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7.0 Test Drive Meme
7.0 Test Drive Meme
Premise & Arrival ֍ FAQ ֍ Apply ֍ Navigation
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 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 27th until August 1st, and August 27th until September 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.
Arrival: Catacombs
Content warnings: claustrophobia, caves, feeling of being watched, paranoia
You come to in a hotel. It seems like it was a nice hotel, once. It's missing a wall in the lobby, the floor cracked away. If you look out, it's dark and strange. You can't see much outside of the light of the lamp on the desk. It seems like there should be a receptionist there, but there's no one. No one at all to greet you, except, perhaps, each other.
If you venture out of the derelict hotel, you find youself having to climb down wreckage of buildings--many of which look the same as the hotel you were just in. The derelict buildings are unstable and strange--some seem to have been destroyed in floods, others are corroded away, one strangely covered in what seems to be dry blood. Be careful descending the several stories to the ground, although each subsequent hotel is more and more destroyed than the last.
Past the hotels are a dark series of tunnels and caverns. Some contain the magical, some the dangerous, some are open and free to be explored, to find remnants of people unknown.
One of the tunnels, lined around its entrance by the ragged edges of what looks like torn skin, opens up into a winding stone staircase that leads up, and up, and up. It's at least a hundred steps as you climb, but the most steps your climb, the lighter it gets. Up and up, until you step blinking into the glowing neon of the diner. There's a hole in the floor, the linoleum seemingly fallen away to let you through.
Once you step into the light, you feel a bit strange. Maybe it's the dazzle of the desert sun, or maybe it's the pervasive feeling of being watched. Out of the corner of your eye, you think you see someone watching you--but when you turn to look, there's no one and nothing there. But the feeling is always there. The only way to be free of it is to delve back down into the catacombs.
The sense of being watched may put you on edge. It might make you more snappy, or it might undermine your inhibitions, making you more likely to take risks, to try and prove whatever or whoever it is watching you that you are one to be watched. Prove them wrong, or right.
The waiter greets you with a smile, as if this is a totally normal way to enter his place of business.
"Welcome to the Stardust! What can I get for you? We have a nice cherry pie right now! How about I warm up a slice?"
Welcome to Wellstone! For those who have been here before, the town is repaired, the cracks in the earth gone--except for the one leading down the stairs in the diner. The saloon has cold drinks, the bathhouse has hot baths and a soggy coyote manning the towels. The receptionist hands you a key when you enter the hotel, the bulletin board is ready and waiting with multi-colored post-its. And the General Store is stocked to the gills with cowboy trinkets and paraphernalia, including massive stetson hats, headlamps, and lanterns. Somehow they work without any visible power source--weird! When you pick up a light source, the air crackles around you and if you have a walkie-talkie, it buzzes with static.
tl;dr:
You come to in a hotel. It seems like it was a nice hotel, once. It's missing a wall in the lobby, the floor cracked away. If you look out, it's dark and strange. You can't see much outside of the light of the lamp on the desk. It seems like there should be a receptionist there, but there's no one. No one at all to greet you, except, perhaps, each other.
If you venture out of the derelict hotel, you find youself having to climb down wreckage of buildings--many of which look the same as the hotel you were just in. The derelict buildings are unstable and strange--some seem to have been destroyed in floods, others are corroded away, one strangely covered in what seems to be dry blood. Be careful descending the several stories to the ground, although each subsequent hotel is more and more destroyed than the last.
Past the hotels are a dark series of tunnels and caverns. Some contain the magical, some the dangerous, some are open and free to be explored, to find remnants of people unknown.
One of the tunnels, lined around its entrance by the ragged edges of what looks like torn skin, opens up into a winding stone staircase that leads up, and up, and up. It's at least a hundred steps as you climb, but the most steps your climb, the lighter it gets. Up and up, until you step blinking into the glowing neon of the diner. There's a hole in the floor, the linoleum seemingly fallen away to let you through.
Once you step into the light, you feel a bit strange. Maybe it's the dazzle of the desert sun, or maybe it's the pervasive feeling of being watched. Out of the corner of your eye, you think you see someone watching you--but when you turn to look, there's no one and nothing there. But the feeling is always there. The only way to be free of it is to delve back down into the catacombs.
