memesinthenight | TEST DRIVE MEME #9

TEST DRIVE MEME #9

Hello and welcome to the In the Night test drive meme for March! Thanks for your interest in our game! In an effort to streamline our application process and avoid future confusion between incoming and existing players, we will no longer have a reservation period. Applications open on March 22, and will be judged on a first-come, first-served basis.

While you're here...
Take a look at our rules and faq pages to familiarize yourself with the game.
Note that we have a (current) application cap of 15 apps this month for new players, as the game has a player cap of 70. An accurate count of current players will always be available on the taken page.
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 top-leveling is not limited to new characters! If current players wish to post a starter, they are welcome to do so. They are welcome to make posts in the main comms for TDM events as well. Please note, however, that actual plot clues or happenings will not occur in TDM prompts.
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).
If you haven't already, please take a moment to look at our announcement regarding changes to the application cycle, which involves information concerning the 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

DANCING QUEEN (cw corpses)

When the ferry chugs up to the dock, its speakers are crackling with a happy song. What a fun way to bring in all the newcomers! Except... goodness, what's that terrible stench? The ferry docks and lowers its gangway as per usual, but the ship is quiet. No newcomers flock to the deck to disembark, and instead, the faint sound of buzzing flies can be heard over the breeze.

Boarding the ferry quickly reveals the source of the flies: decaying bodies, dozens of them, are littered throughout the ship. Some lie in bunks and could be asleep if it weren't for the rot, and others are strewn throughout the cargo hold and the deck. There are no lanterns among them, and there aren't any signs of fighting or struggle around the ship. Inspecting the bodies (if anyone seriously wants to do that) won't yield any definitive answers in terms of cause of death, but, oh. Though it's difficult to tell at first glance due to the decay, these bodies... They're residents of Beacon.

Maybe you find your friend or yourself or, oh, there's Rastus! And Robin! The gang's all here, albeit disgustingly—and Dancing Queen crackles over the speakers. Welcome, welcome!

—but before the ferry departs again, the corpses start to move. Moving about the ship, someone might first hear a sigh, or a sputter, or a little laugh, and maybe it could be brushed off as a trick of the mind until the bodies stand, hoisting themselves up with whatever limbs they have left, and drag themselves toward the deck. One by one, they slip clumsily over the railing and back into the lake, but not before they drop their disguises and slowly contort back into their usual forest spirit bodies (source).

Ugh. Frickin' spirits.

WELCOME TO OUR GAME: INTO THE DARK

In spite of the strange occurrences starting off the month, there's still work to be done in Beacon. Or perhaps it's precisely due to this that Rastus calls for the attention of anyone who will listen as they pass by his station at the bonfire. All but shoving a torch in your hand, he requests that you place it around one of the many locations that could use a source of light! A lot of new places have been discovered recently, after all.

In the event that you choose to choose to play with this prompt as game canon, please remember to report where you choose to place a torch on the item request page so the setting can be updated accordingly! For incoming players, this can be reported retroactively!

These efforts would be a great service to the community at large; Rastus reminds everyone that while the bonfire is a finite resource, it's still a resource that's meant to be utilized.

network prompts

IF YOU DIE IN THE GAME YOU DIE FOR REAL

Not long after the ferry shows up with, uh, no people and a whole lotta corpses (that turn out to be forest spirits playing a very uncool prank), Robin makes a post to the network!

Oh holy god uhhhh OK so no idea what's going on with the ferry this month, wow. Data from the portal is saying nobody new came through, so... nothing to worry about!!! Probably!! I really don't know anything more than you guys right now but I'm gonna get in touch with Dr. Solis. She'll have a better idea of what's going on than me. I'll get back to you all as soon as we figure out what's up.

In the meantime..........!!! I thought it might be fun to play some games to get our minds off stuff? How about hangman! Here's how to play if you don't know!

She attaches a little set of instructions for any characters not in the know. Fun stuff!

But, uh oh. If you get a letter wrong, you'll notice it's getting just a bit more difficult to breathe... Is the air particularly heavy today? Allergies, maybe? No, the feeling only gets worse as the game continues, each incorrect guess tightening an invisible noose around your neck.

The only way out is through, it seems, as nothing provides any relief save for winning a game. But what happens if you lose...?

(If asked, Robin also has no idea what's up with that. Heck! Maybe it's the lanterns acting up again? In any case, the weird hangman curse will resolve itself within a day or two.)

PARTICIPATION FOR CLOWNS

All at once, a notice arrives in everyone's inboxes. It appears to be some sort of strange attempt at a bingo card! It would, potentially, be a mystery as to who crafted this and, well, exactly what it's supposed to mean, were it not for the underlying message that accompanies it.

HELLO! HELLO? HELLO HELLO. ALL BRING CARD TO GET GIFT FOR ALL! YES! ONTO BODY LIBRARY GIFT IT GOES! THANK A MUCH!

The real problem here being, of course, that the librarian's apparent game is a bit, well, difficult to understand. Well, it's possible that it won't require any stringent rules. Ultimately, those who bring in a bingo card that has a row of marks in any particular fashion will receive a free gift compliment of the spirit as a way to promote the library. There might be some fabric missing where the shirt has been bitten into, but, hey, nobody's perfect.

QUICKNAV
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It’s just a flower! A floating one! Hey, don’t worry about it.

(If Soldat keeps watching it, the marked petal will swing around and hold steady in the direction of the Bonfire no matter where they go. Normal precautions.)

“Is that Rastus always in need of aid?” Ephrim looks back briefly. Not that he minds, but the level of urgency the bird creature has seems disproportionate to whatever they’re doing right now. “What purpose do they serve here?”

