![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avalonmods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
avalaughs2022-01-31 06:40 pm
TEST DRIVE MEME ⚔️️ 16
| QUICK NAV: |
⚔️️ View Top-Levels Only ⚔️️ | |
| |
| |
| |
A ⦿ Soaking in Your Arrival
| |
The icy water doesn't feel so icy once consumed and you'll be able to move your limbs enough to swim to shore on your own. She can't stick around to explain, she's got to get this to all the new arrivals! Many of which you'll see plopping in around you. | |
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 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 recently 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 a special feature for warm winter drinks like hot apple toddy and butter beer. 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. Newcomers get free inn rooms for their one night stay on the way to Camelot, containing two twin beds, a bathroom, a mini-fridge and microwave, and a TV equipped with a couple of entertaining video games and movies. Don't want to relax in the room? Take a dip in the communal hot spring. The waters have restorative properties that help horses and travelers recover quickly. 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! |
|
|
Those who listened to the Fae Queen last time have made it clear to her who is going to trust her when they are given the chance willingly and who is going to defy her. Was it a fair system that only measured trust and wasn't swayed by peoples' ability to figure out her riddles? No, certainly not. Fairies don't care, nor have they done much to give the impression that they don't care about the trivialities of human subtleties. But there is a new batch coming in, and before she shares the information she promised, she needs to see where upon her line they lie. I beckon thee to wither's tree, Where widows often cry, A poisoned place of death's embrace North selkie's weary eye. You seek the prick whose corpse makes rot, And rot begot those life forgot, 'Fore the questing beast slips by. The riddle is presented to all in the form of a dream with a magical compelling not to forget the words, nor to ignore them. There do seem to be two main parties forming based on clues within the riddle, resulting in different possible adventures and proof-of-completion items. |
A ⦿ The Dragon's Graveyard | |
| Welcome to the Land of Rot! Home of banshees (crying widows!?), where nothing living can really survive except things like zombies, skeleton warriors, and so on. Get past all that to the northernmost area of the Land of Rot (or, where is the northernmost now after the collapse of the Ash Mountain took out part of it) and you'll find The Dragon's Graveyard. It's not a traditional cemetery, but the land seems to have been landscaped into an open pit mine. It's clearly not active, leaving huge bones and fossils of skeletons sticking out of the walls. There's a lot of dried blood dying the dirt a copper-y color, and it's unclear what happened in this portion of the Land of Rot, but it clearly wasn't pleasant. Draconic Wraiths run freely around the Dragon's Graveyard-- the unsettled beasts created from the mass slaughter of dragons during the age of dragon slaying. |
With the world having been rocked by the death of a dragon for the first time in centuries, despite it being within the rules of this world, they are particularly vicious and unwilling to spare any lives. They cannot be touched by physical weapons and can only be fought with magic. However, if they run through your character, they will immediately plunge into a hypothermic state and will need an immediate healer to undo the damage or a siphoner to remove the Wraith's curse and stop the damage from getting worse. Going three days without a healer or siphoner will result in your character dying! What's more, your character will see a vision of their own death in the future upon the moment of contact.
