TEST DRIVE MEME #1

[inthenightmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

Hello and welcome to the In the Night test drive meme for June! Thanks for your interest in our game! Reserves open on June 20, and applications open on June 22.

While you're here...

• Take a look at our rules and faq pages to familiarize yourself with the game.
  
• Note that we have a reserve/application cap of 20 apps per month (this has been waived for the first month!).
  
• TDM threads can become game canon if both players wish. If the situation isn't something that could happen in-game, you're free to chalk it up to some strange hallucination, a shared dream, or other mysterious circumstance.
  
• Note that this is not limited to new characters threading with characters already in-game. If current players wish to thread out the TDM prompts as canon events, they are welcome to do so.
  
• Though threads can become canon, they cannot count toward AC.
  
• If you plan to apply, please keep in mind that we do require at least one sample thread on the application to be from our TDM (though it doesn't need to be the current TDM).
  
• You're welcome to use the provided prompts or come up with something on your own, but we do ask that all threads take place in our game's setting.

Thank you again, and we hope you'll choose to join us!

log prompts

YOU'RE DEAD, JIM

You haven't been in Beacon long when you find yourself in Bonfire Square, staring into the flames and thinking about how you ended up here. Maybe it was an accident, a sudden freak thing that you never saw coming until you woke up on the ferry, or maybe it's a miracle you made it as long as you did. Maybe death was a relief. Maybe it was just your time. Whatever the case, you can't help but reflect on your final moments as you linger in the firelight.

But however you died, it's behind you now, and you're here, stuck in this little town with just a few buildings and a smattering of other people. You're going to be here a while, so you may as well get to know your neighbors, but... Would it be cathartic to commiserate about your deaths? Or is your time better spent stocking up at the general store? Then again, you've got plenty of time, so why not catch a drink or two (or three) at the Invincible? Pretend you're unaffected by your death, and, well. Fake it 'til you make it, perhaps.

Point is, you have options. You're dead, you died, and this is your "life" now. Better get used to it.

AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES

Currently, there's only one place to live (technically speaking) in Beacon: the Invincible, a tavern and inn located in Bonfire Square. Luckily, the place has working amenities (minus light), and the forest spirits don't charge anything for your stay. Unfortunately, it seems there may not be enough rooms for everyone. Guess you'll have to get cozy!

Maybe you'll try to pick a roommate from around town or in the bar downstairs, or maybe you'll just walk into the first room you see and choose that way. Want a room all to yourself? Get ready to fend off any potential intruders. And the fun doesn't end there.

The Invincible's rooms aren't all created equal. Some may have had their furniture stolen or become a dumping ground for unwanted pieces, resulting in a single bed, five dressers, and other equally distressing situations. Will someone sleep on the floor? Will you nail two beds together to form bunk beds? Maybe you just want to make this room into something more like home— potentially to your roommate's chagrin. Whatever you decide, this is where you're staying for now, so you might as well get comfortable.

network prompts

HACKER VOICE: I'M IN

In order to use the network, you have to register a username. Er, at least, that's how it's supposed to work. For some reason, new users have recently been able to bypass that requirement, allowing them to post anonymously. Time to troll strangers on the magical internet!

Eventually though, you'll need a username in order to use the tablet's other functions, like the direct messaging system. So hey, why not take advantage of the ability to source opinions, and workshop your potential usernames on the network? Share ideas, get feedback, steal ideas, critique others, and figure out what you want everyone to call you.

TURN ON YOUR LOCATION

When you wake up, you're in the woods. An iron shackle complete with a chain leashes you to a tree, and the only light you have is your lantern. You've never seen this area of the woods before. You certainly didn't go to sleep here.

Hm.

But, all is not lost. You find your phone in your pocket, as well as a scrap of paper covered back to front in cryptic scribbles. Are these clues to your location? They must be. You also spot a key dangling from a branch, though it's hanging from a tree you'll never be able to reach from here. Perhaps someone on the network will be able to lend you a hand...

QUICKNAV
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pages	|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

Comments

Wildcard! (Also, MELISANDRE <3!!)

[rehabbed]

[ Jesse stands in middle of the church, peering up and around him. He's in baggy jeans, a black hoodie with deep red patterns snaking across the shoulders, a shaved head, haggard looking facial scruff. In his hand is his lantern — nothing fancy, though the flame within it is hard, unwavering, blue, like a butane or Bunsen burner flame. He's holding the lantern up in the air in effort to see his surroundings better, the flame bathing him in a cool blue glow. Throws everything around him in cool blue light, too. The colour reminds him of murder and death and suffering. Reminds him of Mr. White. The Devil. He hates this fucking lantern.

