Test Drive #4

[felldenmods]

Welcome to the January test drive! 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 will open at 12:01 AM UTC on February 1st, and continue to be until 11:59 PM UTC on February 7th. This is to reserve a character, not an application slot.
✦ Applications will open at 12:01 AM UTC on the 8th, and remain open until 11:59 PM UTC on the 15th, or until all application slots have been filled. Once Activity Check ends, we will have an application slot number available on the application page. The IC & OOC intro logs will be posted two days later.
✦ We have added a Suitability section to the application. Check it out! We will be requiring this going forward as it not only helps players see if their character is a good fit for the game but it lets the mod team gather some ideas about direction for your character!
✦ 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 arrived on their person. 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. Usernames are your characters first name or their most common nickname.
✦ Below will be a header for OOC questions as well as a request for Death or its Attendants if you risk placing a coin in their offering bowl.
✦ As in December, a secondary blessing will be available in February to those that tag others on the TDM!

All set? Perfect! Welcome to Fellden.

AS THE MOON RISES. You’ll find yourself just outside the Temple gates, which will be locked if you try to open them. A little rude, keeping you out after bringing you all this way, and the more you try to look up at the Temple structure the more insistent guards become in pushing you down the pathway to somewhere else. 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! Chrysanthemums will be offered as brooches or corsages, food and drink placed into your hands, while live musicians play loud enough for the dead to hear — for this is a celebration dedicated to them. Several were lost in the battle held the previous weeks, and the Priestess has decreed a time of mourning through revelry. Spirits must be kept up, even in these dark times. 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 despite the pall that may hang over the town. 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. If you do manage to leave, a helpful citizen of the Temple will inform you of the nearby transport mirrors that will take you anywhere on the map, one of which they will provide to you.

THE SETTING STARS. You'll find upon your arrival that the castle is not accepting visitors as they prepare the interior for a solemn remembrance of those lost. Guards at the door will instead direct you to the center of the city where most of Starfolk have gathered to say their goodbyes and reminisce of memories past. Venturing there, you'll be greeted either by those who are serving food and drink from nearby taverns, or those with drawn faces tired from battle. Or perhaps you're a late arrival and the worst of the exhaustion has left the city, now imbued with laughter and happier memories! Those loyal to the Court of Stars greet the newcomers with guarded gratitude in their eyes and wary hesitance. How many more of these Otherworlders will betray them, they wonder out loud. If you try and take a seat with a party or three, chances are the conversation will halt as soon as you grow near, and the longer you stay the more uncomfortable the gathered people become. Trust is not easily gained in the Court of Stars; broken now as it is, the natives of this world fear the worst for their Emperor. Will you help us, or will you hurt us, they ask, wanting to believe they still have a chance at surviving this exhaustive war. Whether you choose to remain for the remembrance or wander off, one thing is certain: things must turn around for the Stars soon. If you do manage to sneak off, a hopeful citizen of the Court will inform you of the nearby transport mirrors that will take you anywhere on the map, one of which they will provide to you.

MARKETS OF THE COAST. The coastal city of Kyst is abuzz with an extra amount of people who sought refuge here during the attack on the Moon Temple. Some calm had finally started to settle but now the foundation has once more been shaken. Newcomers will be welcomed with smiling faces from merchants as they look to try to sell their wares. Tavern owners and barkeeps will beckon with the promise of warm food and delightful drinks, a place by the fire, and information to help you find your bearings. The air is rife with the scent of the coastline, fishermen bringing in their haul from the day. Perhaps if you pay enough attention, you'll hear or smell something you recognize from your home; as Fellden is the beginning of all worlds, it wouldn't be an impossible likelihood! Those looking for something more exciting will find closer to the northern border of Kyst a rather curious bi-pedal cat bouncing on its back legs. It flags you down with a wave of its paw, asking excitedly if you'd like to flex your claws into a juicy quest. You're just the hunter for the job! Purr-fect in every way! Out in the wild lands there's a great beast in a deep river, and it's bothering all the people who live in the nearby town! They can't get fresh water or fish for their meals; it's furr-ightening! If you agree to help, the cat will explain that the creature is a Nokken that has been luring many a brave fisher to their untimely death. It must be removed either by force or by convincing it to leave! Help them, Hero-wan Kenobi, you're their meownly hope!

