed himself up
The axe he raised now held glowing runes that were etched on it in glowing blue light, like the lighting he had once wielded. And he rose, then, to a much shorter height, this cat-man-god and looked out across others who rested there, and outward to the chaos beyond.
"Now what?"
Re: Thor Odinson | MCU | Post-Endgame - some minor spoilers may happen in this thread
Matt is an unassuming soul, a young man with red hair standing at an even six feet. He knows he's risking his neck pissing off Thor of all people, but he earned the nickname "Daredevil" for a reason. There are two distinctive things about Matt besides the fact he has drawn some of the younger creatures to him. One is that he has a fox skin around his shoulders like a cape and the second is that his hazel eyes are completely whited out.
Matt is blind. "We don't want to make the fire worse," he explains softly, "I can smell water. Maybe we could work together to find it?"
no subject
He almost spits the words out, but relents as the man goes on. He is not so happy with this place or these people. From what he can tell, the feel of things, there is much they are not being told.
"Let us go, then. The sooner I leave this place, the better."
hello fellow thunder people
As no doubt it did from all who ended here.
Yet there is more to his interest than just shared misery. Something about the man strikes Iskandar as familiar. He's certain he never met him before. It's just that, a feeling.
"Now we rest, then we fight," He nods, his smile wide even if weary "It usually goes in that order."
Thats some very nice axe you've got there cat-man-god...
Yay, Thunder!
"It ever does, does it not? Rest, then fight, and hope to build a new dawn."
Thor examines this other, curious. There is something... drawing about this man. Hmmm.
Thor rests his hands on his axe, thinking, the axe thrumming with energy as he does.
"How long have you been here in this Dream war?"
no subject
"Wise words! I would drink to that if only I had anything other than water at my disposal."
He raises his cup anyway. There are fresh bandages on the hand that holds this cup.
"I barely just arrived so not long. Long enough to see they're not exactly winnning."
War of attrition is what the witches here called it. What else can you call it when your enemy is not a foreign army but a disease?
no subject
"Someday, we will find drink, as we shall escape this dream. I only hope the reality will be better."
no subject
He looks around. Hope. This place could really use more of it. It doesn't look, it doesn't feel like an army camp. More like a city under siege. A very desperate city.
"I know how to fight men, armies, monsters, even magic to some extent. But how does one fight a disease?"
He smiles.
"Apart from curing it. I'm sure that if the locals knew how to cure it they'd have done it a long time ago."
no subject
Thor nodded, and moved forward to a space where the disease had begun infecting one sm,all section of the cleared area, and he closed his eyes, raising the axe. He sensed within it runes and magic that had been made to reharness that which he lost, and eh smiled a angry smile as he raised it high over his head. The sky darkened with clouds. and then lightning leaped from the clouds to his axe, and as he swung it down, it slammed into the infection, burning with the rage of nature. For a long moment he held it, until he could not anymore, and the lightning faded, the clouds parting.
And where there had been infection, there was now a plant that was whole, and with but a trace of the infection remaining.
"And Until we can do that, we hold the line, with all that we are."
no subject
It has been quite a long time someone called him out like that. Using almost exactly the same words that Iskandar himself used whenever his soldiers faltered. How odd, and sobering, is to hear them directed at him. Shameful that in this dreamworld it was his spirit that wavered.
"You are right. That is what we do." Iskandar bows slightly to the man. "I was wrong to despair."
How fitting that he was scolded by another thunder god. Because Iskandar has no doubt after what he just saw that the man with the runic axe is a god. It just makes him smile wider.
"I am Iskandar, son of Zeus" he says.
No titles, nothing. There will be time to boast about one's achievement. But not yet. He can always do that later shall the circumstances happen to be right and the audience willing to hear about them.
"How should I call you?"
no subject
He looks outward, and smiles, eyes alight as if with lightning.
"There will be dark moments. I hjave had them, and we are all satruck by that fearsome devil of an enemy. But we will rise from anby moments suich as thatm, because we wil not be alone. We will not let ourselves falter, because we will have each other to help us keep going."
His hands tighten on the axe again.
"We may not win right away. We may lose, but in the end, we will carry the day. As a friend said back home. If we can't defend the world, we sure as hell will find a way to avenge it."
no subject
"Then your friend is a wise man but ..."
This might be a strange place. He might be without his army, his powers, a mortal man like he once was with only a sword in his hand. Yet he's still himself. King of Conquerors. Hegemon of Panhellenic League. King of Persia. Pharaoh of Egypt. Lord of Asia.
He smiles.
"I have never lost a battle in my life and I don't intend to start doing it now."
cried aloud (turnskin - lion)
"Fuck if I know," she responded after a moment of awkward silence where she simply leveled him with a Look that indicated she's beyond done with whatever bullshit's going on in this afterlife. A long sigh followed, and exhaustion crept in around the cracks her adrenaline had filled and bolstered a few minutes prior.
Concern etched over her features as she took a few steps closer, green eyes scanning over him critically, searching for wounds or sign of infection. There's a comforting aspect to him, and she found herself inhaling deeper the air around him, the scent of him almost familiar in a way. "Are you okay?"
no subject
Standing tall, for all his new four feet, he felt as if his body is still shifting, changing, and his clothing with it.
