wellie: (Default)
Well Mod ([personal profile] wellie) wrote in [community profile] wellcome2024-01-19 08:08 pm
Entry tags:

5.0 Test Drive Meme

5.0 Test Drive Meme

Welcome to Well! 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 February onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during February and March. This will be the only TDM for February, March, and April.

Applications are open January 27th until February 1st, and February 24th until March 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.

Arrival: Six Feet Under
Content warnings: graves, being buried alive

You wake up in the ground. The hole you're in fits your body nicely. Just as you wake up, dirt spatters onto your face, into your eyes and mouth. Maybe that's what woke you up. Before you've had a chance to clear it, more dirt drops onto your body from above, again and again, in a grim rhythm. Until you get out of there it won't stop.

Unfortunately, you're six feet deep. You might want a hand.

More unfortunately, you won't get one from the person with the shovel. The gravedigger, silhouetted in black against the sky above you, will continue to shovel dirt onto you while you try to escape. Once you're out, she loses all interest and moves on to the next grave. She doesn't acknowledge you in any way.

Above the grave is a headstone: your own. It says your name and it might have your birthdate. The death date is unreadable. There may be an epitaph about your life. It doesn't look new. In fact, it looks as old and worn as the rest of the graveyard. Other open graves are scattered around in this graveyard, and other people are climbing up out of them, too. Maybe you want to lend them a hand, or maybe you want to get out of here as fast as possible.

A mossy wrought-iron gate leads out into greenery.

Now that you're out, you need to find your way... somewhere. Not here.

For current players, you're welcome to have your character wake up for the cycle like this.

tl;dr:
  • You wake up in your own grave! Someone's burying you alive! Better get out of there.

The only way out
Content warnings: being eaten alive, carnivorous flowers, intoxication

The graveyard is in the middle of the maze: a sprawling hedge maze on the outskirts of Wellstone town. The ground is soft with recent rain, and the hedges are just blooming green like it's early spring. Your shoes squelch in the muck.

It starts easily enough. As you make your way deeper, though, you'll start run into things that make the maze… harder. Gigantic flowers block the way down one path, and they titter together as you get close, swaying and moving in ways that flowers shouldn't. If you do get too close, a flower lurches forward and snaps its petals around you like jaws. Are those teeth?! They're like foot-long cactus spines, sharp and deadly. You might want to get out of there, and fast. The teeth hurt, and the inside of the flower isn't a cakewalk either. It hurts your skin, and if you're in there too long, your skin may start to burn off.

Down another path are more flowers. These are smaller, and oddly fleshy in color and scent. At the center of each flower is an eye. Some of them seem familiar, although you can't figure out why. As you pass, the eyes roll, following you closely. If you make eye contact and any of these flowers, you feel a chilling wave of fear that roots you to the spot. Your stuck in its gaze, staring back at it as it stares impassively at you. You have the horrible feeling that if you stay here, something awful will happen. It grows worse and worse, more acute, but no matter how strong that fear, you can't move your feet. Someone, or something, has to break your eye contact with the flower.

At a final turn in the maze, the sweet, soft scent of lilacs fills the air. You're sure that scent means you've found the end, and that you should follow it. Naturally, it doesn't. It leads to a dead end. Again. This one, at least, is beautiful: it's a little meadow surrounded by hedges, blooming in lilacs and lavender and little purple-headed poppies. The scent is heady and overwhelming. It fills you up. It settles into your head like a haze, making it hard to focus. It seems like an amazing idea to just… stay here. Lie down, maybe, among all those nice flowers. Just for a little while, you tell yourself.

Only, it may be more than a little while. The longer you sleep in this lovely little meadow, the more vines and flowers will grow over and around your body. Eventually, they'll make their way into your nose, your ears, your mouth and start to pull you down into the soft earth. Someone's going to have to wake you up and get those vines off unless you want to stay in this maze forever!

When at last you find your way out of the maze, past the treacherous flowers, you set your sights on Wellstone: a town in the first bloom of spring, a light mist making everything dewy and bright.

tl;dr:
  • After you leave the cemetery, you find yourself in the maze. There are flowers that are obstacles along your way.
  • There are large, flesh-eating flowers full of teeth that want to eat you.
  • There are fleshy flowers with eyes in the middle that, if you meet their gaze, hold you with fear.
  • There are lilacs that lull you and make you want to lie down and take a nap. If you do, vines will wrap you up, making it very difficult to get out.
  • Once you make it through all the obstacles, you can make it out of the maze into Wellstone.

Scent of death
Content warnings: bad smells, potential for body horror

It isn't just the maze blooming with the coming of spring: Wellstone itself has burst into bloom. It seems that everywhere you look, flowers have invaded the town. Sweet snowdrops poke their heads up between cobblestones. Violets wink from shadowed corners. Morning glories climb walls and line windows. They all smell wonderful, good enough to make you want to bend down and take a good, long sniff.