The sense of being watched may put you on edge. It might make you more snappy, or it might undermine your inhibitions, making you more likely to take risks, to try and prove whatever or whoever it is watching you that you are one to be watched. Prove them wrong, or right.
The waiter greets you with a smile, as if this is a totally normal way to enter his place of business.
"Welcome to the Stardust! What can I get for you? We have a nice cherry pie right now! How about I warm up a slice?"
Welcome to Wellstone! For those who have been here before, the town is repaired, the cracks in the earth gone--except for the one leading down the stairs in the diner. The saloon has cold drinks, the bathhouse has hot baths and a soggy coyote manning the towels. The receptionist hands you a key when you enter the hotel, the bulletin board is ready and waiting with multi-colored post-its. And the General Store is stocked to the gills with cowboy trinkets and paraphernalia, including massive stetson hats, headlamps, and lanterns. Somehow they work without any visible power source--weird! When you pick up a light source, the air crackles around you and if you have a walkie-talkie, it buzzes with static.
tl;dr:
- You wake up in a derelict, destroyed version of the Staywell Hotel. You must make your way out of the hotel, down past many other destroyed versions of the Staywell, and through the catacombs to get to the surface.
- On the surface, you step into the Stardust Diner, and immediately have the feeling of being watched.
Ride 'em Cowboy
Content warnings: mild bovine coercion, alcohol
Come on, hot stuff. You know you want to.
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 few seconds. But during that time, 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 45 seconds, 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:
Come on, hot stuff. You know you want to.
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 few seconds. But during that time, 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 45 seconds, 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 45 seconds, you'll get a fun little drink as a reward.
Off into the sunset
Content warnings: coercion, body horror, monsters, flesh-eating acid, altered mental states, eyes
Come on, hot stuff. You know you want to.
You don’t look too tough.
You think you can tame me?
Those same words in a similar voice call out to you no matter where you are in Wellstone: in the hotel corridors, in the desert, the tunnels of the catacombs. It's again hard to resist the call, and you move toward the voice.
A silhouette looms before you. It looks a lot like a bull, but you can't make out any specific features except the horns and its sheer size. It's still while you mount it, still for a moment to let you get your balance, before it's racing through Wellstone on fast hooves.
There may be someone already on it, or someone coming to the beast at the same moment as you. You mount it together, in a strange headspace where all you can do is mount the beast.
You don't know where it's heading, but you know it can't be good, for now that you're on the creature, you can see it for what it is. It's a bull, sort of. A bull without skin or fur, flesh and muscle undulating under your thighs, flexing and pulling in a way that you shouldn't be able to see. Between the fibers of muscle, you see eyes peering at you, eyes looking at you, eyes blinking, eyes crying. The beast is a kind of horror, and when you look at those eyes, that horror pierces into you, deep into your core.
Now, you probably want to get off. Your body is frozen, holding on to flesh and horns. The only way to get off is either to rally yourself, digging into the depths of determination in your soul, or to have someone encourage you. If you're on the beast together, you can either spiral into despair, or encourage each other to let go, to get off of there. If someone is watching from the sidelines, they can help, even if they probably can't keep up with the beast.
If you're able to get your body to unclench, you'll be thrown off the beast, falling heavily to the ground in a pile of pain. But at least you aren't being carried where it wants to take you: If you're on the surface, it takes you to the well in the middle of the graveyard and dumps you into it, letting you fall the long, long fall into the cistern below. If you're in the catacombs, it will dump you right into the acidic water of the cistern to be eaten alive.
tl;dr:
Come on, hot stuff. You know you want to.
You don’t look too tough.
You think you can tame me?
Those same words in a similar voice call out to you no matter where you are in Wellstone: in the hotel corridors, in the desert, the tunnels of the catacombs. It's again hard to resist the call, and you move toward the voice.
A silhouette looms before you. It looks a lot like a bull, but you can't make out any specific features except the horns and its sheer size. It's still while you mount it, still for a moment to let you get your balance, before it's racing through Wellstone on fast hooves.