The sound of the heavy door suddenly groaning open has Jesse whipping a sharp, edgy look over his shoulder in the door's direction. Maybe it's just the darkness, the eerie blue glow thrown across him, but Jesse is a haunted sight: Dark bags under his hollow eyes, a piercing mistrustful emptiness in them as he tries to peer through the dimness at whoever is entering. ]

WHY HELLO CR I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED

[voktys]

[ Flinch she does not at the sight of him, bit if one had told her this man was cursed, she would have believed them in a heartbeat. And yet, she is not afraid – this is a place of worship, a holy space, perhaps not one in honour of R'hllor, and blessedly, not a sept to the seven, either, but a holy space all the same. Someone craved it, for prayer and salvation, and it stands in spite of the darkness around them.

Her own lantern isn't strange at all, perhaps it glows more red than it should, but that just might be her – red clings to her, hair and eyes and robes and all. A blue flame, however, she has not seen before. But then, she'd rather take blue than green. ]

Do I disturb you?

[ She steps inside regardless, but she offers this much for politeness. ]

RIGHT i just also love the fact someone is playing melisandre!!

[rehabbed]

[ Maybe it's the gothic robe silhouetting the woman standing there in the murky dimness, how ominous it looks, or maybe it's simply the unexpectedness of someone appearing suddenly from within the unnerving, endless darkness — but the hairs stand on the back of Jesse's neck at the way her calm, smoothly assertive voice echoes through the suffocatingly hallowed silence of the church. God, this place — not just the church, but this entire place — is so quiet. Like death. Straightening his skinny shoulders, Jesse shifts around on the spot, lifting his lantern to light the darkness smothering the space between himself and where the woman has entered the doorway. He can only just make her out. A small, quick shake of his head. ]

N-Nah, just... [ Throwing a cursory glance around the church, like he's half anticipating something else unexpected to emerge from within the darkness somewhere. His attention returns to her. ] Noticed light in here. Like, outside, when I was approaching this place. Came in to check it out. [ The candles, he means, over by the far wall. A pause, his eyes doing another quick assessing look at that robe she's got on. Makes her look like a monk, or a Sith Lord, or some religious kind of... whatever. Someone who runs this church, maybe? Maybe.: ] ...You, like, a nun or something?

aaaaa i'm glad she's so well-received! and i haven't seen a jesse in the wild in ages so!! EXCITEMEN

[voktys]

[ The quiet does not unnerve her – in some ways, Asshai has numbed her. The city is plunged into permanent shadow, animals and children brought beyond its black-stoned city walls perish within hours, there is space enough to hold a million souls, yet only about ten thousands live there.

What does strike her is the darkness, more so than she can admit. Her powers don't seem to do anything against it.

When he speaks, and with the nervous waver in his voice, her shoulders lose some of their tension – if he is a threat, he does not intend to be so. In turn, her own strikes upon kinder tones. ]

I... would not know what a nun is. I am a priestess, but not of whatever false god or gods were meant to inhabit this place. [ She tilts her head, still curious about the blue flame. Still approaching. ] Shall we investigate the candles? Two may find safety in one another.

Sorry for delay, been a busy weekend!

[rehabbed]

[ A priestess? Like a witch? That's what that word — "priestess" — immediately brings to Jesse's mind, at least. Not that he knows anything about witches or false gods, other than the immorality and evil they're supposed to represent. Immorality and evil, on the other hand — that's something Jesse knows plenty about. He'd built an entire life around immorality and evil. He can only assume that's why he's here, in eternal darkness. Maybe that's why this woman is here, too, for all he knows. He continues watching her as she approaches, and though Jesse's expression remains tightly guarded, something reluctant in him relents at her question. Investigating the candles, after all, is what drew him into this place to begin with. ]

Safety? In Hell? [ Or whatever the hell this dark world is supposed to be. Jesse can only assume Hell. A small ironic snort under his breath despite his uneasiness. He glances over at the candles, their flames melting a soft glow into the dark church. ] ...Reckon this church is s'posed to be like some kinda mocking joke or something? I mean, y'know. [ Glancing back to the woman. ] A church? In Hell?

no worries! i hope you had a good time c:

[voktys]

[ She gives a laugh – well, more a brief sound of amusement, but it is as close to laughing as she gets, ever. It's a question new servants often ask, in the Temples, boys and girls who had nothing at all in life, who were possession, not people, often enough, had all sorts of questions about the Lord of Light.

After all, and Melisandre knows that just as well, it was hard to believe in a God who'd let them live in so much agony. ]

In my... home [ she doesn't have one of those, God is her home, but it is the best she can use now ] we believe the world we live in is the only Hell that exists. And yes, we did build our temples in it, and pray to our God, and receive his blessings when we can.

