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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!
Harrier Du Bois | Disco Elysium
3
He drops the arm.] I’m sure the Bull is thinking alright. Going to go again or go have a drink?
no subject
While Vax adjusts to being un-crushed, Harry turns away from the bull to look at him. He takes in the last glimpse of magic, the pointed ears, the way his aches turned to clean warmth. When he touches a hand to his mustache, his fingers come away bloody, but nothing hurts.
Then he parses Go have a drink? and another, even louder reflex responds.
(YES.)
(Wait—) ]
Drink, obviously. To my victory. [ Something in his head ties itself up in a worried tremble, but there's no time to think about that. ] What did you do?
2
Hearing someone else here makes him twitch. It's not impossible, other people are nosey too. He should keep to himself, but the part of him that really hates being alone, the part that's curious like a cat, moves him forward as half his mind is still swirling with everything last month brought.
He flashes the light into the room where Harry is, catching him like an animal in the beam. His brows raise at the shirt in Harry's hands. It's very shiny.
Then it's on the floor and Yuri's laughing. "Hey, don't let me stop you."
no subject
(The laughter is genuine.)
(You can't be the first to come looking for information in the bones of the past.)
"I won't." He struggles into the too-small shirt, which rides up his arms and shows a pale strip of beer belly. (You should change back before he realizes you look fat.) (No. Commit. You look sturdy and masculine.) (Stay focused.)
It's a good shirt. Harry commits. He flexes just to make the purple flecks on the walls jump and spin.
"The real crime would be letting this shirt go to waste."
no subject
The shirt is objectively kind of fun, but it doesn't fit him at all, and Yuri raises his eyebrows at the man's commitment to it. He's not going to comment on the fit, but also.
"Yeah, man. It's a good shirt," is it a crime to not tell him... but, well. They're in the dark, and Yuri honestly doesn't care. At least this is a distraction. This weird guy with his too-small shiny shirt is a distraction that looks particularly eerie in the purple light.
"Did you... show up down here?" Has he even been to the surface? Is he a weird cave dweller?
no subject
"I woke up in a ruined hotel," he says, without hesitation or apparent concern. "No memory or anything."
1
Don't mind me. Luci's just gonna nap a few more minutes. Maybe the hotel will be normal when I wake up.
[The worn curtain was at this point pulled over his head, and he curled up in a ball underneath it. Nope-- he is not dealing with this again.]
no subject
Let's get moving. Up and at 'em!
[ There are mysterious ruins to investigate. He hauls himself to his feet and looks around. ]
no subject
[The pile of fabric rolled around.]
I'm not moving. Luci is in low energy mode until this place fixes itself.
no subject
[ He sounds guilelessly interested. He's still standing there, big and loud and expectant, turning to survey the room. ]
2
She resembles a kind of vulture-harpy, though with a long neck and sharp, shining steel feathers and scales. No clothes. Perched in the mostly-intact mast of a ship, she watches Harry for however long it takes before he passes the [medium] perception check - she's a big, strange thing with a light but she's also a pretty good distance away. Whenever she sees him notice, she calls out-]
No, don't mind me. This is fascinating.
no subject
(Predatory birds are known for their visual acuity—)
(You sense no malice—)
(Her woman half is very naked.)
In the end, he drops what he's doing and jogs over. Harry has to crane way back to look up at her. For a moment he wars between What and Who, but in the end: ]
Who are you?