( TDM #9 | FAUX 4TH WALL LOG )

[spellbindmods]

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. For this app round, you can utilize both a linked sample OR a written sample!

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 game-given 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 Shehui.

IMPORTANT: This TDM should be treated like a 4th wall of sorts. While the threads can be considered canon, it can be a character free for all -- you're allowed to toss in any character, duplicate or AU that you'd like for a surreal experience.

IMPORTANT AGAIN AND NEW: This is post, while an OOC TDM, does count as a log! Any threads on this post can be used as activity outside of AC bonus and considered game canon if you do so wish.

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. For some of you, the shock is a bit more sudden. You've packed up your belongings and you've been escorted through the city into a building similar to the one utilized during the jailbreak -- down a pothole-like door that's extremely similar to the other one you might have been familiar with during that same incident. There's a long tunnel with no windows that you travel through, slowly but surely. It's dimly lit, and you can see others in front of you -- don't worry about any repercussions for cutting in line. You eventually get to a closed door and your monitor escort opens the large turnstile for you, gesturing for you to continue onward. The walk won't be much longer, they reassure you, but they won't be traveling with you from here. After a fifteen minute walk, you'll reach another door, though this one is much more manageable when it comes to opening it on your own. Once you step through, things are certainly...different. A ▢ As soon as you step outside, a sort of blackness hits you. It's hard to describe -- it feels more like everything around you, even the people, become a void. The blackness is a concept, not a color. Then something comes into focus...it's something you recognize? Or maybe something that you're unfamiliar with altogether. There's a person there, or maybe you're alone for now. For a few minutes you're in a classroom, but then it's a clearing. This entire experience, no matter what it looks like, leaves a strange taste in your mouth...it's like the one you may have found in your mouth once you discovered that magic you were told about for the first time. That isn't to say these voids are endless. In reality, the space around you is tainted, but you still exist on this plane -- the outside of Shehui. Things feel very real, but once you force yourself to move outside of these spaces, you mind your shoes are firmly planted in grass that is inches long, potentially surrounded by other people with no idea what's going on; they too have just escaped their own little void. From here you can feel it near to you -- you can sense the magic that's seeping out of somewhere, and you can even see it if you squint. The air around it shimmers with a certain sparkle. It's, again, hard to accurately put into words. But you can see these voids once you really focus on them. However, you can't see the people who happen to be trapped inside. B ▢ Once you reach these safe havens of non-magic, raw and in its purest form, you'll find yourself in a reality that is somewhat...overgrown. There aren't any buildings outside of the giant dome structure of Shehui in the background, as far as you can see. There are trees and plains, grassy fields and the occasional oddly-colored deer. If you look hard enough, you can find a small pond here or there. Just watch out. Magic can leak into that water, and that means... C ▢ ...ingesting that contaminated substance carries that magic with you. Absorbing this magic directly into your body creates that void, except it's contained within you. Once you do, you carry around whatever you might see or hear with you. This might create a comical scenario, like you're ordering from an invisible pizza man. It may also trap you in something more sinister. This magic can use your mind against itself. Whatever is in that void, which can last for hours, is up to you...whether you can control it or not.

[ OOC: For this TDM, characters testing in can create their own scenarios and interact with characters in very bizarre and imaginative ways. Want your character to be the judge in a murder trial, roping in other characters as defendant and accuser? Or maybe you'd like to do something different with your character -- age them up, give them different powers? Anything can happen in these voids of concentrated magic, and that also means anyone can appear. Your creativity can create any situation you'd like to put your character in, and these situations can also pull in other characters. Everyone is there, after all! Characters can also take a break and do some minor exploration -- though more info will come out about the setting and potential in a later post, don't worry. For ingested magic, the character will be in a scenario like the one mentioned above, except it won't be a potentially public experience. For instance, your character can project a horrible experience into the void in Prompt A, but in Prompt C? That horrible experience would be stuck in their own mind...speaking on the negative end of the spectrum, anyway!

GAME NAVIGATION

Comments

[insubordination]

Of course I can, you called me, remember?

