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

[chronull]

1. Shame, I Would Have Prepared More Bodybags
Waking up in a cryogenic pod was enough for Leon to feel his heart begin to race in an uncharacteristic panic. The last time he saw this sight he fell forward and he could feel his skin fall away from his bones as they grew arthritic and calcified... The fleeting memory of his hand turning to dust lingered on his mind as he looked to see if he was okay. His hand seemed fine, he couldn't stop himself from seeing if he was still one person, looking down. His clothes were not what he remembered, but he seemed okay. His left hand reached for his right arm to find whatever clothes he was wearing tied, right arm missing, just as he remembered. He could feel himself relaxing a bit, though he was confused. He had no recollection of changing his clothes, no, his recollection was of his untimely death. This was unexpected, and he hated the unexpected.

The tank opened and he stepped out. This time it seemed that the appropriate procedure had been followed to release him from his sleep and... Could you have nightmares in cryostasis? Was that possible? Was that what happened? He looked around and... This wasn't New Mecca. This couldn't be. The slaughterhouse couldn't look like this, not so far down where he had tucked himself. He put himself before one of the seeming control panels and dusted it off with his hand, then do anything to make them spin to life. He was met with a disappointing whir that led to nothing. He had expected as much given the dilapidation of where he found himself.

The others were rousing now, and it was not long after that that same irritating blue prompt appeared yet again. A carefully neutral expression with an equally measured gesture dismissed the prompt with what could be mistaken as infinite patience. There was a gun that looked as if it hadn't been cleaned in who knows how long tucked in a corner nearby and he picked it up, grimacing as he looked it over. The weight wasn't the same as his own, but it would have to do as he loaded it deftly with his one hand. The bolt moved without resistance despite it's shoddy appearance and it closed with a satisfying solidness. He took a kneeling position a bit further back from the others, but holding the gun with a very practiced one arm, looking through the scope and pulling the trigger as the first creature streamed through the door before anyone else had a chance to move.

Well, at least he would wake up and get back into the swing of things. It'd been a while since he'd had some target practice.

2. It's All Just Never-Ending Errands, Isn't It?
He wouldn't be here, he wouldn't bother at all, but he needed the money to pay for an inn room... For the times that the inn wasn't full, of course. He always found this quite the chore.

Leon had found someone that was willing to go on this quest alongside him so they could work together to wrap this quest up nice and neat. They weren't too lucky with drops but they were moving steadily through the spiders, a good rhythm going between them as they filtered through the mobs. It was methodical.

The whispers of a far flung corner with increased drop chances had just reached made it to their ears. He relaxed and let his gun rest lazily on his shoulder.

"Do you think it's worth the risk?"

3. Wildcard - He'll be exploring around, feel free to poke him literally anywhere.

2

[reborn_fang]

It was strange. Fighting here was actually easier. Her knowledge of how to move and fight from her last life was useful without being as hindered by her lack of stamina in this life.

Of course she is a class that uses magic so all she needs to do is aim and dodge.

She held her staff behind her back, parallel to the ground as she thought about that. Her experience as a squire tells her...no, it wasn't worht the risk. But if this were an RPG--and it certainly seemed like one--then the answer would obviously be...

"It's worth the risk as long as our levels are high enough, I guess...and if we fail we'll definitely cry so that takes care of getting out of the thread. Then all we'd need to do is run away, right?"

She's mostly joking...but also not entirely.

Re: 2

[chronull]

The tired, almost gloomy expression on his face didn't change as she started to speak. The sound of her voice did draw his attention, though, and he looked to her as she spoke. She looked about the same age as some of the soldiers from the war when it ended, he silently mused. Where they excelled, she was adequate. Reliable, certainly. He considered her words for a moment, lazily glancing back in the way the spiders had been coming from.

"I believe our levels are sufficient. Even if we are a little low, we make a solid team. We have been making good progress." He looked back to her, a smirk forming on his face as he took a few steps in the direction they needed to go to find the golden spiders. "We won't need to run if we just kill them all, right?" A bit confident for a gunner with only one arm, though his voice was still just as level as it ever was.

[reborn_fang]

She idly wondered if Glen and this man would have gotten along. She couldn't help but think that the answer might have been 'no'. But he wasn't wrong. They did work pretty well together so far and maybe that's what mattered in the end.

So she followed him with a shrug and a smile.

"Guess we'll have to see, won't we?" She's hardly going to question his confidence given that he's held his own just fine thus far. Besides, does she have any room to talk about appearances when, apart from the black robes she'd arrived in because of her class, she look basically like a regular highschool girl?

"I'm not very good at crying on demand, though." So don't get stuck is what's implied here.

[chronull]

Well, she didn't need much convincing. Surely that meant something for how well they worked together. Leon would probably never say this out loud but he had some rather practical concerns regarding his ability to particularly mesh with this environment. Things were strange here, but at least he was able to do something he actually knew.

"I fear that crying is something that is far beyond my skill." Better be just as quick with the golden spiders as you were with the ones they were just fighting. "I believe it will be in our best interest not to miss." Which, so far, hadn't been too much of an issue.

His pace stayed very slow until she caught up, at which point he matched her pace. "What was it like where you came from?" Despite asking the question, his tone had fallen back into his normal almost disinterested tone.

[reborn_fang]

"Then I guess we agree."

She's mildly annoyed that he needed to slow down for her...not because of him doing it but because she knows...in her past life she had marched with soldiers in war. But this body was only that of a teenager with some interest in basketball. How vexing.

She laughs a little though, at that question. "Ah...that's. I've never been asked that before. Let's see..." She tilts her head a little. "It's a lot more modern than here. At my age, I'm suppose to go to school everyday except the weekend and I'm there along with all my classmates. After school, we'd have club activities or we'd go home, change out of our uniforms before we go out and do stuff...or maybe we stay behind and do homework? It depends on the person."

She scratches her cheek a little sheepishly. "Honestly, I'm not sure what you wanted to know about..." Because there's...so much. "What about you? What's the place you're from like?"

2

[metalbendr]

Toph didn't like it, but in the end, there wasn't much she could do - not with her being stuck in a foreign land and none of her friends to work with. She could handle herself and could stand her ground, sure, but having her friends around made it easier

"... Nah," She admitted at last. "There are better ways of getting money."

And by better, Toph actually meant easier. Much easier, and neither of them needed to make such an effort to get a miserable amount out all of it. She had promised it to not do it before, and had promised herself to avoid thinking about it. But. Well. Desperate times, desperate measures and everything that came with it.

That sorta stuff.

"You'd be able to afford more than an inn room," And if this wasn't tempting, then Toph didn't know what it was.