Except for one. Blooming in the courtyard of the Staywell, just in front of the door in a little garden circle, is a corpse flower. The flower is massive: over three meters tall, giant stamen thrusting up to the sky with frilly red leaves around its base.

It's hard to avoid the flower: any time anyone opens the door to the courtyard, the scent enters the lobby, the parlor, the cafeteria. It seems to permeate the Staywell at random times. And the scent is strange: if you try to talk to anyone about it, they don't agree with you on how it smells. And they won't agree on how it affects you.

Smelling the corpse flower makes you feel a little... strange. Its effects vary by person, and even when a person smells it more than once, the effect might change. At first you feel a rush of disgust, then nausea, then--well.

When you smell the corpse flower, you might smell:
  • The most delicious thing you can imagine. You're suddenly extremely hungry and feel compelled to eat as much as possible.
  • The most wonderful, nostalgic scent. You feel compelled to proclaim your loyalty and friendship to the next person you see.
  • The most relaxing thing. Your body feels loose and relaxed and you feel at peace. You want to spread the love and feel compelled to get everyone else around you to chill the fuck out.
  • Sugary sweetness. You feel an intense draw of affection toward the people around you and feel compelled to compliment them in increasingly over the top ways.
  • The scent of raw, rotting meat. Everything around you suddenly look strangely... meaty. Is that chair made of meat? That wall? You're very acutely aware that you are made of meat, and that everyone around you is made of meat.
  • The smell of death. You feel a horrible, creeping sense of guilt and feel compelled to confess something awful you do or do not remember doing to the next person you see.

Comment below if you'd like a random smell (or feel free to select for yourself). Effects last anywhere from half an hour to an hour. Characters can experience different effects throughout the TDM. The corpse flower will be in bloom the first week of February and the first week of March, and closed the rest of the time.

tl;dr:
  • There's a corpse flower blooming in the courtyard of the Staywell.
  • When you smell its scent, you'll smell a scent that makes you do--something! Select from the list what you'd like to happen, or comment below for a random effect.


necrolord: =+ (to the heavens)

sighing heavily (3)

[personal profile] necrolord 2024-02-03 06:20 am (UTC)(link)
[ John has been watching him from across the room, in the way of a man trying to be subtle and not quite managing it. He holds his shoulders carefully still, his hands paused in their fidgeting the moment Astarion stepped through the parlor door. John has been flicking little glances his way, worrying his teeth against the edge of his lip.

Teeth are one of the things he catches on, when Astarion sits down. John skims past the red eyes, snags on the too-sharp canines, and then his gaze hangs briefly at the pale column of Astarion's throat. It's less about the throat, more about the death-still perfection on display. He feels no beating heart. The jugular is quiet. Each movement is clean and uncanny, a flexing of reanimated muscle, the careless tilt of reanimated bone.

He has known only one person like this. He knew her for less than an hour, and she was the most fascinating thing he's ever met. There had kind of been a lot going on; they didn't stop to unpack the hows and whys. Can't fault him for being curious. ]


You're too kind. [ He is openly flattered and not buying it for a second. This does not stop him offering a hand to shake, recklessly interested to see what will happen when they touch. ] I'm John.
snackin: (smile | talk | easy)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-02-03 03:57 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Eyes watching him like that feel strangely familiar, and he has an odd flash to one of the scant memories in his mind: a dark shady club, stalking unsuspecting prey, snaring them in his trap with a smile and a flirtatious word.

He takes this man's hand--John--with that same flirtatious smile. He uses it to pull John in toward him, taking a sniff with a soft sound like a moan
] A pleasure, John. Such an ordinary name for an extraordinary man.

[ Which he doesn't know, exactly, but he knows that he wants to man John feel good right now, wants to tell him things about himself that he may not have heard, at least not in a long time. And he smells interesting, alive, and Astarion feels the hunger in his gut, not having eaten yet since he arrived here a few days ago. ]

Astarion.
necrolord: <user name="thebutt"> (brick and mortar thick as scripture)

[personal profile] necrolord 2024-02-03 06:03 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Astarion catches him by the hand, pulls him close, inhales like a predator scenting prey. John thinks: Well! Okay. Cool. Great.

He's not actually sure whether he's being mocked right now.

This is so played-up it has to be a dig, right? Oh, that's John, he's the easiest guy in town. See if you can get him into bed within the first five minutes. Act like you want to tear his throat out, he's into that. It's something about the red of the eyes, the too-sharp teeth; his mind makes the shape of vampire, maybe succubus, but the details run through his fingers like water. All he has is the impression of danger. Sexy danger, specifically.

Astarion's hand is uncannily cool in his, and John is aware of every stilled vein, every too-quiet span of muscle. There's no headache. ]


Cooler name than John. [ His hand has tensed in Astarion's grip, and he carefully relaxes, tries to smooth away the brief fluster. ] But I think it has a certain charm.

[ This is funnier to anyone who knows the fifty increasingly dramatic titles he's had to discard. ]

New in town?
snackin: (smile | talk | idea)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-02-03 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Very charming, pet. [ Astarion purrs it, and lets go of his hand, but stay close ] A delight. John. John.