They do seem to be guarding something at the center of the pit: a broken ceremonial sword with dried blood on it. Perhaps this is the "prick" the queen meant? The sword itself seems immensely heavy and impossible to carry on your own, so bring it back as a group effort and decide where it should go. A bit of asking around and someone will be able to identify this as a sword called "Clarent." | |
B ⦿ Well, Sssssshit | |
The Forest of the Fisher King seems to be another popular interpretation of the riddle. After all, the "prick whose corpse makes rot" could definitely refer to the Fisher King, whose body is rumored to be buried within the forest. I hear that guy's whole story is that his wife stabbed him in the leg with the holy lance because he cheated on her and she didn't want him to be able to die or have kids ever again- definite prick! |
|
Turns out, if you manage to get past the spores and get your friends free of it to go deep enough in, even the ground itself will try to swallow you up! Quick sand only takes moments to try to pull you under. Better hope you came with a friend to pull you out. The more you resist, the more likely it is to kill you! Though, everything in the forest is dead or thriving off of death anyway, and with a stroke of luck you'll see a snake slither right down in (or maybe you stopped by the Archivist before you wandered in single brain cell first). | |
|
For those who are less adventurous, don't worry. There are ways to test their dedication and trust as well. Before the parties leave for their determined destinations, everyone is sent a lock from the fairy queen with a simple note: Slice your sobriquet upon this seal, Secure our sprouting solidarity. Shackle it at the stockade. Sing sayonara to the key. |
A ⦿ Trust Trinkets | |
There's no explanation as to what it will do attached, so it boils down to choosing whether or not to trust the fairy queen. Very, very simple. Well, if you can figure out which stockade it's referring to. As it turns out, in Nicnevin there is a bridge that crosses the shores of its moat that can only be seen by those who have been granted permission by the fairy queen. Etching a name into the lock, be it real or nickname or initials, will automatically transport you to the start of it. It contains myriad locks attached to it, and there are thousands of keys glittering in the water beneath them. The key to the lock is cursed- failure to discard it in the river will result in a curse falling upon your character. Your character broke an agreement with the fairy queen by taking the key with them despite accepting her invitation and instructions by taking the lock to her bridge and now they must pay the price. |
|
Now they will find that they are unable to open or enter any door without getting someone else to give them an invitation through it. This curse will remain until they find a siphoner to remove it... so you definitely may have some immediate struggles in this new world! | |
B ⦿ Pretty Pleases | |
| Don't know a siphoner? Don't you worry, there's a wizard right there in Nicnevin who can help you out! The half-fairy, half-vampire wizard, Speculoo-- master of the dark, dark, evil artes! An escapee from the fae prison, he'll be approaching anyone who seems to have been cursed by the fairy queen to offer them the deal of a lifetime. Speculoo offers them a potion black as tar and tells them to drink up. Drink the potion and Speculoo will explode into a poof of dust and let out a maniacal cackle-- a pixie! Seriously, you thought you could bamboozle the fairy queen just like that? The pixie's potion will cause you to be unable to resist commands from any person as long as they say "please." Time to teach you some manners!
|
Either live with this curse, or offer your name to the fairy queen to have her remove it. Don't trust her and try to skate past her punishment right under her nose and you'll find yourself with little choice but to. | |
• All test drive prompts are open to anyone in the game at any time to create your own logs with, as the events within are considered game canon. |
Sister Friede | Dark Souls | Elemental/Healing
[It is cold, and it is wet. This is what Friede knows, after a brief plunge from the sky. The water is shocking as it hits her, freezing her to her core, sucking the breath from her lungs. She doesn't even have time to register if she should try to swim or not before something bumps into her legs to carry her to the surface. From there, something is pressed against her lips - from whom, she cannot see, considering her hood immediately plastered itself over her eyes - but what she knows afterward is that she is warm again, and moving toward the shore.
It's probably the first time she's been in contact with so much liquid water in a long time. Perhaps since before her death. That there is a turtle beneath her is... odd, but perhaps unsurprising. She cannot speak to it, so all she can do is wait and see if it really will take her toward shore.
Once there, though... she ends up lagging behind a bit. The problem with wearng so many layers of fabric? It takes forever to wring it out on the shore. Once that's done, though, she treks up the cliff, and reaches into the Wardrobe for...
Well, a scythe. A massive scythe. The handle stretches eight feet easily, probably even more. She's at least polite enough to rest it at her feet, pointed away from everyone else. The same can be said when they pile into the carriages, and she keeps the blade pointed elsewhere, as she leans into the handle a bit.
Even among the new arrivals she sort of stands out, being a tall woman in what appears to be a take on nun's garb carrying a massive scythe and... not wearing any shoes. She glances around the carriage - this close, one can even see the parts of her face normally shrouded by her hood, though not with much detail. It doesn't take a genius, however, to connect the mottled red scarring on her right hand and foot with what little can be seen on her cheek to assume she has some kind of nasty burn scars all over her right side.