[ She does move towards the candles now, but she is more watchful of Jesse than she is of them. He is troubled, and trouble she can cope with a lot better than unending darkness. ] This world is another thing though, I will give you that. We will carve a safety into it, it is what mankind has always done.

[rehabbed]

[ As the woman drifts towards the candles, her graceful poise strangely compelling, Jesse follows suit, sidling slowly. He's aware of her eyes on him. He's too bitterly on edge to care. Stopping in front of the candles, standing beside the woman, Jesse stoops down to set his lantern on the floor, then pushes his hands deep into his jeans pockets when he stands tall. The flickering glow of the candles licks eerie shadows across both their faces, throwing long warped shadows of their silhouettes into the darkness. ]

'Cept we're not mankind anymore. We're dead. [ Jesse utters this without emotion as he stares at one of the flickering candles. Suddenly, a candle several rows up wavers and snuffs into darkness, as though some invisible force had leaned in towards it to blow it out. Jesse's eyes dart towards it, and his brows quirk in leery confusion. He throws a quick uneasy glance over his shoulder, as if expecting to see some figure or entity standing there. Nothing, of course. Just the shadowy chasm of the church. ]

[voktys]

It takes more than death to shed our humanity. [ She means it both for better or worse, but the evenness in her voice can't make up for the slight flinch when the candle is snuffed out without any apparent reason.

He'll be able to feel her steel herself – in fact, she's standing close enough he can likely feel how much warmer she is than a normal human, or that she seems to smell of smoke and fire – and then, she touches one of the candles. Nothing happens, so she lifts it, to light the one they had just watched die out. ]

It won't catch. [ This... is disconcerting. She can still feel the warmth of it, it's very much been recently lit, but nothing at all happens. There's nothing left to do but to set the candle back down, purpose unfulfilled. He's done the same, but she can't help it now, she too has to look behind them. Nothing, nothing but their shadows. ]

[rehabbed]

...Well, yeah. Need a lighter.

[ Although... that was weird, how she'd picked up the candle with such a focused look fixed on it. While she's likewise glancing over her shoulder the way he had, like she's a little spooked, Jesse is casting a curious sidelong look at her. What a strange woman. She's hot — goddamn, is she hot — but also... physically? Those clothes, too, man. Blood red, like her hair. Her body heat, too.

Fingers curling around his lighter in his right pocket, Jesse pulls his hand out and reaches it towards the unlit candle the woman had just touched, clicking the spark wheel as he angles the flame chamber over the candle wick. Nothing. Not even a protesting spark of an empty lighter. Just nothing. ]

[voktys]

I am beyond such aids. [ It is what she answers, with a bit of a sheepish look at her failed magics, and she watches with curiosity as he pulls some instrument from his pocket. It makes a noise like a firestone might, and then –– nothing.

Instead, another candle snuffs out, and the light is missed immediately, there are only few left now. Still, Melisandre is not set on flight just yet. ]

One more thing to try. [ She lets her scarf sink, revealing the ruby choker, the stone on it large and shining – though it's red light does not cast any more than anything else had. There is a hidden pocket in the low neckline of her dress, and this is what she aims for, drawing form it a pinch of powder, which she casts against the candle.

Nothing. ] Thrice was not the charm. [ The touch to his arm is light, but it's there nonetheless. ] It would not be wise to test our lanterns, I believe.

[rehabbed]

[ That second candle snuffing out startles Jesse. It's not that he moves sharply so much as reacts sharply — a spooked dart of his eyes towards it, eyebrows jumping up, a quick catch of his breath. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. A very cautious, slow glance with his eyes alongside him, as if expecting to see some kind of... what? Ghost? Nothing there, of course. The woman suddenly breaking the silence has his attention snapping back on her, and Jesse watches what she does, his lighter now curled in his fingers with his hand dropped in defeat down by his side. He has no clue what she's doing, and it shows. ]

Wh... What was that s'posed to do? [ An incline of his chin at the candle she'd just sprinkled powder on before he's casting a wary quick glance down at her hand on his arm. The heat radiating through his hoodie sleeve... ] ...You runnin' a fever or something?

[voktys]

Light a fire. [ She shows him some of the powder, in the palm of her hand. It has a reddish tint, and looks more like sand than anything else. ] 'tis alchemy, there is no magic to it. Handy, when one only has wet wood to work with, or stone, or steel.

[ Unfortunately, it is entirely useless – though she tilts her head at his question, her free hand still resting against his sleeve. ] Oh no. Not a fever. [ The smile she offers is more reassuring than her words. ] The Lord of Light has blessed me with his fire, I am never cold.

[ Then, and only then, does she take her hand away. ] We should explore the rest of the building. See if we're alone.