[ He says the name like he's tasting it in his mouth, and drops onto the settee to sprawl out with a toothy smile ]

Yes, so I'm told. However, what I do and don't remember seems to be a roll of the dice. Perhaps I've been here for months, perhaps only the spare days I recall. Whatever the case, I had the marvelous experience of waking up in my own grave.
necrolord: =+ (to the heavens)

[personal profile] necrolord 2024-02-04 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Pet. This is really going places. John looks briefly at a loss, gaze catching again on Astarion's fangs, his throat, the uncanny pale of his hair. Open fascination passes across his face. He sits forward, hands aimlessly together, aiming for casual and falling just short. ]

Trust me: that means you're new in town. [ John cards his awareness through serene dead blood, the lines of not-quite-human ears. Cecelia would kill him for comparing her to this. ] At least, I'd remember if we'd met.

[ He slants a wry smile, waves his freed hand to Astarion as if to say This is pretty memorable. ]

The bit with the graves is unfortunately not uncommon.
snackin: (smile | talk | easy)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-02-05 04:05 am (UTC)(link)
[ His smile grows. He does like to be memorable. Lazing back on the settee he runs his fingers back through his hair, eyes lighting on new parts of John to compliment ]

Do have a seat. Enlighten me, John. I would love to hear from an esteemed member of this charming little community. Graves are a common experience. Are we perhaps, then, in some sort of purgatory? Have I tragically passed on from the mortal coil and found myself in some fresh hell? Or, are the graves simply a way to welcome the newest members of this strange little band?

[ He certainly doesn't need that many words to ask this, but he's enjoying the way John's reacting to him, and laying it on thick is only getting that more. ]
necrolord: <user name="thebutt"> (i can feel it on my tongue)

[personal profile] necrolord 2024-02-08 01:00 am (UTC)(link)
[ For a moment John thinks they're sharing a joke, tragically passed on, a funny bit of understatement. Then he recalls that most people don't feel the absence of a heartbeat in their conversational partner, and Astarion may not know that he knows. He is left smiling in the puzzled way of a man not quite sure where to go from here, and tracking the movement of Astarion's fingers through his hair.

He drops into the seat across from Astarion, comforted by a familiar topic. ]


Jury's still out. I think 'pocket dimension' is the more popular theory than 'purgatory,' but that might just be optimism. Whatever runs this place is enough of a heavyweight that I'd call it a god.

[ He says this like it's at least a little funny. ]
snackin: (smile | look | cocky)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-02-15 10:05 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Astarion hums, tapping his fingers on the couch. He's a little disappointed that John chose the other seat, but it is what it is. He tosses his head a little, his hair shaking out behind him. ]

I have a feeling I may know a thing or two about gods, and I must say that in those vague recollections I find myself unimpressed. [ What does he have to back this up? Vibes, just vibes, but he's going with it. ] To be at the hands of another... ah, well. Gods do enjoy toying with those of us lesser beings.

Have you been in this prison of torment long, John?
necrolord: <user name="thebutt"> (brick and mortar thick as scripture)

[personal profile] necrolord 2024-02-21 04:29 pm (UTC)(link)
[ John huffs a startled little laugh at unimpressed. ]

That's gods for you. [ This he says like it's a lot funny. ] Six months, give or take. Long enough to see some monsters, some curses, start filling this empty thing back up again.

[ He taps his temple helpfully. ]
snackin: (tease | flirt | move)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-02-25 03:23 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, our common affliction. [ Astarion drawls it like it's old news, which to John it might be, but to him it is not. ] I don't suppose you've remembered anything wonderful, have you, John? Any sweetheart who might be pining for you? A special someone whose heart is aching for your touch? A space in your mind that begged to be filled?

[ The way he says it, with a purr in his voice, makes it sound more sexual than the words truly need to be ]
necrolord: <user name="thebutt"> (drawing lines in the sand)

[personal profile] necrolord 2024-03-03 04:00 am (UTC)(link)
[ Reflexively he holds pining and aching up against his half-memories of Annabel, and nearly laughs. She is not that kind of creature. She isn't this kind, either.

It steadies him against Astarion's purr, which is flattering or at least kind of fun, now that he's finding the rhythm of it. John settles cheerfully forward with his hands clasped over his knees. He isn't tracking the red-eyed leer, more entranced by the stillness of Astarion's lungs than the thing he's doing with his jawline. ]


'Wonderful' isn't usually the theme. [ It is, he's decided, objectively funny for him to play obtuse here. ] That's my real advice: brace yourself, because the memories are even less friendly than the monsters.
snackin: (annoyed | sad | bland)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-03-03 05:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Astarion's eyes narrow and he leans back with a dramatic huff. The magic of the flower is slowly seeping out of him, and he feels sort of strange and wrung out ]

You're no fun. Can't anyone have something interesting in their past! Or is it simply all doom and gloom. Honestly. This town is full of dullards.