Test Drive Meme 2

[labyrinthian_mods]

☙ Test Drive Meme

☙Gladsheim

You wake up in what looks like a cryogenic pod. There are other pods around you, some of them still sealed shut and others open with people stepping out of them like you did. There’s some technology around you but all of it is overgrown with plants. There are some panels but touching them only causes a sad whirring sound before...nothing happens.

After a moment there’s a pinging sound before a blue panel, like the one that brought you here, that pops up.

New Quest!! Make it out of Gladsheim alive! Fight your way to safety!

Then the door leaving out of this area opens up, draw your weapons and prepare to fight!

Most of the monsters seem to be some kind of small woodland creature but bigger. Be careful! In Gladsheim there are a lot of blocked corridors, locked doors and dead ends...try not to get cornered alone!

Though unlike the previous arrivals, you’re in luck, because as the door keeping the monsters out open, everyone who were brought before suddenly get a ping as a blue menu opens:

New Quest!! Rescue those lost in Gladsheim!

Anyone going into Gladsheim and successfully rescuing a new arrival gains:
1000 gold
ITEM: 10 beeswax candles. Heals status ailment BLINDNESS when lit. Each candle is one use only.
ITEM: 1 potato. HP+5 when eaten.

New arrivals...get nothing! Unless one counts the pinging sound before a blue panel pops up again. Congratulations on making it out of Gladsheim!

...following that is an unskippable tutorial teaching you how to open the menu, access your inventory, read messages and see your status! There is a grayed out selection that says ‘Guildmates’.

☙ More Merchant Caravans Arriving in Etria:

There sure have been a lot of caravans coming through Etria lately, each more well-stocked and colorful than the next, some clearly from countries wealthy enough to edge even their own flags in gold thread. At least it has been livelier and it gives you some variation in terms of NPC dialogue. (Even if these merchant NPCs only ever seem to be complaining about the weather, about how long it takes to get here and about some guy named Alian.)

A. Merchants Giving Out Weird Samples
Come one and come all to look through the wares from far and wide.
Hey you! Yes, you! Can I interest you in this lovely spider's silk robe (DEF+8, BURN RESIST+1)? Guaranteed not to burn until at least the third wear!
How about some hardtack (TP+10, HP-5), dear adventurer? At least a year old but still tasting like it was baked only two months ago!
No, no, come look at these rare golden statues (sells for 10 gold), inscribed with ancient symbols that shift in ways that could drive any sentient being mad! In a good way!

B. Inn
Maybe you haven’t yet found a guild so you’ve been staying at the Lady of the Lake. But today when you return from a hard day of adventuring, Vivian tells you all the rooms are full. There are so many merchants! It’s making so much more work for her!

She complains for a little bit before getting to the point: there is no room for you tonight. To compensate you, she offers to let you pick a piece of yellow candy from a jar as compensation. None of them are labelled but this is what’s in there:

Lemon Candy (LIGHTNING DEFENSE+2)
Banana Candy (LIGHTNING ATTACK+2)

☙ A Suspicious Spring:

A long hot day of adventuring later, the sound of running water is probably music to your ears. Or maybe you've been here long enough to never trust anything, not even the water.

The sight you come upon seems to be a bit too good to be true: a forest grotto with a waterfall splashing into a shallow pool of clean cold water, the shadows deep green and the light dappled as it filters through the trees.

What do you do?

A. Drink!
One sip and you'll feel your armor getting heavy, large and you can see the growing horror in your guildmates eyes as you shrink down to be no larger than a hand.

EFFECTS:
EVASION +10
SPEED -10
ATTACK -10
DEFENSE -10
Of course, a quiet sit of about two hours and you'll begin to grow back but you don't know that yet.

B. Bathe!
Just because you don't see monsters doesn't mean they don't like to congregate near water!

Except when you come out, dripping and trying to dry off? Nothing even remotely dangerous shows up. When it does for some reason, you always manage a critical hit. When you eat suspicious berries? You survive. You trip over something and it's a treasure chest that has actual money in it. If you try to steal from a monster, you always get something good. What gives?!

EFFECTS:
LUCK +100
This effect also only lasts for two hours so take advantage of it while it’s there! Just make sure it doesn’t wear off somewhere dangerous...

☙Building Traps and Nets:

Everyone is abuzz with talk about how they’ve found shed skins of Star Fireflies in the labyrinth! These rare monsters are said to be able to grant wishes once they pupate! No chrysalis have been found on Floor 1 but everyone is beginning to prepare by making nets and traps.

