Test Drive Meme #1

[diceofthegods]

Arrival

Broken Palace by Jonathan Eng

0:07 / 1:13

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Click here to listen.

During 2014 Jonathan Eng composed the soundtrack for interactive narrative experience The Sailor’s Dream, consisting of a mix of instrumental tracks and a seven-part musical story told in folk song-form.

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Like all who come through summoning circle, your arrival is heralded by a dream. Waking up is a dizzying, disorienting thing... and possibly made worse by the fact that you aren't alone.

Right after you appear, so does someone else. If you're lucky*, they'll simply blink into existence by your side. If you're not, there's a chance they spawned below or above you. That's one way to make a memorable first impression. Best untangle yourselves and get things figured out.

If you're extremely unlucky*, instead of another person being brought through the summoning circle, it's a monster. The creature bobs, laughs maniacally, and immediately begins to spit flames your way.

Some welcome this is. If you aren't the fighting type, hopefully someone nearby is. Eventually, one of the local Town guards will slay the monster before it - and you - cause too much trouble or fire damage.

Town Tricks

After your unexpected introduction to either your fellow offworlder or monster, you'll be given a proper one from Charlie in Town. He sends you on your way shortly after to get settled in properly and deal with then next offworlder that walks in. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a revolving door right now so he doesn't have time for a more in-depth explanation or to answer too many questions.

Nor does he remember to warn you about The Fae.

Although native to Talahee Forest, which is currently off-limits to offworlders, the surge of magic from the summoning circle has piqued their interest. While the faefolk vary wildly in appearance, the ones scouting are pixies.

These tiny tricksters may be too shy to reveal themselves outright... but that won't stop them from playing pranks on all these fun, new victims. Some examples of what can happen are:

⁂ Your shoestrings are suddenly tied together and make you trip.
⁂ An object you had on your person goes missing... only to be found in an odd place. Repeatedly.
⁂ Create illusions of food and drink that disappear or turn into something else as soon as you try to consume it.
⁂ At night, they'll use dancing lights to lead people astray and turn them around Town.

Thankfully, these Fae mean you no harm. In fact, if you react with hostility they will give you a wide berth and simply find someone more fun to play with.

Rocky Talky

One of the things that was given to you in your welcome pack from Charlie was a summoning-stone. Although it looks like, well, an ordinary stone- It's actually magic! You can look through it and see someone else's face too if you're both viewing your stones at the same time. It can also record your speech and deliver that to someone else in a snap.

One of the other features is that you can scrawl on it. It will turn your writing into legible text that you can send others to read on their stones. Of course, you need to attune yourself to your stone first. To that end, it prompts a small questionnaire:

Name:
Age:
Race:
Favorite soup? Why?:
Is soup something you eat or drink?

The last couple of questions might seem... strange but, surely, it must have a reason for asking. Once you answer the questions and unlock your device, you might pocket it and forget. Unfortunately, your scrawled answers were sent to the entire summoning-stone network throughout Town. Everyone can see what you put and they might even have some thoughts about it.

Registration Questionnaire

<span style="font-family:courier new;"><b>Name:</b> <b>Age:</b> <b>Race:</b> <b>Favorite soup? Why?:</b> <b>Is soup something you eat or drink?</b></span>

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Notes

⁂ Hello and welcome to Children of Bahamut! If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback feel free to comment here!

⁂ For the Arrival prompt, feel free to roll a d20 to see how lucky or unlucky you are.

⁂ The Town Tricks example list for pranks isn't exhaustive. If you have other silly prank ideas in mind, feel free to roll with that and have fun with it! The Fae certainly are.

⁂ There is a correct choice of favorite soup and the moderators will remember your choice/opinions. (We're joking. Mostly.)

⁂ Full Navigation ⁂

Comments

[berriedmemories]

Noctis lets Gladio pull him in close again, lets those strong arms wrap around him and distance him from all the things he's had to deal with today. Maybe it's weak, letting himself ignore the obvious question there about that chancellor dude. Maybe he shouldn't be letting Gladio protect him now just as his father had before. There's so much he feels like he doesn't understand and so much he knows he needs to.

But Gladio points out how reasonable what he's done is, actually, and as much as part of him still hates it... he accepts the reasoning for now. At least long enough to let himself savor the warmth and safety of Gladio's embrace, the soothing comfort of strong fingers in his hair. He doesn't stay that way for long, though, reaching up one hand to poke Gladio in the side. Noct may not look up at him but that's because he's too warm and comfortable to will himself into extracting himself from the embrace again, not because there's any less weight to his words.

