TEST DRIVE ※ 2

[wildermods]

TEST DRIVE ※ 2
The spirit of the Green needs defenders but the game of fate it must play makes it so that its plans are like a garden, always in need of careful pruning. Only certain individuals are capable of living a life of adventure -- and even many who are capable may not be the heroes the Wilderlands needs.

The only way for the Green to be sure is by providing a test -- and as far as tests go, this one's a doozy, because the situation is real. There are countless conflicts all over the Wilderlands that are in need of intervention, so the Green tosses you head first into one of them with no warning or explanation. During it, you may perhaps run into others like yourself, thrown in over their heads -- or into others that came to the Wilderlands before you. Either way, your only chance of getting through it is to work together with whatever other unfortunates you find.

Welcome to the wilds, hero. Good luck with that whole 'deadly peril' thing.

---

MICKEY, YOU HAD ONE JOB!
A powerful Sorcerer left his apprentice in charge of his lair, but the apprentice has made a mess of things. He enchanted a broom and animated it to do some of his chores, like filling a basin with buckets of water. After the broom went out of control and overfilled the basin, he was forced to destroy it, but the shards only turned into more anthropomorphic brooms.

Now, hundreds of brooms are pouring water into the Sorcerer's lair, the Sorcerer's apprentice has run away (and magically locked the door, because he's a coward) and you're stuck in the middle of it all as the brooms keep pouring more and more water down the stairs into the Sorcerers' stronghold.

This room is filled with the requisite wizarding accouterments (like a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling) and most of it is just replaceable magical tchotchkes, but some of the books here are priceless and one of a kind. The Sorcerer is a force for good and his careless apprentice has made it so important ancient books may be destroyed before he returns, ones that could help turn the tide against evil in the Wilderlands.

The Green whispers to you that the brooms must be stopped and the books must be saved. The voices tell you that the magic in them is needed to save lives.

Also, you kinda need to not drown. Because the water's up to your knees and drowning's definitely a thing that might be happening if this keeps carrying on. The door is magically locked and the windows are magically warded so that while water can be poured out through them, people can't travel in or out of them. You're trapped.

Time to start bailing water and working together. Things are starting to look a little damp.

---

STUFF YOU CAN DO
A. FIGHT A HOUSEHOLD CLEANING IMPLEMENT

The brooms can probably be destroyed permanently! Maybe. Possibly.

It's worth a shot, right? Aside from the destructive magic you might find yourself now possessing (or superpowers or magic weapons...) The Sorcerer seems to have been doing some experimentation with gunpowder, among other things. The lair has firewood, flint and other firemaking supplies. Also axes and other tools.

The brooms can potentially reproduce from the shards if destroyed but if burned to ash or if the pieces are fine enough it may be possible to stop them once and for all. But if you fail, well, you may find your problem multiplying.

B. MESS WITH MAGIC

The Sorcerer has a lot of interesting-looking books on magic. Maybe you can find something useful within one of them that can stop the brooms and help make some of the water disappear?

Or you may just accidentally curse yourself. Good luck with that.

(OOC: All magic within the books can potentially help somewhat but only a little. Otherwise, characters can god any kind of curse effects they like for their character that occur from reading the books or trying to cast magic: legs turning to jelly, their voices turning squeaky, characters shrinking, characters growing in height, etc. etc. Feel free to get creative!)

C. BAIL A BUDDY OUT

Sometimes the best thing to do is push up your sleeves, grab a bucket, and get to work. While you can't climb out the warded windows, the water can be poured out of them and there are plenty of buckets to use to bail water. Grab a new friend and try to form a bucket brigade for a very work-intensive and awkward first introduction.

D. THE FLOOR IS LAVA

Well, not necessarily lava, but as the room starts filling with water, the floating furniture might be the only thing keeping you and the people around you alive. Help the people around you perch on furniture and stay afloat. Save the important books if you can, too, but you may want to make not drowning and preventing others from drowning a priority until the crisis is over.

G. FREESTYLE

The situation is pretty silly, with wild magic, gunpowder, anthropomorphic brooms, and flooding going on. Feel free to make something up! It's a big lair with a lot going on.

---

OOC INFO
✦ This TDM is open to everyone. However, top-levels should be made for potential new characters only. Characters currently in the game should only tag top-levels.

✦ Potential players may use test drive threads as their log samples. However, at least one post in their thread must fit the requirements for apps, both in length (200 words) and in quality. If you do plan on using a thread as a sample, please make sure the writing throughout your threads is a good example of your writing skills and has some solid examples of the character's voice.