A. Collection Materials
Shortly after the discovery, Napier’s Firm posted a list of required materials so she can make the tools needed. All these materials can be easily found on Floor 1 of the Yggdrasil Labyrinth. Here are the lists:

Star Net:
Spider Silk
Mandrake Branch

Star Container:
Giant Insect Eye
Sticky Sap

These items can be found as monster drops from Mandrakes and Spiders which suddenly started appearing in Floor 1. The Giant Insect Eye and Sticky Sap are rare drops. So the question now is...how lucky are you feeling?

B. Trapping the Trapper
As time goes on, someone mentions that in a far corner of Floor 1 there is a nest of Golden Spiders that leave behind rare drops more often! Those who haven’t had much luck getting Giant Insect Eyes may want to try their luck there. But beware...these Spiders are much more aggressive and if you get stuck in their web it’s impossible to escape! According to Ceft, the unique chemical properties of the thread means it can only be dissolved with human tears. Even just a drop will do! Maybe you should consider bringing an onion when you go after these creatures. (Fontayne and Vivian both will offer to sell you some onions if asked about them…but at a very inflated price.)

☙ Extra
Got something in mind? Want to play with the setting more? The sky's the limit, so feel free and make up your own prompts to play with!

Welcome to Labyrinthian’s August Test Drive Meme! Please check out the FAQ and rules as you test your characters out. The setting is yours to play with, so be creative and have a good time with it! The TDM will double as the intro log and threads in this TDM can be considered game canon after apping if you wish!

Existing players can make their own logs using TDM prompts!

A important dated to remember are August 1, 2020, 9pm EST when Reserves open and August 8, 2020, 9pm EST when Applications open.

If you have any questions about the TDM, feel free to ask us here. If there are any other questions, you can catch us via PM, the FAQ or the contact page. Thank you for your interest in Labyrinthian!

Comments

[levelthreehooligan]

She sighs. She had wondered the same thing herself, though she wasn't about to cause a ruckus in the middle of town just to find out.

There are always bandits and miscreants in these kinds of places, though.

"I imagine that they think they're real enough. Parhaps to them we are simply alien.

"I think... I think where I was before, I could have checked, but," she trails off. She remembers where she was. Synodiporia.
She remembers what she had to do, go to other places, sometimes as not herself, and try to solve a problem.

She had friends there.

So why can't she remember anything else?

"I imagine if we followed this 'tutorial' to a tee something might happen, but I'm not entirely sure what."

[chronull]

It's almost too bad that she didn't voice the curiosity: she would peak an interest in him, even if he didn't particularly care about her filters between good and bad. He admittedly was more idly curious to see if the townspeople would respond to one of them getting shot, or what would be the response to it all.

His gaze shifted to her as she groped for her memory, for a hint of where she'd been. Interesting, but not enough to hold his gaze or attention for very long. He waited for her to speak again, but as the silence lengthened he realized that she was done.

"I doubt that the menial tasks will restore your memory, if that is what you are hoping." No sympathy, no attempt at comfort, just a flat statement. He could have been commenting on the weather.

If he fell, would he break his legs? Would it hurt? ...But that's not how he phrased that thought. Not if he were honest.

Finally he asked a direct question: "What are we being taught?"

[levelthreehooligan]

"You'd be surprised, though I'm not sure The Echo is strong enough here," she huffs. The amount of times she'd been ask to get something from Bumfuck-nowhere Coerthas and whoops, here's five tome's worth of dragon's history.

She would have thought Uila would have warned her to stay away, but no, her party member found it hilarious.

"Thaliak knows, honestly. Something about Inventory and Quests and Markers for people who we should talk to. I miss Hammerspace," she grouches, leaning her chin on her fist.

"Do you think they'd notice if we threw stuff at them from here?" She wonders idly, already toying with a small rock.

[chronull]

He knew what an echo was, but he wasn't sure given the context of the sentence. It must have been some kind of side effect, like those of Chronos, or... Something adjacent to that. Magic isn't real and doesn't exist. Hm, hm, hm. What did it all mean.

"It seems as if it is only teaching the mechanics of where we are. Defining what is normal for here." He doubted they'd get a reward for doing the bare minimum. Aside from living through the tutorial, of course. Another word he didn't know, another...

