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

yuri lowell | tales of vesperia

[vibing]

1: Dancing shoes

[ Decked out in black, denim clinging tight to his thighs and loose around his shoulders, Yuri orders a beer at the bar, almost like it's muscle memory. The bandana is loose around his throat, over a bare chest, his linen shirt open to his navel. The bartender pours him a tall pint and the flavor washes over his tongue like fresh water after a long, hot day. It feels like the days here are dragging on forever, and he isn't quite sure why, or what he should be doing, but he's antsy just sitting around.

At least the bar is lively. People dance and talk and drink, and he settles into the noise, letting it wash over him. After a long moment, the drink seems to ply his tongue, and he glances at you, sitting next to him, a smile flickering on his lips ]

What d'you think's beyond the desert?

2: Sand trap

[ As soon as the door snaps shut behind him, Yuri has a bad feeling. This room isn't where he meant to go: he wanted to go drown himself in the shower; the cold water feels amazing, and he can't get enough of it.

This isn't a bathroom at all. There's no shower here, no water here, and he meets eyes with you, standing across the small room from him, and his hand goes to something on his wrist--something that isn't there. Fuck. He needs to get a sword, or an axe, or something. At least he's still decent at hand-to-hand. ]

Alright, funny joke. Where are we?

3: Memories of the living

[ The graveyard feels oddly peaceful. It's hot and dry, like the rest of Wellstone, but it feels calm here. Surrounded by people who tread this ground before, who lived in these buildings, who maybe even built them. He doesn't quite notice that he's lost until he very much is, walking slowly between the headstones.

The feeling of being watched tips him off first. Goosebumps shiver up his spine and he twitches, even if he doesn't show it, and looks slowly around for the culprit. His eyes land on you, and he relaxes a little. Knowing the enemy is easier than not.

He gives you a little nod, intent to keep walking on his own, when he turns back toward where he came from and... nothing. Just more stones, more crosses, more graves. No path, no exit. Strange. He hooks a hand on his hip ]

Exit's that way, right?

[ He points back the way he came, which might not be where you came from. ]

sand (thirst) trap

[thinkfirst]

[ Flynn's hand, naturally, is still on the doorknob. The closed, unmoving doorknob, which hasn't been responding to any of his attempts to open it. This is shitty for a lot of reasons but the most pressing of all of them is that Flynn—

Flynn really, really has to pee. Flynn has had to pee for the increasingly-desperate two minutes he's been trapped in here already, and now his only possible exit in the form of the other door has snapped shut and so possibly he can be forgiven for snapping, red-faced and uncomfortable, ]

If it's a joke, it's a very elaborate one. Check your door, please—

[ As if Flynn isn't striding across the room to try it himself, possibly nudging Yuri aside in his distress. Oops! Normally he's so much more polite than this, but desperate times... ]

[vibing]

[ Yuri's nudged aside, holding up his hands as he watches this guy try the door he just came through ]

Jeez... no luck, man. It's stuck.

[ He's not not freaking out, but he's not freaking out as much as this guy. Instead, while Flynn fruitlessly tries the door again, Yuri looks around the room, a hand on his hip. He lets out a whistle ]

Alright, the way out is up. Far... up...

[thinkfirst]

[ Flynn yanks hard, uselessly, on the door one more time. It doesn't even budge. It feels like it should budge, because he just saw it close and it can't be that well-sealed, but even ramming his shoulder into it just makes his skin smart, makes him scowl at the thing. ]

Up doesn't make sense. I've been into the bathroom on my room. I was just there this morning! It was a normal door! It didn't lead—

[ Finally, he turns around, still frowning, and follows the guy's eyes... ]

...up.

[ Flynn squints into the hazy light. Is that a ladder? He steps closer, trying to get a closer look, and then yelps as something sharp hits his eye. ]

Ow!

[vibing]

[ Yuri twists, his hand going to--nothing. There's nothing there. He curls his hand into a fist instead, and he glances up, around, trying to find the source of what could have hurt this guy.

He doesn't really hear it at first, but his eyes go up, and up again, and he can see the shimmer of tan against the white wall. Taking a step forward, he kneels down, and touches the floor, where little granules of sand are building up on the edges of the room ]

Huh. That's weird.

