006 ⟡ NOVEMBER TEST DRIVE

[bayhelpers]

⋆✩ test drive 06 ✩⋆

The day begins like any other.

Routines, eventful scenes, and boring errands — no matter what you were in the middle of, there's a moment where everything begins to feel wrong. A searing pain tears through your body, so intense that it feels like every nerve has been struck at once. Muscles spasm, joints scream in protest, and as you double over, you find yourself clawing or clinging at anything within your reach. As your attempts to maintain composure fail you, your bones begin to twist with an agonizing force, the pain rising in a crescendo until it becomes unbearable to even breathe. Then, as quickly as it began, everything stops.

For a single, terrifying moment, there's nothing. No sight, no sound, no touch, no taste, no smell — just the weight of nothingness swallowing you whole. The absence of sensation might even be worse than the pain, leaving you adrift in a void you can't escape. Hopelessness threatens every fiber of your existence, and try as you might to fight it, your darkest thoughts begin to surface, flooding your mind in an onslaught of suffocating feelings and ideas.

In the darkness, you hear a voice.

It's faint, a gentle flashing of something warm along the edges of your mind, like sunlight itself. It's a voice, but you can't identify who or what it comes from, how it sounds, or what it means — still, you know it's directed at you. Something tugs at your heart, a powerful ache that throbs once and ripples outwards. You can feel the aches again, like fresh sores throughout your body. You feel off, like something isn't quite right, like you're not where you should be, or who you should be. But the voice continues, whispered just beyond your understanding. The sound is warm like hope, and it wraps around you, distant yet intent, before you wake up.

i. arrivals

OUT OF THE FRYING TUBES…

The first thing you notice is the heat. It’s dry and sweltering, a pressuring thing that surrounds you in darkness. Opening your eyes reveals that it’s not just the temperature doing this however - no, all around you is a near total darkness, broken only by the soft glow of red gold that creeps in from distant cracks.

And perhaps, in some circumstances, yourself.

The tunnels here appear to be lava tubes, long faded from primary use by the caldera nearby. While the occasional pool of hot molten rock can be spotted throughout this impressive maze, it never seems difficult to avoid. In fact, the deeper you go, the more evidence you find that someone - or at least, something - even lived here!

Staying here is probably not going to feel comfortable however. Not unless you’re Fire or Ground type. Escaping the tunnels is only half the battle, too, as the exits lead to a desolate plain of ash and dust. The caldera of Furnace Mountain is hot indeed, and it seems that’s precisely where you wound up! But perhaps, another kind Pokemon will appear to help lead you to somewhere safer?

AND INTO THE FIRE

⟡ Furnace Mountain’s regions all return to the settlement of (Death Blood Murder) Skull Town easily, but it’s not impossible for Pokemon to get lost and wander from the tunnels to other locations:

The Caldera Crater is a maze of molten lava and narrow walkways, where one can eventually find a crooked Obsidian Spire - making contact with this will cause a chorus of shouts to echo through one’s mind.

The Plateau in the meantime is covered with numerous geysers, with safe paths marked by what appear to be skeletal remains. They lead to a valley filled with even more such skeletons, many of them partially melted.

⟡ Worry not dear Pokemon, for Lurantis, the Mayor of Skull Town, will be sending rescue crews to your location; in addition to current Players, various Ghost Pokemon will likely answer the call to guide others out.

⟡ For those who remain in Skull Town for a time, they will find the village primarily focused on either rescuing newcomers or preparing for winter: Characters may find themselves swiftly recruited to help dry foods, or gather wood.

⟡ While TDM events specifically will occur here, Players are welcome to have their Top Levels involve other locations as well.

ii. BRISK BREEZES

KNOCK ON SUDOWOODO

For the most part Pokemon are encouraged to return to Bottlecap Bay as quickly as possible - rather, to be brought there for the first time. The Guilds are all located there after all, and it will be far easier to settle Pokemon into their new homes if the Leaders are able to meet them in person. With the winter season right around the corner, everyone is trying to avoid travelling unnecessarily; they held that mayoral vote for a reason after all!