There may be someone already on it, or someone coming to the beast at the same moment as you. You mount it together, in a strange headspace where all you can do is mount the beast.
You don't know where it's heading, but you know it can't be good, for now that you're on the creature, you can see it for what it is. It's a bull, sort of. A bull without skin or fur, flesh and muscle undulating under your thighs, flexing and pulling in a way that you shouldn't be able to see. Between the fibers of muscle, you see eyes peering at you, eyes looking at you, eyes blinking, eyes crying. The beast is a kind of horror, and when you look at those eyes, that horror pierces into you, deep into your core.
Now, you probably want to get off. Your body is frozen, holding on to flesh and horns. The only way to get off is either to rally yourself, digging into the depths of determination in your soul, or to have someone encourage you. If you're on the beast together, you can either spiral into despair, or encourage each other to let go, to get off of there. If someone is watching from the sidelines, they can help, even if they probably can't keep up with the beast.
If you're able to get your body to unclench, you'll be thrown off the beast, falling heavily to the ground in a pile of pain. But at least you aren't being carried where it wants to take you: If you're on the surface, it takes you to the well in the middle of the graveyard and dumps you into it, letting you fall the long, long fall into the cistern below. If you're in the catacombs, it will dump you right into the acidic water of the cistern to be eaten alive.
tl;dr:
- A voice calls out to you, no matter where you are in town. A bull appears, and you feel compelled to ride it, either alone or with a friend.
- As soon as the bull begins to run, you see that it isn't really a bull at all, but an awful fleshy, eye-full monster.
- It wants to dump you into the acid of the cistern, and the only way to get off is to rally the depths of your determination. It's a lot easier to do that with a friend!
Nicholas D. Wolfwood | Trigun Maximum
It's the Staywell. He can't remember what happened before he woke up, but it's still the Staywell, just half-collapsed and surrounded by dark, stale air. Or is it the Staywell again? As Nicholas steps up into what should be a second floor but instead appears to be a second lobby, he decides that again is probably the right word. Is this why they found their own things in those ravines, months ago? Because the Staywell is built on the Staywell which is built on the Staywell?
More importantly, how the fuck did he get down here?
"Hey! Anyone?"
So far, no one has been home.
damn fine pie
He'd expected the graveyard, honestly. Nicholas blinks up at the waiter.
"Er, thanks?" He is actually pretty hungry. As long as it's actually cherry pie, and not ketchup pie, or something worse.
He glances around for a booth with someone else in it, and heads for the nearest one. Probably no one knows what's going on, but probably someone has a better idea than he does.
how hard could it be?
The longer Nicholas considers the bull from his seat at the bar, the stupider the whole idea seems. Sure, there's not much padding on the mechanical bull, and the thing's probably slippery. But it doesn't move that fast, really. It's not so big that you can't get a good grip on it.
He turns to the person seated next to him. "Hey, could you make sure no one takes my drink?"
Even if he wins a fancy drink, he would like to finish the tequila.
Damn Fine Pie.
She'll blink and look up at him with a mouth full of food.
"Ouuugghhh- Iffff uuuuu!" Oh. Then she pauses and swallows.
"Oh. It's you. I thought you were gone for a little there!"
no subject
"I think I was. Last thing I remember is a monster attack at the pool party."
Technically the last thing he remembers is finally getting to leave the pool party, but hopefully the description will help narrow down which pool party he means. He could have been stuck underground, dead (ha) to the world for months. He was certainly several Staywells down when he woke up.
no subject
"Oh. Woah. That was like. Well over a month ago, buddy. You sure there's nothing else in between?"
That was... Concerning.
no subject
It is concerning. There's even some concern under the irritation in his voice.
But he does pause in being concerned to start in on the pie the waiter drops off in front of him. He feels like he hasn't eaten in weeks. Possibly he actually hasn't.
how hard could it be
Olympia blinks a few times in quick succession - clearly surprised by the request, even if it's thankfully kind of normal enough to not be super startling on top of it..
"I.. um, okay." At least she's helpful enough to immediately agree all the same. Even if the girl still seems a little curious and surprised as she asks: "Where are you going..?"