✦ Current players can count TDMs towards AC. They can only count towards comment-based AC proofs.

✦ Potential players can opt to keep these threads as game canon when they app in, or start over fresh, based on preference. The magic bringing them to the game universe can fog their memories, if players don't want their character to remember TDM threads when introing into the game.

✦ Apps open: 4/1/18

✦ The game has limited slots. Please keep this in mind! We've had a lot of replurks in the announcement plurk, but the game is meant to be a very small game, with only 25 slots total, and many of these were already filled in the game's beta test round. There may be only around 10 or so open slots when apps open to everyone. The game will have a wait queue if the game hits cap during the app round but please be prepared for potential disappointment if we happen to hit cap you wind up not getting a player slot immediately. It's not personal; we'd love to accommodate everyone but the nature of the kind of campaign we're trying to run wouldn't work with a larger game.

Comments

MOD QUESTIONS

[wildermods]

Ask the mods any questions about the TDM under this comment. For more general questions about the game, hit the faq or mod contact.

Patience McCray | Dinoverse | OTA

[acrocanthosaurus]

[Alternate punctuation is an option for the future here.]

"This is such bull!" You don't hear the words with your ears, what you hear is an irritated mix of growls and clucks and other bits of deep-voiced birdlike chatter. And a whole lot of splashing.

As... quite a large dinosaur really, it's going to be longer before Patience is in danger than it will be for most people. She's around eleven feet tall and thirty long, it's a good thing this lair is so large. The stuffed alligator is swinging though, because she's hit her head on it once or twice.

She's tried forcing the big door, which is now scored by claws and appears to be cracked in several places but magically remains in place and sealed. She's tried biting the brooms, but she can't actually chew and can't get the pieces small enough. A few of the new brooms have shed acrocanthosaurus teeth embedded in them, and she has some splinters embedded in her, which isn't helping her mood.

Patience growls.

D: Floundering in the deepening water? Patience will wade after you and grab you with her relatively short but powerful arms if you're lucky, with her mouth if the water's too deep - she won't bite down and is in fact very careful with her teeth but that's probably not great for your blood pressure - and take you to a shelf or a table or something. Maybe clinging to her is a better idea, despite the coarse long scales or quills all over her that make that a mildly unpleasant prospect.

Either way she's likely to interrupt your reaction to say, "Look, can you start a fire in this? Turn shit to dust? Something?"

C: Just a very resigned Patience taking a barrel in her jaws and using that to bail.

G: Any other ideas?

Re: Patience McCray | Dinoverse | OTA

[bear_handed]

[A talking raptor. That was new. But Fei-Yen could roll with it. Her life had become increasingly strange since leaving the Wandering Isle, after all. This was just one more thing on the pile.]

Unfortunately, no. I'm a monk, not a mage. If you need something punched or healed, I'm your girl. Set on fire, not so much.

[likeits1999]

"This is such bull!"

"I know, right?" Kevin answers. He's coming in out of another room, just answering the totally non-concerning voice while looking back over his shoulder one last time at the space he just searched.

"This is bogus."

...Then he turns and sees what's in this room.

"-Aww hell."

He ducks back into the smaller room and slams the door.

Ronan Lynch | The Raven Cycle

[somnioergosum]

[OOC: Pretty minor spoilers for the short story "Opal." Also swearing. So much swearing.]

A. FIGHT A HOUSEHOLD CLEANING IMPLEMENT

[Ronan’s response to being taken against his will could have been worse, if you thought about it. He could have had an axe within arm’s reach.

With a snarl of frustration he kicked the water. This caused the raven on his tattooed shoulder to take off. She circled her owner, watching him thrash his legs. Then Ronan really did find an axe and she decided another perch would be safer.

Ronan tested the weight of the axe in his hand and looked for something more tangible to vent his anger on.

The poor broom never stood a chance.]

What the fuck is this!

[He swung and with more of a muffled than loud crack, the broom split apart and fell into the water. Ronan tried to hit it again but the water carried it away.]

Fuck!

[Ronan ran his hand over his shaved head and closed his eyes. He frowned, then wiped away some black liquid that had run down his mouth when he’d been screaming. When he opened his eyes again, he saw two brooms. He blinked. Still Two brooms. Ronan swore in a much lower tone.]

Oh, shit.


D. THE FLOOR IS LAVA

[Ronan balanced on a table full of books. His wet shoes squished and soaked the pages. The Green wanted the books saved, it didn’t say in what condition.