While much of the food stores have been prepared, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do either. In addition to putting together warm materials for beds, or cutting and preserving the last of the autumn harvest, a good number of Pokemon have started their own efforts to prepare the guilds, and gladly accept extra help from these newcomers! In Cheri Guild, everyone gathers to build stronger, more weather resistant rooftops for the otherwise open tree houses, with some even gathering large leaves to make curtain walls - the more that the wind can be kept out, the warmer they will be, and starting a fire in these buildings is ill advised.

In Oran in the meantime, an enterprising Tinkaton has started work on a bilge pump system - an incredibly relieved Mightyena is happily telling everyone who will listen that if they’re lucky, they won’t have to worry about flooding until the seasons warm up again.

Even the Lum Berry Guild has their hands on something, even if it isn’t anything quite as impressive; given the weather preparations they haven’t had time to put together any special escape rooms this time, but they’re at least willing to send out less busy members to give tours of the town.

Though of course, the quality of the tours vary, and it’s hardly as if the new Pokemon can offer to help tour themselves!

…Right?

YOU JYNXED IT!

⟡ Pokemon who assist in any of the three projects - including the tours, which they can indeed attempt for themselves, will find themselves granted an article of warm clothing. Stay warm everyone!

⟡ For current players, Player Quests as referenced can be found here, along with many other wonderful submissions!

⟡ As Guild Leaders will be taking their time to decide on who fits best in each group, housing is at the moment an open bag. Players are free to assume anyone from Oran, to Cheri, to even Lum opened their room to other Pokemon to be shared - they can even assume residence at Skull Town for the time being if they wish!

iii. FREEZE THE DAY

WINTER HAS COME

It happens without warning. A sudden chilled wind from the coast - a darkening of the skies that would normally entail thunder, and rainshowers. Rather than the anticipated storm however, weather experts at Lum are quick to sound the alarm: a blizzard is here!

With just moments to spare, all Pokemon residents - and even some visiting wild Pokemon, who are confused but grateful all the same - are herded into the nearest shelter. Houses, Guilds, even storefronts become temporary homes as the snow blasts through the streets, freezing anything in its path. While some Pokemon might find the conditions tolerable, the leaders of each region are enacting a No Exceptions policy to the rule, even making use of Pokemon abilities to locate anyone who might be in danger.

With the snow storm in full force, it’s on the various guilds to find methods to pass the time. The winter storm can’t last forever, but if it does they’ve fortunately prepared. At this point in the year, there was very little food that would need to be sourced from outside each building - each and every location has at least a small connection to the storage tunnels below, and the Oran berries even have access to sheltered portions of the ocean. Even the newly planted Winter Gardens are well protected, with one of Lurantis’ first orders of business being to put enough fencework up that they could roof things in if need be.

Entertainment will be the true struggle, and each Guild Leader has their own method at the problem - as does Lurantis, back in Skull Town. And fortunately for those with Grumpig Pearls, it’s possible to make your own fun as well!

Unless you actually enjoy the ice breakers, of course.

HOW ABOUT SOME ICE BREAKERS?

⟡ There are a variety of ways Pokemon will be catching others outside, including methods such as ‘Future Sight’. Players are free to get creative with how other Pokemon might find their characters (and vice versa, with Player permission).

⟡ Each Guild has their own unique set of ‘Ice Breakers’:

The Oran Guild involves various races, as well as seek-and-find games through their more sheltered tunnels, capitalizing on their ability to remain active. They also host a number of slumber parties to help keep everyone as warm as possible.

The Cheri Guild also hosts sleep overs, as well as various crafting circles within their huts - that way, they can do something useful! As the buildings are connected via bridges, Teleporting Pokemon within the guild have offered to graciously lend their power to get everyone between the necessary buildings.

The Lum Guild has access to the archives, so a similar Teleport use is offered on a case-by-case basis to get Pokemon into the Archives; try not to abuse this, everyone! Once in the Archives they’ll find plenty to read and study, and some Pokemon are even hosting ‘board game’ parties! Though they seem somewhat confused about how these board games work.

Last but not least, those in Skull Town will have found themselves herded into the primary housing facility to sleep together. Lurantis, despite her anxiety with crowds, has actually arranged a variety of simple ‘Get to Know Each Other’ activities such as word games in the hopes of keeping everyone entertained. She seems stressed, but she’s clearly trying to keep the peace.