[ It's sort of like rain, but sand, and indoors, and that doesn't make any sense at all. Just as he's about to say more, the sand seems to start falling faster, the pile at his feet doubling in bare seconds ]

Looks like bad news.

[ He glances at the guy again, sizing him up. He feels a tug of something--he looks familiar, but Yuri can't for the life of him place why. But he can't for the life of him place much today. That doesn't matter now. What matters is this guy looks strong ]

Think you can give me a boost? [ He tilts his head toward the ladder ]

[thinkfirst]

[ Flynn's eyes dart from the wall to his companion, his brows rising. A boost, presumably to get up the wall. He could just clamber up and leave Flynn here to be buried. Uncharitable, maybe, and anyway, maybe it doesn't matter: the sand is a rushing hiss now, shifting from a trickle to a stream, bouncing up over the bottoms of Flynn's boots. Bad news, indeed.

Anyway, this guy doesn't look light but that doesn't matter, either: it's the best plan they have. ]

Of course. You'll have to climb up—

[ Easy as that. Or, well, it should be: Flynn has to pick his way through puddling sand, shaking off his boots as he goes, and the moment he braces against the wall a deluge of sand is coughed down from above, running fast right between his arms, making him cough and recoil as far as he can get. ]

Hurry! If you stretch, you should be able to grab the bottom—

[ While Flynn devolves into graceless coughing oh this is the worst, he is so uncomfortable right now. ]

2

[simplefarmboy]

[Clark blinks as the door behind him snaps shut. This should be easy- He turns around and tries to open it just like he did with the one at the front entrance of the hotel. Except it doesn't budge.

That's weird. Except that's actually how doors are supposed to work, right?

Was the first one a fluke?

He turns around and looks to Yuri. He gives an honest and earnest shrug.]

No idea-

I didn't see this on floor plan.

[Because of course he checked the floor plan.]

[vibing]

[ Yuri raises an eyebrow at that. There's a floor plan. He gives Clark a once over, sizing him up. Looks strong. Probably good in a fight. If that's what this is for.

Why does his mind go straight to being locked in a room meaning a fight? ]

This isn't exactly where I was trying to be. Door's still stuck?

[simplefarmboy]

[Clark seems less tense about their situation. He's not exactly brimming with confidence but a sense of calm.]

Yeah- I was going to try and find a poncho that was less... red.

[He turns back to the door and tries to open it again. There's nothing. He tries with a bit more force and only manages to crush the door knob in his grip. He realizes this as he let's go and stands in front of it to block it from view.]

Nothing- We might need to find another way out of here.

[vibing]

[ The crunch of metal makes Yuri look back at him, then down at the knob and

the hell?? Did he just? He stares. Blinks. Squints, and walks over to the door, heedless of the sand falling down the walls. He inspects the doorknob ]

What kind of...

[simplefarmboy]

[Clark looks like a kid who just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar as Yuri approaches and stares at the door.

He needs something to draw attention away from what he just did. He looks to the walls and takes note of the sand falling. He looks down at their boots and sees that the sand is slowly filling the room.]

I think we might need to find another way out of here.

1

[chickenchoicejudy]

[Ryan doesn't have an answer, but he'll pretend to think about it like he does for the sake of friendly conversation.]

Hm...I'm gonna guess more sky? Probably less sand? Maybe more than three local businesses?

[Something like that.]

[vibing]

Yeah? Real specific. [ His smile grows and he laughs softly into his beer. ] Guess I'm hoping there's something out there. More people. More cities. Mountains, maybe. I'd like to see the ocean.

[chickenchoicejudy]

[Wow. All of that sounds amazing to Ryan. He goes from joking around to watching with wide-eyed awe.]

Have you ever been anywhere like that? Other cities, mountains, stuff like that?

[It's again, not very specific, but...Ryan can't remember going to anywhere like that. He'd love to hear what it's like.

[vibing]

[ Yuri opens his mouth to answer, then shuts it with a frown ]

Huh. I'm not sure. Maybe? I remember traveling, but not much about it. I was mostly... helping someone. Helping someone get somewhere.

[ So specific. Extremely specific ]

Jeez, it's weird, not knowing much of anything. All I've got is one person. A couple places. And a few really vivid memories, and then it's just... nothing.

