seasonsgreetings | Test Drive Meme #5

Test Drive Meme #5
LOGS | NETWORK | OOC | MEMES | NAVIGATION

Arrival

Part 1

You arrive in an unknown space, dressed in white clothes (player choice what kind of clothes, as long as they cover everything). Whatever was happening to you before no longer happens. It's like everything was put on a pause and you were transferred away from the situation without you realizing it happened.

The space that you find yourself in is one of these four options:

An empty landscape filled with snow and ice, almost like a blank canvas.
A field with cherry blossom trees and spring flowers.
A sunny beach near an ocean that seems never ending.
A quiet forest with falling autumn leaves.

All of the spaces seem to continue endlessly. No matter where or how far you walk it almost seems like you're not moving at all. There are no animals here - just those who happened to wake up there at the same time, in the same place. Everyone is wearing the same kind of plain, white clothes.

Despite the possible rollercoaster of emotions you might be feeling, the place somehow feels familiar. Like somehow you belong there.

And it looks like you're not alone.

Part 2

After half an hour has passed the surroundings change as everyone is teleported into a room with all the other new arrivals, no matter what space they woke up in. It's a large place with plenty of seats to sit in and beverages to enjoy. Medical attention is offered to those who need it and the doctors here are very prepared for any challenging situations.

Here, in this room, everyone gets an answer to where they are and why. A hologram of a man appears at the center of the room, waiting to be heard. He brings a message on behalf of the leaders of Ellipsa.

The Message [ Click to Expand ]

Hello, my name is Olwen. I'm one of the leaders of Ellipsa as it currently is. I'm also one of the four who summoned you here.

Our world is in trouble and we need your help. I apologize for tearing you away from your world and forcing you to come here but I hope you understand. The magic we used doesn't let us ask in advance, nor does it let us choose who we bring here.

This world is composed of four Seasonal Segments. All of them represent one of the seasons. They were the places we used to get our resources from, but now they're dangerous places no one should go into unless they have the power to fight back. All of them have their own sets of powerful monsters and natural catastrophes.

We used to have plenty of people here who could control the powers of the four Seasons. We called them Seasonal Power Holders. Unfortunately, due to a tragedy you can read about later, we lost almost all of them. Now only four of us remain and the world is in chaos. We have done our best to protect the world, but we need more power holders to do that.

That's where you come in.

All of you have been assigned to one of the seasons. Whatever space you were in just now is what season you represent. You will learn different skills based on the season and those skills are going to help you save this world.

These powers don't interfere with your own natural powers. They use a new energy that has formed inside of you. It's harmless to your health, but it's vital to your seasonal powers. Your own powers should still work, even if the dark energy outside the city might interfere with them.

Unfortunately bringing you here wasn't as simple as it sounds. We couldn't do anything about how to keep you anchored to this world other than making a simple spell that helps with it. That is, you need to touch someone else who is not from this world ideally at least once a day. It will help you stay in control of your powers and boost your magical energy. If you don't, the consequences aren't very good. But as long as you hold someone's hand or give someone a handshake, you should be fine.

That's all I have to say about the situation. The staff of the Research Center will give you more information about housing and other necessary things. I will, however, promise that you will be sent home once the situation becomes better. That's the least we can do.

The hologram can be viewed in private in a separate room later, should someone wish to look at it again. For now, the staff of the Research Center hands everyone their new smartphones with their small flower lucky charms (the flower is anything the player decides). They're also told that the building next door is where everyone can find a room assigned to them with some of their belongings there and possibly even any animal companions. Those concerned about their mount-sizes companions are welcomed to the stables downstairs to see if their friends are there. The mounts are allowed to stay there until you find a place more suitable for them.

In the Arrival's hall there are also several stands with information pamphlets.

First type of stand is for the local Guilds and about the benefits or joining one.

Second type of stands is for the Welcome Center that aim to show otherworlders what the world is like and help guide people in the beginning of the journey and helps in getting settled into the new world. They even have people to help if you're unfamiliar with the new phones.

Third type of the stands is for The In Touch Support Group that is led by the Otherwordly Ambassador, Kamisato Ayato. The pamphlets have contact information for businesses looking to help Otherworlders. They also focus more on the lore of the World and what they have discovered so far, as well as a guide on what to think about when preparing to venture out to the Segments.

Once you get your smartphone and necessary information, you're urged to go out and find your apartment. After that whatever you want to do is up to you.

Part 3

The building next door is where everyone can find their new apartments. As you enter, you're told by a friendly native that for the first two months you can live anywhere rent-free and five meals a day are paid for you. After that they get a monthly payment that helps with some of their living expenses, but otherwise they have to have a job to support themselves.

All of the apartments are comfortable, two bedroom apartments with all necessary utilities. They are also completely soundproof. Sometimes the magic system, however, does glitch and you might find yourself rooming with a stranger. This is not the intention and the staff will immediately prepare you your own room if you ask them. But maybe having a roommate isn't all that bad?