⟡ It’s more than possible for members of one Guild to end up sheltering within another. Due to the distance between them however, someone stuck in Cheri won’t be able to simply teleport to the Lum Archives, and vice versa. Long Distance Teleporters are too focused on the clinic!

⟡ Grumpig Pearls will be working perfectly despite the blizzard, due to their use of Psychic energy rather than anything that relies on a signal - because of this, characters may feel free to get creative about how to use their Pearls to entertain themselves and others.

IT’S SNOW MUCH FUN!

When the winds and snows of the blizzard settle down, Bottlecap Bay and Skull Town wake to a beautifully sunny landscape covered in white. It’s just warm enough during the day that snows start to melt, and trees drip water and handfuls of snow onto everyone’s heads. (Sometimes entire heaps come sliding off at once - if you’re a smaller Pokemon, careful you don’t get buried!) The ground cover is far too deep to disappear completely, though, so the first order of business everywhere is digging walkways through the snow.

Once that’s done and everyone’s had a breath of fresh air, though, Pokemon find ways to take out all the pent up energy of being snowed in! It’s very easy to find a snowball fight, or join in on building a fort - or both! Or if all that’s a bit too frivolous for you… there’s rumors going around of a giant snowbeast that’s been glimpsed around the borders of Bottlecap Bay, ducking in and out of forest. Descriptions aren’t consistent, so it might just be gossip that’s been blown out of proportion, but maybe it’s worth investigating?

Over in Skull Town, Lurantis flits to and fro frantically, visibly stressed. The harvest was practically done, so very little has actually gone wrong. However, it’s very early in the year for such a bad snowstorm, and she has terrible feelings about what it might mean for this winter. Pokemon who don’t seem busy with something else might get pointed toward collecting more firewood, or better insulating Skull Town buildings, or other winter preparation tasks.

On one particular day, one of the mountains around Crowncork Valley experiences an avalanche - snow shears off near the top and tumbles down in a giant sheet, piling up at the bottom and invading the very edge of the valley. It’s an impressive sight - nearly all Pokemon in town pause and watch in awe before returning to their tasks. Good thing that wasn’t closer! Hopefully no one was out there…

EVERY DAY I’M SHOVELIN’

⟡ There are numerous ways to get rid of snow, with some Pokemon moves more effective than others. While Fire is strong against Ice, it results in a lot of snowmelt that gets everything wet - Pokemon will find that as long as they can push the snow elsewhere, it’s a lot more effective than trying to just vaporize it.

⟡ Pokemon who investigate particularly deep into these ‘Snowbeast’ tales will find themselves incredibly confused - at least until the end of the month, where one such ‘beast’ finally slips up. It appears a group of Solosis were inspired by scary tales of something their Uncle Reuniclus saw just at the end of October. A big, tall monster, with frozen clouds at its feet, and horns of ice…what could that be?

⟡ Those who help Lurantis won’t receive any points for their guild, but she’ll be incredibly grateful for the assistance given how new she is to her position! She’ll speak to any such volunteers individually, and while she admits she can’t give them anything now she tells each one to come visit once spring is here.

✩ OOC NOTES.

⟡ TDM CWS: Skeletal Remains, Hard Wintering conditions, Pokemon Typical Violence

⟡ TDMs are game canon and act as events for the month they are posted.

⟡ New characters can link to their top level beneath the NEWBIE DIRECTORY

⟡ All new arrivals are not assigned to any one guild. However, they may assume themselves to share rooms within any one of them during the course of the TDM.

⟡ Remember that at least one thread for your application must come from the TDM! There is no comment minimum, but we will be looking for engagement, as well as for players and characters who take the time to delve into things like character thoughts, emotions, morality, and other deep themes. Take this time to engage with the setting as you would in game!

⟡ As a reminder, reserves and applications are permanently opened. Please see their respective pages for details on processing time.

⟡ Rough Timing on the prompts are as follows: the Blizzard will begin on November 20th, and lasts until the 23rd for a full three days. The avalanche in Crowncork occurs on November 27th. Thank goodness it didn’t happen to the town somehow right?