Of course, staring at it even a little will prompt one single response, that might not be as snappy as it seems, with the softness of her voice:] May I help thee?
[2: Dragon's Graveyard]
[The answer to the riddle is, as far as Friede is concerned, completely immaterial. She has no attachment to the people of Avalon, the fairy queen, or, actually, anything going on. Her world is already dying on its own, it needs not any "saving", and especially not from someone like her.
Someone who failed to "save" it to begin with.
However, somewhere rotting, somewhere dying within this world, that reminds her of home; Ariandel, most specifically. That it's some kind of Dragon graveyard is yet more interesting. The dragons are mostly gone from her world; dead at the hands of the so-called gods, their minions, and the occasional human with something to prove. There were rumors of others, but rarely. Londor had little use for them, anyway, but she was... curious.
So she ventures forth; scythe in hand, barefoot as always, shrouded in the many layers of her robes... and ostensibly alone.
This may have been a bad choice, but when you've already lost everything, it's hard to find a reason not to do the occasional reckless thing. Strangely, she sort of looks like she belongs there, and she's starting to contemplate it when she hears shuffling - nearby, but perhaps not as large as a dragon wraith.
Still, she shifts her scythe along her back, and turns toward the sound - whether it be innocuous or not, and looks perfectly ready to scythe the whatever it is in half.
Maybe it's a person? Might want to stop her, if so.]
[3: Wildcard] [The ol' standard. Hit me up if you wanna see other prompts or something that doesn't quite fit the first two!]
2
Learning that he was suddenly capable of conjuring magic of all things was already a world shaking surprise, nevermind invasive dreams and messages that bode ill. The most infurating part of all of this, however, is the fact something is not letting him forget this macabre set of verses when he would rather get about his day. Clearly, someone wanted something done to bother not just him, to his surprise, but others as well.
Studying the verse all signs pointed to the graveyard he'd learned of. Wither, death, corpse, rot - sounds like it'd be a graveyard to him. Upon arrival things did not go as he had hoped and wound up separated from the group, but being alone in a dangerous, eerie, and unknown locale is nothing new to him - in fact it felt a little nostalgic, though he could afford not the pleasure of taking his time.
Though he crept as quietly as his feet would allow, his was greeted by a sharp object being swung at his person but with a swear and quick reflexes, Noah brought his hands up and created a shield of light to guard himself and block the severing blow. Those magic lessons seemed to be paying off, even if he was still lacking. ]
Makers tits! Stop! Stop!
no subject
Dost thou make it a habit to sneak up upon others in a rotted land such as this?
[If he wants an apology, he isn't getting it.]
no subject
[ A sharp retort was about to leave his lips until he realized the one he's addressing is a sister. One armed with a weapon that's unbecoming of a sister, but a sister nonetheless. Noah instinctively grew meeker and apologetic as his childhood came rushing back. ]
S-Sorry sister, beggin' your pardon. I was sneakin'around cause its a new locale n' all that. Can't be too careful. Didn't mean to alarm you or harm you none.
[ A beat. ]
Sorry about the swearin' too.
[ There's just something about being raised by a nun that makes him naturally weaker against other nuns, regardless of religion. Maybe its fear. ]
no subject
[She turns slightly, making sure to always keep the right side of her face hidden, as she glances around the area.]
Erring on the side of caution was not a bad thing done, either, but we are all on highest alert in this place. Awareness of each other, and avoiding being seen as a threat would be a boon.
no subject
Yes, sister. Of course. I'll take better care next time. On that note sister, perhaps you shouldn't be in this place. Its dangerous, just like you said. [ A beat. ] Though I suppose you can defend yourself, but the things here - these lizard ghost things - you can't hurt them with that blade. At least mine haven't been success-
[ Then he notices her feet, barefoot on the rough and jagged surface and he starts to shuffle even more to remove his boots. ]
Sister, your feet! Here! Give me a second - use me boots! Hang on!