His raven Chainsaw, flew over to someone struggling to keep afloat. Ronan followed her with his eyes.]

Hey! Over here.


G. Anything else you want? Fun with gunpowder?

A

[konman]

[A teenage boy sloshes his way over to him.]

No no no, you don't want to do that.

[Kon taps his temple.]

I have this movie in the ol' brainpan. [It's a strange way of saying he's seen a movie but he didn't actually "see" it.] It's a Hydra kinda thing - kill one and two more take its place.

[henregretta]

[ The safer perch was one Adam Parrish, and he didn’t blame Chainsaw one bit for migrating to his shoulder. If he could migrate somewhere a little further away from Ronan swinging an axe like a baseball bat, he would too.

Some things were just prudent, like not trying to relieve Ronan of the axe when he’s got aggression to work out. It was only a broom – and a dreamstuff broom, not one they'd've paid good money for.

There’s an algorithm, somewhere in the universe, for how many curses Ronan Lynch could say in a ten second span before his rage was unable to be communicated around. Adam doesn’t know if he’d cracked it yet, but, when something like black sludge trickles out of Ronan’s mouth, he had to chance it. He reached for the hand that wiped that crap away. ]

What was that? This was supposed to stop if you started dreaming.

[ Because this, and the fall here, the whispering green leaves, it was somewhere in between a dream and Cabeswater. Adam shouldn’t be here, but he felt real enough to himself. It surely had to be because of his bond with the old Cabeswater. Ronan’s trying too hard for perfect duplication.

He completely missed the bisected broom becoming two distinct brooms. ]

You need to just let it come to you.

A

[mothermouse]

[There is a small mouse with a scrap of red cloth as a cape perched carefully on a table near by ]

Y-you really shouldn't use such Language...

[ And the mouse is scolding you and staring very apprehensively at the raven. ]

Maybe if you tied them up? Is there string?

Shuichi Saihara | Danganronpa v3

[shyhara]

1.

[Sure, he has a moment of panic at first. This is more actual action than he's used to being involved in directly, and his field means he's unfortunately very informed about what an awful way to die drowning is. Breaking the brooms doesn't work, he's not willing to risk an attempt at burning them (what if every particle of ash could turns into another broom?), and haphazaedly attempting magic out of any of these books seems just as risky when magic didn't even exist to him until like this shit went down.

But panic doesn't help, and he's got to be able to do something before someone's dead for once. So he forces himself to clear his head and stands on a table above the rushing waters to observe the whole scene. People trying to stop or fight the brooms, scrambling to save the books, bailing the water out...

Oh.]

Relax! The room physically can't flood all the way at this rate.

[And as long as no one makes the situation much, much worse, that shouldn't change. He just has to hope people will just listen.]


2.

[People did not listen, and the rate of water rising has gotten worse, so now there's reason to panic.

Of all the available options, a haphazard attempt at magic is somehow the one that seems the least risky. How is this his life? How has shit gotten more ridiculous than a murdergame run by a robotic bear? This shouldn't even be possible.

But that's what's happening, so he's kneeling atop a table floating in the rising waters, feeling a lttle seasick and flipping quickly through one of the magic books. The table rocks severely in the tumultuous flooding, and he has to grip the edges of the table to keep himself steady. One page catches his interest and he pauses.]

Ah, what about--

[The table suddenly lurches drastically with a large wave. He staggers, catching himself with his grip on the table, but the page slips out of his grip as the book slides towards the table edge. God, please help.]

1

[googledox]

I concur. Our current circumstances aren't ideal, but we're not at risk of drowning instantaneously. We need to remain calm and avoid needless provocation of the situation.

[The green alien looks slightly out of place surrounded by all this fantasy stuff. His tattered poncho gives him the air of some kind of planetary wanderer. He scans the room with a handheld computer, simply sidestepping the brooms as they walk by, rather than trying to fight them. ]

[It's no good to just rush in and start taking action when it might make the situation worse.]

This is magic, after all -- a highly unpredictable and dangerous force to contend with. We need to approach this situation carefully, lest we make it worse or do something that causes us to, I don't know, grow tails or something. [He briefly arches a brow] It happened to one of my teammates once.

2

[misleaded]

[ Well, this is a monstrosity of a situation. It might be more tolerable and maybe even cool without the incessant chaos, the sudden overwhelming new amount of information to pick through, and especially the flooding. He's not really worried about dying here, because he's not going to (god, that would be pathetic), but he really doesn't want to get wet. At all.