⟡ Have any questions related to the TDM? Ask here! If your question is more general for the game, please make sure to direct it to the FAQ page instead. Thank you, and happy threading!

FULL NAVIGATION

Comments

[autumnrainrunaway]

"I think both is pretty scary too. Just suddenly disappearing from existence is frightening, but to have cells explode, even more so, especially when radiation exposure."

A math based religion? That was a new concept and it fascinated Dolly. As much as she wanted to ask questions, Dolly had made a promise to do ghost stories and that was what she was going to do.

"Let's see, would you like a ghost story from Earth? I have one creature story, a local ghost story, and an old story from my own childhood."

[edgewater]

Parvati blinks, snapping to attention. Radiation exposure isn't really an issue in Obsidian's space hellscape, thankfully, but the mention of Earth is something that sparks immediate curiosity. "Any stories from Earth are good." She says that a bit too quickly.

I'm gonna be breaking this up as interactions so it won't be crazy long >_>;;

[autumnrainrunaway]

That takes Dolly a bit by surprise. This one hasn't been to her home world before, has she?

Eager, Dolly was more than happy to share a ghost story from Earth. "Of course, I'll share them then. I think I'll start with the creature story first."

"Now, two decades ago, there was this man you see that was low on his luck. Bills were coming up and had recently been let go of his job. It had been a struggle of sorts for this man, scrambling for a new job when he found this ad in the papers. The ad was looking for a new groundskeeper for an historic lighthouse by the lake, offered free housing and it was close to town to do grocery shopping at. It was a highly attractive offer."

Dolly pauses to let Parvati process the story or even ask questions if she needed any before continuing.

[edgewater]

Parvati leans forward a little in anticipation, tilting her head slightly. She's done this song and dance many a time before, and is generally more than eager to listen. She's not one to ask for a plot twist before it happens. That's bad aetherwave etiquette.

[autumnrainrunaway]

This was a really good audience, this brighten Dolly up big time.

"It'd be foolish not to apply to the job as the man went about setting up for that interview and getting his resume underway. A time often does, it sped on by and sure enough, the man gets this job. It was odd though, it was such a good job offer, the man would've thought that there would've been others there competing for that position. There was no one other than that man."

Dolly shifts a bit, adjusting her ribbon feelers and starts to loaf a bit, getting comfortable for the storytelling.

"There was no complaints though, the man had secured a job, got free housing, and being paid to live there. Life was looking pretty good up until moving day when he'd finally got to see the lighthouse in person. Now, the lighthouse much like the groundskeeper house, was a rather pretty sight to behold. There was one blemish the man couldn't ignore though, the mass of branches and brambles beneath the stairway leading towards the lighthouse."

[edgewater]

She can't help but interject here.

"But if he's being paid to be the groundskeeper, isn't that pretty normal? Those guys clean up stuff like that for a living." A little part of her would've killed for a job like that, but after the uh. Murder on Eridanos incident. She'd rather not. "Sorry. You can keep going."

[autumnrainrunaway]

Dolly smiles at that, this is good, Parvati is engaged with the story to ask a good question like it. A good questions deserves an intriguing answer right there.

"You're right, it is his job and was wanting to do just that. Unfortunately, he got stopped by the foundation member giving the tour of the Lighthouse grounds. The guide feared because of how intertwined the brambles and branches were to the lighthouse, it could cause damage to even attempt it. The mess of branches and brambles stayed, much to the man's dismay."

"The eyesore stayed and the man was left to brew in annoyance of it in the groundskeeper home. It would bother him every time he had to go about work, it pestered and begged to be dismantled. The mocking presence of the structure beneath the lighthouse grew to be too much one day for the man when he got an idea. The man's job said he wasn't allowed dismantle the structure himself, right? What if he hired someone else to do the job instead? Perfect, simply perfect."

"There was a friend the man knew that would be right for that job, a carpenter by trade. The man missed his friend since the move, figured what a better way to kill two birds with one stone. He got rid of an awful eyesore and spend time with an old friend, it was irresistible. A plan was made the next day, visit up at the lighthouse, get the structure deconstructed, and have lunch with the friend with some beer from the local brewery. Simply just perfect, no flaws in sight."

