4.0 Test Drive Meme

[wellie]

4.0 Test Drive Meme

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Welcome to Well! This cycle is a little different, if you've visited us before—this TDM takes place in Well's updated setting. See the first prompt for how your characters arrive in Well. Your character arrives with only a handful of memories, clad in a mix of Old Western clothes and clothes that might fit in at a renaissance fair, and 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 November onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during November and December. This will be the only TDM for November, December, and January.

Applications are open October 27th until November 1st, and November 27th until December 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.

Into the Maze

Content warnings: deadly traps, aggressive foliage, vines, potential drowning, spikes

You wake up surrounded by green. Thick, dark hedges as tall as two adult humans stretch all around you. They're thick, nigh-impenetrable. You don’t quite know who you are, but you’re pretty sure that here, right here? Is not where you want to be.

You’re at a crossing: paths stretch out between the hedges on four sides of you. Which path do you take?

The sprawling hedge maze is vast and complex, especially if you’re not even sure where you should be going. Along your way, you hear giggling, shouts, excited screaming, low murmurs, and, sometimes, the sound of radio static. You might see the faint outline of someone slipping around a corner, and hear them giggling, a long, white dress or robe following them as they move. But you never find whoever, or whatever, is making these noises.

If you follow them, you instead come across:

• Thorny vines laying on the ground, or hidden in the hedges, that slowly wrap themselves around your ankles or your wrists, pulling you back, trying to subsume you into the hedge.
• A dark pond stretching clear across the path, blocking your way. You can wade into it, but when you do those voices get louder, so much louder, screaming in your ears. The bottom drops away from your feet. Strange things brush your ankles, turning into hands pulling you down into the oily water. The more you panic, the more difficult it is to get to the other side. Staying calm keeps the water at about chest height.
• Pieces of the path fallen away, down into a pit full of spiny cacti. You might not want to test this one, and instead trust yourself to jump across. It’s just short enough a gap to be scalable by most, but it sure isn’t a comfortable distance to cross. If you do fall in, boy howdy do those things hurt. You’ll need some help getting out!
• The graveyard. There’s nothing getting in your way in the graveyard, but you may simply stumble upon it. The graves are overgrown and covered in moss. The ground is moist and springy. In the middle you may find an old mossy well filled with clear water.

Thankfully, at these obstacles, you might find another person, equally as lost as you. They may have been following the same person. Once you join forces with each other, the way out is easier to find. Not easy, but possible. If you continue to forge on on your own, the exit will never reveal itself to you.

When you do finally stumble out of the maze, you’re greeted with the site of Wellstone.

tl;dr:

• You wake up lost in a hedge maze! You hear strange voices around you, and a figure dressed in white runs away from you.
• You run into obstacles: spiky vines, a deadly pond, a pit full of cacti, or the graveyard. Work with another character (or not) to escape the maze!

Welcome home

Content warnings: disorientation, feelings of being lost

When you stumble your way into the run-down old town of Wellstone, the deadly peril of the maze seems to be over. It’s cold and damp, sure, but at least you’re not in danger, and you’re in luck: up a small hill beyond some gates, you can see an ornate house with golden windows, practically beaming warmth.

Staywell Manor is a grand place, with high ceilings and exposed, ornate beams, lush carpets and tapestries, beautifully upholstered furniture. A man dressed like a butler (the old hotel receptionist, for those who’ve met him) greets you with a bland smile:

“Welcome to Wellstone. We’re so glad you’re here with us! What’s the name on your reservation?”

You remember your name, and you give it to him, and he offers you a heavy brass key. No matter the number, your room does exist in the four-story manor, and is decked out with a four-poster bed, a nice settee, and a closet full of clothes that fit you like they were made for you. They’re a strange mixture, though, a mishmash of old American Western rhinestones and denim and medieval fabrics and silhouettes in bright colors. You might find a fringed tunic dyed bright red, or a pair of cowboy boots with the toes curled up like a jester’s slippers, bell-tipped and absurd. Are those pantaloons made of denim? Weird!

While the manor is lovely and inviting, and much warmer than the outdoors, it is also pretty big. Well, it must be, because you keep getting lost! It’s incredibly difficult to find your way to your room this month. You might find your way to the wrong floor, to the parlor, to someone else's room. Remember to knock!

tl;dr:

• You're in the town of Wellstone, where it's cold, damp, and rainy.
• Staywell Manor is warm and inviting, but hard to navigate, and you're prone to getting lost in its halls.

