wellcome | 4.0 Test Drive Meme

Entry tags:

4.0 Test Drive Meme

Premise & Arrival ֍ FAQ ֍ Apply ֍ Navigation

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Palamedes has seen Cecelia peering out of her window from time to time, ghost-like in a way that makes his throat tight, given he had felt the life drain out of her not so long ago. Once, spotting her, he had raised his hand in greeting, but not gotten much response. He tells himself not to go hunting for her room, that she had experienced an awful thing and will come out when she is ready, but as the days go by, it becomes harder and harder not to go checking on her.

Meanwhile, he has set about the task of documenting everything he can in this new and strange Staywell Manor. Like Cecelia, something strangely familiar pushes at his skull as he walks the halls, turning doorknobs and peering behind tapestries, noting every room he can find and what’s in it.

He’s writing in his notebook with a quill when he comes around a corner, his new grey robes picking up dust as they drag along the floor, and unlike Cecelia, he hardly notices that he is no longer alone.

Cecelia, on the other hand, is keyed in to the sound of approaching footsteps. It prompts her to stop short and let them approach her, rather than bump into them herself. Stop short...and look. Process.

Thank goodness he doesn't see her first and see the initial fear that hits her; she has time to recompose.

It wasn't him, after all...

"Palamedes."

Palamedes stops short, and looks up, and goes still.

Last time he’d seen Cecelia, she had lain still in his lap, her head nearly severed with rot, far part help. And though he had known she would return, it’s still a shock of a miracle to see her whole.

“Cecelia,” he exhales, rooted to the spot. “Emperor’s bones, it is good to see you, my friend.”

She and Darin have had time to discuss what went down. He'd questioned why Palamedes would ever be troubled to see her again, but Cecelia knew what it was like to once again see the form of that which was killed by her own hand.

...Or at least, a stolen version of her hand.

She still hasn't remembered the decades of training in masking and managing her expressions and emotions, so her brow knits as she hears the cadence of his heart beat and the weight of his words in his breath.

"I did you no favors our last meeting, did I." She almost apologizes, but remembers how strange it felt to consider apologies from those who perished at her own double's hands. It wasn't right.

"Cecelia." This time, Palamedes says her name as an exhale of breath, something of a lilt of a laugh in it at the edges. "The last time I saw you, you were dead."

He takes a step forward, praying she doesn't flinch and fearing that she will. "I'm just glad to see you in one piece."

Instead of shying away, she offers a pained little smile, her hands folded tightly in front of her.

"You don't mind if I intend to keep it that way, do you? For all our sakes."

Cecelia looks at least as nervous as Palamedes feels, but she doesn’t shy away, and for that he is infinitely grateful. He comes forward, moving quickly enough as he walks down the hall that his robes float up behind him, and when he reaches her, he tries, with care, to take one of her hands in both of his. If she resists, though, he certainly will not force it.

“Oh, I’ll insist upon it. No offense, but I like you much better this way.”

Thank goodness for Diluc: Had he not first extended his hand to her all those months ago, perhaps Cecelia would've never felt compelled to reach out to anyone in her fear. As it stands, she only hesitates for a heartbeat before unfolding her hands and setting one in his, squeezing at his fingers to take what reassurance she feels warranted to.

"Oh, good," she exhales, her smile pulling a bit more before her lip quivers a bit. "I, ah, had a thought...you'd maybe be exhausted of the very notion of me, considering--"

There's something so fragile-seeming about Cecelia, which is so terribly odd, given that she is so often strong and steel-fierce. "Considering what?" he asks, truly baffled. "Hell, if you can look me in the eye after what that monster did to you, what right have I to turn away?"

Before he can even finishes that remark, she cuts in and talks over him, brow furrowing. "Don't you dare take responsibility for that creature's actions. Not unless you intend to share its intentions, and I already know you don't."

“Of course I don’t,” Palamedes answers swiftly. While not a naturally intimate person, he remains close to her, clasping one of her hands in his. the touch feels like a necessary antidote to the still-lingering image of her mutilated body.

He meets her gaze steadily. “But if you know that, then what is it that troubles you?”

She hesitates. Before, she'd be far more reluctant to be so candid, but that bridge has been crossed and properly rotted, hasn't it.

"The impression left," she says. "Between this and...and what happened when we last tried to contact the spirits, I've not...been much but strife, have I. Strife and horrible happenings. I don't want to think of being left behind for my safety, but I, I can't even fully contest it at this point, can I?"

Palamedes’ heart breaks just a little.

“Cecelia, for goodness sake. Something wanted us out of the graveyard, and they burst your eardrums to make it happen. Would you rather they had made me bleed out of every orifice instead?” All right, that’s a disgusting image, even for Pal, but he is trying to make a point. “And my double manipulated you by playing on our trust in one another. If our positions had been reversed, I would have fallen for it, too.”

