( TDM | #4 )

[spellbindmods]

IMPORTANT: The weekly update post will go up later than usual tonight to give time for any other barrier quest responses to come in. Nothing major will be affecting how old players respond to newbies on this post, so tag away! Threads here do count for September bonus AC for old players.

TDMs can be used for anyone interested in the game and/or testing out a new muse.

Test Drive samples are encouraged to be used for your application sample, though they are NOT a requirement.

Feel free to use one prompt, multiple prompts or make up your own!

These threads can be considered game canon upon game opening if you so choose.

Telepathy and magic can be used at any point in time on the TDM, from Prompt A to your wildcard prompt. A specific prompt exists, however, that makes sure all characters have an equal chance to use this mechanic within the TDM. You're encouraged to have characters use telepathy and their magic accidentally or even purposefully on any TDM prompt.

If you aren't set on your character's power yet or want to try out a few, you're still able to use the test drive. Maybe your character is a late bloomer and hasn't fully unlocked their intuitive drive yet. In the case of multiple powers, only prompts that contain the power you choose for your application will count as potential game canon threads.

While only one character can be apped or reserved during a cycle, feel free to post with more than one character if you like! This is for those who are uncertain of their first choice or who would like to try out different characters within the setting.

IMPORTANT: This world is low-frequency. No canon powers or abilities are allowed! Also check out the setting information for more info about what the hub island looks like and what can be found there.

You blink and that's all it takes. At first the picture doesn't come in clear, like you're waiting for a screen to fully load -- more aptly, it's like you're waiting for a camera to focus so you can find image clarity. Before you happened to rapidly close your eyes and open them, your life was normal...well, normal for you, anyway. Fighting an alien, making a quesadilla, dying. And then that blurry picture suddenly takes over. There's a lot to take in here -- you feel weird, your surroundings are weird. Everything is just weird. For starters, there's that new piece of jewelry inserted in the space above your chest. That certainly wasn't there before you opened your eyes. A ▢ Your character's first experience here will be waking up in a forest. Specifically, located here. It's up to them to traverse and try to figure out where they are, whether they make it to the beach or the main house area. If this new little signet catches their interest, fiddling with it will result in a bit of a neural vibration in everyone else with telepathy. Nothing painful; it's actually quite pleasant. But if they do decide to play with this new jewelry, they're likely to find some seasoned telepaths (aka old coven members) in their brain space, wondering that's up. A2 ▢ Alternatively, new coven members are notorious for being bad at telepathy from the jump. Their panicked reation to this journey or confused mental state may send out some network messages that maybe they didn't realize they were sending out. Or, maybe what's pushing them over the edge are all the other voices already doing exactly that in their brain. B ▢ Unlike the previous coven members who found themselves on the hub, new recruits won't find as many supplies randomly in the forest they're suddenly in. However, like old coven members, they will come across some wild boars that aren't too happy to see the humans have returned to their stomping ground. Your character may also come across a boar with babies in tow, which means that they're even more likely to be aggressive. If your character has useful magic within them somewhere, now may be a good time to discover how to use it...? C ▢ Whether you've braved a boar encounter or avoided one entirely, there's a lot to do and see in the forest, as well as other areas of the hub! Well, "do" is debatable. But! Coven members before them have discovered some pretty nifty locations that can be stumbled upon, from a phallic fertility shrine to tree homes and passageways.

If you eventually make it out of the forest and aren't devoured by a boar, you'll eventually come upon your new base camp. Someone (Genette) will be there with your introductory letter and a brief description of magic you now have. If you didn't discover it earlier...surprise! One thing of comfort might be that you aren't alone in this journey. There are other coven members here, fresh back from a journey to another world. If your character wants to get the lay of the land or understand what's going on a little better, they may want to hit up some of these folk for information. There's a large, gold, floating caravan hanging around next to a bonfire, and there's a back gate open that reveals something of a space pocket containing lots of different things. Luckily for new characters, the Palai from the previous world didn't want them to go hungry...which also means they'll be inundated with shrimp to eat. Hopefully they like shellfish! D ▢ Many of the old bloods in the coven can be found hanging around this area. Of course, a few of them have gone off on their own to do whatever it is they do, but since they just got back this is a good place to hang out if a new character wants to see a familiar face, ask questions or steal someone's belongings. You never know! E ▢ This will also be the place where they're given their first provisions. In a woven knapsack, they'll find a bag of cooked shrimp, a set of clothes (you pick the style) that may not fit, a toothbrush, and three other random objects -- dealer's choice! It's very likely that your character got something useful in there, but it's also likely you got something that your character would never use in a million years, or that doesn't fit. Time to start trading! F ▢ Finally, there's always the chance for your character to explore the big mansion next to the beach area. Actually, they may be asked to lend a hand. Everyone is tasked with unloading supplies from the caravan to the front foyer of the mansion, and there are quite a few trips to be mad. Or, alternatively, your character can slack off and play in the game room that they have. How good is your character at pool?