Warm Your Bones

Content warnings: alcohol, intoxication, accidental consumption of blood, hallucinations of demons and shadow people

The town of Wellstone has clearly seen better days and warmer seasons. Cobblestoned streets trace their way between crumbling buildings overgrown with moss and ivy. The early-fall nip in the air is enough to make your breath fog up in front of your face. Clouds hang low and sulky over the down, spitting out little bursts of rain here and there. Wind whistles between the close-crowded buildings, blowing a few leaves and the odd tumbleweed along the damp stone.

With the heavy chill in the air and fog drifting the streets at night, thick and cold enough to creep into even the warmest clothes, it’s tempting just to stay indoors.

Luckily for everyone tired of the damp, the golden light spilling from the Cactus Pad Pub beckons. Just walking inside hits you with a blast of warmth. A fire blazes at full strength in the hearth, snapping and crackling, but more than that, every single table is set resplendently with mismatched fancy china: cups, saucers, creamers, little pots of sugar, and of course, tea, steaming and hot.

It’ll be hard to resist the urge to sit down at one of these little tables, and the moment you do, you’re stuck there for at least an hour. Truly: your butt is glued to that chair. At least there's tea, and there are cards on the table with conversation starters on them. But these conversation starters are a little, ah... odd? Comment below to get a conversation starter for you and your tablemate!

May as well have some tea while you’re here, and hope that it is in fact tea. You have a one-in-three shot. The steaming liquid in that pot might be:

• Piping hot black tea, caffeinated and bracing. Drinking it makes you energetic and exciteable and very eager to talk to your neighbors. It also makes you feel extremely fancy! Put that pinky up and use the biggest words you know to impress everyone around you.
• Dark mulled wine, spiced with ginger and cloves. Drinking it fills you with unbridled confidence bordering on arrogance. You'll feel lordly in whatever way makes sense: condescending and snotty, benevolent and patrician, whatever you might be prone to.
• Something… else. It’s dark, hot, and sweet, but there’s an odd metallic tang that sits strangely on your tongue. Whatever it is, it’s addictive. The more you drink, the stranger the world around you becomes: you’ll see faces in the shadows and glowing red in the eyes of your companions. Shadowy figures seem to haunt the walls of the pub, moving toward you. You’re filled with fear and paranoia but rooted to the spot.

Each of these effects lasts from half an hour to an hour, and longer if you drink more of whatever is in your respective pot. Once you're free from the table, if you sit down at another one, you'll be trapped there, too.

Feel free to ask the mods to roll for you to decide which teapot your character gets, and for a conversation starter, just for you!

tl;dr:

• There's a fancy tea party happening in the Cactus Pad Pub. It's sort of mandatory.
• Sitting at a table traps you at the tea party for an hour, and you'll be drinking one of three random drinks, each with different effects.
• There are conversation starters on the tables to help you get to know your fellow tea partiers!
• Tea makes you social and fancy, mulled wine makes you lordly and a bit drunk, and the last hot, sweet liquid tastes weird and makes you see demons.
• Ask the mods to roll a random teapot type for you if you'd like!

Comments

[vibing]

[ That is not at all what he expected to hear from her, and he's so stunned by it that he just bursts out laughing, loud and bright in the dreary air.

Well, she knows him. Just--only a little bit. Knows of him. He can work with that.

He holds up his hands right back, which is maybe made less peaceful the the sword dangling from one wrist ]

And I don't have any plans of doing anything that would put me in jail. [ It just seems to happen sometimes, anyways. ] There're wanted posters for me back home, huh? That's--well. Guess that makes sense.

[ Probably also not a helpful thing to say! He's muddled and tired and his emotions are a mess, so he's not at his best right now ]

Do you remember much of anything else?

[lunartes]

[The laughing is unexpected, yet despite the sword he carries, she suddenly feels herself more at ease once again. A wanted poster merely means that he broke the law, but, well...so did she. And she isn't getting the impression that he's a bad person, or some manner of kidnapper, or any such thing.]

Remember? Well, yes... [What an odd question to ask...or so it seems at first. She doesn't...want to immediately talk about the break-ins, or the fact she seems to have infiltrated a royal palace for...some reason. But it's true that she doesn't quite recall the specifics as to why she was doing those things...

