avalaughs | TEST DRIVE MEME ⚔️️ 9

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TEST DRIVE MEME ⚔️️ 9

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SUMMARY: New arrivals drop into the lake and have to climb up a cliff to the Rent a Ride, where they are given their device and some headphones and can retrieve their personal materials. There is a small earthquake during this (shaking, some things may fall off of shelves, but no structural damage) that upsets the normal arrival creatures, limiting cliff-falling rescues and sliming the water. They travel to Camelot, which is a multiple day journey, so they stop at the Red Springs along the way and stay at an inn there.

A ⦿ Soaking in Your Arrival

KERPLUNK, SPLASH!

Regardless of what you were in the middle of, you and your familiar have been magically pulled into the world of Avalon just above the Bay's waters. After a brief plunge into the Bay, the rush of water filling your ears and soaking up into every creak and crevice of your body, you may need to cough to clear your airways when you rise above the surface. It's still chilly, but not enough that you can't manage on your own. The Lady of the Lake is swimming around under the water, helping to rescue any wayward travelers who look like they're struggling in the water. This month's helpers are giant pillow jellies, a species of jellyfish that is capable of ballooning itself at the surface to create bouncy pads for characters to hop across to the shore, should they choose or not be able to swim. They come in a variety of bioluminescent colors, but do not seem to be very talkative even to animal magic users. Those who try may find themselves being ignored, even if they hear the jellies talking amongst themselves about this and that.

In the middle of the new arrivals, there is a small earthquake that shakes the island and makes the waters choppy. The jellyfish are startled and release a glow-in-the-dark slime that may dye your characters' hair and skin until they can get a proper bath. The Lady of the Lake seems disquieted by the earthquake, but there isn't much to be done about it where they are now besides make sure that everyone is outside of the water as quickly as possible.

If anyone tries to ask the Lady of the Lake for directions, she will direct you to Archimedes at the Rent-a-Ride. The shores themselves are littered with new arrivals complaining their way up a staircase carved into the walls of the White Cliffs. There is no railing, so be careful, as the earthquake has scared the cliff beast into hiding, meaning for July's arrivals, there is no safety net. They may need some serious help if a fall occurs!

*Reminder: Your character's familiar may or may not be with your character in their initial plunge. If the familiar isn't partial to water, it may meet your character on the beach or sit atop their head while they swim. Or if they are, they might splash about and swim alongside your character. Familiars have different personalities and body specs and we leave those up to the players.

B ⦿ The Caravan to Camelot

Once everyone is wrangled up to the top of the White Cliffs, the handsome owner of the Rent-a-Ride, Archimedes, will distribute smart phones, sunscreen, a pair of sunglasses, and a pair of ear buds and tell them to "Check the Shit Box." The "Shit Box" refers to wardrobe more formally known as the Wardrobe of Finding, a hammerspace-like wardrobe that opens to each person's items and pets when the person touches the handle. It was enchanted by Merlin to prevent people from having to fish their waterlogged possessions and pets out of the water with them. From there, Archimedes directs everyone to settle in groups into modernized carriages pulled by horses and gives them a basic explanation of why and how they've been brought to Avalon: The rest of the universe is frozen in time and your character has been brought here by a familiar that was able to bond with them. They'll have to learn magic to help save their own world from destruction, but first they've got to get them to Camelot. It is here that you have the first opportunity to decide who they will be in their new home. You'll have about an hour to wander around here, meet and greet, and pet the horses before it's time to go.

These carriages use fae technology that combats weight, so your character will be able to get in regardless of whether they're light as a feather or weigh two tons. The carts have air conditioning when it's hot, heating when it's cold, and a mystical shield to protect from bugs. There is also a mini-bar that pops out of the console with nip bottles. Characters can use their smartphones to connect to Camelot's internet service,

avalononline (AOL), to chat with other characters, watch dumb videos, learn about the world, contact Camelot Support (they'll answer any questions they can for you, from how to use a smart phone to where to find quests and resources to learn more about your magic). Be careful if you decide to use your phones while in the caravan-- if you don't use those earbuds and start forcing everyone to listen to your nonsense, Archimedes may make you walk.

C ⦿ The Red Spring

The journey from the White Cliffs to the City of Camelot is a long one, and the first evening you arrive you'll end up spending at the Red Spring, a booming resort town. Because of the volume of new arrivals and vacationers, inn rooms are assigned two-to-a-room. The rooms have two twin beds, a bathroom, a mini-fridge and microwave, and a TV equipped with a couple of entertaining video games and a few free movies.

