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OCTOBER + NOVEMBER TDM.
● ● ● T D M . 0 4
… What are you willing to do to erase your regret from existence?
These are the words that ring in your ears, as a slowly growing red glow surrounds you in this dreamspace, filling you with an acute sense of dread — and whatever it is that you’ve just agreed to might have changed everything forever.
It is this sense of dream that startles you awake, and as it fades, and your heart begins to slow into something resembling your normal tempo, you'll notice something you should have picked up on immediately: you are not in your bed.
1.0 White walls, clinical yet clean, sparsely-furnished rooms. You may wake in one of three rooms: a room with only one bed, a room with two beds, or a room with four beds. Those waking up in rooms with more than one bed notice that they are not alone. Perhaps the other occupants of the room are still sleeping, dreaming the same dream as you just did, or a regular one after returning to the station just barely a week ago … or perhaps you wake up to the other person in the room watching you.
What you do is entirely up to you: yelping in surprise when you wake to someone staring at you is always an option. Or maybe you’ll try to sneak away before anyone notices you...
2.0 Those with life-threatening injuries will find themselves waking up in the infirmary, in a regular hospital bed. Most of their injuries have been treated, and any lingering illnesses or conditions will have designated medicine bottles on the table next to the bed.
White curtains surround the bed on both sides, providing an illusion of privacy. But is that a rustling sound you hear? A set of footsteps? Perhaps you’re not the only one in need of some medical attention.
In fact if you’re very badly off, you might want to hold out hope for some company - you can’t stay in the infirmary forever. You'll have to make your way through the hallways of the station to the living quarters, and claim a room and a bed there.
Once upright, you might notice something in your ear: an earpiece that, when you become aware of it, quickly runs you through the instructions for how to use the network, a recorded message by a female voice that explains exactly why you’re here… and leaves you with a map of the station.
So what else is there to do but to explore, right? Best get to know your way around your new home.
3.0 When trying to decide where you go, you might find your way to the armory, where you can make attempts to work the machine and create a weapon for yourself — maybe replace the one that didn’t come with you to the station ... or maybe you decide to prepare something for the future. Any recently-returned team members will surely recommend having a functional weapon with you.
And speaking of weapons: why not put them to the test and head over to the training room, where the entire purpose of this space is to provide you with opportunities to spar and train to your heart’s content!
4.0 After you’ve exhausted yourself from training, your stomach will prompt you for something to eat. For that you should head to the kitchens and the mess hall, which is equipped with all the basic appliances you might need, along with some more unusual ones (including an ... interesting-looking waffle maker and popcorn machine), as well as ingredients for most generic Earth-based dishes. For some reason, there are also some bags of now-cold popcorn left abandoned over the counters.
5.0 A welcome reprieve to the cold, dark space that surrounds you can be found in the sunlight room. A skillful illusion builds up around anyone who steps inside the room: you can hear the trilling of birds, feel a light breeze caress your skin as you walk through a grass field. The illusion has been programmed to reflect the seasons — the leaves in the trees are currently bright with all the colours of autumn: orange and red and yellow; and the air is crisp and clean. If you follow the path, you'll be led to a bridge rising over a sparkling, babbling brook, a few fallen leaves floating on the water and falling around you like very bright raindrops.
Here, it's easy to forget (for a moment, anyway) that you are in space at all. Maybe that gives you comfort, or maybe it just makes you miss the real thing all that much more.
6.0 If you’d rather choose tinkering with objects over wandering through nature, the lab is guaranteed to provide you with some entertainment. Glass vials and jars of chemicals sit on shelves in a surprisingly beautiful display of colour on one side of the room, while the other side of the room contains stacks of boxes filled with assorted equipment: cords, bolts, panels, buttons, gears, gadgets, gizmos, and thingamabobs. The downside is that the parts available seem to have no apparent method to their sorting. So get digging and you may just find exactly what you need to make what you’ve always wanted to!
7.0 Some time after your arrival, the earpiece alerts you to a new message. If it’s items you’re lacking, you may just be in luck.
Indeed, the platform located near the personal quarters is still whirring with power, and new items form neat piles on top of it. There are clothes, shoes, dishware, skincare, books ... and in one pile, a varied collection of what seems to be Halloween decorations and costumes. So, sort through the piles and grab what you want before someone else does! (But don't forget: sharing is caring.)
Whether you’re a quick study and you’ve become settled into life on the station, or you want to get the full lay of the land (in a manner of speaking) first, if you decide to explore the hall past the control room, you’ll eventually come across the simulation room. It’s been equipped with a new simulation to show you the drill where the missions are concerned, so step in and see what it has in store for you!
8.0 The moment the doors slide shut behind you, the space goes dark and then quickly lights up again, but instead of the blank empty walls you initially walked into, you’re surrounded by colour and lights, the sound of music and chatter, and the smells of deep-fried foods and overly sweet beverages. Someone calls, ‘Step right up, step right up!’ while another voice from somewhere starts to cheer as an electrical sound of a buzzer goes off, announcing its winner for prizes.
It seems that you’ve entered the Carnival simulation, so come on in and have a little fun.