Light a Candle For You

Part 1

All throughout the city, a festival is taking place. It's the festival to honor the dead. The areas are decorated with aesthetically appropriate lights and different flowers. Upon a closer look it becomes clear that all the flowers are bundles of flowers, based on the otherworlders' flower charms. Where a characters' flower is depends on their Season, but all of the appear in the Nightwake Center district.

The main part of the festivities is to light candles in various places. There are even floating lanterns, that can be either launched to the skies or put on surfaces of water. Those who have lost (= to death) someone at any point in their life will receive a message from them in their dreams and otherwise pleasant dreams about them if they light up a candle during the festivities.

Those who have died before (back in their world or on Ellipsa) will receive a protective light around them if they light up a candle. This light will also let the natives know to treat them with kindness and respect during the festivities. They will even receive special bonuses at some of the shops and restaurants, like discounts or extra items. The light itself will decrease any damage done to them for the rest of the month. The light will dim "when needed", but even as it's not easily noticeable, it will continue to protect.

Characters may receive both of these effects.

Part 2

The second part of the festivities involves making small ghosts made out of paper or cloth. These crafts are for the local ghosts to possess so they can be seen by everyone. Once the ghosts have possessed the crafts they will hover around the place, experiencing the festivities better than in their ethereal form. Only ghosts that wish to move on to the afterlife will possess the crafts.

Some of the ghosts gather at the Blossomcrown Park where magical crests have been set on various tables there. These ghosts are those who have been waiting for this moment to pass onto afterlife. Everyone visiting the bonfire will be given a special flower wreath. The goal is to wait for one of the ghosts to move and take hold of the wreath (literally holding onto it with their craft ghost forms) before placing it on the crests together with another person. This will help the ghosts to cross the border into afterlife. The wreath disappears after the ghost has passed on. This ritual can only be done at this time of the year, as the air is filled with a mysterious essence that helps with passing on. The scientists have yet to properly determine what the essence truly is, but it seems to concentrate on the park and at least it's not dangerous for the living.

The park also has some places to just sit down and enjoy the atmosphere at the park. There are also some food and drink stalls.

We All Become What We Pretend To Be

Part 1

The final part of the festivities is the multi-day Costume Party Masquerade happening in the largest airship of the city. The ship circles around the whole city of Nightwake, occasionally stopping at the dock and taking new passengers (or letting old ones out) before continuing on again. The airship is special, as it has a giant ballroom in the middle. There are also cabins, some more private and some more communal for those who just want a quick place to crash rather than a proper room.

Everyone who boards the airship must wear some sort of a mask, but they also have to be in a costume of some sort. Those who don't have either or both will be guided to a dressing room where the magic will pick them whatever they are missing at random (= of player's choosing) and dress them (their current clothes will be waiting for them at the airship station later). No one escapes the rule of a costume and a mask around here!

A magic is also applied to everyone's mask, making it harder for anyone to recognize the person wearing it (possibly even those who know them very well). This is said to add some level of mystery to the evening. Of course the spell will pause whenever someone takes off their mask and that may reveal a secret to someone. No one will just automatically forget if they saw someone take off their mask.

The music encourages people to dance and be brave in asking a stranger to dance with them. Thanks to the atmosphere of the masquerade, touch energy will feel even better than usual, even if you'd be "fully loaded".

Part 2

Another sort of magic sneaks into the party, as people's costumes start to take over their personalities. Someone dressed up as a king might start acting all regal, while a vampire look-a-like might try to bite someone in their neck. Some might even lose the sight of who they really are and completely take on their new roles for the time they're in the airship and in the costume.

Fairies will start trying to bomb people gone weird with water balloons, as a splash of water on their faces will wake them up from the trance (even if the said person is wearing a mask). They're even teleporting water balloons for others to toss - especially if it looks like someone is acting a bit too dangerously.

Another way is to strip them out of their clothes, but that might be something reserved for the privacy of a cabin, rather than the ballroom.

Even once someone has been freed from the spell they can unfortunately be spellbound again later on - but it's just less likely.

OOC TIPS

- Ask your questions related to the TDM here.

- The TDM is available only to friends of the mods and their friends. If you want to play in the TDM, please leave a note here to inform us who invited you over. We will get to you as soon as possible.

- Test Drive is open for current characters to make a top level as well. New characters can add TDM on their subject line to indicate they're new!

- Current characters cannot access the starting area again to meet new arrivals. They can, however, be at the Research Center when the newbies are teleported in.

- The TDM is game canon so anything in the TDM can happen for your character(s) in the game as well.

- Smut is not allowed on the TDM. You can play situations leading to it, but if the thread is turning into smut, please move it to a private space such a post in your character's journal, or a locked post in the game's log community if you decide to app!

