wellcome | 1.0 Test Drive Meme

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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ 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!

[ 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. ]

[ 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?

[ 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.

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.

[ 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.

[ 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. ]

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 ]

[ It really is very easy, actually. Maybe that's the alcohol finally taking off the edge Flynn's been teetering on since he blinked into himself in that bright lobby, hazy and unsure. Everywhere he's turned for the last few days has resulted in blockages and frustration and precious few answers, and that awful sand trap wasn't even the worst of it. He's wandered in among gravestones and found his own name and tasted flowers at the back of his own throat and wondered why it made him feel so sick and so sad. He's explored every working building in this tiny little town and he has nothing to show for it but a drawer full of probably-useless objects purchased out of guilt for his prowling and which he can't even be sure he can afford anyway.

Easy, then, to spill all of this to Yuri as they sit at the bar: how frustrating he finds it to be so useless and so lost, the way this town already feels confining, how sure he is that he can't afford any of this without really knowing why. Easy to tease Yuri about his long hair getting potentially caught in that terrible ladder, and about his very unusual taste in drinks and the fact that he can't seem to do his shirt up all the way— "I didn't realize anyone could be allergic to buttons," he points out with a laugh, and enjoys the way it makes Yuri snort and shove at him.

So then it's equally easy, when they've drained their glasses and Flynn is buzzing with alcohol and easy joy, to thread his arm through Yuri's and tug him from the barstool with an idea bright in his mind. ]

Come on, come on—do your shirt up, though, it's cold out there. You'll want to see this, I promise!

What? My shirt is fine.

[ But even so, Yuri stumbles after him, feeling light and easy and happy and part of him aches for this feeling of friendship, but most of him is right here with Flynn, talking and laughing and feeling grateful to have found someone to talk to in this strange, new place.

He doesn't do up his shirt. When they leave the saloon, wind makes his shirt billow out large, and he shivers, but doesn't do anything about it. ]

Where're we going? Promise you I've seen the whole town. [ Not like it's hard... ]

You can't have seen the whole town. We've only been here a few days!

[ Flynn says, mostly to be contrary about it, still riding high on his excitement. Yuri's shirt is blowing around in the wind, as he predicted. The pal flash of his skin is distracting in the moonlight. ]

It's not a big town.

[ Yuri shoots back at him with a grin. He feels so light and easy, happy for the first time since he showed up here ]

It was.

[ Flynn shoots back, grinning ridiculously himself. He tugs Yuri down the dusty streets toward the diner, hoping what he saw last night is still true tonight. It's magical, some part of him thinks, and more than that, he wants to share the wonder of it. Somehow witnessing things alone feels wrong.

Another gust of wind trails along the ground, whipping at Yuri's shirt, tugging it up. Flynn looks down for a bare second and then makes himself look away. ]

Aren't you cold? Do you always dress like this?

You know I can't answer that.

[ The wind steals Yuri's laughter, and he pulls his shirt down, to keep it away from the wind. ]

But it feels right, y'know? And it was hot earlier.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could, though? I can't even ask you anything about yourself, because you won't be able to tell me! It's—

[ The wind picks up again, colder this time. Flynn, still attached to Yuri's arm, squints into it and pulls them a little to the side as they near the diner, which is in fact glowing out there in the night like a red-and-purple beacon. ]

It's annoying.

[ A beat. Flynn tugs him a little closer to the diner. Lights, far away, dance in the desert. ]

It's more than annoying, I guess. It's... a little scary.

[ Yuri feels like he should pull away. He has a feeling that he doesn't like being touched, but something stays him. He isn't actually uncomfortable right now. Flynn's hand is warm and his closeness is nice and Yuri shrugs, smiling softly ]

Guess so. Scary 'cause you don't know who you are? Or scary 'cause you don't know where they wenr?

Honestly, I hadn't even thought of the second one. They're both... unsettling, at least.