If you're much more of a loner and don't want to follow the flow of things, there are of course other locations that you should probably check out. Travel to your heart's content and find something new...but there are two other points of interest you may want to discover. G ▢ There's that bathhouse that's nearby, for starters. Your character won't encounter any snapping crabs, like last time, though the water for some reason isn't as hot as it once was. Whatever was previously heating the bathhouse seems to have died out, so there aren't any steamy, comfortable pools to take a dip in. There are, however, acrid waters with pond scum floating on the surface. The showers also spew out a greenish liquid, so any hope your character had at having a relaxing bath is gone. However, the lack of heat and many closed off rooms can make for some nice alone time. H ▢ Your character may want to claim a beach house while they're at it. Some characters have disappeared from the coven over time, and some of these few may have left their belongings before departing. This makes it hard to tell what huts are free and which need to be cleared out. Might as well play roulette and see if you picked one that doesn't have an owner or not. (For the sake of the prompt, you might want to choose the former, just saying). I ▢ Wildcard prompt. Go nuts and utilize your own creativity within the setting. This can mean striking out on your own or utilizing a certain location in a different way. The world is your oyster!

GAME NAVIGATION

Comments

[finagles]

[ There aren't any surprises in Gaelio's sneering, his twitchy movement, his strangled, jarring tones. It's not an offer he expected to be received well. There is discomfort, but not enough of it to overtake and cloud his thoughts.

In fact, he's already braced himself in case it inflames him. Simple -- it could be, or it could be pared down to something like it with the correct amount of effort, but as he anticipates that twist in his gut while the other man continues to speak, he begins to accept that Gaelio is correct in that. In at least that -- that it will never be simple. But, perhaps as close as he can get, maybe that was always the mark. He keeps his gaze steady on the smoke and absorbs the answer to his suggestion.

It's a long one.

It descends back into familiar territory: Gaelio explaining what McGillis is through sheer ignorance.

Gaelio wondering on his utility, factoring that in, then factoring in the risk of McGillis's death by any hand but his own. Gaelio coming to no real conclusion, except that they must wait.

Strangely, there's plenty that causes that uncomfortable twisting sensation to grow, but nothing bothers him as much as the first assumption.

You, who compartmentalize what you pretend to feel, while feeling nothing.

He slides his eyes over to watch Gaelio's lurch in the other direction, narrowing them to slits. Ridiculous, to allow himself to become seized by any of this man's speech. It shouldn't matter, and there are valid points to take away, after all. Only his utility should matter, his own and Gaelio's combined to make the most of each other's presence, only how they can best proceed in a situation neither of them expected to be in.

Yet it seizes something in him, it rings in him, and it causes him to dip into petty anger.

McGillis follows again --

This time, he overtakes Gaelio, walking faster to walk ahead of him. Purposely, he directs an exasperated glance at him in passing, boring it in until he can switch his focus to the smoke again. ]

I withdraw my suggestion. If I have to listen to you go on like that at each crossroad, I'd rather dive into harm's way.

[ It's childish. There's an air to it that suggests he doesn't truly mean it, that he has accepted Gaelio's quasi-acceptance, but refuses to speak acknowledgment of it.

Which only makes it more childish. ]

[reckoner]

[ It -- He -- What?

So immersed in the unrelenting torment of proximity without satisfaction, of his smaller betrayals by ceding to steadily, if incrementally augmenting cooperation (Carta, Ein--), in holding himself together through it and reining himself in, into a whole and not the stitching. So concentrated on that, McGillis's speed and back he lags in processing until startled by that glance.

Moreso by the criticism, and the thrust of it does thrust, severing him more neatly than should have been possible from the storm. Gaelio blinks, steps slowed with the second lag in connecting the audacity of it with its phrasing, the resigned inflection.

Some legitimacy in it. Here especially, isolated and close to McGillis, he seems incapable of stoppering the acid, spitting blistering censure. As though his silence of two years had collected reservoirs of his once typical, flowing chatter, but gone rotten, infected by betrayal and doubt. Now to burst and spew. Yet, he cannot allow McGillis that legitimacy. He has the right. He ought to take hold of him and shout it, and drive it into him.