From the tone, it was clear, this story was about to go in a horrifying direction as Dolly waits to see if there's another question before getting to the true meat of the tale.

[edgewater]

Parvati's come to the conclusion on her own that the protagonist of this story is, to be blunt, a huge idiot. One of her biggest pet peeves. She doesn't voice this, though a bit of annoyance may be visible on her face, and instead opts to keep listening.

CW for death and the incredibly half digested person

[autumnrainrunaway]

It is the best take away as yes, this protagonist is an idiot and devastatingly so as Dolly was about to reveal. Yep, the good ol' meat of the tale is here!

"Now the friend comes and gets a good look over of the structure. An easy enough task, shouldn't be too long ever. The friend even wondered why the employers were so against it from the start. Bit by bit, branch by branch, the structure was coming about slowly before surprisingly, an opening was revealed. Both the man and his friend were shocked by this as they took a glance at it. It was big enough for the friend to climb in through, figured it had been some art student that installed it there."

"You know what they did? They went with the plan of letting that friend go inside of that structure to dismantle it from the inside. It was stupid, but the man wasn't thinking, he was just wanting it to be gone and at once. So the man went back inside after being told it shouldn't be too long to get down and went about making that promised lunch. An hour went by and then another before all too soon, the man was looking out at the darkening skies readying to become dusk."

"Concerned finally, the man went outside and towards the structure, unchanging since the opening was revealed. Odd, very odd, there wasn't even a sound coming out of the structure at all. With a breath, either on liquid courage or those braincells finally leaving the scene, the man went inside of the structure. It was disgustingly warm like a swamp in summer as the man navigated inside. His shoes began to stick to the ground as the man walked along, looking desperately for that friend when his foot connected with something soft."

Dolly goes to look right at Parvati, the tone shifting in classical storytelling fashion.

"There on the ground was the half digested remains of the man's friend. The floor wasn't grass but something grotesque as the man felt the structure starting to move. Without time to waste or even retrieve his friend, that man started to run as fast as he could before flinging himself out of that structure, landing with a thud. He caught only a glimpse of that thing scrambling away into the lake and drifting away, the structure gone and so was the man's friend. To this day, that man still works as the groundskeeper, always watching those waters for a mass of sticks and brambles to return, a knife clutched closely for that day..."

[edgewater]

Parvati tilts her head to the side. "So, are all Earth stories reliant on the protagonist doing something unbelievably dumb?" Come on, not even Halcyon Helen -- who frequently got into unreasonable amounts of bullshit, both on and off the aether wave -- was so dumb as to do all of that. And Ruth is pretty smart too, so just thinking that makes her think she's doing the woman a disservice.

Granted, it also isn't totally unbelievable to her that Earth guys can be pretty dumb. Her Captain's a living testament to the true end result of consistent bullshit. "I would've at least gone at it with a flamethrower."

Less snark in that icon and more happy to share information X3

[autumnrainrunaway]

"Sometimes they are, they tend to be made that way as survival stories to learn from. We learn a bit from them to avoid making the same mistakes the protagonists have. Some ghost stories have better endings for the protagonists while others tend to have them have less than grand endings." It was something that had fascinated Dolly about humanity's storytelling ever since arriving to Earth over many centuries ago.

Dolly will definitely have to introduce Parvati sometime to the wondrous old book called 'Shock-Headed Peter'. For now, Dolly smiles, "If only, but alas, the man was running on a half of brain cell there. Would you like to tell another tale next?"

[edgewater]

"Well, I don't really got any." She shrugs. "Like I said, this ain't a thing where I'm from, for the most part. Not sciencey enough."

Not the end of the world though. "I mean, we have scary stories, but I doubt you wanna hear me retell an aetherwave serial. You'd be better off just watching them yourself."

[autumnrainrunaway]

Aetherwave? Dolly thinks for a moment before remembering the little experience she did the other night with the grumpearl. Carefully, Dolly goes to get her grumpearl out from the carrier bag.

"Can you remember them? I ended up mentally broadcasting an old film last night on the grumpearl from memory. Sure it had some hiccups, but it's possible to do." Dolly offers a smile, "Would you be up for an experiment?"