Hm? His gaze shifted to Pinya's face, then trailed down to her hand, fingering the rock. The listless, tired look on his face shifted a little. His lips quirked into a faint smirk. She had the same idea that he did, though she certainly had quite a bit more in the way of chill. His hand started to search for a small rock of its own he could contribute to the experiment.

"I imagine the worst they could do is lecture us with their redundancies." If they're even able to figure out who did it or catch them.

His hand closed around a rock as he looked down to find a target, but he'd wait for her response or first move.

[levelthreehooligan]

"Hmmn. Their normal seems very cyclical," she muses. She rolls the stone between her palms as she thinks,

"Oh, most certainly. But that's only a problem for losers that get caught," she smirks.

She draws her arm back almost lazily, but the way her eyes scan the surroundings and the poise with which she holds herself belies years and years of training. That, or a very convincing fluke.

She waits, still, for the perfect opening. Pinya wants to be able to see exactly how the person she hits reacts.

With striking precision she flings the pebble with terrifying accuracy at one of the men walking with almost no twelves-damned expression on his face, right at his chest...

Nothing Happens.

Well, not that nothing happened exactly, but it hit him. She saw it hit him, gentle over the distance, and bounce off him and... There was no reaction whatsoever.

She frowns, picking up a part of the roof shingle that had come loose, sharper than a pebble but about the same size. This time she shoots it at a merchant underneath a stall, closer than her last target as to make sure that at least some momentum translates into force.

The same thing happens. The merchant simply keeps hawking her wares with the same line over and over, as soon as anyone seems to get close enough.

"I- No. You'd definitely feel that."

[chronull]

Cyclical was a rather good term for it, one that he agreed with. He notices the way she winds up for the throw - tending towards years of experience, considering she had the same awful idea as he without the same level of lethality.

Leon was just as expressionless as the man acted as if nothing happened.

He watched as Pinya threw the roof shingle, the same inexpression.

Leon dropped the small pebble he had picked up and looked with more dedication, carefully picking up a rock that would be good for skipping across water if it were smaller and large enough to just about be considered malicious for their purposes. He didn't wind up as Pinya had did, but rather just waited for a moment, then he flicked the rock out of his hand. There was enough force that it wouldn't cause any serious injury, but would very easily get him into trouble with someone.

It went unnoticed.

"So they aren't real, or they're heavily drugged." He scratched his jaw. "If they aren't real then we're in a simulation of some kind," that included video games, "or this is a very strange dream." This definitely wasn't a dream - he couldn't dream in cryostasis, and if he wasn't in cryostasis then he was most definitely dead like that flash of a nightmare implied. Simulation was also an interesting option, though the mechanics of that given where he was certainly made for an interesting conundrum. Being drugged made the most sense. It also made those who weren't drugged the guinea pigs of some experiment. Hypnosis crossed his mind, but that wasn't something that actually worked. Not like this.

So they were either subjects of some kind of experiment - be it for a simulation or something else - and the people were likely mimicries, poor approximations of humanity.

"Do you think there would be a commotion if one were 'killed'?" He didn't reach for his gun, this was just purely conjecture as he watched them go about their day.

[levelthreehooligan]

There's something that almost feels a bit like indignation; notice her, dammit!

She smirks at the thought and lets it slide for now, it wasn't the time.

"I know naught of any drug that could produce this sort of effect en masse without some sort of Neural link or network, but a simulation?" She turns to Leon, reaching for the edge of his coat and rustling the fabric. Then she turns to Fenrir, poking his warm belly. Back to Leon, but this time she simply stares. He'll notice now that she's so close that she doesn't really have pupils per se, but her bi-coloured eyes are glossy, reminiscent of desert mammals, and now glowing slightly, her left eye even more brilliant white than it was before.

She stares at him intensely, having to work far, far harder than she usually would to see how his Aether flows through his body.
It's hard, and the man looks like he might need a few thousand massages to iron out the blockages in flow she can see, but it's there.

"I don't think so? Either that, or it's a sentient kind of simulation that can adapt to the people it's bringing in. As far as I can tell, though magic exists here, it is not like the Aether that I use and, well, I can see yours." A dark hue to be sure, muted and cool like a storm cloud in the setting sun. She sighs.

"I'm not sure it's a simulation in the normal sense. Nothing here feels... Virtual?" Nothing like her time in the GRID, even though PiC0 had perceived that as reality, it was because it was all she'd ever known.

"I think they're more akin to Golems or empty vessels. No consciousness, but they'd probably bleed if we did shoot them," she looks at him, raising a brow. "I imagine that something would happen, deadly force is very different from an errant pebble here and there."