If you don't want to relax in the room, try taking a dip in the spring for another chance to meet your fellow travelers. The waters have restorative properties that help horses and travelers recover quickly when drunk. It is known to relieve stress, improve energy levels, and mildly accelerate healing. It may be a little chilly when you get out though, so make sure you don't slip rushing back indoors when you get out!

The springs are also home to a large training grounds just outside town limits, where there are teachers who will teach basic magic safety and help you discover what kind of magic you have together with other new arrivals. Try target practice, obstacle courses, meditation circles, and other ways to try to figure out just what you can do... if you didn't already have an accidental discovery on the ride there.

SUMMARY: Camelot throws a carnival to combat the warming up weather featuring "cool" foods and contests, Queen Elphame sent gifts of aquatic mounts to practice in gratitude for the offering and peacemaking with Celliwig, and the clean-up for the carnival goes haywire as cleaning implements magically seek to clean everything.

Thankfully, not every minute of Avalon is adventure and trials and rituals. There are moments of respite, and moments to have fun. This July, for example, locals have decided to invite everyone to what they're calling the "Cool Down Carnival"!

A ⦿ Cool Carnival, Bruh

behave like a penguin

Margaritaville Pair Challenge

giant schooner

(Recipe) Hangover Moveover

B ⦿ Surf New Turf

aquatic mounts

Alpacapies: Cousin to the much more violent water horse fae the Kelpies, Alpacapies have been mistaken for baby loch ness monsters on more than one occasion given their penchant for sitting with just their hump and long neck above the waterline. They can be ridden in the water and tend to bond with people who are polite to them upon greeting. They will assist in combat by spitting water at their enemies or kicking with front legs, but they may shake you off if they need to deep dive to gain speed for an attack. They do not have back legs, only a dolphin-like fin. For some reason, they're really impossible to take photographs of.

Mossatees: You're familiar with the mossatee already. A special breed of manatee that grows flowers and moss on its back like a miniature garden. They blossom in the spring, and their backs can be very comfortable. They're a little clumsy and tend to run into things, both accidentally and on purpose, so it may be a bit of a derpy ride if you and your partner choose a mossatee. They also just had a lot of children, so part of riding with them will mean protecting their young on the journey. They're not good in combat and will prioritize defense.

Deinosuchus: A Cretaceous crocodile that gets up to about 10 meters long. It's huge and carnivorous and very well could eat you if you piss it off. It is fast, but has to take a lot of breaks. It will also terrorize in a fight. The fae recommend bringing it a goat or some other similarly sized meal to get it on your side if you want to go for this one. This pack is the only one left, transported by fairies to Avalon long, long ago, so you'd better not let them down.

C ⦿ Clean Up Chaos

As people head out for the second day of practice with their mounts or recover from a crazy carnival experience, things around town... seem a little off. It seems like someone tried some experimental magic after competing in the Margaritaville challenge feeling particularly benevolent. All around Camelot, cleaning utensils have taken on a life of their own. Brooms are sweeping customers right out of restaurants, sponges are scrubbing up dishes and chasing down patrons for the most public sponge baths of their life, and the local woodland creatures are assisting in picking up and taking away anything that touches the floor that ought not to be there. Some are even hopping up on residents to do their hair!

Whatever the source is, the only solution is to either destroy or scare the cleaning supplies off to the woods before they take over the whole town! A little magic should help, so why not test out the magic you've been working on since arriving in Avalon?

SUMMARY: The earthquake busted some of the Land of Rot wards and zombies are attacking Camelot's farmland. Save the farm, restore the wards, fight a giant worm, and then find a mysterious marsh before getting transported back home just as mysteriously.

The earthquake on arrival day was a little frightening, but ultimately didn't seem to cause too much trouble around New Camelot. That is, until a few days later when the farmlands seem to be under attack.. by the undead!? It seems like the wards surrounding the Lands of Rot were disrupted by the earthquake near Camelot's northeast farmland. '

A ⦿ The Farming Dead

B ⦿ Of Wards and Worms

C ⦿ Wake Me Up Before You're Go-Gone

First zombies, then a giant worm... today's been exhausting! And now you're.. somewhere in the middle of the Land of Rot and you seem to have run into some kind of marsh that you don't remember passing on your way in. The water itself is murky and the only creatures around seem to be bugs, bats, snakes, and frogs. Everything seems sickly, rotting, and is pretty awfully stinky. But none of it is quite as terrifying as when you and whoever you wandered into the Land with stumble upon what appears to be some kind of old hag.

What happens next? Who knows. She screams and both you and whoever you're with pass out and wake up snuggling in an inn room. You were definitely in that marsh though, because your pants are still sopping from trudging through it... Well, enjoy the panic, maybe interrogate your neighbors, and try to find out where in the Land of Rot you were! It sure doesn't seem to be on the map... What a mystery!