Thus, Ouma's claimed the nicer looking armchair to float around on until this nightmare is over with, arms crossed over the back top rail of it for optimal balance as he's also situated on his knees. He doesn't take up much space or weight, which is in his favor since he's got a few books he's handpicked that caught his interest stacked next to him.

At some point, he'll notice the familiar face struggling over there with a book of his own. Ouma blinks curiously, wondering if that means everyone else (the ones still alive and kicking, anyway) are here somewhere. But he hadn't caught sight of his particular weirdos in this sea of weirdos -- they're pretty noticeable, too. Shuichi, at least, is an understandable miss because he's just so damn plain. At least that's what Ouma would tell him, instead of something about how he was AWOL getting pissed off at being unable to pick the lock in here before shit got worse.

If the detective is getting into something though, Ouma's interested in knowing what it is. He didn't plan it at all (because most of this is out of his control, which is very annoying), but it's a convenient break for him when the sudden wave that dismantles Shuichi's grip and sends the book sliding is the same wave that lurches his chair closer.

He thinks fast, ultimately moving even faster when he leans just as much as he can without capsizing (it's risky business) to swipe the book off the edge of the table just before it meets an untimely, soggy end. ]

-- Aaand, yoink! [ He grins, proud of pulling that stunt off. ] ...This better have something good, Saihara-chan.

2

[teratias]

[Waver had figured that the flooding problem would likely be fixed on it's own. There were windows, thus the water would level out eventually and then everything would be just fine.

But that hadn't happened at all. Something something too many cooks in the kitchen or crap like that with everyone attempting different ways of fixing the problem only to make everything worse. He was guilty of it too, hell, he was probably responsible for some of the problem. But Waver wasn't inclined towards self reflection at the moment. The only thing that interested him was staying on top of things in the most literal sense of the word.

The table he was on rocked and swayed dangerously thanks to the churning water, and it wasn't as if Waver had ever learned to swim. He was a thing of books and libraries and the classroom, too deep in academia to bother with things like say, outside.

Over the rush of water and ambient noise, he thought he heard a voice. Waver turned, only to see someone going after...something?]

Ah crap.

[Waver wasn't sure what went into the water, but it looked important.]

Do you need help?!

Anita Fite/Empress | DC Comics (Young Justice)

[fiteclub]

[Suddenly ending up wizard- okay, sorcerer's- lair that needs some serious drainage thanks to crazy broomsticks probably isn't even in the top five for the absurd since Anita's started hanging out with the other teen heroes that make up Young Justice.

Either way, the possibility of being drowned because of overenthusiastic cleaning gear is not her idea of a good time.]

(A)

[Too many brooms can be easily solved by a girl with a sword stick, right? After being jostled one too many times by the knobbily thin elbow of a broom on a mission, Anita pulls her Emperor's stick apart, and in the same motion slices the most recent interloper and two of its closest companions in half.

Except... apparently not.

Where there was there were three brooms cut in half soon becomes six, each with its own bucket.]

Yikes. That was noooot a good idea.

(B)

[Rule number one of dealing with magic and other mystical things:

If you don't know what it does, or don't know how to handle the possible consequences, don't touch it.

As it goes with the things Anita learned at her grandmother's knee, it probably goes with all of the magic tomes in here that they're trying to save.

Which is why her first reaction to seeing another person reading through one of the books is to shout out a warning.]

Hey! Don't! Be careful with those.

(C)

[Bucket. Water. Window. Bucket. Water. Window. Bucket. Water. Window. It's hard to say if it's actually making a difference or even keeping ahead of the pace of the brooms, but at least it's doing something.]

Hey, mon, lend a hand? This isn't easy but the magic brooms can't last that long.

[She hopes.]

(D)

[Anita's inborn athleticism and timing are what's been keeping her from swimming in the drink the room's become, and when she sees someone else struggling in the water, her first response is to reach out and offer a hand to get them pulled out.]

I think they need a crash course on what an indoor pool is supposed to be like.

C

[somnioergosum]

[Ronan looked at Anita's bucket, then noted the water level. Still rising. What a surprise.]

Ever heard of Sisyphus? I'm not wasting my time.

[He walked or, more accurately, sloshed over to a window. He tried stick his hand through but the invisible force still pushed him back. His brow furrowed.]

D

[konman]

[The bedraggled person she drags up onto a bookcase is - SURPRISE! - a familiar face.]

[Kon knows how to swim, sure. He spent his earliest days beachside in Hawaii, after all. But when you've been able to fly almost your entire life your instincts for getting yourself out of a bad situation in the water aren't great. Where some people think 'try to lay back and float' or 'tread water,' Kon's brain goes 'fly, idiot' and that's pretty goddamn useless with his flight gone. So as the room starts to swamp and as people get bowled over, as furniture starts to get knocked around, as currents start to swirl dangerously, something knocks him off his feet and then he can't figure up what's up or down. Before long his lungs feel close to bursting because super breath ain't on the menu either, and he's feeling like an idiot for getting his butt kicked by water of all things and then...]

[Then he's kneeling on on a bookcase after getting dragged there, looking up at an old friend he hasn't seen since before he, y'know, died. (Getting brainwashed, hiding on a farm, dying, and coming back to life kept a guy busy. He's still working through his rolodex to do all his 'hey, I'm alive again!" reunion visits with friends.) ]

[He spends a few seconds coughing up water and staring at her owlishly before he can say anything.]

'Nita?

[Blink blink.]

[He suddenly throws up both arms and smiles widely.]

'Eeeey!

[the_hit_list]

[ Tim's head swerves around sharply at the familiar voice. When his eyes land on the expected Ms. Fite, Tim smiles at her over the book, like he's been waiting for her to show up.

To some extent, he has. One of their magically-inclined friends is long overdue. ]

How nice of you to drop in.

[ Dry as graham cracker crumbs. He knows she had no choice, but the smile is real. He's glad for the assistance.

Tim holds up the book. It's not in English. ]

I'm not reading it outloud, and I'm about as talented as a radish.

Rose Lalonde | Homestuck

[knitpick]

1.

[Standing in already knee-deep water, Rose looks thoroughly unimpressed at the crisis-management skills of her companions. She should really be helping out with fixing this mess -- and she will, shortly -- but a moment needs to be spared for her complete disbelief, heavily lines eyes staring flatly and arms crossed over her chest.]

Really? Has no one seen the Disney classic Fantasia before? Or Hercules, for that matter? The theory is basically the same.

[That is to say, stop fucking breaking the brooms. But, y'know, in exasperated pretentious teen speak.]


2.

[Magic caused this problem, and so magic is clearly the way to go here. Her own brand of the stuff isn't exactly working the way she's used to, but surely the volumes in here have a greater range of spells than she normally does anyway. One of them must have an answer. The shelves are tall and she finds herself unable to fly here for some reason, but she can stress over that later. This is a time for action, and action in this case means scaling a shelf like a rock wall.

Unfortunately, her soaked ballet flats don't really make for fantastic climbing shoes. Reaching for a book with a promising-looking spine, her foot slips off the edge of the shelf and she lurches back. She scrabbles at the shelf uselessly for a moment before topping entirely backwards into the open air.]

Fuck--!

[That inelegant shout is all she manages before plunging into the water with a loud splash. Awesome.]

2

[bear_handed]

[A furry paw pulls her back to her feet, and an equally furry face looks her over for any damage.]

Are you alright? I'm not usually one to point out the obvious, but you took quite the fall there.

Alacruun | Original Character

[coiledscales]

B.

Alacruun is decidedly un-amused by all of these shenanigans. His magical talents always lay elsewhere - not with these cheap parlor tricks - and now he has to thumb through the library, trying to find something that will make it all stop. He could also turn into a dragon and just tear everything apart, but somehow he feels like indulging his frustration in that regard won't really help anything. It would certainly help if the books were in a language he understood (he speaks or reads almost every language in Faerun, why is this so hard) and the spells were organized in any sort of conceivable, sensible manner. He's practically growling, jaw clenched as he tries to find the right words.

For the moment, he's an elf, complete with pointed ears, dark hair, green eyes, and angular features. But a very angry looking elf. He glances up, with enough frustration in his gaze to practically melt a hole through whoever he catches a glimpse of.

"Can you make heads or tails of this? What kind of wizard keeps his library in such a state...?"

Really he ought to be worrying about other things at the moment.

D.

The water is rising and Alacruun (still an elf for the moment) is currently perched on a bookshelf rather precariously. He makes a low noise and glances over at his companion, "Well, I'm going to be fine. I don't know about you though."

Turns out black dragons can breathe underwater. Who knew?

Saving books will be a bit harder, mostly because he doesn't have anything waterproof to carry them in.

B

[likeits1999]

It says more about Kevin's nature than his ability that he comes over to take a look, twisting his neck around to try and read even before the rest of him catches up. His brow furrows with great seriousness.

"I think that's some like... Lord of the Rings shit, dude."

Kevin is an astute and helpful young man of great learning, evidently.

As for the state of the library...

"I guess he just kinda knows where all his stuff is? I can respect that."

Kevin Ingstrom | Vampire: The Masquerade (OC)

[likeits1999]

1.
Kevin started a fight with the brooms. Of course Kevin started a fight with the brooms, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

On the bright side? It's distracted some of them from bringing more buckets of water. On the not-so-bright side? They're pretty unhappy with him. Three brooms, brandishing other brooms, are squaring off with him while he keeps whacking them back with the handle of a mop he found.

"Hey dog, you having any luck with the magic books?!" he yells over his shoulder.

Kevin, for all his faults, has a very realistic understanding of which of them is likely to find an actual answer to this problem. Probably in the form of some kind of spell? That would be great, right about now.

2.
Fell in? Can't swim? An arm reaches down into the water and hauls your character up on top of a long bookshelf.

The arm belongs to an apparently ordinary teenager. He's soaked through, even the drawstrings of the kid's hoodie are dripping.

The only thing weird is probably how strong that grip was.

"Dude, you okay?" he asks. "Kinda stay out of that, I don't swim that great."

Wildcard
[ Bring your own prompt. I'm cool with brackets, if you want. ]

1.

[awfulcer]

Unfortunately for Kevin, the first person who hears into is another guy who's had the brilliant idea to try and smash the brooms. Dixon's general tendency is to hit things, so when magic brooms popped up the first thing he did was take one, swing it like a baseball bat, and shatter it against the wall.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

As the number of brooms around the two of them seems to double, Dixon backs up to the wall near Kevin, swinging with a sort of brutal and counterproductive efficiency at the brooms with a coat rack.

"I never had luck with books ever," Dixon snipes. "But one of us should break for the fire stuff before that gets wet."

[OOC: BTW I have an opt-out if there are any sensitive subjects.]

[thewholeofthemoon]

A:
For a moment, Remus thought he had to have made a mistake of some sort. He knew the way into the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow, but it wasn't impossible that he misjudged something. His head certainly felt like he'd walked right into the Willow's branches.

Though that doesn't explain how come he's so damp. Remus is just starting to realize that something is 'not right' when he gets splashed in the face with a bucket of water and comes up, sputtering. He has just enough warning to roll out of the way of another bucket, giving him time to get to his feet and...

It looks familiar. He's certain he's seen this before, though he can't remember where at the moment. Though, to be honest, it's something that wouldn't look very out of place at Hogwar--

"Bugger," he mutters, looking around again. That's what he was doing. He was following a ghost down a tunnel on the night of the full moon. And while it had definitely been fully inadvisable, it had been a chance. A chance to learn the truth about things that had happened twelve years before when his entire world had fallen down about his ears.

Reaching into his tattered (and wet) jacket for the pocket where his wand normally lay, Remus encountered not the wood of the wand but cool metal. Frowning, he pulls out a medallion. And only has a moment to frown at it before he has to dance out of the way of another broom. "What in Merlin's name is going on here?"

C:
It's his innate responsibility that spurs Remus into eventual action, wresting a bucket from one of the brooms and shooing it out of the way. Though a murmured "Petrificus Totalus" yields no results on any of them. Too bad, because it would definitely help with the water situation.

Lacking a better way of handling it, though, Remus scoops up a bucket of water and heads for the window to throw it outside. And looks back at the sheer number of brooms. "This is likely to be an exercise in futility."

[prisonerofsasskaban]

Sirius had been testing out his new power by holding a broomstick in the air. When he heard a familiar voice, he dropped it immediately.

"Remus?" First the ghost of a smile crossed his lips, then a genuine one. Even soaking wet, Remus was the best thing he'd seen in days, weeks even. "Oh Merlin, I'm glad to see you."

He was working under the assumption that Remus was from his time, after everything had been sorted out and not, say, moments before. He really should have learned not to assume things by now.

[teratias]

A. Boy v. Broom
Brooms? Brooms?! Brooms. Waver Velvet, mage, was unable to actually comprehend what it was he was bearing witness to.

No. He understood, he just was deeply angry about the whole thing. He had gone from resting and helping Rider regain mana after watching the giant thing that Caster had summoned in the middle of the river to seeing five brooms be reproduced from the shards of a single smashed one.

"Are you kidding me?!"

Outraged anger got Waver no where, but it always felt good to let it out. Looking around, Waver's eyes finally took in the rest of the room around him. "Smashing isn't going to work, ugh what kind of idiot would cast a spell to make multiplying brooms to begin with!?"

C. Chasing waterfalls
The rising levels of water was a problem. Saying that was an understatement, one Waver would readily admit to, but until there was some kind of equilibrium reached, water had to be removed.

Bucketful of water after bucketful of water was hard work. Annoying work. Frusterating work. Work that...

"Wait," he said suddenly, joyous realization crossing his face. "The windows are open. When the water levels rise to the height of the windows, it should just gush out like a waterfall!"

A (with the right letter this time whoops, I swear I can read)

[konman]

Kon recognizes this situation. He's "seen" this movie, i.e. had it bundled in with all his clone programming.

"Maybe someone with big ears. Lazy. Unseen figurehead of an evil yet whimsical megacorporation?"

If this guy doesn't recognize this for what it is he's probably not going to get the joke, though.

"Just throw them out the window. That's what I've been doing."

Kon pulls a bucket out of one of the broom's hands, walks over to the closest window, and hurls the broom right the hell out like he's throwing out the garbage.

It's somebody else's problem now. Brooms will probably be filling basins across the countryside. But they can worry about that later - not drowning and maybe possibly saving these important life-saving books comes first. Mostly the not-drowning though.

Mrs. Brisby | The Secret of NIMH | OTA

[mothermouse]

G.

[Brisby wasn't sure where she was and for the moment it hardly mattered. What did matter was staying out of the water, which was hard when one is a mouse trying to find a way out of the room that was fairly rapidly filling with said water.

She was doing a fair job at it anyway though, using floating books and knick knacks to scramble around the room. She's freezing at this point, soaked to the bone but she hasn't stopped moving. But then suddenly she misses a particularly wide gap and has to swim. This is a problem. ]

Oh!

[ Her voice is weak and breathless and a little gurgled but she's desperate and afraid and making herself heard. ]

Someone please help!

[awfulcer]

[With 'read magic textbooks' as the answer to this puzzle, Dixon's been completely unable do anything particularly helpful, and soon enough he's on a floating bookcase turned face-down, soaking wet and on all fours trying to keep the thing from flipping over. The water's high enough that if he stands the ceiling scrapes his head.

If this is how he dies, it's at least interesting. That's the only real thought bouncing around his head, crowding out any problem-solving. As the bookcase tips a little he throws his weight through his shoulders to right it, and sees a mouse in the water, wriggling in desperation.

Even if she weren't speaking - and to tell the truth Dixon doesn't really hear her over the slap of water and his own breath - there's a part of him that doesn't really want to stand aside as a mouse drowns. It's part of that basic simplicity to him, deep down under the impulsive anger. He scoops her up, closing his palm around her.

He tries to slip the mouse into his pocket and that's when he notices that she has a robe on. Probably some detritus that got stuck on her. He figures wrapping the mouse tighter up in the fabric will keep it from squirming too much while he tries to figure out how to crawl out a window or something. Maybe he can at least drop her on the sill and let her get out through the tiny passages.

He notices that the mouse's fabric is an outfit before he realizes she's speaking to him. And then he realizes she is, and in surprise he nearly drops her onto the bookcase.]

What?

[It's probably a small concern compared to imminent death, but there's a visceral reaction to finding a tiny creature in your palm talking.]

The Biologist | The Southern Reach

[theghostbird]

[B]

Her thought process goes: this chamber is a very small ecosystem and it's being overrun by an invasive species. To deal with that, all you need to do is introduce a predator. Not something large enough that it'll itself be a hazard when the brooms are gone. No, something...smaller. Something that likes the sudden wet.

Luckily there's a whole shelf bookcase labeled SUMMONING on the side. She's already lept onto a table to get at the highest books on it (the lowest being, well, a wash).

Whoever you are, a tall woman in a quasi-military jumpsuit is now tossing books down at you.

"Find anything on...summoning very small animals, he probably calls them 'wee animalle spirittes' or something...Or on blights, specifically for crops and timber."

She feels a pang of remorse at doing this to someone's research materials. But if they don't do this, both them and the books will drown.

[dirtyredneck]

Daryl flinches at the first book to hit his shoulder, then brings his arm up to block the next as it comes down while both end up landing in the water. He dodges the third to scoop up the first two.

"The fuck that's gonna do? All yer doin' right now is ruinin' what we've been told to save," he called back, tone pissed off as yet a fourth book came his way. This time he caught it. Awkwardly and with a lot of cursing as he barely kept hold of the others, but definitely caught.

