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Well Mod ([personal profile] wellie) wrote in [community profile] wellcome2023-07-19 04:51 pm
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3.0 Test Drive Meme

3.0 Test Drive Meme

Welcome to Well! Characters arrive a little differently this month (see the first prompt). Your character arrives this month in the middle of the formless desert with only a handful of memories, clad in old west style clothes of your choosing, with no items from home.

Anyone is free to play on the TDM, but you need an invite to apply. Feel free to use these prompts, and interact with the arrival or locations. NPCs are around, but only say a certain set of phrases. TDMs can be considered game canon.

This TDM takes place from the first week of August onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during August and September. This will be the only TDM for August, September, and October.

Applications are open July 26th until August 1st, and August 27th until September 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.

A Little Lost
Content warnings: heat exhaustion, feelings of unreality

You wake up in a sea of sand. It’s hot, and dry, and it seems to go on forever. You don’t remember much about yourself except your name and a handful of memories that most likely aren’t useful right now.

The sand slip-slides under your feet with every step. Sun beats down heavy and hot on your neck and your head. You’re so thirsty. How did you get here? How long have you been walking? Where are you headed? You can’t know. You feel like you’ve been walking forever, but the sun stays high above you, like it’s always noon. It may have been hours, it may have been mere minutes. What are those things circling in the sky above you? Vultures? That can't mean anything good.

Eventually, you find someone else, another new arrival, maybe, or a resident of the town who may have wandered a little too far into the desert. Maybe they have some water on them? Either way, company is exactly what you need right now, because there sure isn’t anything else in this desolate place. Not a cactus, not an animal, not even hints of a town.

Once you’re together, it seems a little easier to move forward. Time starts to move, too. The sun dips in the sky, your feet tread through the sand, and together, eventually you find the town.

If you take too long after you find one another, and the sun sets, be careful. Cacti sprout up closer to town, and after the sun sets, the cacti start to move, and they seem hungry for blood.

tl;dr:
  • This time, new arrivals wake up lost in the middle of a vast desert.
  • There's too much sun, too much sand, vultures circling and too little water.
  • Finding each other makes time start again, and lets you find the town.
  • If you don't make it back to town before nightfall, vicious living cacti appear to attack you.

Face Your Fears
Content warnings: hallucinations, reality shifts

In this town, fear soaks the hot, dry air. It lurks in shadows and the corners of rooms, waiting for their moment. What is it that you fear? Monsters? Disappointing your parents? Maybe you’re afraid that everyone you love will leave you, or that you’ll end up alone. Whatever it is, right now, there’s a chance of becoming very real.

It happens suddenly. Your mind drifts. You lose focus on what you were doing, and when you look up again, the world around you has shifted. What was a nice lunch with a new friend or a fun visit to the saloon becomes a nightmare. What fear manifests is totally up to you, and it can be different every time. The person beside you could become a monster you think is trying to attack you, or you could be suddenly alone in a cold dark space, desolate and empty.

Whatever horror your mind conjures up for you, it will feel real in all ways and with all senses including, of course, your perception of pain. As far as you know, you’re trapped in a nightmare with no way out.

Except, of course, there is a way out: you just need to figure out that it isn’t real. Maybe you’re strong enough to do that on your own; maybe you’ll need help from a friend or a new pal, reaching through the illusion to pull you back. After all, these hallucinations are entirely in the mind of the beholder: to everyone around you, it sure just looks like you’re yelling at your pancakes!

tl;dr:
  • You start hallucinating that the things you fear most are actually happening to you.
  • These fears feel like real, concrete sensory experiences, even though they're only happening in your head.
  • You can escape by recognizing that what's happening isn't real, either on your own or with help.



Bullrider
Content warnings: mild bovine coercion, alcohol

Come on, hot stuff. You know you want to.

Bet you can’t stay on for more than half a minute.

You don’t look too tough.

You think you can tame me?


In the saloon, you hear a voice in your head. It calls to you, the words seductive and enticing: you want to prove it wrong, you want to find out what it’s promising, you hate to lose. Whatever the motivation, you find yourself abandoning your drink and making your way to the new attraction at the back of the saloon: the bull.

It’s a big boy: a massive mechanical bull. Covered in spotted cowhide, with a bull head and big horns, this thing sits on a massive pedestal like a challenge. Around it is spread... relatively thin padding and a flimsy rope to keep the audience back an appropriate distance.

