dagung | TDM: July

Entry tags:

* tdm

TDM: July

Test Drive: July

All threads can be considered game canon,

the prompts and test drive itself will be

• 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.
• 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

a. is it any wonder that my mind's on fire [controlled burn]

Gotta run gotta run gotta—it's thrumming in her head like a mantra that she can't remember focusing on, and yet all Emerald can do is stand there and watch as the forest screams around her. There's danger here, the kind of danger that she hasn't seen in years, the kind of danger that... that fire always helped her escape from. That fire pulled her out of. She needs to get to the fire. Even if that's what the trees are telling her (how are the trees telling her anything?) she already knows because of who she is that fire means safety and warmth as much as it means death and destruction.

So why won't her legs move? They feel heavier than they were before but not in a—maybe in a bad way. It's really hard to tell when she can't turn her head to look at them because the fire is playing off her golden eyes (she knows they're gold but have they always been?) and making her lock up. Freeze in place, even though every fiber of who she is knows she has to run. She has to not be here why can't she move somebody help her.

b. is it any wonder that my joke's an iron [staging area]

She's... safe. Finally. With the help of whoever managed to get her out of there (everything's a blur nothing feels entirely real right now) Emerald Sustrai is sitting in a clearing and trying to take stock of who she is now. What she's turned into. At least the persistent buzzing feeling in the back of her head has stopped, the thing telling her that she should be anxious and ready to move at any second. For however much good that did her back in the forest.

She has gold eyes and her arms and legs are covered in fur, and something about her mouth doesn't exactly feel right. Her teeth aren't falling out like in some of her dreams, no, but they're... growing? They grew a little bit. Like her fingernails did, but not nearly as much. And her legs don't look much stronger, but they feel... ha, like Mercury's probably do. Gods. Why is she thinking about him right now when there's so much else going on?

Her hand reaches out towards the nearest passerby amid this peaceful little clearing. "I need you to tell me what's going on here," she says, and she wishes her voice were more confident. But there's a lot of things happening right now that she wish weren't.

Edited 2019-07-18 03:18 (UTC)

"You wanna die or what?"

The harsh question comes with someone reaching to grab Emerald's shoulder to give her a rough, sharp shake, as though the action might be enough to snap her out of whatever trance she's fallen into. The man the question comes from looks -- strange, himself. Viper-like eyes, a face marred with the scars of old injury, but most strikingly, the long, dark-tipped lapine ears that extend up from his head. His clawed hand tightens its grip, as though to make the point.

"We can't stay here."

It sure as hell gets her attention, and as her head whips around, as she's pulled out of this instinctive reaction that definitely didn't exist thirty minutes ago (did this forest?), everything seems to sink in all at once. She gasps, ignoring the smoke for as long as she can, and looks up at the person gripping her shoulder.

"Where do we go once we get through the fire?" she asks like there's a real answer to that. It's a stupid question and she ignores it as soon as it's out of her mouth. "Lead the way. Let's go."

Even if he's not outright panicking, Lambert's own emotions are ratcheting high, lending a sharp jerkiness to his movements, his ears still near-flat to his skull. His stride is long, a little odd -- glancing down, the culprit is probably the fact that he's awkwardly adjusting to having hare's feet attached to human legs. Once he's satisfied that she's no longer spacing out, he'll turn to start moving through the underbrush.

"Stay low," he instructs, still speaking in a low snarl -- or maybe that's just from breathing in smoke. "Smoke rises. You wanna stop choking on it, keep your head down."

Part of him wants to call what he's feeling right now instinct ... the more rational part of his mind right now wants to scoff and call it what it is, dumb luck. Because somehow, despite the unfamiliar, uneven environment, he's managing to pick a path that's clear of the worst of the hazards so far, following the urge in him that tugs at him to step here, or move there. He knows how to get himself through a fire, but this is something different, urging him onward.

Emerald doesn't have time to scoff; she knows more about fire firsthand than anybody else on Remnant, even though this sure as hell isn't Remnant anymore and that's definitely not true anyway. She's following her unexpected savior, tracing his steps with her body bent over at the waist to avoid breathing in too much smoke while her lungs and heart pound against her ribcage.

"What the hell happened here?" she asks breathlessly, trying extremely intelligently to use her valuable oxygen for talking instead of running. "Where am I?" There are. Better times to ask these questions, but she's not going to let that stop her.

“I’ve got no fucking idea,” Lambert answers, decisively, and rather obviously, also making intelligent use of his breath to bitch. The two swords strapped on his back ride up and down as they scramble on through.

“But you don’t need to think about it long to know it was bad shit.”

Yeah. Okay. Cool. At least he has the same dumb ideas as her. Emerald looks up, tries to piece some things together about who he is—a Hunter, maybe? He definitely seems like he has his head on right, and he looks equipped for it, even if the weapons are a lot more normal-looking than her own guns around her hips. Maybe he's just really good at hiding how they transform or something.

"You don't know anything either?" she asks. "Who even are you?" Like this is the right time. She tries pushing herself to be more at his side, but it's not working, she's looking too much at him than where she's going—

And whatever's keeping him from avoiding the worst of things doesn't seem to have kicked in for her yet. Her foot catches on some piece of debris and she ends up pitching forward and throwing out her arms to catch herself before she smashes her face on the ash-covered forest floor.

Emerald Sustrai | RWBY | Monster (Puca)

a. controlled burn

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B

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Controlled Burn I missed you!

you can't get rid of me that easy

\o/

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A. I'm so sorry

please NEVER apologize

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