TEST DRIVE MEME ⚔️️ I

[avalonmods]

{ QUICK NAV } Premise ⚔️️ Rules ⚔️️ FAQ ⚔️️ Taken ⚔️️ Reserves ⚔️️ Apply ⚔️️ Locations ⚔️️ Bestiary 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. You'll definitely see other new arrivals plopping in. If you can't swim, a red-headed woman known only as the Lady of the Lake will drag you to the shore if she doesn't spot someone else near you helping so no one ends up drowning. She's a little busy casting directive magic to make sure everyone lands safely and playing lifeguard, so if anyone attempts to talk to her, she'll tell them to head up to 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, but if you do fall, be prepared for a mysterious sand hand to reach out of the side of the cliffs to catch you. The hand will pat you atop the head twice before retreating back into the wall. This is the Cliff Beast; despite the name, he is quite friendly. 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 earbuds to everyone before getting them settled in groups into modernized carriages pulled by horses and give them a basic explanation of why and how they've been brought to Avalon: 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. 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. A ⦿ Get Fresh Upon arrival in Camelot travelers are ushered to a large set of wash rooms where they can clean up and make themselves presentable for the Welcome Feast. They are informed that once the feast concludes there will be an announcement on where they can seek lodging and how to begin their magic studies. B ⦿ Be Merry After they freshen up, travelers are led into the main dining hall. The decorations range from simplistic to a little more grandiose, it is likely everyone will find something familiar. A modern mash up with a medieval flair. The jester makes his rounds, perhaps he has a joke or two to tell, go ahead, give him a listen or perhaps volunteer to participate in one of the jester's shows, like knife-throwing or hypnotism. Within the crowd of staff there are mummers, a juggler, here and there dabbled through small troupes perform mini skits, perhaps they’ll perform a well known verse from a traveler’s world or tell a tale of fancy from this realm. C ⦿ Eat Well A banquet is prepared with food that while all “rustic” in appearance are usually a version of modern dishes ranging from basic roast chicken and veggies to Korean-Mexican fusion and French patisserie. The drinks are much the same; while served in old fashioned goblets, they are drinks modern travelers will be familiar with. Have a seat, meet a new neighbor, find a roommate, maybe a new or old friend? Talk to the person to your left, your right, across from you. Mingle, enjoy the food, the music, it shouldn’t be long before the information promised is provided. Till then take your fill and get to know your fellow travelers. You've been here a few days now and have gotten a chance to settle in, find a place to stay, and Camelot's citizens have decided that you've been here long enough to start living your life again. Well, your new life. A group of citizens have decided to give everyone their first quest. "Hear ye, hear ye!" a man in chain mail with a tablet with his statement typed up on it declares to a crowd from atop a pedestal. There are two other citizens around him with phones to post the video to AOL later to make sure the word gets heard ye all around. "Those with magic, we beseech thee! Findeth us a grail most holy hidden in the depths of the Brocéliande! This holy grail is known to grant thine wishes three, a most noble quest for noble souls! Great reward will come to those who find it and proclaim at least one of their wishes to find the great Excalibur for King Arthur!" This is the first you've heard about King Arthur, and it seems curious that he hasn't yet shown his face around town. It also seems strange that this guy is speaking like he's stepped out of a bad period piece, and probably should be the clue that this is more or less an attempt to haze some of the newcomers by sending them into the forest... but no one is telling newcomers this. It's better to get them out there and start praciticing, after all. A ⦿ Lost, and Lost, and Lost Again The Brocéliande is well-known around Camelot for being a forest that's both bountiful and mysterious. Oddities are known to happen that may never happen again to the point that even if something weird happens and you can't prove it, most citizens will assume you're telling the truth. Which is what makes it peculiar when you keep passing the exact same locations over and over again, as if you've been traveling in circles or reaching the end of the map in a video game and coming out the other end. You're stuck in a space loop. The only way out is to successfully find the one difference in each loop five times in a row and collect it. Maybe it's a strange frog, a crystal that wasn't there before, a small wooden step that doesn't lead anywhere, or some other singular item, you've got to find what stands out... pick the wrong item, and you'll have to start your five count over again, and again, and again... B ⦿ Grail, and Grail, and Grail Again!? If you either missed the space loop or managed to get out of it, eventually you'll come to find one of... quite a few copies of a grail with holes in the side placed throughout the forest. They look like they might be good for draining noodles, but that's about it. Though they're spread out, it's entirely possible you'll find more than one, but each of them are placed in situations where it's impossible to get to by normal means. You'll have to use magic! It may be hidden in a bird's nest at the top of the tallest tree, inside of a hole in a rock with bars that prevent you from reaching in (perhaps an animal friend could reach it), inside a boiling pond, or inside the body of a bear fir... there are a load of possibilities, and now's a chance for you to try out your brand new magics! Use one of those samples, find something from the bestiary, or come up with your own adventure to get your hands on that less-than-holy grail. C ⦿ A Quest Completeish Or it would be, if you could ever find the guy who announced it... The AOL posts have since been deleted. You may end up spending a lot of time trying to find the guy. At this point, citizens will start telling you that you shouldn't take quests unless they're on the quest board or else you're going to get scammed... that's definitely an olden times themed noodle strainer. If that doesn't make you give up, or perhaps motivates you to find the guy to kick his ass, you'll have to head out to the farmland and chase them through a cornfield. (Be careful not to get lost, it's a maize in there.) If one of the boys are caught, they'll explain they were just testing you-- and hey, you got a free addition to your kitchen! If pressed, they'll apologize and give you a bit of money for your trouble. It's not much, but it'll get you at least a meal.