There are booths spread out across these simulated grounds, each one offering food, drink or games. As you wander past you’ll notice that there is a touch of macabre to everything — the colours are black and orange and violet and red, the drinks offered have strange names, some you recognize like ‘Witch’s Brew’ and ‘Eye of Newt’, and some you might not, like ‘Viole(n)t Breeze’ and ‘Undead Essence’. It’s as though all of the things strange and wonderful find themselves spread across the entire universe to unite here.
Once you’ve had your fill of food and games, you can make your way past the little market area to a brightly glittering ferris wheel with carts rotating in a cycle, enticing you to try it out. Or if you’d rather be spooked, there is a hokey little ‘haunted mansion’ to your left that won’t take more than a handful of minutes to move through. Creatures and ghosts will pop out at you when you least expect it, their masked faces exaggerated with paint and some fairly realistic prosthetics to get the adrenaline pumping. Take a friend with you, or go it alone — just try to keep your cool through it all.
9.0 Eventually, once you’ve had your fill of the festivities, you may notice a wooden sign pointing you past the haunted mansion. Pressed on it is a round mark, and you remember that this is simulating a mission — you’re not here to just have fun, but to try and retrieve a simulated orb.
As you follow the path, you’ll find the hustle and bustle of the carnival growing quieter. All around you, there is nothing but woods — and hold on, where did all that mist come from? It surrounds you slowly, the ground seeming slightly damp as you keep walking… and arrive at a graveyard.
So the orb… it’s there, hidden in one of the graves? There’s nothing else to do but to start walking and looking at the gravestones — but when you do, you’ll be shocked to find some of the names are terribly, terribly familiar.
They might be names of your loved ones, people who were still in perfect health back home; and yet here those stones bear their names, along with an epitaph that brings tears to your eyes. And if you move closer… you may experience a flash of colour and light, and a memory suddenly plays out in front of you: the death of your loved one, whoever that may be.
Or perhaps the name you see on a gravestone is something else even more familiar to you: your own. But ... how, right? Reluctantly, your heart pounding, you approach with tentative steps, and yes — the name does not change. It's yours right there ... and it's your own death that you witness when the grave’s spell binds you.
● ● ●
N O T E: The deaths witnessed are intended to be non-canon deaths, so feel free to go wild inventing them -- this also goes for characters who are canonically dead. These are “alternate universe deaths”, not canon.
Additionally, there are three personal tasks provided to each character as they enter the simulation. In-game, each character will be given one task. For the purposes of the test drive, we’re leaving it to players to pick a task for their character and run with it.
A Find the grave of a teammate and witness their death.
B Team up with a fellow Orber win in one of the Carnival games.
C Scare a teammate in the haunted house.
F Y I
• This TDM covers both October and November, so there will be no new TDM for November.
• TDM threads can be used as samples for apps. In fact, we encourage it!
• Reserves are currently open!
• Apps open October 27 and will remain open until November 30.
• For any questions regarding TDM, please direct them here. For questions about the game, please refer to the FAQ.
FOR SOME FUN:
Have a clue for your upcoming mission:
“I’m going to bed, where I may die.”
sanji | one piece
[When your character wakes to their new surroundings, they will not find another sleeping body. Oh, no. Their new roommate, a tall blond man in a suit, is wide awake and biting down on an as yet unlit cigarette. He grimaces at his fellow newcomer from his seat on his own bed, flicks his lighter on and off, on and off.
The door has been opened a tad, so Sanji has already established that he can leave the room. He's not so sure about the building itself. That's where his new friend and roommate comes in. He waits until they're fully conscious before finally addressing them.]
So. What's your story?
[That grim frown of his implies that this question definitely has a wrong answer.]
04;
[While Sanji has opted to ignore the armory, he can be found loudly scrutinizing the state of the kitchens as he runs back and forth between gathering popcorn bags and tending to the chocolate he's melting on the stove. Is this his kitchen? No. That isn't about to stop him. The words "waste of good food" and "should kick their shitty ass" can be heard even from the hall outside.
Anyone curious and fearless enough to enter while Sanji is ranting will earn a bowl of chocolate covered popcorn as their reward.]
09;
[He's supposed to approach the graves. Sanji can intuit this easily enough. It's damn obvious, even. But he doesn't do it. Instead, he walks back to the carnival, dangerously silent. He leans against the back of the wooden sign and takes a long, agonizing drag from his cigarette.
It's a simulation, he tells himself for the umpteenth time. Somehow, this shitty ship has the ability to show people illusions as a training tool. None of it is real. They haven't been shy about telling him this.
Still, he doesn't move.]
...Shit.
[The angry pirate cook is going to need a peptalk here.]
04
[the call is soft, but enough to be heard: Blue's been observing for a couple minutes, lingering at the door to catch his breath from the walk here, and there seems to be enough of a pattern to all this work that he finds there's pauses where words can be spoken without, perhaps, causing a disaster.]
Is it...safe to enter?
[without stoking that storm of negativity and diligence, that is. he almost doesn't need to be psychic to sense it!]
no subject
[Sanji's voice hits harsh, almost derisive, despite the stranger's overwhelming politeness. He turns to stare over his shoulder at the entrance, expression contorted like he can't fathom why the guy would be hesitant to enter.]