It ought to surge and bristle through him, this ceaseless fury, and it has been unceasing, does not cease. Yet, cut a moment from it by that look, word, jolt, he bobs detached, and what first pulls across his face does bear teeth, does crook mouth, but might more closely resemble -- no.

As he fumbles to retie the string, he moves with incited alacrity, close to a jog to reach McGillis's side, though as far apart. Even with his delay, it is a quick thing. His legs are longer, only just. Fury boils, but lidded now, and he glances sidelong, a similar gesture, if much different emotion in the hard cast of his eyes. ]

By all means.

[ Dry, tongue scraping like sandpaper. ]

Before you go, advice. If you find it difficult to hear complaints, then you have two options.

[ Demonstrative, he raises his hand, lowering first thumb, then index finger as he counts off. ]

First: do not kill your ally, then expect to renew that accord. Two: kill him properly.

[ Wait. There dips the ring finger. If McGillis will not hear his words, regardless, then for the duration of truce... ]

No, three. Earplugs. Try the dirt.

[finagles]

[ Gaelio does have the right, he would be forced to agree. Torturing McGillis slowly with weighty overtures is not a terrible punishment considering the crime.

Even as he attempts to indulge himself mentally, adding justification to his behaviour, he feels the air seeping out from those tires. It's a ridiculous overreaction to the circumstances at hand. Still -- he doesn't need to travel with this person, to listen to this person, to indulge this person's very specific conditions for killing him, which is what it comes down to, isn't it? Isn't he mad to walk alongside with Gaelio, who wants to murder him in return for what he has done, who wants to "understand" him, a man who desires exacting and correct conditions before he can carry out his act?

He treats revenge like the set-up of a brand new aquarium. Prepare the pH balance, then let loose the piranhas.

McGillis feels his brow creasing at the sounds of Gaelio's footsteps approaching, though knowing him as well as he does, he predicted as much. At the corner of his mouth, with all this madness volleyed back and forth, he finds himself fighting to tamp down the strange smirk that wants to lift it. Barely there, and only for a second. They must be a stupid sight, shuffling in a disgruntled manner through the grass with an abnormally huge gap between them.

He avoids Gaelio's heated look and picks up his stride.

Though, he cannot close his ears to those retorts, frowning in turn. ]

You --

[ A sudden desire to shout overtakes him as well. He wants to blow through Gaelio's refusal to understand that he is not Gjallarhorn, has never been, and that betraying his own would require him to be in a position that would breed loyalty towards them in the first place. As things are, he has never truly entered that society. Tekkadan are his allies, and his allies had been under attack by Gaelio, Carta and Ein, all.

McGillis clips himself before launching into any of that. He finds calm. ]

I've not killed my allies, or even attempted to. Only my enemies. Not properly, I will give you that.

[ He should simply fly away and leave Gaelio to deal with things on his own. ]

In response to your third point, I welcome you to try.

[reckoner]

[ As promising as that foreshortened word had been, McGillis snatches it from the air, and leaves him with a contradiction.

That words so calm, so evenly strung, could crack so like a whip. He can feel the tear of flesh with it, stripped raw. Gaelio halts, cold and struck, and reels in bout of self-castigation.

How foolish. How intolerably foolish. How, after all, could his tongue still betray him, could he feel something that cannot be but feels too like hurt creasing around his eyes, shallowing his breath, compressing his ribcage.

Even as he debated and wondered, scouring every possible and impossible answer to McGillis, that had seemed clear enough. Only Gaelio's stupidity had seen friendship between them and believed it. McGillis saw enemy. Had only ever seen enemy. Always. How stupid, how foolish, that it still cuts through him. There is a hurricane in his heartbeat, the second's deluge of thousands of memories redefined, constantly redefining, and through it, Gaelio notes that he stares yet again at McGillis's retreating back.

He had no longer wanted that, doesn't want that. The juvenile speed to catch up -- to never again follow.

It isn't following.

Funny, that this does it.

The fire snuffed, doused by ice water, though no shock in the chill. Though it should flare again for Ein, for Carta, who died with McGillis's name on her lips, who loved him. The woman who loved him, seen only as enemy. The man who, standing beside him, no --

He takes a meticulously drawn breath, staring first at the broad line of achingly familiar shoulders, then lifting his face, peering into blue sky and thinly spread leaves.

I withdraw my acceptance. There can be no truce.

What he should say. Closing his eyes against sky and shoulders both, he pushes one foot forward, then drags the other. Nothing has changed, either between them or in the situation. He must still reach the smoke. There may still be hostility.

But McGillis will never hear his words, and he's tired now, as if now feeling the exertion of expending so much after years of reticence. Jaw rusted, relearning use.

So he says nothing. ]