BEYOND THE CITIES. In the distance from Kyst, a large forest looms, the Gods Wood imposing even from this distance. Should you travel there, everyone you encounter will urge you to be respectful while within the forest. There, people can be found visiting intricately decorated shrines, and leaving offerings for their passed. If you catch their eye, they will beg of you to pay respects as well, and press a gold coin into your palm. Offer a wish or a happy memory to who you miss and place the coin into Death's offering bowl and there's a chance someone will be there to speak with you. Be mindful of your actions though; those that show disrespect will be forcibly removed from the Gods Wood by the trees. If the forest is too intimidating, Terebellum is open for semester registration, and the grounds are even more regal with a light dusting of snow all around. Students of all branches of magic can be found exploring the campus and practicing their craft. If you're lucky, perhaps you can find a teacher who will explain what is offered here at the University. But ah, there's a catch! Tuition is extremely expensive, so you must impress your faction leaders if you wish to widen your breadth of knowledge within these walls!

Comments

A2 / nier: automata / court of stars

[botrayal]

m[a]rkets of the coast.

[ Even under normal circumstances, A2 is not exactly the most social of androids. Even if the atmosphere around the city is a somber one, the fact that there's any kind of hustle and bustle at all - and not a single machine lifeform in sight - is enough to set her on edge. These...are humans here. Living, breathing humans. If Pod hadn't assured her, she wouldn't have believed it, and even then, she isn't familiar enough with his programming to assume that he is unequivocally right.

But that's far from the only unbelievable thing going on here, even if it's the most striking, and instead of hanging around and aimlessly wandering the city, she travels to Kyst and encounters an unfamiliar quadrupedal creature - a cat, Pod tells her, his insight unsolicited - that offers her an objective. Annoying as the creature is, it gives her a direction to point herself in, and once that, hopefully, won't require her to interact with anyone else. 

That said, A2 is a hunter of machines, not sea creatures, and she sure as hell isn't going in the water. She could use Pod to try and fish it out, but her instincts tell her that won't end well. What she needs is a way to lure it to the shore to slay it, but how?

For the moment, frustrated at her lack of options, she chucks a sizable rock into the surface of the water, snarling. ]

Come on, damn you! [ Then, quieter, to herself: ] This was a waste of time...

[ Why the hell did she even take this mission? She didn't need to. ]

[b]eyond the cities.

[ The Gods Wood is far less frantic for A2. It's quiet and melancholic, filled with the solace of age and death. It suits her — or, at the very least, it suits her much better than anywhere else she's been in this strange world yet. She may not know those being honored here, but she can still pay her respects with her solemnity. She knows well, after all, the toll of war.

The people she encounters in the Wood are infrequent enough that they don't set her too much on edge — until one weary-looking woman approaches her with a coin, and presses it into A2's palm. ]

No, I —

[ ...But how can she turn down a request like that? Loss is not a human concept alone, and it's not as though she doesn't have those to honor, even if many of them she lost so very long ago.

So after a moment of hesitation, she approaches the offering bowl, her chin tipping down, as she drops in the coin. ]

...I'll be with you all soon.

[ ...Though the last time she had uttered similar words, she hadn't quite gotten what she expected. ]

wild[c]ard.

[ Have another scenario you'd like to play out with A2? Go wild! ]

b

[coagulant]

Don't you think it was a little bit too on the nose?

[Louis notices the frustration ever so apparent on A2's features, and yes, he cares that someone is out here in the wild about to pound fist straight into a pool of water (that doesn't seem helpful), he's often chock full of questions without easy answers.

also, as someone who can sense actual human blood a mile away, this is setting off alarm bells straight in his head. so what do two non-humans have to do while they wait around for a water spirit to slay?]

A cat asked you to go fishing.

[at least that talking cat wasn't a hallucination?]