[edgewater]

Parvati gets war flashbacks to Felix reciting the entirety of Terror on Monarch from memory almost entirely accurately when Dolly offers. "I dunno if I remember enough about any of em for them to be cohesive."

[autumnrainrunaway]

"Same...Seymour ended up being a Marill somehow when I attempted it." It was pretty funny though to her, though back to the drawing board.

"If it helps, would you like to tell a story that was scary that had happened before?"

peril on gorgon spoilers - drug addiction, dismemberment, being crushed...

[edgewater]

Parvati pauses to think. She has absolutely no idea what Dolly's talking about, and finds it kind of strange to be talking about it like she does, but that just seems to be one of the Sylveon's little quirks. It's fine. Everyone has those.

"Well, me and my crew investigated a real hostile asteroid once. Gorgon." She breathes in through her nose. "We got a severed arm in the mail chute while we were docked, holding an audio recorder. When we played it back, it was a message from the ship's former captain -- the one before mine. Some guy named Lucky Montoya. Said he'd found a big break on Gorgon, wanted to invite the old captain to come see it." She's just going to ignore the fact that it was her Captain who accidentally killed Alex Hawthorne when he stood directly underneath the escape pod. Poor ADA.

Her mind wanders for a second when she remembers ADA. She hopes she's not getting lonely without Parvati around. "So we went along. Found this lady called Minnie Ambrose. Wanted us to reclaim the R&D facility on Gorgon -- said it was her inheritance or something. Her mother was in charge. They were developing a stim called Adrena-Time, to keep workers awake and efficient for longer."

She pauses, unsure if she should continue. That's not... scary, is it? Not yet anyway.

Re: peril on gorgon spoilers - drug addiction, dismemberment, being crushed...

[autumnrainrunaway]

Dolly was to be fair a quirky little Sylveon for sure. Dolly though was interested as she keeps quiet and patient to hear how the rest went, especially with that R&D facility!

continued cws and also cannibalism now

[edgewater]

"S'pose I should explain some stuff first. Back in Halcyon, we have this problem with people we call Marauders. They're exactly what they sound like, crazy folk who live off grid and attack anyone who comes by 'em. Sometimes they eat them." A shudder. "Turns out, the brain deterioration that caused them to return to that sort of instinct was caused by Adrena-Time addiction. And when we got there, it was a wasteland. The few sane folk left were hiding out in an underground dive, and we had to do a sanity check to even get in."

As she's talking, she's begun to absently do arm stretches, between waving around her hands. "The Marauders on Gorgon weren't like the others. They were mostly the original personnel of the Spacer's Choice facility, or adventurers come to pillage who took the wrong stim. The facility was awful."

Now, Parvati had known Spacer's Choice to be bad for a long while by the time they got to Gorgon. However. "There was a fella on the intercom speaking with a voice modulator trying to scare us off and sabotage us at every turn. Every new clue my Captain uncovered would be met with some kind of resistance from them."

She continues with the preamble, going over the back and forth between Gorgon and other places to find others related to the Adrena-Time project, and so forth.

"Those soldiers only let us past to see the Doctor because my girlfriend's the Captain of the Groundbreaker, if you'd believe it." Parvati's blushing a little now, although she doubts it's visible given her already very pink complexion. Oh Junlei, how she misses your terrible poems...

She continues on with the story, mostly because I really don't feel like summarising this entire DLC. Her dramatic effect probably needs work. "--so as it turns out, Minnie's mom was alive the whole time! And looking for a way to cure the Marauders! But Minnie wasn't having any of it. She wanted to put Adrena-Time back into production without care for the risks. My Captain managed to work it out, though. Those two had a lot of family issues going on that I don't think I could even begin to explain. I think they're working on a cure together, now."

CW for historical drug overdose and continued cannibalism mention

[autumnrainrunaway]

Dolly sits there to digest everything she has listen to, especially the cannibalistic marauders. It was like that much more horrifying alternate version of that one solider that OD'ed on methamphetamine and went on that insane rampage for a week, but now with added cannibalism and multiply it with only the Stellar Sea knows how many of said soldier.

"I'm hoping they're working on a cure now for that, that is a pretty awful thing for the Marauders to go through that's for sure. I hope you get to see your girlfriend again though, she sounds like a lovely person."