“None of us are infallible, and none of us are indestructible. That doesn’t make any of us a liability.”

Being reassured is as much a salve as it is a shame - she should be better than needing the consolation. Then again, she's still human. Half of one, anyway. Her face heats up and her head tilts down to mask a bit of it.

"Then I can expect...in-person invitations to future discoveries, noteboard be damned. Yes?"

"Agreed." Palamedes quirks a tiny smile. "No asynchronous forms of communication for us."

The matter of Cecelia's culpability settled, Pal gives her hand a final squeeze and gently lets it go. "Since we're discussing sources of strife, I should make a confession. While you, ah, were absent, I'm afraid I was the cause of a bit of trouble. And not even the fun kind."

A knot was just loosened; Cecelia finds herself able to exhale without as much an ache in her chest as before, even as her hand is freed and settles back into her own before her.

It's a very brief bit of respite.

"You yourself, or...?"

Leave it to Cecelia to get right to the point. “Not…exactly me,” he concedes. “But I inadvertently brought the trouble to everyone eyes.” His mouth twists. “It was John Gaius. Or his double, to be more accurate. He came after Cam and I rather ferociously.”

“You see, back home, John is our Emperor. The King Undying. God.”

"I beg your pardon."

Her tone flattens a bit, her expression starting to wince.

"In practice, title, or nature?" Or all of the above? she wonders with no shortage of dread.

"Yes." Pal doesn't smile. "He is at least ten thousand years old, and the reason that necromancy even exists. We worship him-" he shakes his head and rubs his temple, remembering the little icon of John Gaius' face in the Library's chapel, remembering shifting impatiently in his seat while he waited to be released from daily prayers. "I should have put it together sooner, but it took the double to confirm his identity."

"I am afraid to say that due to that lapse in judgement, I put a lot of people in danger."

"I don't--" She hesitates, feeling the threat of how open a space they stand in, prompting her to lower her voice and step in closer, more conspiratorially.

"Palamedes, I don't understand. What do any of the doubles have to do about this? What happened?"

Palamedes feels a similar sort of paranoia bearing down on him; he chews on his lip for a moment, and then gestures for her to follow. He isn’t sure what he is afraid of, exactly—not of John, exactly, and not of the people who fought John’s double for their lives.

But this isn’t a story to be told out in the open.

Pal takes Cecelia to his room, and there shuts the door behind them. On instinct, he goes to the kettle in the corner and puts it on for tea.

“A few hours before everything came to an end, those of us who were left gathered in the graveyard. It remained by the storms and the flooding, and we were safe, relatively. That’s where John’s double found us. He revealed himself as the King Undying and said he wanted to kill Cam and I. Because we had betrayed him.”

“Which, to be fair, is true.”

She's quick to follow, relieved for smaller spaces and thicker walls. Instead of taking a seat anywhere, she just lingers nearby - out of the way of his teamaking, but still moving to keep his face in view to read his expressions along with his words.

None of it is reassuring, and it just invites more questions.

"A double with true information?" This is news to her, horrible god-reveal aside.

“He was quite well-informed, from what I could discern.” Pal learns against the table where the kettle sits, drumming his fingers absently on the surface. “Camilla and I petitioned our people to leave the Empire over ethical concerns regarding the Emperor’s rule. I’ve suspected for some time that I had no love for the Emperor, but I remembered enough to put it all together just a short time ago. The double knew all about it.”

Pal hesitates, and his gaze goes distant. “He…touched us. He peeled off Camilla’s skin like a piece of fruit—“ A sharp exhale. “Some others tried to help, but he just mowed them down with some of the most destructive necromancy I have ever seen. When the earth opened up to swallow us all—well, it was almost like this place saved us from him.”

Cecelia remains still and quiet through the explanation, sewing it together in mind with the notes Darin had left up until those final hours. Of course he couldn't sit down and account for this, but it had already been so bad...

Right away, she wants to question what that means for John himself. After all, her own counter had been able to do such incredible, powerful things...but she herself wants to do anything but sow destruction.

That doesn't strip her free of the potential...and it won't free John of his, either.

This is bad.

"Does...John remember this betrayal? That you know of."

“I have no reason to believe that he does.” But it’s clear by Palamedes’ grim expression that this fact has done nothing to comfort him. “The trouble is, the Necrolord Prime lies: to armies, and governments, and refugees, and his dearest followers. Even if he is telling the truth now, I have no reason to believe that he would inform me if he did remember, and no idea what he would do.”

Pal has been staring hard at the opposite wall. Now, he drops his gaze to meet Cecelia’s. “I know we are not our doubles. The two of us are proof enough of that.” He almost smiles. “I’m not worried about that other John. It’s the one out there right now that I don’t trust.”

The manor

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject