1.0 Test Drive Meme

[wellie]

1.0 Test Drive Meme

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Welcome to Well! Characters arrive the same way every month. Your character arrives with only a handful of memories, clad in old west style clothes of your choosing, with 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.

Applications open on January 20th, and the game opens on February 1st. Invites are available for members of the mods' plurk lists.

Put on your dancing shoes

Content warning: Alcohol, intoxication, altered mental state

Something’s happening at the Cactus Pad Saloon. It’s lit up bright against the growing night, and music spills out onto the street. Seems like a fun time that you should check out. In fact, it’s hard not to check it out: the closer you get, the stronger the urge to join the fun. If you’ve been spending a lot of time alone, you’ll feel even more compelled to come get a drink.

The bartender serves up anything you can think of: from whiskey to apple juice to blood, if that’s your preference. She doesn’t blink an eye, no matter what’s ordered. The funny thing is, no matter what you order, once you take a sip, the world feels a little easier to deal with, your worries seem to melt away. You’re flush with sudden confidence.

If you strike up a conversation with the person next to you, conversation flows like you’re talking to an old friend. You feel a sense of kinship, deep and meaningful, good or bad, that bonds you together.

The old record player is playing a fun ditty, and the longer you stick around, the more you’re tempted to join, or start, the dancing. Whether you’re a great dancer or you have two left feet, you find that you feel capable of dancing like no one’s watching. No one knows you here, after all. You barely know yourself, so why not draw a partner into the fray? A party’s better together!

If you end up staying there til closing time, the bartender kicks you out with a gruff “come back tomorrow,” leaving you to stumble home with your new best friend. What was their name again?

Sand trap

Content warning: Quick sand, potential drowning in sand

You step through a door into a room you didn’t mean to enter. You were trying to head into the saloon, or your hotel room, or the bathroom, and instead you’re here: in a small, tight, windowless room in a white-washed building. The air here is old, stale, and thick. Hazy gold light bounces off the walls, but you can’t tell where it’s coming from, since there’s no visible ceiling. The walls just stretch up and up into bright nothingness.

Someone else is there, too, coming through an identical door on the opposite wall. Both doors snap shut, and won’t open again, no matter how hard you try. They won’t even break.

This might not be so bad, except that a sound starts to fill the space: sand, trickling down the walls. It’s just a dusting to start. It comes sprinkling down above, seeping through the cracks in the door. The longer you stand there, the faster it comes: sand flows down the walls in massive torrents, building up on the floor, shifting and thick, trapping you in place.

The only way out is up. When you look again at the walls, you’ll notice it: about 10 feet up the wall hangs a flimsy rope ladder, half-hidden by the waterfall of sand. You’ll have to work together to even reach it, or maybe let the ever-growing pile of shifting, slippery sand lift you up? Be careful, because even if you manage to reach the rope, you both have to get out of here, and the longer you’re here, the faster and harder the sand falls. The ladder seems to go on forever, tens of feet up an endless wall. The better you work together, the closer the top seems. No matter how well you collaborate, they're at least 50 feet high.

When you’ve fought your way through the sand and reached the top of the ladder, you finally see it: the sand is coming in through the open windows of a steeple. You can’t see where it’s from, not really. You can’t see much of anything, but it’s clear: the only way out is, well, out. You have to jump, trusting that yourself and your companion will be safe.

Once free, you land together outside of one of the buildings or rooms you were trying to enter, like nothing happened at all. It’s a calm day, after all.

Memories of the living

Content warning: Cemetery, contemplating mortality

Dusk settles purple over Wellstone. Early stars are out, the moon is thin, and you find yourself inexplicably drawn to the graveyard. You can resist, but the more days you do, the harder it gets. The graveyard is calling to you in a voice you can’t hear.

While it seems small before you enter, once you start walking through the crumbling graves, it seems to stretch endlessly. You pass elaborate dust-covered crypts carved with strange angels; bleached wooden crosses overgrown with cacti; a crumbling old well, long gone dry; worn-down headstones jut at odd angles. Some graves have old offerings on them, brightly colored beads or candles or framed photos, sun-bleached beyond recognition.

You may have been walking for five minutes or fifty, but when you look around, you can’t see to find the exit. You hear howling, and see the flicker of lights from behind the graves, but you can never find their source, no matter how much you look. No matter how long you spend in the graveyard, the sun never seems to sink lower in the sky. An oppressive sense of being watched grows to the point that you whip around, expecting to find someone there until—

You do. You find each other. Others drawn here to the graveyard, walking among the crumbling stones, will end up by the same headstones. Exploring together eases the watchful feeling just a little, but it won’t help you get out. No, you’re looking for something. The exit? No, you’re sure there’s something more important than that.

If you follow your impulses, you may just find it: a gravestone, weathered, old, with a familiar name on it: yours. Your date of birth can be visible, but the date of death is too weathered to read. You may find an offering there, something small and meaningful to you, a small shiny coin or some bright beads.

Once you find your grave, when you look up, you’ll see the exit. You’re really not that far from it, after all, the rusted iron arch barely a stone's throw feet away. Your companion won’t see it yet. You can make a dash for it, get out of this awful place, or help your companion find their own gravestone. When your companion finds their stone, they will also be able to see the exit. Exiting together will alleviate the impulse to come back to this place. Leaving alone will only draw you back, making it more difficult to find your grave again.

You can take the offerings left on your grave if you want, but the sense of being watched will only grow greater until you’re compelled to return them, and leave another offering of your own.

Comments

[vibing]

Yeah, a man who saved my ass from drowning in sand. Seriously, it's fine. Apology accepted, or whatever.

[ Yuri realizes that they're still holding hands, and he pulls his hand from this guy's grip. He takes another sip of his drink, eyes skipping away from him.

He realizes then that he doesn't actually know his name. ]

Name's Yuri.

[thinkfirst]

Flynn. Pleasure to meet you.

[ Flynn says, sort of automatically, and tries not to notice the loss of calloused fingers. He's shifting from foot to foot, keeping time with the music without quite being aware of it. ]

Um. Re-meet you, I mean—is that really what it takes? I save you once, and I'm allowed to be as rude as I want?

[vibing]

You can do whatever you want. It's your choice. Just might think you're more of a dick next time. [ He says it around his straw, and he feels a strange need for liquid courage. He doesn't know why. His eyes skim down Flynn's body to those tapping toes, and his lips quirk in a smile.

He finishes his drink and sets it down ]

You wanted to dance.

[thinkfirst]

And you wanted to finish your drink.

[ He was being polite, Yuri, come on! Just because he's moving in place like a particularly excitable dog—he feels sort of caught, actually, between Yuri looking at him like that and being so clearly read. For a second, he stops moving, bites at his own lip, considers—

And then offers Yuri his hand again. ]

I think that I have a responsibility to treat people well, even if I have a choice in the matter. Choice doesn't matter as much as what you owe each other, does it? Just because you can do whatever you want doesn't mean that you should.

[vibing]

Yeah. And then you'd choose to be nice. I can't control what you say to me.

[ This conversation feels like it's not going to go anywhere, but it's kind of fun. He considers Flynn's hand, and would normally turn it down, but again he can't help but take it. He moves in closer to him, his boots heavy on the floor as he starts to dance, hair swaying a moment after the beat ]

Alright, so if you're so upstanding, why'd you choose to be a dick?

[thinkfirst]

[ Abruptly, Flynn goes very pink and looks away into the crowd, embarrassment tugging sharply.

It takes him a very long time to murmur, just loud enough to be heard, ]

I was trying to get into the bathroom.

[vibing]

[ Whatever Yuri was expecting, it wasn't that. He stares at Flynn for a second, faltering in his movements, and then he bursts out into laughter, throwing his head back and shoving at Flynn ]

Jeez-- oh, man. Hey, [ He snickers, grinning at him ] I've heard worse reasons.

[ As soon as he says it, he knows he won't be able to think of a single one, but, still ]

[thinkfirst]

[ NO COME ON that's exactly what he was worried about, his face is so red now. Flynn makes a tiny embarrassed sound and shoves, very lightly, at him. ]

I know it's not an excuse but it really made the whole thing so much worse! Fighting for your life is bad enough without also having to pee the whole time!

[vibing]

No, no, you're totally right! It's hard enough when your body's ready for it.

[ He's still laughing, and nudges Flynn a little with his shoulder. ]

You always this modest? Come on, it's fine. We made it. I assume you did, too?

[thinkfirst]

Yes. I did, and I don't really want to give you the details—

[ Stop laughing at him please he's going to die, his face is so red this is the worst. ]

Next time, I just won't let myself get so distracted before accidentally getting trapped in a sand-filled death tower.

[vibing]

I wish that it happening again wasn't a possibility, but, hell, already did.

[ He's feeling some kind of way. Loose and easy and happy and he moves in, a hand on Flynn's waist, moving with the music. He doesn't have any memories of dancing, but his body seems to be doing alright at it, and he's smiling and he laughs, bright and loud ]

[thinkfirst]

[ Flynn falters his next dance step, falls briefly out of rhythm in his own surprise. ]

What? Really? When? What happened? I assume you got out alright—was this earlier today? Was anything different?

[vibing]

Yeah, yeah. Earlier. It's fine. Got out again. Really just had to climb, fast.

[ He's still grinning, raising an eyebrow at Flynn. Come on, man, you're the one who wanted to dance. He keeps moving, and pulls Flynn in, further onto the dance floor ]

[thinkfirst]

[ Right, no, dancing—Flynn doesn't have to get caught up in worry and concern, and Yuri really is on board now, it seems, which means that Flynn can catch at his hand with a tripping kind of laugh and fall into the steps properly. ]

Fast, was it? Was that really the answer? Not even a little bit "and carefully?"

[vibing]

Yep. Fast. Not carefully. Only a little bruised.

[ He winks, like actually winks. He's feeling light and not really thinking, and dancing is actually pretty fun, who knew? He turns Flynn in a little spin, feeling more himself than he has since he showed up here.

Huh. Feeling himself. That's kind of nice. ]

[thinkfirst]

Avoidably bruised.

[ Flynn can't help but point out, moments before bursting into delighted laughter at being spun out like that. Something warm and bright squirms through him, balloons up through his chest and pushes against his ribs; by the time he spins back, he's grinning, flushed and dizzy and actually enjoying himself. ]

Did you know you were a good dancer?

[vibing]

Nope. No clue. Am I?

[ He's an enthusiastic dancer, at the very least. His feet don't stop moving, and he grabs Flynn's other hand, bringing them together, then apart. ]

How about you? All left feet?

[thinkfirst]

[ Hard to stop laughing, even when Flynn misses a step and Yuri has to forcibly bring him back up against him. He's been worried about this town all day, exploring as much as he can, trying to figure out the boundaries and the reasons and any information, but this—this is fun, and it seems like he didn't completely ruin his chance at being friends with this man. That might be the biggest relief of all.

The music swells, and Flynn switches their grip, spinning Yuri out this time, watching his hair swirl like a drip of ink. ]

Decide for yourself!

[vibing]

[ Yuri can't help a bright laugh. His hair twists around him and he feels light on his feet, falling into moving, enjoying himself in the wild twist of people on the dance floor. He feels like he's had far more than a few drinks, bright and easy and dancing with this man--should he be dancing with him? He doesn't know, and doesn't care.

His feet hurt, and his breath is coming fast, and he breaks away from Flynn a long while later to stumble back to the bar, ordering himself another drink, but make it two. ]

[thinkfirst]

[ Flynn can't even wonder about the last time he did this. He doesn't have the first clue whether he liked dancing before he got here, or whether he'd liked dancing with long-haired men with pretty faces who move fast and light and easy. He can't even begin to try to remember, and it makes everything easier and more present. Flynn is dancing, whirling to the music, laughing when Yuri pulls him close and spins him out again, enjoying the easy rhythm of it, and when Yuri finally breaks away panting Flynn stumbles after him with laughter still on his lips, practically collapsing against the bar with a bright grin. ]

What, you're done already? Is that really all you can take?

[vibing]

[ Yuri shoots him a glare that doesn't really land because he's grinning. Dancing is fun, it turns out. It's fun, and the world is bright and buzzing and Yuri feels like he may have found a friend. Does he want friends? He doesn't know. ]

Nah, man. Made me thirsty-- there she is!

[ The bartender pushes two blue drinks with little umbrellas in them toward Yuri. He toasts her with one, and hands the other to Flynn. ]

On me, man.

[thinkfirst]

Oh—

[ Flynn takes the drink without thinking too hard about it, wrapping his fingers around the shapely glass with a smile he can't quite keep off his face. ]

On your room, you mean— thank you!

[ Is it weird to toast him with it? Doesn't matter, Flynn's doing it anyway, flushed and grinning over the rim of it as the music shifts into something a little softer. ]

I have the weirdest feeling that I've never drunk anything like this before. It looks... fancy.

[vibing]

[ Yuri toasts him back, then takes the umbrella out and twirls it in his fingers ]

I dunno if I had before last night. A guy here--Molly, he was ordering these. They're pretty good. Sweet and strong.

[thinkfirst]

[ Oh, you take the umbrella out. Alright. Somehow, Flynn feels like he's new at this, because once he does he just kind of holds it there between his fingers while leaning forward to take a sip and— ]

Oh! Wow, I've definitely never had anything like this—

[ Don't mind him taking a much much bigger sip, grinning around the straw. ]

[vibing]

It's good, right? [ Yuri grins back at him, taking a sip of his own drink. He already feels happy and relaxed, another drink isn't going to enhance that much--so he thinks. But he falls into easy conversation, laughing, joking, enjoying just being around someone else, even if he has no idea where he is, or why ]