[botrayal]

[ No, he isn't wrong, but she doesn't appreciate him pointing out the obvious. Or him approaching her to begin with, but to be fair, she was kind of causing a scene. Subtlety isn't her strong suit.

She levels him with a stony, inscrutable look, while Pod attempts to ascertain information about him, but Pod is uncharacteristically quiet. Strange, considering how chatty he usually is, but he appears human to A2, and given how many damn humans there seem to be around here, she has no reason to think he's anything but. ]

A cat asked me to slay a beast called the "Nokken". [ SO IT WASN'T FISHING...in so many words. ] It told you, too?

[ She can only assume as much. Did the creature not think her capable of completing the job on her own? ]

[coagulant]

[there's a likely, non-zero chance that the cat looked at the both of them and determined that two disasters working together were better than one. his eyes catch sight of Pod, as he raises an eyebrow (hard to see with the miles of fringe covering his face like unruly weeds) and attempts to analyze it back.

it's a floating machine?

that's different.]

Yeah. Apparently it's been terrorizing the people in town. A few fisherman families are having trouble because of it, and if they lose their jobs, they won't be able to feed their families.

[but, he might have an idea.]

That thing you have with you. It almost looks like fishing lure.

[LOUIS, NO...]

[botrayal]

[ I mean, he isn't wrong...and of the handful of times A2 has used Pod to fish, she had half-hoped a fish would just swallow him whole. It would have saved her a lot of aggravation. But despite her best efforts, she's grown a little...protective of the thing. Not because she cares, but because it's saved her ass a few times, and...she should return the favor.

It helps Pod's case that he managed to follow her to this world, too.

Before she turn down the stranger's idea, however, Pod chimes in with a helpful: ]

Affirmative. I am equipped to pose as a lure for underwater lifeforms in such circumstances.

He didn't ask you...

[ She grumbles to Pod, before glancing back at Louis. ]

We can try it. But if that thing swallows Pod whole, you get to dive in and pull him back out.

[coagulant]

[the nerd inside him grows a little stronger when Pod begins to speak to his suggestion. if he didn't have a stick up his ass, he might've broken down for a moment and said something along the lines of this thing being cute, but he keeps his feelings on the inside as he's learned to do. however, he is sympathetic to it. it's hard to offer life threatening deals to anything that has a modicum of sentience.]

Whoa, I didn't expect it to answer me back...

[which is honestly not the brightest Louis has been, but he chalks it up to expectations not meeting reality.]

Deal. If anything happens to him, I will personally dive in there and rescue him myself. Nokken or not.

[all deals are sealed with handshakes. he offers his hand forward to make this a formal arrangement.]

A

[mirrortide]

You know, I don't think you're going to find it by yelling and throwing rocks at the water.

[Comes some even more unsolicited advice, from a nearby person who is watching.]

Though my wait and see approach hasn't exactly been working out all that much either, honestly. So maybe you do have the right idea.

[botrayal]

[ The look A2 gives Lapis when she speaks up is one that definitely says she wasn't looking for unsolicited advice, but then her expression shifts for just a moment to something like curiosity. A2 has never seen a lifeform quite like this one before. Assessment: This lifeform is of unknown origin. Recommendation: Gather data about this lifeform, Pod tells her.

Which A2 promptly ignores as she crosses her arms, tipping her head back. So, she's looking for Nokken, too? Figures that cat wouldn't trust her to do the job on her own... ]

It's not going to come out unless we give it something to go for.

[ She pauses a moment, sighing to herself. ]

We need to bait it.

[mirrortide]

[Oh. The Robonoid speaks. That's kind of cute. But ultimately futile, because Lapis has a bigger Nokken fish to fry.]

Well, a human once told me that you need to bait something using something it wants? Like a worm or a dollar bill. [Is that helpful? Lapis thinks she's being helpful.]

... Though it seems to like murdering fishers, maybe we could get one of those?

[A terrible idea, really.]

wildcard

[scandroid]

[ Having heard about the Stars gaining new recruits lately, 9S took it upon himself to evaluate them. It's pretty easy to spot the newbies, the confused look in their face, even if they try to hide it... he thinks he can still spot them. What he really wants to keep an eye on are potential double-crossers, as the Court has suffered enough due to them lately.