In a moment of surprise, her hands fly to her mouth to cover her gasp.]

Oh, no! Do...do you think I have amnesia?

[vibing]

[ He feels more at ease too, and smiles, really smiles, this time. He shakes his head with another laugh, softer this time ]

No more than the rest of us. It's sort of the deal, here. Don't remember jackshit when you get here.

[ His eyes skip to the pit, and he walks over to it, peering down into the tangle of cacti, wrinkling his nose ]

This is pretty rough. If we do find a gardener, I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind. But I think I could jump this.

[lunartes]

Really?

[That's--relieving and also a slightly concerning in a different way. Were they all--kidnapped, maybe? And hit on the head? Is that why they don't remember?

Still, Yuri's assessment of the pit is rather timely, as it avoids Estelle innocently parroting what's jackshit? at him, and she instead joins him to peer into the pit again.]

We should really find whoever's responsible before something happens, but... Shouldn't we try a different way first? It would be dangerous if you fell in.

[vibing]

[ Normally, he would just jump it, but the memories of Estelle, about protecting her, give him pause. He shouldn't put her in danger just because he doesn't mind getting mildly stabbed.

He relents, stepping back ]

Yeah, it's a maze, there's gotta be other paths out.

[ He starts back the way they came ]

You get the hang of not remembering things pretty quick. The trick is to not try and remember, it's not worth it.

[lunartes]

[Relieved, she follows, easily falling into step beside him. A maze isn't a maze without an exit, after all.]

Really? Wouldn't one normally want to try to remember what they've forgotten? I'd like to know myself...

[Like who gave her the name "Estelle". She knows they were important...]

[vibing]

Yeah, we all want to know. But if you try to remember, it hurts. You just gotta let it come to you. [ Or not--most of the things he's remembered, he would rather not have.

But she doesn't need to know that. He gives her a little smile ]

You'll learn a lot about yourself anyways. Like, you know you don't wanna risk falling into a bunch of cacti.

[lunartes]

[It hurts?! That can't be good!!]

If it hurts, then--oh no, we really were kidnapped! Head trauma can cause difficulties with memory recall! --Or so I've heard.

[She's not sure where she heard it, but this seems important!!]

[vibing]

Some kind of kidnapped. [ He agrees, which is also probably not helpful ] It's possible, it...

[ But he was kidnapped, last month. Kidnapped from inside this place, where he might have already been kidnapped to, and his voice falters.

No, not right now. He shakes his head ]

I've been here for a long time, I dunno if it's just head trauma.

[lunartes]

[She watches him, as she often does with people, getting the sense that he's either glossing over something he had forgotten, or else...something he doesn't wish to recall.

She clasps her hands in front of her, glancing ahead at the enclosed path, impossibly high hedges on either side.]

A long time... How long have you been here, Yuri? You were saying earlier that this maze was new, too...

[vibing]

[ How long has he been here? The town was destroyed three times. Each time it's three months. ]

Nine months. [ Even saying it makes him exhausted. ] But it's--different. We were in a desert. I don't know... if this is just new, but this doesn't feel like a desert anymore.

[lunartes]

Nine months...

[It sounds like...he's been through a lot. She has the vague sense that much can happen in nine months. She wants to know more, but also...would that be selfish of her? She focuses on the hedges again, the maze feeling slightly more ominous than it did earlier, and yet...]

It's amazing to think all this could grow from a desert. That's a harsh environment, is it not? Perhaps this change in scenery can be a sign that the situation will improve.

[vibing]

[ He's not so sure about that, but he doesn't want to scare her, so he makes a noncommittal sound, his eyes scanning the hedges, but only seeing leaves.

They find themselves as a crossroads with two paths ahead of them. They look identical ]

It was harsh. The desert stretched out forever. You couldn't cross it, even if you tried.

Which way, Estelle?

[lunartes]

[She wonders what the scenery will be like when--if--they do find their way out of the maze. Will this continue on forever, too? ...She clasps her hands tighter, but looks at the path again at his question, glancing between the two directions.]

I came from the left earlier, I think, so...shall we try the right?

If only there was a way to know which paths we've been taking...

[vibing]

[ He doesn't have very much on him, and grimaces trying to think about what of what he has they could use to mark their path. ]

I dunno. I-- [ He looks up at the sky, but it's so cloudy that the sun can't really guide them either. He grumbles under his breath, annoyed at the situation.