The compulsion keeps a hold on you until you’re on the bull. Maybe you’re on it with a friend, or a stranger, and it starts up with a mechanical buzzing. It starts to sway under you, and now you have just one job: stay on.

It starts easy, but gets harder as it goes along. It’s incredibly difficult to stay on for more than a minute. But during that minute, you feel amazing. You feel hot as hell, in whatever way that works for you: sexy, powerful, bold, in control.

Until he throws you off onto the padding or into the crowd! When you get thrown, there's a good chance you'll go flying into the crowd. Hopefully they're ready to catch you!

If by some miracle you manage to stay on for more than a minute and a half, the bartender slides you a bullrider special: a spicy whiskey cocktail with a hint of lime. Feel free to leave it up to pure chance, and have the mods roll a die for you to see whether you manage to stay on or not.


tl;dr:
  • There's a mechanical bull in the back of the saloon!
  • There's a strange deep voice in your head, coercing you into giving it a shot.
  • It's hard to stay on, but when you're on it, you feel powerful, bold and in control.
  • The padding's pretty thin and you'll get thrown hard when you do. You might hit someone!
  • If you stay on for more than a minute and a half, you'll get a fun little drink as a reward.



sighsheavily: (pic#14667794)

lost

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-09-04 12:12 am (UTC)(link)
However long he's walked, there's an end to it eventually. Among the dark shapes of the town's buildings that take form from the heat haze and kicked-up dust, Cecelia's shape is unremarkable until close enough to be seen as more than a black dot. Flame-red hair flickers in the errant breeze as she scans the horizon, watching in turn for lost shapes like him. Her eyes are sharp enough to see him from some distance, and she'll strike ahead with her satchel stocked with some meager provisions to meet him, hoping but not believing that she'll see a familiar face form out of that nearing shape.
more_magic: (70)

[personal profile] more_magic 2023-09-04 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
He does, at last, seem to be getting somewhere. The sand still shifts beneath his feet, the rock formations still as distant and inscrutable along the horizon, but soon buildings begin to shimmer out of the heat. The sight of anyone would be a welcome one, but the first solid glimpse he gets--red hair, determined gait, a bag slung heavily over one shoulder--is an aching, brief surprise. It fades, like everything he's tried to recall and can't hold onto.

Once they're close enough, Darlington raises a hand; useless in a place where it's just the two of them, perhaps, but he does it all the same. "I was beginning to think I was the only one out here," he says, the words breathed roughly out. "Never been happier to be proven wrong."
sighsheavily: (pic#16590720)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-09-04 02:49 pm (UTC)(link)
She doesn't recognize him.

There's disappointment, yes, but she's spurred to urgency just by his haggard state and hastens as though his hand up was signal to. She slows as she approaches, digging through her satchel for a small bottle of water.

"Here." She pulls the cap off and hands it to him. "Small sips. Slowly, alright?"
more_magic: (102)

[personal profile] more_magic 2023-09-05 03:54 am (UTC)(link)
The guidance is more welcome than he'd like to admit, dehydration half-urging him to drink down the bottle as quickly as possible. "Slowly, of course," he echoes, before taking one small sip, then another. Even taken this cautiously, the water is cold and utterly welcome, doing a little to bring him back from the exhaustion of the last few hours.

Back to where, to whom, is still only a guess.

"Thank you," he says, after another slow drink.
sighsheavily: (pic#16416824)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-09-05 01:15 pm (UTC)(link)
While he's doing that, Cecelia pulls a tightly bundled scarf out of one of the satchel pockets, unraveling it as he gives his thanks.

"Over your head and neck," she instructs, and should he falter with just one hand to work with, she'll do it for him. "You've had enough sun as it is. Tell me: Have you any injuries? Anything we must attend to immediately? Otherwise, let us walk and get you indoors."
more_magic: (19)

[personal profile] more_magic 2023-09-06 03:13 am (UTC)(link)
After taking off his hat, Darlington does what he can with one free hand, grateful for the efficient help the woman provides after a moment or two. In its way, the businesslike treatment is almost a comfort; lingering in concern won't get either of them any closer to those buildings shadowed in the distance. Only careful, hard work will do the job, and making damn sure neither of them pass out in the process.

"Injuries? No," he says, after a quick survey of how he feels beneath the exhaustion and the pounding sensation of his pulse after so much exertion. He glances down at his chest, as if thinking he'll see something to contradict his certainty, but only for a moment. "Still walking the edge of passing out like a noon drinker in the sand, but it's nothing more water and getting to shelter won't cure." He nods towards the buildings. "Where are we, anyway?"
sighsheavily: (pic#16590720)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-09-07 12:32 am (UTC)(link)
She takes the bottle from him and turns, gesturing they start to walk together.