MOD NOTES:
• All test drive prompts are open to anyone in the game at any time to create your own logs with, but this post should have top-levels by potential new characters only. Current characters may reply to any threads, but should not top-level comment on this post.
• If your application is accepted, you may accept TDM threads as game canon as long as both players consent. Characters may begin threading as soon as their journal is accepted to the communities.
•If nothing here tickles your fancy, try one of this month's Quests for your TDM prompt.
• The first "Arrival" prompts are present on every TDM, but contain seasonal tweaks for flavor. All other prompts will change monthly.
• Questions about this TDM's content? Comment here! If you have a question about the game at-large, please head over to the FAQ.

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[ Wait. She just got dumped into a lake, covered with jelly goo, and now there's suddenly Makoto who's claiming that - for some reason - there's this odd bear with her, and--

And then she's suddenly being hugged. This is all very weird. Not that she minds a hug from Makoto, of course, but..! ]

W-Well, it's good to see you too, but..

[ But didn't they see each other only a few moments ago? Minako seems a little speechless as her brain desperately tries to process all of this. ]

.. What's going on?

[Ah, right... Makoto pulls back and smiles.]

Okay, first off... what do you remember last?

[Because timepoint discrepancies.]

[ At least all of this confusion is serving one thing - Minako seems to temporarily have forgotten all about the current state of her hair. Sure, she's inevitably going to fuss again at some point, but this talk with Makoto feels a little too important to worry about her hair. ]

That's an odd question. [ It's said with the kind of tone that implies 'you know that's an odd question, right?' but still, Minako answers. She trusts her friend. Makoto wouldn't ask that without a good reason. ] I last remember all of us being reborn after the battle with Galaxia. [ Or, well, technically Usagi's battle with Galaxia, but still.

There's a slight, but serious frown on her face. ]

Do you remember something else?

[Trust her, she knows it's odd. She nods as she hands Minako a towel and prepares for a LONG story.]

That's what most of us remember too, although Ami-chan's last memory is the fight with Aluminum Siren... [Her and Makoto's deaths...] Okay, so basically, this is Avalon. It's the island that's supposed to be King Arthur's resting place, or at least a version of it. Long story short, from what I understand some idiot knights cast this spell that's tearing all other worlds apart; the people here were able to freeze time everywhere else to halt the spell, but it's taking all this world's magic in order to do so and keep running itself.

So people are being brought here from different worlds and timepoints so that we can refuel Avalon's magic so they can repair our worlds. We're all cut off from any abilities we had back home... [she nods towards Kaede] but when we arrive we're bonded with a familiar to help us use Avalon magic.

Edited 2021-07-04 13:30 (UTC)

[ At least that long explanation gives her a moment to try and dry her hair, though it feels impossible to get all of the goo out, no matter how hard she tries.. Ugh, why dump people in a lake when you can't let them have a proper bath right away!

Though all thoughts about that momentarily vanish as she tries to process the story the other girl is telling her. ]

.. you know, if you weren't the one telling me this, I would think it was some sort of prank. [ It sounds so odd, after all. Even by their standards, and they have faced a lot of odd things already. ] But.. if you, Ami-chan and me are here, then we're almost complete, right?

[ Their little original group, anyway. ]

[Nod nod.]

Yeah, we are. [All that's missing of the Inner Senshi is Rei.] Oh yeah, we all have a house in Camelot, and there's this one girl Yuzu living with us too. She's really sweet, kind of like an older, shyer Chibiusa. Actually, I can probably take you straight there now unless you want to try the scenic route; it's about two days' travel with the newcomer caravan, but we spend the night at a hot spring resort!

[ She sighs. ]

Honestly, right now all I want is to get this junk out of my hair.

[ And some time to process all of this too. It's a lot - rolling straight out of that battle into this. But with Minako being Minako, she would much rather admit to a trivial weakness like hating her dirty hair than a more serious weakness like feeling kind of overwhelmed in the moment. Even to a close friend. ]

[Oh, she knows. Knowing Minako as long as she has, she knows how much weight their leader can put on her shoulders, how much this latest death and being forced to fight Eternal Sailor Moon until their princess could kill them instead still rattled her when she first came here, even if Makoto had taken learning about this place and settling in- burying herself in March's floral rituals for the spring equinox- as a goo distraction. Still rattles her now sometimes, if she's honest.

So she nods at Minako's request.]

Let's get you home then.

[She pulls out a small wooden totem inlaid with a few tiny bismuth crystals and places it in the sand. A mote of copper green flame sprouts from her hand and she sets the totem alight before standing back up. The totem begin to billow smoked, colored with metallic hues not unlike light hitting an oil slick, just like the bismuth crystals.]