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. This is the first one, ignore this note today!
• 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.
• For the first month only, there will not be a quest board. Starting in December, quests will be posted on the 1st of each month for current players. After that point, quests may be used as TDM prompts in addition to the presented TDM prompts. A link will be provided as a bonus prompt option at the end of the post.
• The first "Arrival" prompts are present on every TDM. 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.

Comments

Jack Benjamin | Kings

[theonlyrealthing]

1. Arrival

"Are you kidding me!"

He's sloshing his way up onto shore, and he's some mixed up combination of spitting mad, astonished, and wanting to laugh hysterically. The purple butterfly fluttering around above his head keeps landing on his dripping, curly hair. He keeps flailing a hand at it to make it take off again.

"Stop it! Get off me! Of all the times-- of all the times--"

Laughter wins out and Jack sits his ass down on the shore at the base of the cliffs, head in his hands-- one of them holding a rough silver crown, the false, of course it is-- and laughs high and long. God sends a sign now, after weeks of imprisonment, after ignoring him at his own vigil and then failed coronation, and that sign is a purple butterfly, not orange, and some drop into a magical lake. Great.

2. Caravan

The explanation hasn't helped any with the surreal, dreamlike quality of all this. Maybe he's just finally gone mad, stuck in that single room with that poor child Lulu, with his regrets and his grief. The way the horses turn their heads to watch him is a little weird, too. The way he's hearing voices coming from them, some weird horsey gossip about a herd-mate on another carriage today and their supposedly lame hoof.

He tries to ignore it, slipping into one of the carriages and immediately opening the minibar. He wants to get so drunk. When someone else climbs in with him, he offers a wicked, somewhat bitter smile, and one of the tiny bottles. "For the lady. Or gentleman. Whatever you want, apparently they spared no expense."

3. Training Grounds

The fighting style here is different than the style in Gilboa. That could be both an asset and a detriment. So he spends their stop watching the others, doing some strengthening exercises rather than practicing with knifes or guns-- he has limited ammo on that, anyway, he's not going to waste it on practice-- and he watches. He smiles and makes polite conversation.

"Interesting move you did there," he says. "Is that common where you come from?"

4. Eat Well

This is at least familiar. The people at table are a lot more varied than he's used to, and the tables are a lot longer, and the silverware is a little more rustic, but he is a prince. And he knows how to pick up the tenor of the room, to make small talk with his neighbors, to smile just right to make a good impression. He's a little rusty with it, after... everything... but he's quick to get back on that horse.

"I'd try the boar," he suggests of his nearest partner, looking at ease and comfortable. "Looks baked to perfection. Those these fried pasta things are probably something somebody died for, they're that good." Maybe not the healthiest choice, but he's a young man trapped in a dream that's still light-years better than a guilded prison. He'll take it. It's also completely unfamiliar, so he can't have half a dozen memories of which state dinner he'd had it at, or the time his father made it for breakfast.

The purple butterfly is perched on the crown of the chair. He's trying hard to ignore it.

5. Grail

He knows it's stupid. You don't send strangers out after mythical goblets that grant witches, you send the military or a horde of excavators or you just manufacture a new one that looks enough like the old one to pass. You definitely don't sent strangers who just arrived here and doesn't know the lay of things yet.