[ Flynn's voice is dry, but warm under the faint whistle of the desert wind. They're getting close enough, crunching over dry ground, that the lights on the diner, glowing bright, are the only thing visible on the horizon, blotting out the stars. Something about that feels familiar, but Flynn couldn't say what. He swallows, slowing to a halt to stare at up them. ]

This is what I wanted you to see. Have you been here at night? It glows like this for hours.

[ Yuri's about to respond when Flynn stops and looks at the sign, and Yuri looks at it, too. He's seen it, but he hasn't really looked. His lips part, and he looks at it: the colors, how bright it is, how fun it looks, and he laughs, soft and easy ]

Well, look at that. Hours? What, until dawn?

[ Flynn laughs, too, a little more brightly, huffing soft into the cold night. ]

I didn't wait that long. Figured the responsible thing to do was go to bed, but I imagine it's like this all night. It's... really nice.

[ He meant to look at Yuri just to gauge his reaction, see what that laugh did to his face. He hadn't at all meant to get caught in the play of color on his skin, turning him pink-red-blue-purple at the edges, glinting off his flying hair. Flynn stares for a second, wondering—

And then the breeze picks up again, colder and stronger. ]

[ Yuri shivers, his hair whipping against Flynn, hitting him in the throat ]

Shit, sorry.

[ The wind really is doing a number on his hair. He doesn't think he has a hairtie--wait! He takes his bandana out of his pocket and pulls his hair back, tying the bandana around it. It won't hold forever, but at least it isn't attacking his new companion. He ignores the cold in favor of grinning at Flynn ]

Responsible, huh? For what?

[ The thing about admiring shiny, possibly-entirely-new lights is that you really don't expect a faceful of hair while you're doing it, so Flynn absolutely sputters and laughs and helps bat it away until Yuri gets it under control, murmuring something about it being a menace, but—

Well, Yuri's grinning at him, and Flynn grins helplessly back, shrugging out of his thick denim jacket on instinct. It's lined with a fleecy lining that makes it very warm, and it's warmer still from his bodyheat when he drapes it around Yuri's shoulders. ]

Trying to figure out where all my memories went, for one. I couldn't even tell you what city I'm from. There—

[ He's still standing very close, smoothing the jacket over Yuri's arms, and realizes it all at once with a strange rush of heat that makes him flush and laugh and step back. ]

Does that help?

[ Flynn wraps him in a jacket and he feels--something. His face feels hot, and Flynn is very close to him, and that impulse to shy away from touch is back, and he heeds it this time, taking a step back. ]

Hey, I don't need your coat. Now you're gonna be cold.

[ He starts to take it off ]

Keep it!

[ DON'T YOU DARE— Flynn reaches out and yanks it firmly back into place. ]

I'm fine. It seems like I run warm. It's one of the facts I have about myself.

[ Why does he want Yuri to keep the jacket so bad? Flynn has no idea. He is a lot colder without it, but Yuri was shivering in the wind, and he has his thin little shirt all open like that, and Flynn... sort of owes him, really. That must be it. He steps back again before Yuri can hand the jacket back, holding his hands up like a ward. Don't try anything, man. ]

Do you know where you're from?

[ If he's going to insist--Yuri doesn't see a reason to complain. It is warm. He's a lot warmer, and Flynn seems to really want him to have it. He rolls his eyes anyway ]

No. I don't remember much about myself at all. I know I was a knight. I know about one person. I remember... something awful happening to her. She's okay, now, I think. It was my job to keep her safe... [ He thinks. He's piecing it together. He frowns, fingers curling in the warm fabric. ]

You know you're from a city?

[ A knight, and someone to protect. Someone important enough to keep safe— something pings through Flynn, ricocheting around inside him like a tumbleweed. He swallows and curls his own fingers into the rough fabric of his jeans, staring at the lights. ]

A big one. Not... not a very good part of it, I think? It can't have been. Some of the buildings looked a little like the ones here. There were nicer ones in the distance, I think. It's... hazy.

[ A beat. He swallows again, glances sideways. It is a lot colder, not standing close to Yuri. ]

You think she's okay? The person you wanted to protect? Does that mean you're not sure?

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