A magic flower compass. Huh. That's pretty clever. Soldat has their own methods of keeping their directions straight (mostly memorization of routes and number of steps in particular directions, to be honest), but that could be pretty useful if under the effects of a hallucination or led on wild goose chases by a spirit, friendly or not.

"Not usually. If he's making a fuss about light, that means either. He thinks something is coming where we'll need it. Or maybe he's missing the aurora from last month. It was almost bright as day, for about a week." Soldat doesn't exactly miss the light. But it had made things safer in general.

Ephrim won't stop walking or looking forward, but if the soldier happens to glance at his face, his nose will flare, and then his eyes will roll immensely before he closes them. He opens them again and sighs.

"Dare I ask what happened to the light in this world?

If you don't think Soldat is paying close attention to everything, but particularly the potentially dangerous human(-ish?) person beside them, you don't now Soldat very well. They do take the eyeroll in stride, though. It's not enough irritation to warrant expecting danger. "World Eaters. There's some kind of connection between light and life on this world. Since the world is dead, there is no light. The only light left comes from the moon, the bonfire, and our lanterns. Any other light doesn't work right."

Which you'd know if you'd listened to the greeting message, Ephrim. Not that Soldat says this. They've already made that point.

He took the smooth flat stone with him because it looked too unnatural to be of zero value! No idea how to use it, only now vaguely aware that it contains information. It is also extremely hard to hold a lantern and manipulate new technology at the same time with one arm, and he wanted warmth and shelter first. He doesn't like the cold. Human indeed.

Ephrim looks up. "And the stars," he adds, but it seems like he already understands that they won't help much here.

"Since the world is dead, there is no light." Ephrim's silent for a moment. "Isn't it the other way around? It's implied in the name. 'World Eaters'. They ate the life of the world, which is light, and now we stand here dead." It's picky semantics, but in a world like Ephrim's, cause and effect are important. Or at least they used to be. "Then Rastus may have the right idea. Manual spread of the light available to us. Or am I missing something?"

It's okay, Ephrim, plenty of people around to teach you. This guy's one of 'em.

"You're missing a number of things." Said with the kind of dry blandness that says Soldat is making a joke. Or, well, it should say that, Ephrim may or may not get it. "According to the timeline we have, life started to leave before the light did. Lower birthrates. Higher death rates from things that should have not been life-threatening. Plants and animals dying off. People losing hope. There's records from when the portal was first opened. Going to see what we can make of them."

He's catching a bit of the dryness, but maybe not as much of the humor. Adaire's sense of humor was much the same, but as much as he appreciated her as a person, there wasn't much opportunity there to strike up a real friendship. No, his closer companions tended to be expressive.

Still, he's catching that they don't mean harm. Pala-din free of their bonds hardly ever did, in Ephrim's experience. "Were these things the fault of the World Eaters, or was it a coincidence? Sympathetic phenomena? Or two problems that exacerbated -" Ephrim stops in the middle of his sentence, sighs. "No, you just said - sorry. Perhaps it's best I left those questions until after I've seen the records." Although, to be honest, he doesn't know what else he'd like to talk about. Certainly not himself.

"We've been told they're connected." Soldat is not fully convinced of this. Or not convinced they're connected in the same way everyone else seems to think they're connected. "Solis opened a portal, saw the World Eaters, escaped back here-- and after that things started to die. The World Eaters came near the end. To finish it off."

They shake their head, heading across the bridge over the river, to the village proper. Little cul de sacs of cabins. Most of them already have torches, unless they're not in use. "Need to learn more."

"And the implication here is that the... mere sight? Presence? Knowledge? Of a World Eater was enough to cause... mass-scale ennui?" Ephrim thinks on this for a moment, watching the houses pass by. So... these are the houses of people long dead, are they?

Some disaster, then. Feedback from multiple Reconfigurations, or the World Eaters are some being akin to the gods of Ephrim's world, capable of imbuing the world with Breath and... Decay this time, he supposes. Or something entirely different. Hey, rules change. Things break.

"You're right, there's too little information." He really does have to talk to this Solis - or not, fuck, Ephrim, you have failed to save the world at least three times over, do not try the hero thing again. "And now that I think about it, this is sounding like a part of some directive. Are we working toward a purpose, here?"

Sorry, Ephrim, this is definitely a save-the-world kind of thing.

"Stop the World Eaters. This isn't the only place where the light has gone out. Even if we can't fix this world. Maybe can save others." It's a pretty big purpose, and Soldat honestly can't even imagine themselves actually having a part in it, but they're content to help and protect the people who do.

Gods damn it.

"What reason do we have to believe that we would fare better against them than those who were here before us? And what behooves us to serve as the final solution against them?" What are their current odds, essentially. And why is Ephrim to care if he won't be remembered for it?

"None. There have been dozens of groups before us. All of them have failed." Soldat tilts their head a little, and has to admit, "Though Robin and Pluto and Solis seem to think we are doing well, so far. They are all people who have seen many groups."

They start on a wide circuit around the village, just following their normal patrol route. "The goal is a good one, though. So it's worth it to try. Most of us think that. Not everyone, but most."

"'Good'." Ephrim stares into the dark of the woods, away from the little cabins in the clearing. What manner of trees are these that they survive in the dark? Are they of the Spring as well?

Good, huh. Ephrim's not particularly sure if he's interested in good anymore. Perhaps alive. Perhaps healthy. Perhaps safe. But good?

"The unity is nice, at least. Who is Pluto?" He's heard Solis' name from this pala-din, and Robin is a name that was bandied around plenty at his arrival. Pluto's new.

TEST DRIVE MEME #9

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