But what the hell else does he have to do? And there might be money at the end of it, which he's discovering fast he's going to need. So he manages to follow a helpful squirrel out of the space loop, and now he's staring up a tree at the now less-helpful squirrel's mate. "Look, I know this is as stupid as you do," he says, as cajoling as he can pull off while talking to a goddamn squirrel-wife. "But you don't got any use for that hunk of metal, and I do. You gonna help a prince out, here?"

He has not noticed yet that he has company.

5

[redtwin]

"Have you tried trading something for it?"

The question comes from a slightly-androgynous looking young woman who's paused to lean against the trunk of a tall oak tree a few metres away from the tree hosting Jack's uncooperative squirrel, arms crossed over her chest and expression mildly skeptical. Whether that skepticism's directed at him, the squirrel, or the entire concept of this increasingly ludicrous quest is open to interpretation - though judging by the dirt smudging her clothing and the long, fresh scrape along her jaw, whatever she's encountered to get here has been slightly less pleasant than squirrels, cooperative or otherwise.

[theonlyrealthing]

He jerks a little and shoots her a little glare. There's not much fire behind it, though. He's just kind of cranky in general. "I hadn't gotten that far yet. I mean, it's a squirrel."

Said squirrel flicks her tail and chatters at him. Oh god, apparently the squirrel understood that. Somehow. And wants nuts. Jack resists the urge to bury his face in his hands, but only just barely.

[redtwin]

She meets the glare with a slight quirk of an eyebrow, as though cranky men roughly the size of two of her are merely a matter of course, and not any cause for concern. Or, apparently, for sympathy.

"Precisely," she says, the corners of her lips twitching slightly as the squirrel chatters at him. She doesn't speak rodent, but the fluffy little creature is clearly bold as brass, and that alone is delightful. "I haven't ever met a squirrel that cared one whit for titles, but they respond quite well to bribery."

[theonlyrealthing]

"I've never actually had to bargain with a squirrel before," Jack mutters. He hasn't, frankly, had to do much bargaining period, and when he has, it hasn't usually ended up going well. That's not a pleasant thought.

He sighs, shoots the expectant squirrel a glare, then says more loudly, "If you're actually here to help, instead of just mock me, help me find some acorns or something."

[redtwin]

"You're fortunate," she replies. "The ones in Sharlayan were known to make off with your purse if you didn't have nuts to distract them with." This is probably an exaggeration. Maybe. Hopefully?

She reaches into her satchel and pulls out a small pouch, weighing it for a moment before she lobs it underhand at Jack. "Will this do? I was meaning to use it as rations if I was caught out past the evening meal, but I don't think either of us is getting out of here until that squirrel gives up its prize."

'This', as it turns out, is a mix of seeds, nuts, and dried fruit. Alisaie might be inclined to be a bit of a pain to strange men lobbing titles at rodents, but she does at least know how to plan for a quest.

[theonlyrealthing]

Oh that's much less annoying than having to scrabble around in the forest for nuts. "Split the reward with you, then," Jack offers, as he accepts the pouch and start plucking out things he things a squirrel might like. "If there even is one. Pretty sure this whole thing is a scam."

Good practice, maybe, though. Which is why he's doing it, mostly.

3

[grylls]

Riou is something of an exception in his world. Though he does have his microphone on him, he's chosen to keep it quiet. It isn't something he needs to train with, and the training grounds don't seem conducive to try to train with his alleged newfound abilities.

Though they're supposed to be using magic, Riou is a special ops Navy Sergeant. One of those people whose identity is soldier, even after he's been discharged. He is finding it difficult to figure out exactly what he's supposed to be doing magically, however, as he's expecting a combative ability-- not anything involving animals, which he typically views as Food. For now, he'd ended up helping someone as an obstacle to overcome. If he can't find his offense and his familiar is off doing whatever it is familiars do in their spare time, he's going to practice defensive maneuvers.

Riou is, decidedly, a very intense person. So that defensive maneuver had ended up a grapple throw over his shoulder faster than the person could cast their shield magic they were trying to perfect. They're groaning on the floor, ultimately okay beyond being sore, when he hears Jack.

"Yes, it's self-defense based in Krav Maga."

