wildermemes | TEST DRIVE ※ 2

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Shuichi nods without even tearing his gaze from his knot on the handle, blindly grabbing the offered excess rope to wrap tightly around both handles as many times as he can get out of it. He pulls it taut as his scrawny detective arms can manage, trying to eliminate any bit of give in the rope wrapping.]

We should-- [ pause for another hard yank and a grunt ] --we should use whatever time this buys to barricade the door, too.

[As he fusses with the very ends of the rope, trying to tie one more knot into them for whatever that's worth, he inclines his head towards the armchair. It's not much, but it's a start.]

Huuuh? You sure are making me do a lot of work, y'know...

[ Ouma bitches, although he doesn't make Shuichi ask him twice before he starts going for the armchair...small miracles. But also, he's not interested in screwing himself over if this actually works.

He pushes the books off the chair and onto the ground for now, not gentle with the armchair at all as he drags it over toward the door with both hands. This isn't fun!!! He'll have it back over there before Shuichi finishes using up all the rope's excess, at least. ]

...You should probably tie this to the door, too. Unless you feel like swimming for more furniture. I bet that's safe!

[look dude they can do something fun when animated broomsticks aren't attempting to drown them. fantasyland must have tons of opportunity for shenanigans, you'll love it.]

We should get more furniture anyway, just to--

[His point is conveniently punctuated by a sudden banging on the door from the other side, the doors straining against the ropes as the brooms presumably batter them from the other side. Paling, Shuichi fumbles to tie the chair into the mix with the last of the rope. He can worry over the proper treatment of apparently rare and potentially dangerous books later.]

[ it's just not a good first impression, ok!!

But since Shuichi's fumbling and shit, Ouma will kneel down next to him and swat his hands away. Nervous knot-tying isn't something that's going to turn out well.

There's also a selfish angle going on here, because if he's the one doing this, well then-- ]

Can you grab another one of these?

[ Ouma lifts up one end of the rope briefly before returning to loop the excess around the arms of the chair. ]

Then we could pull in the bigger pieces a looot easier! Like that table you were stuck on earlier.

[ It'd make their barricading better at a faster rate if they could get the big daddy furniture first, but he's also considering how hard that would be to do with both of their scrawny asses in the midst of a flooded area. Where is?? Gonta when you need him?? ]

[ where is literally anyone else when they need them. almost anyone else would have been more useful here than these two.

Shuichi is quietly, mildly appreciative to have Ouma take over for him. He's even more appreciative to be immediately given a different task so he doesn't waste precious seconds on feeling useless while someone else does things for him. He nods, hurrying back into the water without even a care for the wetness at this point. He's already soaked, who cares.

It does occur to him just briefly that Ouma taking care of things here means he's the one left going back in the water, but it's not even worth pointing out. Who really care which of them does what? Why waste the time discussing it? Besides, if he's being perfectly logical here, if only one of them has to go in the water then it might as well be the person who's already wet.

These are the kind of thoughts that keep him distracted while he swims back over to tug the other curtain's rope loose. Better to dwell on such petty things rather than their potential death by drowning, at least. On the way back, he makes a detour to grab the leg of that floating table from earlier and tug it back through the waves towards the stairs.]

[ honestly........ they're both intelligence types, so this isn't a balanced party at all!!

Ouma focuses on securing the chair, grumbling to himself about how annoying the brooms are, causing a ruckus on the other side of the door... When he's done with it, he'll kick at the chair once, as if to test how anchored it is.

Satisfied, he'll turn to catch up on what Shuichi's doing. Looks like he's already going for the table, which is more than Ouma was hoping for. ]

Wow, Saihara-chan!! You're super ahead of the game!

[ Not that this is a game Ouma prefers or enjoys...at least he's got Shuichi here with him, so that makes it more tolerable.

Especially because he doesn't have to get wet. ]

Wanna tie the rope to that so we can reel it in together?

[ Because...there's no way they're getting that up these stairs by either one of themselves individually. ]

[Shuichi just nods to that suggestion, pulling the table as close to dry ground as he can before it bunps up against the lower steps underwater. He rests against the stairs still in the water and works the rooe quickly, uneasy just glancing at the doors straining againt the rope around the handles. It looks like it's holding alright, but he'll feel more comfortable with a Les Mis-esque barricade tossed into the mix.

The new rope secured to the front two table legs, he climbs the rest of the way out of the water and shoves the end of the rope at Ouma, beyond caring about how wet he still is and how heavily his hair and soggy clothes are dripping.]

Let's just work fast, okay?

[Is he succeeding at looking cool under pressure? Ehhh. Maybe halfway there. Splashing around a flooding room with the lingering threat of drowning is a little bit different from a trial. He's out of his comfort zone.]

[ Ouma grabs what's shoved at him with a grin, shrugging as he adjusts his grip so that both of his wrists are facing up -- he doesn't want to strain himself too much here. His immediate idea is a pulley system of sorts, but a quick glance tells him there's nothing immediately useful for such a thing -- plus, they do have a time limit.

Ugh...physical effort. ]

I'll try my best to keep up!

[ Maaaybe Shuichi's a little cooler in these kinds of situations, although Ouma wouldn't say as much unless he was teasing him -- and immediately point out how he looks like a drowned, homeless animal right after.

But a likable one!! ]

On your count, then?

[ look, next time they can do what ouma wants to do instead, provided it involves no knives or leaving others to potentially drown. just put up with the physical exertion for now please. ]

Right. Then...one, two...!

[He pulls on three, straining with the effort. It's a heavy table, but the biggest struggle is probably just getting it out without getting stuck on the stairs. A leg does catch on some step under the water, but luckily a wave nudges it just high enough to slip loose and Shuichi only barely stumbles backwards into Ouma.

Jeeze. Heavy as this thing is, he definitely doesn't want to have to point out afterwards that just a table and armchair makes for a pretty pathetic barricade.]

[ let him LIVE!! Although he would rather play something harmless right now, honestly. The brooms aren't inherently dangerous per se, but it's hard to have fun with this when he's simultaneously trying to avoid becoming soaked to the bone.

Ouma audibly groans about it when he starts pulling on his part of the rope, thinking this is the most uncool thing ever. It only gets better when Shuichi almost knocks into him, and Ouma instinctively lets go of the rope with one hand to grab the back of Shuichi's shoulder so he doesn't knock him in the face or whatever. ]

Hey, don't crush me...

[ He states in unnecessary hyperbole, because of course.

At least Shuichi seems to catch his own balance back on his own. Ouma whines about the extra stress on the one arm, quickly returning to using both hands as he leans almost the entirety of his weight on the rope...which...isn't much. But he's trying. It's working, at least. ]

I really don't think I'm cut out for this kind of thing!

[ He needs subordinates if this kind of shit is going to keep up around here.

Big ones!! ]

TEST DRIVE ※ 2

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