"The town has no formal name," she says, "though the hotel is called the Wellstone. I'd give you more details, but I fear the headache it will cause you, and if you're to drop out, best to do that indoors than here."
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[personal profile] more_magic 2023-09-07 02:18 am (UTC)(link)
"All places have a name," he argues, convinced of the truth of it and yet doubting himself for a moment all the same. She gestures, and he follows, altering his long-legged stride to keep pace with her. It's a relief to feel they're making some kind of progress. An errant breeze ruffles the edge of the scarf, and he reaches to adjust it. "Even a forgotten one is still...it carries a presence. I think."
sighsheavily: (pic#16420024)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-09-07 05:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Everyone can be near-death here, she thinks to herself, and still have it in them to philosophize.

She sighs.

"When its proper name is uncovered, I'm certain you will hear it as soon as I do, should you linger long enough to hear it. Come," she points to the glassy shape of the diner, "we'll go in there first. You need to sit a while, refresh. There's food there at this hour, as well. I'll answer what I can, within reason." He can at least faint from overexertion there better than out here; she's got no constitution to be dragging anyone by the ankles.
more_magic: (93)

[personal profile] more_magic 2023-09-09 10:35 pm (UTC)(link)
The exasperation he thinks he hears in that sigh is the first familiar thing in an unfamiliar world, even if, like the rest, he can't place exactly why. It skitters there, just at the edge of his grasp, before fading again.

With a destination in mind and water in his system, the going is easier; the town isn't much to speak of, but it's better than the nothingness of the desert that surrounds it. They reach the diner, all chrome and glass and the twanging sound of something playing on the jukebox in the corner, and Darlington seats himself carefully at the counter, shaking his head at the waiter's offer of coffee. "Water, please," he says, then pauses. "And...can I get a sundae?"

The request comes as a surprise, but in this place, somehow, it feels natural.
sighsheavily: (pic#14281457)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-09-10 02:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Her eyebrow arches at the request. Pretty heavy fare for someone who has just crawled out of the scorching desert sands, but it says something that he thinks to order it at all.

Cecelia shrugs her satchel off and sets it on the seat next to him, herself opting to continue to stand and survey the state of him.

"Do you remember places like this?" she asks, watching his face.
more_magic: (14)

[personal profile] more_magic 2023-09-10 05:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"Not as such," he admits, looking over with the smallest of smiles at the intensity of her scrutiny. It makes sense, of course; even though he's sitting, with food of a kind on its way and a glass of water set before him, the effects of the heat haven't been fully banished yet. If their situations were reversed, he thinks he'd be doing the same thing, at least until the worst of the danger had passed. "The general feeling, yes, but the specifics? Not so much. I think I've been somewhere like this before, but..."

He tries to remember, tries to grasp at one of those thoughts hovering just out of reach, and winces at the low ache that forms at his temple. "Nothing I can recall." He looks over at her again. "Is it familiar to you?"
sighsheavily: (pic#14667794)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-09-10 07:16 pm (UTC)(link)
"Only for as long as I've been marooned here," she replies. "If I knew a place of its like before, it eludes me still. I think the aesthetic is wrong in my case."

As she talks, she pulls a small handful of napkins out of the nearest dispenser, sliding them his way.

"You may like to dip a few in the drink before you partake and wipe your face. The coolness on your skin may help just as much."
more_magic: (62)

[personal profile] more_magic 2023-09-20 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
"What would be the right aesthetic?" he asks, finding he wants to know, if only for the sake of hearing something that might distract from the blank confusion of his own thoughts or the uncertainty of his arrival here. He heeds the advice, though, wetting a napkin and wiping at his brow, his cheeks, the angle of his jaw. The white paper comes away dark with grit and dust, and he grimaces, using another.

"I'm Daniel, by the way," he says, though for a moment even that feels wrong. "Daniel Arlington. At least I know that much."
sighsheavily: (pic#14667795)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-09-21 03:45 pm (UTC)(link)
"Cecelia Ardenbury," she replies, giving him a curt nod. "Recalling a name is an excellent start - far more than aesthetics... Though, in my case, I've a feeling I'm used to, mm, more verdant and latticed architecture and...softer lighting?"

She doesn't give much of a glance in just pushing another napkin his way, not wanting to really impress how grody he looks, but...helping anyway.