[theonlyrealthing]

Someone Jack can probably relate to, at least in some ways, though the name of the martial art is unfamiliar. Gilboa's world might be like Earth, but it is decidedly not the same timeline, and American-named martial arts don't really exist. Because America doesn't exist.

He comes over and hauls the other person up with one hand, grinning maybe a little too widely, and says. "How about you give that a try on somebody who actually knows how to fight." That would at least give him something to think about besides magic.

[grylls]

In a world without super soldiers, Riou is about as close as it gets. He's a man who lives to be a soldier and can only see himself doing something else because he was forced out of it by a regime change. Even among his fellow servicemen, he's capable of taking on more than one of them at once by himself. The term one-man platoon was used even in recent times by his police officer comrade who enlisted his assistance from time to time.

Needless to say, he would much rather enjoy a challenge if the man could bring one compared to someone who couldn't.

"They need to be able to increase their response time. That was a simple throw, if an enemy had intended on their elimination, they would be defeated."

Just to clarify that he wasn't just bullying the person... he really did intend to help. Riou just has a tendency to be overkill in most situations. Still, he moves into a combative stance and waits for Jack to make the first move.

[theonlyrealthing]

It was practice, of course it wasn't bullying. Jack probably wouldn't even judge if it was. He's just feeling restless and unhappy, and one way he knows of to deal with that is to fight somebody. He's not the best fighter out there-- he's a prince, he's got bodyguards for that sort of thing-- but he was the commander of his unit in the army. He's got some training and experience, at least.

So he takes a moment to look over Riou's stance, half-crouched on the balls of his feet in his expensive (and probably now ruined) palace shoes, then lunges low, aiming to avoid being grappled. Riou is bigger and stronger-looking than he is, so getting him off-balance and moving quickly is the goal here.

2

[featherknives]

To say that her feathers were ruffled would be an understatement. She's dry from "let's dump you in the water without warning" escapade, but still looks disheveled- rumpled clothes and messy, tangled hair. Her little familiar is sitting perched on her shoulder and cheeps in greeting as she scans the carriage she just stepped in. Then her eyes fall on the bottle and she grabs it, inspecting it.

"You shouldn't just drink whatever's here. What if it's poisoned?" Silly, carefree humans.

[theonlyrealthing]

Bird person. Absolutely. We're rolling with it. This is probably a dream, anyway. "My lady," he says with as charming a smile as he can muster. Which, really, is still pretty damn charming. "If they were going to kill us, why bother fishing us out of the lake and grabbing us when we fell off the cliff? I'm pretty sure there's no poison."

He plucks up another of the little bottles, this one some kind of scotch-equivalent, and uses the provided corkscrew to pop the cork. "Besides, I've already had one, and I don't feel poisoned."

[featherknives]

Bird person indeed. She stares at him and then at the bottle, gaze switching undecided, especially when he breaks out into the polite mannerisms. "Well, you know, some people get off on torture." And although the place did nothing to hurt them (yet), it's of human nature so she's wary of it on instinct.

Nevertheless, she opens her drink and downs half of it in one go, making it hard to call her "a lady". Her bird familiar gives him a happy cheep in greeting, the complete opposite of her personality.

"I wonder how we're going to pay for this," Xayah says, twirling the liquid in her bottle. It's not bad, but there has to be some kind of catch.

[theonlyrealthing]

Hey, he's a prince, and he's having a nice big swig of his hard liquor, himself. He doesn't judge anybody's mannerisms today, still wet from the lake and worn out from the climb. "I'm just going to pretend we don't have to. That woman in the lake said she was calling the-- rent-a-ride." What a stupid and yet also hilarious name. "Maybe it's all on her tab."

[featherknives]

"Well if you're renting something, you obviously have to pay for it." Not that she's renting. She didn't agree to this arrangement, hell she didn't want to be in whatever this land is in the first place. Maybe getting drunk right off the bat isn't a good idea but her judgment isn't at its peak performance today. "Who are you?"

[theonlyrealthing]

"I'm not renting a damn thing," Jack corrects. "At least, they'd better not think I am. I've got no money." That's not entirely true: he has a roll of coins in one pocket, but that's not for spending, that's for-- well, that's his. He isn't sure they'd even take coin from Gilboa here, wherever "here" even is.

"I'm Jack Benjamin." He offers her a little salute with his half-empty scotch bottle. "Prince of Gilboa. Which I'm going to guess you've never heard of." He doesn't think there are bird-people anywhere on his planet.