[ it's said forcefully, to cut him off, to cause him to focus. his hands immediately press against the wound, to stem the flow of blood. he bled out slowly, if roy remembers correctly, from the report. envy had struck him and immediately left, and by the time they had found the body, maes was already gone.

he can fix it, and slow it down, until he can find a healer. cauterize the wound,
maybe. but he needs a healer, someone, to make sure he'll be fine.

the colonel causes the weight in his chest to double, because he hasn't been that for such a long time -- but he sucks in a breath before grabbing hughes' hand with one of his own, to press it against his own chest. to stem the flow of blood. ]

Keep your hand there, I'm going to help you move. We need to find the -- Lieutenant. [ it's only half a beat of pause, for roy to remember what riza was to maes, back then. and he quickly pulls maes' other arm over roy's shoulders, to give him support, to move him away from the phonebooth. he needs to find the edge of this magic pod, to get him to safety. ] And then we'll find someone to fix this. Stay with me.

[payphoned]

[ Why is everything so hazy? No matter what he does to try and clear his mind everything feels as though it's moving in slow motion. The pain at his chest doesn't do him any favors either, and he presses his palm over the wound as soon as he's made to. The blood oozes out over his hand, between fingers, and he clamps his hand down against it. He shouldn't be alive, he shouldn't be standing, he shouldn't be—

Moving. Right, they're moving, and he tries to put one foot in front of the other as his vision doubles, blurring dark at the edges. ] I have to tell you—

[ There was something, wasn't there? There was something he remembers he needed to say. The arm over Roy's shoulder causes him to cry out, makes him pause to lurch a little, weight shifting into the man a little to heavily.

He's going to die here.

The realization is real and vivid and he tries to will some life back into his body, tries to will the blood back into his chest where it's freely flowing. The adrenaline kicks in and he grips Roy's shoulder as tight as he can, fights through something that should have immobilized him ages ago. ]

You have to stop them. You have to— [ He coughs, a line of blood starting from his mouth to his chin. ]

[insubordination]

[ roy immediately shifts his weight to make up for hughes' sudden lack of focus, half-carrying the man further down the street. the edges of this magical bullshit hallucination have to be here somewhere, and still, a nasty voice in the back of his head is telling him that hughes is not real. but what if he is -- leaving him is not an option, and at worst, roy will have terrified himself for nothing, and redoubled his fury against shehui.

at best, he's finally saved hughes. ]

I know I do, I know. [ it's said in a quiet aside, mostly just to prove to maes that he is listening, as he pulls him forward. the details of the street are beginning to grow a little fuzzier, a little less there. roy is close to the edge of the bubble, and he presses forward. ] I'm going to rip them all apart and bring it all down, I promise.

[ he's not there, yet. but he's close. ]

You're going to be fine. Focus on that, and I'll kill the son of a bitch who did this to you later.

[ no, he doesn't. it's a bold faced lie. but hughes doesn't need to know the truth, yet. ]

But until then, you're no good to me dead. Understand? I need you here.

[payphoned]

[ Hughes promised to be the one in Roy's shadow, waiting to push him up to the top, but he'd warned Roy, hadn't he? There had to be someone else to brace him if something happened. There had to be someone else willing to push when Maes can't, and it feels so viscerally urgent now. ]

They're making a circle. [ He barely chokes it out, the injury stealing the breath out of his lungs, his hand falling away from the chest wound. His vision blurs and his fingers dig into Roy's shoulder, sharp and urgent and desperate. He needs to stay on his damn feet. His own two feet. He needs to keep walking. ]

Turning the whole city into— [ A gasp, a hand flying to the wound in his chest again, the radiating pain that starts in his chest and surges outward. But he drags his feet, one foot in front of the other. ]

I can't. [ His voice is nothing but gravel now, sweat stippling his brow where the blood hasn't been smeared. ] Roy— [ Sharp, commanding, a side of Hughes that rarely shows itself but there it is in the form of a bleeding, shaking, dying man. ] You've got to stop this. Them. [ A ragged inhale, shallow exhale. ] I'm sorry.

[insubordination]

[ roy knows, now, what hughes needed to tell him. and he constantly reflects on what this conversation would have been, and how things would have been different, if roy had made it in time. what pain would have been avoided, what losses would have been avoided, what bullets would have been dodged . . .

they're nearly out of this magical hotspot, roy can feel it. and hughes still feels solid. the grip on his shoulder is strong, and the closer they get, the more roy seems to realize that this, like edward had told him, might be another example of time playing tricks.

he needs riza. ]

Don't talk so much, you're making it worse. [ curtly, as he continues to pull hughes along. so close. ] I know what's going to happen to Amestris, I was told, I know. I'm going to stop them. King Bradley's head is going to be on a pike in my front yard when I eventually retire and reduce myself to domestic hell.