"As far as we all know, we are none of us native to this land."
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[personal profile] more_magic 2023-09-25 12:58 am (UTC)(link)
"Sounds nice," he says, briefly trying to picture what she describes. What he envisions has a greater appeal than the gleaming chrome and buzzing neon of the diner; it's no more or less right, he thinks, but it resonates, if quietly.

She pushes another napkin his way and he picks it up. This time, at least, it comes away a little cleaner once he's finished. "And we all show up in the desert? Seems like a poor kind of welcome."
sighsheavily: (pic#14667798)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-09-28 05:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Her mouth tugs on one side.

"From what I can tell, this...is a rather unique circumstance. Everyone else I've ever spoken to on the matter has instead found themselves already in a hotel room. This is the first time I woke to find the building so empty, to find so many trickling in..."

She wishes she knew what that meant in the greater scope of things - in the matter of these "resets." How much is getting reset and how much is lost?

She sighs, rubbing at her forehead and makes a meaningful effort to put that aside and stay in the present to avoid the inevitable headache.

"To that end: You're not the only one I've spotted staggering out of the sands, and I expect you won't be the last."

She hopes, at least; so many she knew are still missing.
more_magic: (70)

[personal profile] more_magic 2023-09-30 11:27 pm (UTC)(link)
The way she describes the difference makes it feel weighty and important, though for good or ill, Darlington can't determine, aside from a sense that it matters. He hadn't woken up in a strange bed, in a room that may be unlike any he finds familiar from wherever he might call home; he'd shown up now, lost in the desert along with however many others. He hadn't chosen it, he doesn't think, but he'd been chosen for it, and found his way here.

He'd been tested, and by whatever rubric this place used, he hadn't failed.

For now, he puts that thought aside to examine further later, focusing again on Cecelia. He doesn't know her well enough to be certain the faint shift in her expression is concern, or that the edge in her voice and the press of fingers to her temple might be a sign of distress, but there's enough of both things there to make the assumption easy--even if it's inaccurate. "Hey, if there's more of us out there," he says, "they'll find their way back. You found me. Someone else might find them."
sighsheavily: (pic#14667795)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-10-01 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
Her hand draws away from her face, an eyebrow lifting a bit as she looks back his way. What - he comes staggering out from sands unknown, and he is the one providing the optimism? Isn't that supposed to be her job in this circumstance? Get it together, Ardenbury.

"Sooner rather than later, I do hope, yes. But to that end: I do wish to go back and search once more... But not until I am sure you are a bit more oriented. You ought to already be in the hotel registry; we can check once you've finished another drink?"
more_magic: (14)

[personal profile] more_magic 2023-10-04 03:25 am (UTC)(link)
Now, it's his turn to look a little surprised; the idea of being in the hotel's registry already, being expected, is flattering and disconcerting in equal measure. He may not know why he's here, or much of anything else at all, beyond his name and a few vague, flickering impressions of whatever life he'd had before, but someone else does. It's knowledge he already wants to gain, or more accurately regain, for himself.

For now, though, he'll take Cecelia's advice. "After another glass of water, then," he says, as the waiter arrives with the sundae in one hand and a condensation-beaded pitcher of water in the other. "And, thanks again for the help."

He tries some of the ice cream--only to grimace and set the spoon back in the dish immediately before reaching for the water again. "Christ, is that just pure sugar?" Maybe he doesn't like ice cream after all.
sighsheavily: (pic#16416823)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-10-04 03:17 pm (UTC)(link)
She smiles wanly.

"There's better fare in the mornings, over at the hotel. Hardier things. But given your harrowing experience, I think it best to take it slow and avoid making yourself ill on top of it all. Your room will likely already be furnished with comfortable clothes, and a place to bathe.

"It may make you feel a bit more human."
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[personal profile] more_magic 2023-10-14 10:28 pm (UTC)(link)
"More human sounds pretty appealing right now." If there's an irony to that idea, neither he nor Cecelia know enough to be aware of it yet.

He drinks more of the water, the ice cream pushed, neglected and melting, to one side. "I just wish I could remember anything," he admits, almost to himself. "I should, but I...there's nothing."
sighsheavily: (pic#14667798)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-10-15 06:43 pm (UTC)(link)
"That's how we all begin," she replies quietly. "And gradually, some of the fog starts to part...though not without pain. Be careful of the headaches brought on by your searching for connections; you're liable to hurt yourself if you persist."