Maybe he just has to pee? That'd make sense. Though Olympia reallly doesn't think anyone would be stealing anyone's drink in this place.
no subject
This confidence lasts all the way to the bull. It's hard to say whether it lasts at all while on the bull, because Nicholas is almost immediately thrown off it, landing in a lanky heap not far from where he had been sitting.
So, probably no second drink yet.
no subject
Because she already feels a little worried when she realizes he's heading over towards the bull, but she tries to reassure herself by telling herself that surely Nicholas wouldn't be doing this unless he was absolutely confident he could do it..
.. except that's apparently not the case, because she witnesses him falling off and crumbling into a little pile in real time. The girl lets out a gasp and abandons their drinks - sorry, Nicholas! - to instead run over to his side, squatting down to be on a more even level as she frowns as him in concern.
"A-Are you alright?! Did you get hurt..?" It looks like it hurt! Hence why she can't help but feel panicked and fuss over him now.
no subject
Then he immediately contradicts himself and says "I'm fine." This is because it doesn't hurt that badly, and also because Olympia is panicking and he doesn't want her to work herself up into a tizzy.
Slowly, he sits up properly, careful not to groan in the process.
no subject
The tizzy is already here. It's here right now!
Which is obvious from the way she looks. She's still sticking by his side even when he sits up, like she's glued there, and her entire facial expression just screams that she's incredibly worried about him in this moment. Sure, he looks relatively okay and he can still sit up, but that doesn't mean that fall couldn't have done some great damage to him that just isn't very visible.
"You can't move too much right now!" She says. Perhaps a statement that's surprisingly bold by Olympia standards, but all usual standards are off when it comes to fussing. Her shyness doesn't win from her desire to make sure he's alright. "Please stay like this before you hurt yourself even more..!"
no subject
"Really, I'm fine. Just a little sore." But he does stay where he is. Partly to avoid upsetting Olympia and causing an even bigger scene (with, probably, even more puppy dog eyes from her), and partly because he is in fact more than a little sore.
no subject
You'd almost feel like she could read his mind or something that she's insisting so much on it. Or maybe she's just thinking about this logically, given the way he was thrown around a moment ago.
It's neither of those though. It's entirely natural fussing on her end. Olympia would be acting like this even if he just tripped over thin air and fell down on the ground, like any small accident could cause lifethreatening injuries..
.. which unfortunately does mean the puppy eyes stay, even though he's being good and not moving around.
Olympia moves her hand, sticking up three fingers at him.
"Can you tell how many fingers I'm holding up?"
dug
This is where it's all beginning anew, is it? Even after the trembling earth, all of this...remains.
Darin's right: Something's coming to a head. She's not certain what that something will be, but...
Soon.
For now, her introspection is halted by the call; she's already called back, ears straining as she moves back to the stairs to look down for the source.
no subject
"Hey! Where are ya? I'm by the stairs."
no subject
"I'm above you," she calls back. "Can you safely ascend? I'll leave a light."
Or three: It's easy to cast the little light motes and send them some feet down.
no subject
"Cecelia?" How far up is she? It's hard to tell. "I think I can, but some light would help." It would be just like this place to have some middle steps suddenly missing. Or covered with nails to step on.
no subject
Cecelia holds her breath until she can glean the outline of his form down there, exhaling softly.
"It's not that far," she assures. "Eight or nine flights? Take your time."
no subject
In spite of his irritation, he does take his time, using the lights to check his footing and for signs of anyone else here. But there's still nothing but stone, wood, and the dirt covering all of it. It would be dull if it didn't feel so much like a tomb.
At the bottom of the last flight, he waves to Cecelia before starting up. "Hey. So how'd we end up here?"
There was that monster that came up through the pool, but he's pretty sure they defeated it and no one was sucked down into the underworld. Did something happen after that? Was he knocked out or something?
no subject
It's not why her heart is so anxious, but it seems sensible to her.
"It's the town. Up here, up top...it's the town again. The desert.
"These might be the remains of calamaties past."
no subject
"What else could it be?"
Is he going to regret asking that question? Probably. He probably shouldn't be inviting even more existential uncertainty.
no subject
She remarks it pointedly, as if that were completely obvious.