fellmemes | Test Drive #1

Welcome to the August test drive—our first in

fellden! We're so excited to have you with us.

A few things of note:

✦ Test drive threads can be considered game-canon if you choose. They're essentially in a shared dreamscape and take place between your character leaving their world, and arriving in the audience hall with their faction leader.
✦ Reserves are open and will continue to be until 11:59 PM UTC on Tuesday, August 20th; they are not necessary to apply! They're valid for the first four days of the application cycle.
✦ Applications will open at 12:01 AM UTC on the 21st, and remain open until 11:59 PM UTC on the 27th. The IC & OOC intro logs will be posted two days later.
✦ Questions? We have a FAQ that's chock full of good information! If they are test drive specific, we have a top level thread below that allows for OOC questions to be posted.
✦ The network is available to use! No matter where your character is, their compass either arrived on their person or available in the Gods Wood. Please feel free to include a network post in your top-levels! Once opened, the compass will display instructions on use, such as using voice-commands to activate it. (Apologies for missing including this on the initial test drive!)

All set?

Perfect! Welcome to Fellden.

AS THE MOON RISES.
You’ll find yourself just outside the Temple doors, which will be locked if you try to open them. A little rude, keeping you out after bringing you all this way. The thing is, you can hear a lot of commotion in the distance, and smoke rising from the center of a district; you may want to check that out. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire!

Except the smoke is not at all something to be concerned over. Instead, people are gathered near a large bonfire in the decorated city square, drinking and carousing, singing songs of celebration; Moon saviors have arrived! War winners! The residents of the city laugh and sing and dance in pairs throughout the square, grateful for those who have come to aid them. Their merriment doesn’t dwindle as the sun begins to set on the horizon, twin moons rising in its place.

When you (and other new arrivals) are finally noticed by the revelers, do not expect to be left alone! Flower crowns will be deposited upon your heads, food and drink placed into your hands, while live musicians play loud enough for the dead to hear. You’ll be invited to dance, to drinking games, and offered food and flowers and other items of value. Some may cry when they look into your face, thanking you for becoming their champions during this long and exhaustive war.

Hopefully you’re here to enjoy the festivities. Sneaking off is just fine, too, but don’t expect to be let go of quietly; the people of the Moon Temple are so happy to see you! Enjoy the celebration while it lasts long into the night.

THE SETTING STARS.
Unlike the Temple, your arrival to the Court of Stars is met with a rather somber greeting, however expressions are relieved, despite any emotional guard that may be up.

A gathering of knights, weary from a skirmish along the border they're returning from, pat you on the back and lead you through an open air courtyard. All the gathered people of the Emperor's Court look up from their tasks, giving the passing Otherworlders a knowing nod. There's gratitude in their eyes, but that's all the welcome you'll receive: your presence is appreciated, but growing an attachment is another heartache for those that care so deeply for their faction fellows. The silence is broken when a high-ranking member of the guard gives the proclamation: "Our heroes have arrived! Court defenders, world travelers! Help has come from the far lands to aid us in our battles for our Emperor, for all of Fellden!"

From there, the few knights that have not yet departed will lead you through the Court's castle, a brief tour of the most important areas (dining hall, housing wing, guard barracks, and the throne room) is given before they instruct you to rest, because the real excitement begins when the sun falls behind the horizon.

Left to drift, you can explore the castle, or venture out to the surrounding city as it prepares for the celebration the Starfolk have in store for the returned soldiers and, now, the new arrivals. You'll be invited to the party that spreads across the entire Court city, drawn into large circle dances, and will find that the locals become more at ease and welcoming the longer you spend with them.

WELCOME TO THE GODS WOOD.
Between one blink and the next, your eyesight has seemingly been stolen from you. Or, perhaps it’s more likely that something is covering your eyes? Yes, that’s definitely a blindfold tied around the back of your head, although quite the mystery as to how it came to be there. You vaguely remember a wolf that may or may not have spoken to you, but the blindfold is certainly a new addition to the situation.

Once removed, you’ll find yourself in the thick of the woods, with no path or directional indicators in sight. The moon is obscured by the tree line, and the stars above do nothing to light your path; seems like removing the blindfold wasn’t as helpful as you may have thought. As your eyes adjust to the darkness, it’s obvious that you are not alone in this; other people are removing their blindfolds just as you are, staring blearily into the dark of the forest with a similar lack of understanding to how they came to be here.

Thankfully, you’ll find some nearby travel packs with self-lighting torches, a few rations, and your faction-provided communicator. The compass, unfortunately, remains broken, which means you’ll have to find your way out of the woods without it. Hopefully your sense of direction is passable!

Whether you team up with others, or go your separate way is entirely up to you, but you must find your way out, and the fog rolling in is not going to be of any assistance. This is a Dropping, and the Gods Wood is not kind to loiterers.

DRAWN TO THE COASTLINE.
Needing an escape from the hectic energy that greeted you in your faction, an empathetic bystander pointed you in the direction of a nearby transport mirror, which you either stepped into without stating a destination, or didn't give one with enough clarity for the mirror to understand. Spitting you out on the beach just outside Kyst, it doesn't seem keen to let you back the way you came; temperamental teleportation magic.

