TEST DRIVE MEME #05

[nextnightmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME #05

Hello and welcome to the The Next Night's test drive meme for December-January! Thanks for your interest in this GPSL! We operate on a rolling application system. Applications are always open and will be judged on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Next Night is currently set to end in spring of 2021, so this will be the last TDM posted - but don't let that dissuade you! There are plenty of opportunities for new characters to get involved in current game events as the community of Beacon unites to deal with a world-ending foe.

While you're here...

• Take a look at our rules and faq pages to familiarize yourself with The Next Night.


• Note that we will have an application cap of 10 apps for new players, and that the game has a player cap of 60. 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 and encouraged to do treat the TDM like any other game-wide event. Current players are welcome to post logs or network posts using TDM prompts as desired.


• 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.


• As we no longer plan to have a bimonthly game-wide HMD meme, we will require all new applications going forward to have a HMD post somewhere on the journal and we will ask for this as part of the application process.

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

log prompts

the walls, the walls are coming down

After Dr. Solis' disappearance, the people operating the portal have occasionally struggled with bringing in new people. So they widen the parameters. Select all target sectors of the multiverse. Surely, this has to be better, right?

For some of you, the last thing you remember is dying. Maybe it feels like a moment ago, maybe a lifetime. But now you awake in darkness, with a lantern your only source of light, and a tablet that prompts you to sign on to a network at your side. The locals must be these strange thing surrounding you - some humanoid, some animal-like, others something else entirely, but they encircle you, masked faces pressing closer, until one shrieks and squeaks and takes you by the hand, or shoves you, or simply tries to herd you to the large bonfire in the center of an open square.

For others, you're quite sure you were just recently alive, and possibly in the middle of something important. And when the forest spirits try to haul you off, their hands pass right through you. Your lantern flickers. The network prompt blinks, but entering a username doesn't seem to get it to go anywhere until it finally lets you on as an anonymous guest user. Strange. But while you're here, you might as well enjoy the sights, right? Hopefully this is just some strange mistake and you'll wake up shortly with nothing more than a headache to show for it.

Note: for characters who are not dead, they will function as "ghosts" for this TDM - however you want to interpret that! If you decide to app them to the game, they will have to end up dead as part of their arrival in Beacon, but are allowed to remember the events of this TDM once they have died and wound up here.

As this is a fourth wall-style prompt, feel free to play any character you like for a brief visit to Beacon, but keep in mind that if you later decide to app them they will need to fit within the rules for appable characters. For situations involving characters previously in Beacon returning for this mini-event, any memory of previously being in Beacon is allowed but will automatically render the threads non-canon (or some strange hallucination).

Questions? Feel free to ask on the December Gameplan.

rat nicholas

Did you all forget the Rat King? Because the Rat King hasn't forgotten you. Just as you're picking up the monthly supplies and greeting the strangest round of newcomers yet, there's a thundering of paws, shrill little squeaks, and the glint of torchlight on sharp teeth. A wall of rats overtakes the town, threatening to trample anyone and anything in their path.

But if you manage to stay out of their way, you'll see a strange sight - the Rat King, body composed of hundreds of fleshy, furry rat bodies writhing and swaying, is being pulled on a large piece of scrap metal across the snow. And as they swarm, the King tosses gifts to and fro! Try not to get bonked in the head by a shrunken apple doll, or trip over a very pungent cheese rind. Among the strange rat-favored junk you might even find a few treasures in the form of actual sweets, or some lovely spirit-made garlands, though you might have to beat the rats to the good ones!

network prompts

Q&A

WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE
TO SEE THEM AGAIN

WHAT WILL YOU GIVE
TO KEEP THEM SAFE

KNOWING YOU GET NOTHING IN RETURN?

[The words appear on the network - sometimes when you go to make a post, sometimes interrupting what you were trying to type.

Maybe this place is just like that, or maybe there's someone looking for an answer?]

shivers

The brutal cold drags its teeth across your flesh with every biting gust of wind. You just want to get indoors, to safety - but the snow spirals thickly around you, blocking all vision, reflecting light from your lantern onto shards of ice that seek to dig in to any part of your exposed skin. You close your eyes, cover them with a hand, while branches crack and snap in the forest around you.

When you open them, you aren't where you were, and you are very alone. But the tablet in your pocket still has a signal. Maybe you can ask for help? Maybe someone knows how to guide you back?

(This is a mini-version of our upcoming event, Shivers (I've Got 'Em)!)

QUICKNAV
comms	|	network • logs • memes • ooc
pages	|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

Comments

daylight vis lornlit. | original character.