The thing is, he feels that he does need to protect her. He needs to find a way out of here.

So, he shrugs off his jacket and pulls his knife from his boot, cutting off some of the fringe. ]

There. We'll drop this as we go, so if we're back here we'll know.

[lunartes]

[He looks troubled, and she wonders if she can't come up with some answer herself, when...

She blinks. Technically, it would work, but...it doesn't feel right, does it? After all-]

Y--Yuri! You can't do that! There's no telling how much you'll need to remove to mark our path! You could end up looking, um...indecent!

[vibing]

[ Yuri looks up at her, brows raised. Is he indecent? He just took his jacket off, if that's indecent, well. He must always be indecent.

Then he looks back at the jacket ]

It's fine. It's just the tassel stuff. Here.

[ He cuts off another handful and hands it to her. ]

I'll put it back on so I don't cause a scandal.

[ He can't help a wink as he says it, and the jacket does go back on, now only half with fringe dangling from the back. ]

[lunartes]

That's not what I meant!

[She takes the handful of tassels automatically, a slight pout to her lips. It seems she now has a new goal, which isn't simply to get out of the maze...]

We'll need to find our way out before you end up shredding all your clothes!

[Off to the right they march, then!]

[vibing]

[ Yuri laughs at that, bright and loud and a little take aback by it.

With the things he remembers about Estelle, he didn't really remember what it was actually like being around her. He remembers protecting her, he remembers that she's a princess, that she's important, that she's kind and caring, but he didn't remember what that all really meant.

He falls into step with her, smiling now, bright and easy ]

It's fine, really. You'll see when we get out of here--you'll have a whole closet of clothes. I've got more jackets.

[lunartes]

Even so, that's hardly an excuse for unnecessarily exposing yourself, is it?

[Really, Yuri!

Besides completely distracting her from her myriad of questions she has--about him and his wanted poster, about herself, about who she reminds him of--it doesn't yet strike her how oddly natural this rapport feels.

...Actually, hang on, she is remembering the wanted poster now.]

Um, you haven't actually been arrested for indecent exposure before, have you?

[vibing]

[ That's still funny to him, and he shakes his head with a shrug ]

Y'know, I got no idea. Not something I find myself drawn to, usually, but hey maybe I got into some trouble back home.

[ Which, on second thought, is maybe not something he should say to a princess who's supposed to feel safe with him ]

But, no. Some wanted posters went up around town and that wasn't on there. [ Even though, a lot of other things were ]

[lunartes]

Really, now...

[She's a little exasperated, but when it comes down to it... If he was really wanted for removing his clothes to help others, like he's doing here, then she can't agree he was really in the wrong. Even if he should try a different way first!

She slows her pace a bit, giving him a curious glance.]

There were wanted posters here, too? I suppose that makes sense. I don't believe it's been nine months since I saw yours, after all.

[She probably ought to think it strange that the same wanted posters would go up in a place where everyone is already potentially kidnapped, but that does not yet occur to her.]

[vibing]

Eh... [ Oh, man. He hasn't explained this in a while. He sprinkles some of the fringe as they take another turn ] That's another thing you gotta know. This place--well. We can't know if it's gonna happen again, but before now, it was the same three months, over and over again. The same stuff would happen. Sort of.

[ It probably doesn't make sense, but he's trying ]

Not sure time matters all that much here.

You... d'you remember much about my wanted poster?

[lunartes]

You mean...things repeat, but don't stay entirely the same?

[It sounds like something out of a story, yet--oh, she does remember that she used to read books of some sort. Maybe that's why she's at least able to imagine such a concept, strange as it must be to experience.

She presses a finger to her chin at his question--which quickly moves to her temple in response to a sharp ache.]

Ah--that's... I don't remember much, besides your name and face. [Or rather what passed as someone's poor approximation of his face.] Anything more, and...it hurts.

[vibing]

Something like that.

[ He grimaces, slowing his steps. ]

Shit, sorry. Yeah, that's when you try to remember. It's fine, you don't have to. I--know some about what I did. Enough to warrant a wanted poster.

[ A small smile, although again he's not sure he should say that. He's not suite sure how he should be around her, how they were, before, if he's still that guy, from before. ]

I remember you. [ Which feels so nice to say. So nice to be able to say to someone. Not as fraught as telling Flynn, but his memories of Estelle are good, for the most part. ] I'm pretty sure I was your knight.