[chronull]

It wouldn't be hard to mass drug a group of people. Create something that metabolizes through ingestion, then just put it in the water, or contaminate the food supply with it. There was also a manner of injections when you do normal visits to your doctor, but that made very little sense for this setting and, well, it was unreliable. The military required routine checkups, but if it weren't for those Leon wouldn't mess with the doctor himself.

"It would not be difficult to drug people en masse. The more difficult thing would--"

The rustling of his coat made him look to her and stop speaking. The way his gaze snapped to her was the fastest she'd seen him move yet. He still lacked a distinct expression, even when he noticed her eyes. They weren't human. Something else interesting to go with her ears. Hm, hm, hm.

The word aether again. Sounded like it corresponded to the latent energy in a person, or a soul. If this was something she could normally do with ease, the strain in her gaze suggested that it was something she had to work out now.

He considered what she said for a minute as he silently examined her face. Calling them Golems, empty - he could think of a handful of drugs that could do that to a person, but not quite in the exact nature of the people here. Short of lobotomizing everyone in the town he wasn't quite sure what else could cause something like this unless it were something to do with what this woman was calling 'aether'. She said she saw his, and he idly wondered what that looked like.

"I agree that it is certainly not a normal simulation, if it is one at all. I am not as confident there would be any meaningful consequence unless we were to try to hurt one of the more significant people, such as Vivian or Fontayne."

There's a pause as he lowered his gaze from hers. He didn't turn away, but the way his eye moved and the way he looked into the middle distance suggested he was thinking.

"Perhaps it is simply not a full simulation, but some kind of augmented reality. We walk around and experience a real world, but there is a kind of overlay on top of it." The quest prompts and markers, the menus that showed their stats. It was a decent enough working theory for now, he felt.

[levelthreehooligan]

"Hmn, though I'm curious I'm not willing to put that to the test right away. And if I did, I'd have to make sure there was no way to trace it," she hums. She doesn't think her Adversary powers work here, considering how different Fenrir felt.

Her ears twitch at the world 'overlay', and she sighs, knowing that what she was thinking of almost certainly wasn't what the man was referring to.

Gods, why did everything have to be so unclear? If she was done with the Arcana's game she just wanted to go back home.

She sighs, leaning back and leaving the odd empty townspeople to their circular errands.

"If I remember correctly, they look like the screens that I saw people play with, what was it, videoed games?" Casper had shown her how to play some before, and though it looked different and felt real, it was the closest comparison she had.

"I don't think I ever asked your name. Pinara," She gives him her name and a nod.

[chronull]

Leon only made a small sound of agreement at the woman saying that she would want to test such a thing only if it were untraceable. He understood that. He didn't have the resources here that he did at home and to do something that risky would be rather foolish.

The next statement took him a bit off guard, but it gave him an idea of the kind of place she came from. The technology was different where she was from, seemingly lesser than his own home. He hadn't wanted to be the one to say it felt like some childish video game, but here she had said it.

"...A video game is a rather apt way to put it." He didn't particularly play video games, but he understood the concept. It unsettled him a little, but Pinara wouldn't be able to see that save by a shift in his aether.

"Leon." She hadn't offered a last name, so he felt no need to.

[levelthreehooligan]

Pinya isn't exactly paying close attention to the man's aether,and though she's an expert at reading people her attention is elsewhere.

"Well, short of committing murder in the borad daylight in the middle of the city, did you have any other ideas as what we're supposed to. I don't know, do here?" She supposed she could go and follow this damned tutorial thing...

if he could express himself emotionally this would have the same tone as: "as per my last email"

[chronull]

After she asked the question Leon opened the menu to check on his own quest log to see where he was at. He had finished the tutorial so, for now, it was pleasantly empty. He closed the menu.

"The tutorial stated that there would be quests to do for people around town." There was a pause. It might be for emphasis, it might just be that he got distracted by someone walking.

Let's be real: with how intentional his movements were, it was probably a pause of annoyed emphasis.

"I have yet to see any quests arise, so I imagine we are currently waiting for something. What that is, well. You know as much as I do."

"Hi, Thanks for getting back to me,"

[levelthreehooligan]

"Well, I s'pose that I know that from personal experience that folk don't just request things from people who turned up out of the Aether immediately. There's usually something we need to do before that or let them get used to us or something but..."

How in the hell do you get to know people that only have a maximum of three things to say at any given time?