"Stop tossin' 'em and look yerself!"

David Haller - Legion FX

[areyoureal]

[ A ]

Okay, come on. Walking brooms are trying to kill you. No big deal. Sure. It's not like they have guns, they're just... Cleaning supplies. Sentient Cleaning supplies. Right? Don't freak out.

[ Grown man trying to talk himself down from a full on panic attack? Yep! David is actually pacing as best he can on the stairs, and gesturing a bit excitedly as he lectures himself. It's a been a Hell of a week, and this is the last thing he expected to see, but at least being surprised by the fantastic is starting to feel almost normal. If that's actually a good thing.

He winces as he hears the whisper about the brooms, and raises his hands to his temples in frustration. ]

Yeah, I get that! Just give me a second to think!

[ Keeping one hand at his temple, he reaches the other out toward one of the marching brooms, and suddenly swings downward as if slamming his palm on a table. The broom in question cracks in half at mid-handle and clatters down the stairs. David steps back, wide eyed, as the two halves begin to rattle around and reform. ]

Oh that... That was not how that was supposed to go. Um, hey! My powers are messed up, I guess? [ He shrugs, visibly agitated. ] I don't know how you want me to stop your brooms!

[ G ]

[ David still isn't completely sure if that whisper is some real entity or just another one of the many he's trying to tune out. So he's decided he'll just ignore it! Rather than trying to take on the brooms again, or bailing the water out, he's now standing in front of the locked door.

He grits his teeth, staring down at the lock as he works to unlock it with telekinesis. For some reason, he's having a difficult time using that aspect of his power, and it culminates with him slamming a fist against the door. ]

Oh, come on!

[ He takes a moment or two to rest his forehead against the door, breathing deeply to try to calm himself before he makes another attempt to unlock it. ]

Alistair | Dragon Age: Origins

[righteous]

A. FIGHT A HOUSEHOLD CLEANING IMPLEMENT
How hard could this possibly be? They were just brooms after all. Yes, brooms that had minds of their own. Scary, drowning-everyone-with-stupidity minds, but they were still just brooms. He unsheathes his sword and prepares a stance. Waiting for just the right moment and… slash!

“Hah!” He shouts with a grin. “We’ll be done in no time!” He proclaims triumphantly as the broom falls down to the floor in multiple pieces.

Feeling rather proud of himself, he goes to sheath his sword as he turns - off to put a stop to the rest of the menacing sweepers - when he hears a rattling, sort of odd “woody” sound. He glances back at the shards of his defeated cleaning tool.

“Andraste’s— Did you… you didn’t, did you?” He said, his eyes widening in surprise, followed by a defeated sigh, as he now felt rather deflated.

“How are we meant to defeat these? I thought it would be easy… Why can’t things be easy?”

B. MESS WITH MAGIC
[Okay so…. Things were getting a bit hairy what with the usual slicing and dicing not being an effective method against the multiplying menace, and Alistair really preferred living and not dying - especially not by drowning because of stupid brooms being really… well stupid. Alistair had always used his Templar training against magic, but… that was a different time, a different place and here he could use magic! Yes yes, he was in mild (possibly turning moderate) peril, but he was actually feeling a little bit giddy at the thought of using actual magic without all the politics from back home. How bad could this be?]

Let’s see, let’s see, oh oh! This one!

[He really has no clue what he’s doing, and at this point he’s starting to feel funny and disoriented…]

Maker… okay soooo, either I just made everything really really big, or I’m now incredibly small.

[Unfortunately now all he can think is “Please don’t be the latter, please don’t be the latter”, terrified someone is going to step on him as he begins breathing quickly in a slight panic. Oh and now the mild to moderate peril has turned dire with large puddles of water being like deep lakes to him. Good job Alistair. This is why you don’t make decisions on your own!]

B

[acrocanthosaurus]

[There is a creak and a controlled crash as Patience, a large theropod dinosaur, experiments with trying to tip over heavy pieces of furniture without them breaking on the way, keeping her mouth on them to slow the tipping. She's trying to make a barrier the brooms can't just walk over, and she thinks it's at least slowing them down, but one side effect is the water getting dammed behind them.

Someone's been chattering in her earshot and she, not being the chattery sort, has been tuning it out, but now there's enough tension in it for her to take notice. She looks around, and between water and wood, at a glance she doesn't see anyone imperiled.]

No one's drowning over here, right? You've got to say or I'm not helping you.