As the largest trade city in all of Fellden, there is no shortage of things to do here! Shopping with what coin was hoisted upon you before your departure, mapping out the city itself to memorize the in's and out's, enjoying a drink on the house at a local tavern where you can get into a mean game of cards with some faction soldiers, or even meeting someone else that seems to have stumbled into this world just as you did. Perhaps you're more keen to the outdoors, rather than the bustle of a large city, wandering away from the city just far enough to find a stretch of pristine beach and inviting crystal clear waters of the ocean; the salty air fills your lungs while the rays of the midday sun are almost blinding against the swath of bright white sand that meets the crashing waves.

Regardless of what you decide to do, or where you end up, you're in the closest thing to No Man's Land you can get; enjoy your time fraternizing with the enemy, make some new friends in this neutral land, or stick with those from your own faction to get a lay of the land.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jack's whole face twists in disgust at the thought that the both of them are coming to, one cursed word at a time. "Yeah, but I think they got something more then they bargained for, if that's their plan."

He doesn't just mean himself, but there is a quick second where he has to keep himself from being sick at the thought. If this 'Moon Temple' knows what they have? It's always the religious nuts.

"Every single one of us is a wildcard. They could be getting anything. Anything. And there are some dangerous things out there in the universe. They pull in the wrong person, the right alien? And their whole house of cards is gone."

Her hand twists into the soft leather of her vest, buckles tinkling. It's the fal'Cie all over again, isn't it? Powerful beings bringing in those capable of acting on their own, capable of making their own choices, and letting them loose with the hopes of completing a goal.

Destroy Cocoon. Win a war. It's always the same in the end.

"The only question is if it takes us all with it."

What would you do to save your world?

It's a good trap. People may not care about other worlds, other wars, but their own homes? Their own people? Most would do a lot to save those. She would. With a disgusted noise, she lets go of her vest and turns back to the sea. The trap is sprung, there's no way back, and yet. And yet.

"Or if we're going to let it fall in the first place."

It is only after he has spoken that Jack realizes how what he said sounds. But Lightning's determination doubles down his own.

"I'm definitely not saying to just abandon these people. But."

He looks past Lightning to the horizon again, searching for something, eyes going back and forth. But he sees no sign of what he would hope for.

"It would take a great person. A better person than me. To find a middle ground. There's obviously a conflict here, something big enough that it drove them to do this. To reach out and grab us. So we can't turn our backs on it."

"But damn if they didn't pick the worst possible way to fight their little war." A whisper.

It would take a better person than either of them. Lightning's only doing this for her world, her people. Whatever they want her to do, whatever they need her to do, so long as they protect the ones she left behind...

It's a price worth paying. Crossing her arms over her chest, she closes her eyes into the wind.

"They asked us what we'd do to save our worlds. Fighting in someone else's war isn't much of a price to pay."

Could they have been nicer about it? Sure. Could they have actually explained what they were doing, what they were getting into? Definitely. But desperate people do desperate things. Maybe this was the only option they felt they had left. It's too hard to say without knowing more, and with so much at stake...she can't fight them. Not yet.

But once they know more...it's on the table. Something tells her it'd be much the same for Jack, too.

"Depends on the war," another whisper, the words of another man coming through Jack's lips unbidden. He shakes his head.

"If there is any being or force out there in the universe that was watching me? Specifically? Then they already know what I'm willing to do to save a world." But he has to keep talking quickly to keep Lightning from harping on that point because he is so far from ready to talk about that, he just teleported away from a world to keep from talking about it.

"So, personally? I think they grabbed me because they could get me."

He tilts his head at Lightning. "Have you done any planet-hopping, dimensional travel, anything of the sort before this?"

They've all got their secrets. So though Jack earns himself a Look, he speaks too fast for her to so much as get a breath in to ask what the hell he means.

Probably better that way. They've all got their secrets, and some things. Well. Some things are better off unsaid. She shakes her head, snorting out a laugh. Planet-hopping, huh? Well, before this little excursion, there is one thing that might count. fal'Cie, when did her life get this insane?

"Does leaving a hollow world for the dead world it floated above count?"

It's. Complicated. Cocoon hovering above Pulse but not having a proper core and Pulse being dead and empty except for bloodthirsty wildlife and wailing stones and. Gah. What a mess.

Oh, Jack's eyebrows are all the way as close to his hairline as he can get them at that statement. It takes a lot for Jack to hear something actually new, and Lightning's words have just done it. Time out, and put a pin in the existential questions for a little while.

"I..guess.. it does? Although that brings up a thousand follow-up questions."

Jack's tone shifts from reluctance to abject fascination, and he puts his hand in his chin. "A windswept cliff might be the best place for a first meeting, but not for getting any of those thousand questions answered."

A better view than the sunset in a lot of ways. "Do you have the time for a drink and a story, before our overlords decide to tell us what they want out of us?"

It isn't as if they're doing anything else right now! Still, she searches his face. Talking about her past, her world, makes her stomach twist. It's not something she enjoys, least of all to a total stranger, but.

The others aren't here. She made the choice to come here and keep them all safe, but not even she can fight a war alone. Odin is out of reach, perhaps forever, and so there is one thing she knows: she needs allies. Jack's got what seems to be a decent head on his shoulders, so.

"Only if you can figure out the strongest drink on their menu."

She needs to be sober for this, but afterwards. Well, afterwards is fair game.

Test Drive #1

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