1

[minorjourney]

Dunno. It could be worth finding out sometime. [Molly pushes his dark hair out of his eyes and knocks back his drink. The whiskey burns going down. The drink warms up his senses as he smiles. He snags the umbrella from the bottom of his glass and tucks it up against one of his horns.]

There are a lot of mysteries hanging around. Well, other than all of us. [He snags another umbrella when his drink is refilled. He tucks it on the other side. He sways a little bit, a grin spreading across his face.] No matter what, we could all help each other through this.

[vibing]

[ Yuri's smile grows with each umbrella. That's cute. Real cute. Too bad his beer doesn't have an umbrella... ]

I dunno if I'm much of a mystery. Not any more than the next guy. But, hell, guess we should help each other, even if I got no idea what we're trying to do here.

[minorjourney]

[His grin grows wider.] When everyone around you is a mystery. The next guy is just another question. [He gives a mock toast and sips his drink. Better to slow down his drinking a bit.

Or he will just be fun and not that helpful.] Only thing I remember is I try to leave places better than I found them. But you got my help. [He takes one of the umbrellas and offers it to him.] Mollymauk. Since we're going to help each other, call me Molly.

[vibing]

He's a poet. [ Yuri toasts back with a little laugh.

Then he's being given an umbrella, and he feels--something. Delighted, to start with. He stares at it for a second, then plucks it from Molly's hand. He tucks it behind his ear along with a lock of hair. ] Thanks, Molly. I'm Yuri. Yuri, since we're gonna be helping each other.

You know what kind of places you've been before? [ Which is a strange question, but feels appropriate right now ]

1

[femboi]

(Haku looks completely ill-suited to the western garments he has been given. He had been given a bustle and a skirt, but then somewhere along the line it had been decided perhaps he was a boy after all, so he was given a bulky vest and jacket. A large cowboy hat sat on his head and he kept having to adjust it.

It's easy as ever to mistake him for a girl. More than anything though, he's just trying to be mistaken for the wall behind him. Which...does not work at all. He jumps a bit at the question, the man asking it, and then gives a helpless shrug that has his jacket sliding halfway off of him.)

I can't say for sure. I'm rather unfamiliar with erm- deserts. (And...like...everything else right now!)

Perhaps...trees? (He's doing his best.)

[vibing]

[ Yuri isn't going to question the outfit, but he is going to look at it. Huh. That's quite a look. The skirt looks kind of fun, but he has no idea why. ]

Trees... could be. Trees can't grow in the desert, but outside it...

I wouldn't mind seeing some trees.

[ A beat ]

You comfortable in that?

[ Okay maybe he's questioning it a little ]

1

[shardsofmemory]

Sand.

[ Is Roxas... old enough to be here? He sure doesn't look like it. His legs are swinging idly on his barstool, tapping against the bar itself occasionally, and he's swirling a straw through a blue, fruity-looking thing, only half-drunk.

He perks up a little when he sees Yuri, though: it's the guy from the graveyard. The one who wouldn't leave him behind. ]

For some reason, when I think about deserts, I think... they have to just go on forever. It's all just sand. But you can't just take that and accept it. If we wanna know, we gotta find out.

[vibing]

Yeah, I was gonna say. [ His lips quirk, and he toasts Roxas with his glass ] It can't just all be sand. Unless it is, but I got a feeling there has to be other stuff. We can't be the only people in the whole world, right?

cw underage drinking ig ig

[shardsofmemory]

[ He is absolutely drinking alcohol. That's a fruity blue drink he just toasted Yuri with, and his cheeks are a bit flushed already. It doesn't taste the BEST but it's not... terrible. Kind of like fancy juice?

It's a good question, though. Roxas glances at the doorway like he's going to see the whole world out there, squints a bit. ]

I don't know. How big's a world supposed to be?

[vibing]

[ Well, that's a good question too. Yuri considers it, cocking his head to the side ]

Huh. I dunno. Big. Really big? It's gotta have more than just one tiny town...

[ But he can't remember. He can't remember anything but being up very, very high. He thinks he traveled with Estelle, but the detailed elude him. ]

D'you know where you're from?