[sunborne]

non-canon prompt.
[ oh shit. he's back.

and he's pretty sure he didn't die from just going out of the reception hall for some cool air. (if he did, he's pretty sure emer would, like, die to just shake him for being dumb enough to trip to his death or something.)

still... joking thoughts aside... daylight surveys his surroundings, unsure which feeling he feels is the one he feels the most as he notes how things have both changed and remained since he had left. he knows he's had a growth spurt but everything feels so small now. weirdly ephemeral, in a sense?

after all this time, he still knows the layout of beacon, he muses while walking down familiar paths, feeling like he knows the place like the back of his servo. he wanders towards where he knows the bonfire will be, wondering if he'll run into someone and- ]

Oh. [ he does. he flashes the familiar face a little smile as raises his new lantern up, the bright pink/gold glow contrasting against his blue and purple paintjob. ] ... Hi. It's been a while, huh?

canon prompt.
[ huh.

he's definitely sure he was just going out of the reception hall for some cool air. the last thing he remembers is walking out the door and... that's it, really. did he fall through a portal that opened beneath his pedes? did the archway spontaneously turn into a multiverse gate when no one was looking? are emer and nightbreak blaming poor taxon for this at this very moment? (yes, for the last question. poor guy.)

he foists his lantern up while he walks down what he hopes is a path to the town, keeping note of what he sees as the light that spills out of the lantern opening, illuminating his path and what he thinks is a path towards somewhere more populated. he thinks he sees a bonfire up ahead and oh-! look at that!

there's someone there! ]

Hey there! Hello! [ he smiles at the (most likely) smaller person as he approaches them, crouching a bit in hopes of not intimidating them. ] I come in peace and all that jazz. I'm a friendly alien, believe it or not.

Mind telling me where I am? I'm kind of in the middle of my wedding party and would like to get back to it before the dance is called.

Hades | Warriors Orochi 4

[deathsaster]

Walls

[so this is new! Hades is used to being sometimes vaguely noncorporeal - he's a god, after all - but the intermittent in-and-out is pretty weird. As is the thick darkness. And the, uh, denizens...

Still, he roams about Bonfire Square with good cheer and utter confidence, seemingly impervious to the cold in spite of his, ahem, lack of clothing. He has at least gotten the memo that the others here are dead, which means this could be his domain, but it's not, so he's going to tourist to the max, being as friendly as possible to anyone he meets.]

Hey! Are you doing all right? Really, I want to know. You can tell me if you want. And if you don't, uh...tell me about the masked ones! They're weird, huh? Or tell me about yourself. Where do you come from?

[he's curious! He wants to know everything! Maybe it'll help him figure out why you didn't end up in his underworld...]

Shivers

[a swirl of snow seems to deposit Hades right in front of you, and this time, the cold is definitely getting to him, making him wrap his arms tightly around his bare chest]

Uh, excuse me. Can you point out which way the big bonfire is? I'm, uh, apparently lost.

[either way this is definitely not the square. Is is the front of the hotel? The park? The beach? Where are we?]

Bucky/Soldat | OTA

[worthallthis]

I. Supplies and Searching

Though Soldat is doing their duty, seeking out supplies, they have a kind of... distracted air to them. They haul crates and bags to the Invincible, the general store, and the house they share with Javert, Misty, and Pudding (and Sora, and Sora), but their eyes are always beyond the buildings, peering into the trees, looking across the rivers, peering into the dark. Checking behind barrels in the supply rooms, behind bushes along their patrol route, even searching Solis's tunnels.

Patrols take longer as they search further afield, heat-sensitive scope often brought up to their eye, looking for the glint of a broken lantern in the dark. Once again, one of Soldat's family has gone missing, and now it's their job to find the remains and bring them in for repair. It's their job. They can't let him down. They swore they would never leave the kid alone, would always look for them.

They swore it.


II. Questions

[The text comes at such a bad time. Or maybe a good time. Soldat replies in the same fashion, via text, with a desperate:]

anything. i would do anything. i dont care what i get in return

[Feel free to stumble on that message, anybody.]


III. Giving up - closed to CR

Over the course of a week, with no lantern in sight and no mystical invisible Solis to surprise them with a resurrection, there's nothing giving Soldat any hope. They've gotten lost twice in the dark trees, missed a class or a meal, and still nothing. They failed. They searched and searched and found nothing.

Soldat holes up in Sora's room in the bed and breakfast one afternoon when they're supposed to be sleeping, drinking in and memorizing the scent, going through his things, boxing up the ones that are clearly personal. Crying a little when they find the finished wayfinders and Christmas cards.

The wayfinder gets pride of place on their lantern with Owl Friend's feathered charm, and they go about the rest of their routine much subdued.