However, what he wasn't expecting to spot in the crowd is a familiar figure with short, white hair. ]

2B? No...

Alert: This unit is currently wanted by YoRHa. Annihilation recommended.

[ Yeah, he's gonna ignore that for now, although he's noticeably on guard. ]

...you're A2! We met in the Forest Kingdom...

[ Well... according to his memory, at least. ]

[botrayal]

[ There's no mistaking that voice, even before she turns to face him. And even before that, her weapon is drawn, as the very ground beneath her feet seems to wobble. It...it can't be. There must be something wrong in her logic circuitry. Something that doesn't mix well with the air of magic in this world.

But she isn't wrong, unless her eyes are deceiving her, too. When she turns, it's 9S that she sees, though it is immediately apparent that this is not the 9S she last saw back on Earth.

Her gaze sharpens on him, wary, her blade still grasped firmly, though she does not raise it. He mentions the Forest Kingdom, and she remembers that encounter well herself. It was the first time she had noticed something different in units 2B and 9S, something she still can't quite name. But that wasn't the last time they had met. Far from it.

It doesn't add up. ]

Well? Your Pod gave you valuable intel.

[ Not that it matters, anyway. There is no YoRHa here. There is no YoRHa anywhere. But her words are less to goad him and more to fish for information, to put these pieces together so they somehow make sense. ]

[scandroid]

It did, but it's up to me to decide what to do with it.

[ Recommendations aren't orders, although he can already imagine what 2B would choose to do in this situation. Still, that's 2B playing to her strengths, and he should be playing to his. Can he alone destroy an old combat model? It could be risky trying to find out. ]

...You're here 'cause you wanna save our world, too, right?

bbbbb! (we can keep this canon too if you'd like!)

[conciliant]

[2B has no idea how she got here. The Gods Wood isn't a place she visits often, if at all – it can be a little too quiet for her liking sometimes – but here she is, wandering through the trees with a coin in her palm that she can't recall picking up. Unbeknownst to her, she had gone into rest mode not long before, and she's wandering through a dreamscape replicating the world outside.

That much might start to become obvious to her when she passes the white-haired woman making a prayer at a shrine, and she can't help but overhear what she has to say before the coin rings inside the bowl.]

Is that...?

[But before Pod can speak, warning 2B of what she thinks she already knows, she shushes it with a raised hand so as not to startle her, even if she might have heard her coming. If it were her, she absolutely would have been set on edge and alarmed by a sudden robotic voice and might have drawn her sword as a result. She's seen what happens to people who disobey the rules in here, and isn't keen on experiencing it herself.

So, once she's within earshot, 2B calls out with a gentler voice.]

You'll be with who, A2?

[botrayal]

[ Had A2 not encountered 9S before, she might not have believed what she's hearing, seeing. Even with that meeting in her recent memory, it still sets her on edge. She had been waiting for this, even if A2 is not quite someone to plan ahead. 2B was alive in this world, and it was only a matter of time before they encountered one another.

She tells herself it's better that it's sooner rather than later, but is that true?

2B's careful approach means that A2 doesn't draw a weapon, even if she's still deeply unsettled. What is she supposed to say to someone whose life she took, someone who doesn't even remember it happening?

Life has played a lot of cruel tricks on her over her many, many years, but that doesn't make this any easier to bear.

Lifting her chin, she regards 2B with a guarded, distant look, stepping away from the bowl. ]

No one. [ Wow, what a good cover up, well done, A2... ] What brings you all the way out here?

[ Once again, deflecting away from her own reasons. ]

[conciliant]

[Yeah, excellent cover up there, A2. 2B's head simply tilts to one side in response to that; it's none of her business to be asking that anyway, and she would have given the same answer if she were in the other android's shoes.

The deflection shouldn't catch her off-guard, but it does, and she straightens once more, her stance shifting into a defensive one.]

I don't know. I barely remember coming here in the first place.

[Dreams are so strange.]

I don't really like the Gods Wood.