"Your expectations haven't been unreasonable in years. Shut up." Nor have they been unfair, at least... no more than have been required for the utterly unfair circumstances Noctis has to face.

[swordlily]

"No, they have been," Gladio counters. "Just...you haven't lived through that time yet. I come down hard as hell on you because I can't keep my cool, so I take it out on you when you're going through hell. I...never had the chance to apologize to you for that yet, in the time I'm from. But I've been feeling like shit about it ever since the last time I saw you."

He gives Noct's hair another stroke. "So...this is me trying to learn from my mistakes. And I guess make up for something that hasn't even happened to you yet."

[berriedmemories]

Noct sighs heavily, content to stay where he is though, content to let Gladio stroke his hair and keep him close.

"The more people talk about this future I haven't lived yet the more I'm.... kinda glad I'm here, wherever that is." He untucks his harms from where he's had them curled against Gladio to wrap his arms around his shield in turn. "The Empire really screws us over that bad, huh?"

It's not that hard to imagine how awful things are liable to be. Not when he thinks about the long-term repercussions of what's happened in the last 48 hours. There isn't a place left on Eos that isn't under the Empire's control. It's terrifying to consider what they're capable of enforcing now.

[swordlily]

"Honestly, it's not even just them. In a way, they're just an extension of a bigger problem humanity's always had, with the Astrals and prophecy and a whole bunch of other nonsense. But...like you said, we're here now. We don't have to worry about that so much."

He moves his hand down from Noct's hair to rub his back. "If it makes you feel any better, the Empire destroys itself with all the bullshit it's been pulling. Its falling doesn't really fix any of our problems, but it is cathartic. Especially because all the assholes at the top got more or less exactly what was coming to them."

Or are going to eventually, in Ardyn's case. But Gladio...doesn't want to aim Noct at Ardyn's throat right now by telling him he's the chancellor. Not that Ardyn doesn't deserve to take a Noct to the throat, but Noct doesn't need any more major life-shaking revelations right this second. What he needs is recovery time. Every trainer knows that after you damage your muscles working them out, you have to rest them before the next session. This is Noct's rest period.

[berriedmemories]

Recovery time. What a novel concept, and one that will be sorely missed when they get back. But for now he lets himself cherish it, safe and warm in his friend's embrace.

It doesn't make him feel better. Not now. Probably yesterday it would have but the rage he's been clinging too had begun to fizzle out by the time he started to break down on Cor. Now? After crying on Ignis and his dad too? It just... makes him more miserable. That so many have to suffer and die because of the greed and destructive impulses of so few.

He just stays there, squeezing Gladio tight for a long moment before finally remembering something he should've said to the man much sooner after they found out about everything. "Hey Gladdy?" Soft, slightly muffled by his shirt. "I'm sorry... 'bout your dad too."

[swordlily]

One would think that an expression of sympathy, of kindness, would make Gladio softer. Instead, by contrast, he stiffens. It's honestly a lot easier for Gladio to repress things than to have to acknowledge them; Noct hasn't said anything wrong, certainly, but he's turned the focus on Gladio and how he's doing when Gladio generally deals with such things privately, when he deals with them at all. Which isn't often.

Besides, dead or alive...it's always easier to simply not think about his father.

"It was a lot longer ago for me than for you," he murmurs. "It's fine. Besides, it's nothing an Amicitia isn't prepared for. I know the only regret he had was that he couldn't at least guarantee your dad's safety with his sacrifice. Dying in the line of duty's not exactly the optimal outcome, but if we at least accomplish what a Shield is supposed to do, then we can feel like our death meant something."

Which...brushes up against something Gladio has always tried to avoid thinking about himself. The fact that, on some level, Regis' death meant that Clarus failed in his duty as a Shield. Of course it's a wildly unreasonable ask for one man to protect the king against an entire citywide invasion, but at the end of the day, the odds aren't really something the Amicitias care about. Their duty is to protect their king, and there's simply no way to look at both king and Shield dying and say the Shield succeeded in their duties. But at the same time...Clarus had always been the exemplary Shield. The mark for Gladio to measure himself by. The idea of the standard Gladio has always been held to, compared negatively to fairly often, being a failing standard...Gladio doesn't know how to wrap his head around that. He never has.

He'd wanted to elaborate a bit to Noct to make him feel like Gladio wasn't just shrugging off his sentiment, but...now he kind of wishes he had, just so he hadn't opened this internal can of worms. A grumpy Noct is a lot easier to deal with than an existential crisis.