Sweet, it works! Okay, so we just walk through the smoke at the same time and we'll be in Camelot!

[ She probably should question this whole smoke totem thing a whole lot more, but Minako knows she's working on limited brain capacity with everything that's going on, and this is something that can definitely wait for later in comparison to some other things.

So for now she just registers the fact that this is something Makoto can do, and then doesn't think much more about it. Instead she just says: ]

At the same time, huh?

[ Minako forces a bit more energy into herself, a smile on her face, and then grabs Makoto's hand as she moves to drag the other girl along with her as she walks into the smoke. ]

Come on, let's go!

[ She presents the hand holding as something jokingly, but really, she can use it right now. After everything. Only barely reunited with everyone, and then dragged off to whatever this place is instead - her sole relief being that she's not alone. And while it has its downsides, considering how easily Minako makes herself slip back into the leader role, she tries to remember that it's not just about her trying to be strong for the others so they can keep Usagi safe - but that she can also draw strength from the presence of the others, like Makoto. ]

[She squeezes Minako's hand gladly- even if she's had time to get used to all this, she's still missed all her sisters fiercely- and they walk through the portal. Easy as going through a set of shop doors they step off the sandy beach of the bay to hard cobblestone streets, right next to a much larger, more ornate version of the totem Makoto had burned. The city sprawls out looking much like a modern city much like back home, but greener, the architecture flowing with the forests and streams even being woven into them.]

Welcome to Camelot.

[ There's a moment where Minako just stands there, as if she's taking in this entirely new and sudden sight...

.. but then she seems to realise her current predicament, considering her still-glow-in-the-dark-hair, and that quickly makes her sidestep so they're more off to the side of the street, Minako's cheek fairly pink as she frantically speaks up to her friend. ]

O-Okay, but we've got to get off the streets quickly before anyone notices me like this!

[ Sure, no one may know her yet, but Minako is not going to ruin every single first impression with this goo in her hair if she can help it. ]

[Okay she really can't help but laugh at that! She tosses the towel over Minako's head.]

There, not people won't know it's you! [Helping~] Don't worry, we'll get you a hot bath and you can borrow my pajamas until we can go clothes shopping tomorrow. What do you want for dinner?

[ The moment that towel is tossed over her head, Minako only drags it down even further, like she's trying to completely hide in it. Even being seen with a towel over her hair feels weird. How will people here know her as the goddess of love and beauty when she's already failing on that last part?! ]

Tomorrow.. [ She repeats.

Come on, Minako, you can do it. Just hang in there until tomorrow. Tomorrow.

At least there's one good thing being presented to her here. ]

I guess.. if it's something you're making, then anything will be yummy. [ Minako may not be as food crazy as Usagi, for how similar the two of them can be at times.

But there's no doubt comfort in a warm meal made by Makoto of all people. Even if Minako is still seeming a little childishly pouty over the whole hair deal. ]

[Relax, no one will remember the towel girl is her. ... Hopefully.]

How does curry sound? Either Japanese curry, or Avalon has a lot of Indian-style curries. Or something lighter?

[It is one of Minako's faves, after all.]

Is Japanese okay?

[ Look how easily this moment of shame is actually introducing the concept of manners into Minako. Or maybe it's just the fact that she's feeling so self-conscious right now, in the middle of all of this.

Having the kind of curry she's used to would be some real comfort food right about now. ]

[Okay yeah, that's definitely off. She stops and turns to Minako for a second.]

Yeah of course... You okay?

[ She nods. ]

I'll be fine once I've had a bath.

[ Mostly, anyway. That's when the processing of this entire situation will follow, but at least that's something that's a little easier to inwardly process and shove deep down than her current, more pressing hair situation. ]

[A faint smile as she gives Minako a side-hug as they walk.]

Shouldn't be too much longer.

[And sure enough, it's a fairly quick walk from the gate to their two-story house in the same style harmonizing with the landscape, albeit probably a bit too long for Minako's liking.]

And here we are! You can take your shoes off here. Bath's up the stairs and to the right. You can use my products, and I'll have a towel and PJs waiting outside the door. Just holler if you need anything else, okay?

[ It's true. Every step feels like a step too long. But at least Minako isn't whining about it, though she might be a bit uncharacteristically quiet while they make their way over. It's just that it's hard to pretend to be overly cheery when she has so much to think about and feels really icky on top of it. At least if she first deals with the latter, it should be easier to smooth over the rest.

So when Makoto says that, she just sucks in a deep breath. There's a stare at the house, but then Minako turns her head to nod at the other girl. ]

Right. I'll have a good soak.

[ That'll probably help. ]

I'll see you again afterwards, alright?

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TEST DRIVE MEME ⚔️️ 9

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