"This is no good dream. This nightmare rings of vision, of prescience." His voice was hoarse, but also something like a purr given voice. And it held horror in it.
"No. I am not okay. I have lost my family, my world, and my life, and now this place has stolen my body. I am not okay., but I am still here."
He lifted the axe and raised it up, the runes on it glowing a brilliant blue.
"I am Thor,. and I will not be set low." Lightning crackled over him, blue and brilliant, and where it touched the ground, the ground was burned free of the darkness, and a green health returned to it.
The lightning faded and he shuddered, feeling tired. "I am not okay. But I will survive."
no subject
It's quite a sight to behold, both beautiful and terrifying given her background as an agent who dealt in bioweapons that transformed people into monsters. He, however, didn't seem to be out of his mind.
His words hit her closer to home than he probably knew, an orphan herself at the hands of others, a secondary family that didn't want her without the government money that came with her, and now the destruction of her country and people by bioweapons, and in a way, her own hands. It's a heavy weight to carry, and there's empathy in her own eyes from that moment forth.
She's about to speak when he lifted the axe and they started to glow, her own eyes widening. Magic isn't a thing in her world. Then his name followed and she stared in disbelief as her mind stitched together information from college courses to the display and details in front of her.
This is another mix of beautiful and terrifying. Different than before.
"I believe you." The display was quite inspirational to be honest, even in her own situation. "I'm Sheva Alomar," she introduced. "And I'm fairly certain I died."
How did one survive when they're technically dead?
no subject
"Be welcome, Sheva Alomar. You are not alone."
He nodded, then cocked his head. "It is possible. Sometimes, at the edge of death, a spirit might find a new place to be drawn to. In which case you likely will wake up here, soon, very alive."
Thor smiled, tired, and unsure, but ready.
"Mayhap the powers of this world have chosen you to find a new destiny."
no subject
For the briefest of moments, she wondered if he was teasing her with such a grand gesture, but she quickly realized that this man(-cat?) was entirely genuine with a smile like that.
His words gave her pause, mind curling around the presented possibility without delving too deep. She'd think later, when she couldn't sleep and they weren't living in what felt like an outbreak zone mixed with a natural disaster. The thought of waking up from death and leaving this purgatory sounds too crazy to process right now.
But she could walk, and put herself to use.
"I was just walking patrol, if you want to join me?"
Maybe he and his massive hammer would like to put themselves to use too.
no subject
"I wonder what there is out here to discover." He hoped that there was something better than this.
He felt like he was battered, and unsure, but like he could find his way, if he kept moving. And maybe he was meant to meet this person, so as to have a path to move on.
no subject
"Only one way to find out." She sounded less eager, and more cautious. Then again, she's always been mortal. Skilled, but prone to injury if not careful.
"An electric hammer is a strange weapon of choice. It puts a stun rod to shame." Absently, she imagined how helpful such a weapon and/or power would be in Kijuju against the parasites.
no subject
"Hmmm? Well, I have a battle mallet, and a waraxe, Both are useful for different things. And the battle mallet is an honored weapon for those who have taste."
He chuckled.
"Both are forged of Uru metal, making them very tough."
that face is perfection
"For those who have taste?" Her eyebrow lifted and she couldn't help but counter with a bit of playfulness, clicking the tip of her tongue on the roof of her mouth in chiding. Clearly the sorts of weapons he wields wouldn't be suitable for her build and style of fighting.
"There's far more elegance and skill in ranged weapons."
Neither of them are biased, of course.
Re: that face is perfection
He reached back and pulled down Mjolnir, tossing it up and catching it, feeling the pull of it. "That said, all things have their place. And their proper wielders."
He grinned. "I know a man who can make a shield do more than most men with guns and arrows could dream of."
no subject
"Most, meaning not all," she pointed out while observing how he handled his hammer, noticing that there's a deep knowledge, intimacy even, there. It reminded Sheva of her bow. There's no doubt in his earlier claim when he fought with this battle mallet.
"We can agree then, that accuracy and skill are firmly in the limb of the wielder?" She expectantly glanced his direction while side-stepping a rock in the path.
She hummed. "Would he best you in combat? I'm trying to picture it..."
no subject
"Aye, in most cases. Magical items do help, as does fine craftsmanship." He nodded again. "Otherwise, aye."
He cocked his head as he clambered over a larger log, and hopped down. His whiskers twitched as he considered the idea.
"It depends on the day. And the battle. He has not yet, but could he? Mayhap. He is a mighty warrior."
no subject
"Magic doesn't exist in my... World, I guess." This multiverse, not that she knows it's that, still baffled her. "Just technology. We have a problem with biological weapons too."
Shorter as she might be, the young woman hoisted herself up and over the log. She's just a human, but the added feline part of her made up the difference the exhaustion depleted. A chilly breeze brought out a sudden shiver as they continue forward, the smell of snow furrowing her brow.
She smiled. "All it takes is one time. Do you smell that?"