[ it's easier to be snippy than to show the fear, and as roy takes one more step, suddenly, his feet hit grass -- and they are out of amestris, and in wherever the hell shehui threw them. trees, overgrowth, water, and roy exhales abruptly before moving to set hughes to rest against a tree, making sure hughes' hand is pressed against the wound before he immediately rips open the bag that he's been carrying since the eviction, to dig through it, for medical supplies. supplies he's used too frequently, since arriving on this damn world.

christ, how long did it take for hughes to bleed out? not long, not long, not long, hurry, roy -- ]

I am not going to let anyone ruin our country. [ it's said quietly, as he shifts to undo hughes' jacket and shirt as quickly as he can, to get at the wound itself. ] And I'm not going to let you die. [ roy presses a folded padded up bandage against hughes' chest. ] Hold this against it and stop writing your own damn obituary while I figure out what to do. Let me think for two seconds.

[ roy is clever, he's a genius, he can come up with a solution to this while stranded in the middle of some shithole forest. think, think, think. it's a clean wound, through and through. much like lust's had been, with roy -- cauterizing the wounds had saved his life, but it had hurt . . . better to be in pain than dead.

except he doesn't have his gloves. just the magical ones he had looted from the prison.

shit. ]

Do you trust me?

[ he has to ask, as he's digging through the bag again. painkillers, there are painkillers in here somewhere, he had bought them in shehui. ]

[payphoned]

[ The sun is bright and it takes Hughes a long moment to realize they're not on the cobbled streets anymore. That it's not some spotlight or car headlamp burning through his vision. The sound that bubbles out of him next is a sort of laugh, a little creaky and broken but definitely a laugh. He must be hallucinating now. Too much blood loss. ]

Roy Mustang in domestic hell. Who'da thought.

[ What more can he say? It's like all of this is some backwards dream. He'd been shot moments before by a creature that could change form, and here he is now, bleeding out in a sunny pasture, being tended to by his best friend. His best friend, mind you, who should be climbing his way to the top and restoring their country to what it should have been all along.

He grips the bundle of bandage to his chest all the same, though, as if it wasn't some fever dream. As if Roy might actually be across from him, as if he hadn't just heard his voice on the phone receiver. It's not possible. None of this is possible.

Do you trust me?

He leans his head back against the tree and closes his eyes, his whole body feeling heavy, his face pale. But there's the tiniest hint of that lopsided grin. He's dying. God, he's dying here and all he can think of is how he wishes he was back in Central, back with his wife and child, back in the office with too many books and papers and dead ends. ]

Only if I have to. Just do it.

[insubordination]

I always thought that was the end goal, domestic hell, if we manage to find a woman to suffer through me to obtain it.

[ murmured absently, talking just to talk and distract, as he takes hughes' insult for permission. but as he talks, he quickly undoes the bandages to gauge the wound. it's clean, through and through. but he didn't die immediately, he bled out, which means if he stops the bleeding, he has half a shot . . .

but he doesn't have his gloves, nor does he have access to alchemy. all he has are these magical ones, which he's pulling on now -- black, with a slight shimmer. they are nowhere near as accurate, and now, he's silently cursing to himself that he didn't allow waver the opportunity to pull them apart and really see how they look. too little, too late, now -- he just has to make due with what he has. ]

Alchemy doesn't work here. It's not going to be as clean as -- [ when what, roy, when you did it to yourself after lust used you as a human shish-kabob, hughes doesn't know that. ] It doesn't matter. You're probably going to pass out. [ why is roy still talking. it's a nervous habit. ] When you wake up, Lieutenant Hawkeye will be here to tell me I did it wrong, and we can talk.

[ he hesitates before snapping his fingers, flames coming alight to dance across the black shimmering glove of the gloves, a white-hot focus on his fingers. there's a million things rushing through his head, of things he wants to say, and things he never got the chance to say, but all of that is irrelevant now. he has minutes, maybe, to fix this. and so he sucks in a breath: ]

I'm sorry.

[ -- and begins the work of carefully cauterizing the wound. he tries to make quick work of it, but it is an excruciating handful of minutes that feel like hours. in time, he does get the bleeding to stop, but at the cost of a patch of now burnt and scarred skin, which roy quickly covers with a light gauze bandage, and a shuddered breath.

it will work. it has to. ]