- Check Locations: City to find more areas to explore inside the city. Every place in the districts are open.

- Similarly, Locations: Segments is useful for outdoors adventures.

- You can find monsters to encounter on Beastiary.

- FAQ has information on characters' smartphones as well as general things about the world that might be handy.

code bases by tricklet

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[When Hijikata spots Levi sending his candles down the river, he doesn't approach him. He just observes him giving one light after the next up to the water, without needing to pause and think about whom to dedicate each one to. You've got no shortage of deaths either, huh? But for Hijikata, it's easier.

During the few years the Shinsengumi has been operating, he lost a fair number of subordinates - men he knew well and trained himself, some of them mere boys, others older than him. He got them in line and he let them let loose, depending on the occasion; he had their back and they had his when things got serious; they looked up to him and he relied on them. But somehow, he always managed to come to terms with their deaths, knowing that one day it'll be him who gets struck down, and that on that day he'll see them again. He only lit two candles: One for his mother, one for his brother. (Mitsuba doesn't need one. She's on Prismatica, healthy and able to live her life to the fullest, and once they're done here, he'll return to check on her.)

Levi feels his losses more heavily than him, he thinks, and so he stands guard - not that anybody would disturb the other man, not when they all are remembering their own lost loved ones. There's an atmosphere of respect and sympathy that permeates this festival, and while Hijikata likes it, it also makes him feel terrible melancholic. Sometimes, being mortal really sucks, doesn't it?]

[ Levi does feel his losses heavily. At the same time, the multiple candles he does send down is already the watered down, condensed version of the people closest to him, people he would have dared to call friends or family. If he were to light a candle for each subordinate he's ever lost, well, he's not sure if the merchants currently here would even have enough candles for them all. ]

[ Sometimes, being mortal really does suck. And it sucks even more when you're just strong enough to survive so long that you can watch everyone you love succumb to it. ]

[Titan Island (Hijikata will balk if he ever learns its real name - he can understand enough French(???) for that!!) is simply on another level of misery!

You'll see them again in hell too, I'm sure - or maybe it won't even be hell. You guys have just been killing titans. But then he remembers what titans are, and damn it, it's really a shitshow all the way up and all the way down, isn't it? He wonders if Levi even has any stress relief. He doesn't smoke, doesn't seem to drink... does he just tough it out?!

(If you can't interact normally with a guy you got into a nasty street fight with at first sight and have butted heads with ever since, you can at least pretend to have a conversation with him in your head!!)]

[ The irony! ]

[ Levi doesn't mind ending up in Hell, though he may not know too many details about the concept. Even if one didn't count that titans are people -- were people -- he had killed more than enough to earn his ticket there. Erwin hadn't -- though perhaps he decided to count everybody who had died under his command instead, which was not fair, he had not killed them with his own hands -- but he had still been sure that's where he'd end up. Hange never expressed their expectations, probably because science did not implicate the existence of such a place, but if nothing else, Levi thinks their shared contributions to the uprising would put them there as well. Eren, certainly. He's not entirely sure about others, but that's already some decent company. ]

[ Stress relief has never existed in the Survey Corps, so for the most part, he does tough it out. Well, okay, there's also cleaning. When all the shit gets too much he grabs a bucket and a rag and scrubs every surface until the paint is peeling back and his hands are red, and then some more. Most people just attribute it to his usual clean streak, but those who know better can probably tell the spot he's working has already been clean for a while. ]

[ To each their own, huh? ]

[If nothing else, they - Levi and the rest of the Survey Corps, and Hijikata and the rest of the Shinsengumi - are all in this together (separately, because they're likely going to different hells, but even so). Wouldn't it be a much scarier and sadder prospect to end up all alone in heaven?

To each their own, indeed. At least Levi's habit has tidiness as a side effect and doesn't ruin his lungs!]

[ It certainly would. Although Levi could think of some people that might just make it up there. It's hard to imagine Petra or Falco in Hell, for one, but then again, it's not like he knows their entire life. Still, the team spirit is certainly strong with these guys. ]

[ At least there is that. ]

[Well, there's a gradient to bad apples. Some may be pretty damn rotten, but others may only have some superficial blemishes. Those latter ones might, under the judgement of a lenient fruit connoisseur, pass as good apples.

When Levi's last candle is lit and joins the others on their way down the stream, Hijikata turns and quietly walks away. He's a complete stranger to whatever friends and family the other man is remembering over there, but he can still picture the youngsters who lost their lives in the fight against the Beast Titan, and for a moment, he keeps them in his thoughts. Wherever you guys are now, I sure hope it's a better place than the world you knew.]

Test Drive Meme #5

1 Drive-By(?)

I GUESS

They can ruminate back and forth a little...

so much for only a reaction...

I'm just driving by very slowly!!

the sloth taxi company

OKAY I'm done passing by..!! 🦥