Of course! This is a kitchen, not a war zone!
[Is it not both?]
no subject
still, permission was granted, so Blue makes his way inside, his hand out to press upon the door frame and nearby fixtures to keep himself upright as he takes careful steps. it's still not easy to move about, but he's no longer the ragged, sweaty mess he'd been when first trying. just tired.]
My concern...was that interruption...would cause you some problem in your process.
[a beat.]
I don't recognize you...were you...at Braccia?
no subject
[This isn't really meant to be an insult. It's a fact, as demonstrated by the way Sanji doesn't slow down even as he surveys the guy out of the corner of his eye. Whoever this overly polite guy is, he's not in the best shape. That's not very promising to see on his first day here.]
Never heard of it. Consider me fresh off the boat.
[Literally. He misses the Sunny already.]
(no subject)
04;
She's hungry, and something smells good (especially after she petulantly shoved a lot of trays away from herself), so she focuses on that and not the flurry of thoughts in her head right now.
Peering around the corner, she observes the weirdo muttering himself with a flat stare.
H'okay.]
Who pissed in your cornflakes?
[... Says the girl who acts like someone pissed in her cornflakes on a daily basis.]
no subject
In an instant, the ornery cook's expression brightens, and he twirls his way over to his unsuspecting guest before setting a bowl in front of her. It's full to the brim of popcorn that's been drizzled with layers of melted chocolate for maximum coverage. By some miracle, his wild movements haven't displaced a single kernel.]
Not cornflakes, popcorn! For the darling princess who's graced me with her presence!
no subject
That's a new response. She stares at him for a long moment, so caught off-guard that she forgets her horrific and terrible situation from before waking here — instead it's just a bunch of math floating around her head, algorithms that essentially boils down to "this guy is a weird butler-man with bad facial hair".
It's very disarming. For now.
But also, she's really hungry, so — ]
... Ugh. Not 'princess'. I'm Ziggy.
Are you the ship's... chef, or something?
[............................
Using one hand to balance against the counter top, she uses the other to grab some popcorn.]
09
What.
[it's a challenge, not a question. The fact that he isn't taunting Sanji is the only clue that he might have been affected deep down somehow somewhere]
no subject
When the approaching moss ball condescends to him like that, Sanji wants to bite back with, "It's none of your fucking business." He scraps the thought before he even finishes it. It is entirely Zoro's business, and so much as hinting otherwise would be the worst thing Sanji could do. Then every shitty insult to come out of the moss brain's mouth would be warranted, and he is not in the mood to give Zoro that much high ground.
Yeah. That's the reason. He doesn't want to give Zoro any reason to keep yapping down to him. His decision to keep his trap shut has nothing to do with the realization that Zoro hasn't gloated about completing the challenge first. Definitely not.
Don't mind him as he sucks in a mouthful of nicotine.]
It's called a smoke break, shitty moss. A smoke break! Helps with concentration.
[And, y'know, calms his nerves.]
no subject
What the hell do you have to concentrate about, dumbass cook? Don't tell me you're lost?
["completed" is a complicated word. Zoro has not actually really figured anything out but he's poking his nose wherever it's not wanted, and poking Sanji is much easier and more familiar than stupid haunted houses or whatever]
no subject
[Ah, they've entered familiar territory now. His own indignant snap, the words he's shouted a hundred times before, energizes him in a way no one but that stupid swordsman could dream of accomplishing.
He immediately hates him for it.]
And unlike you, I prefer to think before I jump in and do something stupid.
(no subject)
01
That would depend on what kind of story you're looking for, I guess, but I wouldn't really describe myself as having much of one.
[Not one that she'd care to take ownership of, at least.]
Have you been awake for long?
no subject
He grinds his cigarette between his teeth, tearing at the paper without even noticing.]
Long enough to know we ain't on solid ground anymore. We must be even higher than the sky islands.
[Now... how will she react to that?]
no subject
Sorry, I'm not familiar with that location.
[But aside from that, he said it clearly enough. Not on solid ground. Her forehead knits as she slides out of bed, wobbling slightly. It feels like she hasn't been on her feet in longer than she can remember.]
But what do you mean?
[She looks at the door, but there's no telling what answers are on the other side. The window, on the other hand, might at least give a clue to the outside world. For now, Forrest is keeping herself as calm as she can as she heads over.]
(no subject)
(no subject)
04
Eventually he drags himself to the kitchen, looking for something that qualifies as breakfast, only to see the mess within, and the man scrambling to fix it. He frowns, and while normally he'd also jump to help, he's just moving a little slower this morning and opts to light a cigarette first. Gotta figure out which pocket his lighter ended up in, though, and eventually he realizes he must have dropped it.]
You don't have a light, do you?
[He does, luckily, manage to find his cigarettes, and expecting a "no", he's looking at the stove already. That's probably fine, right? He can probably light a cigarette on that. Right?]
no subject
(It's not his stove. His stove is cooler.)
Sanji gives him a deadpan stare before sparking the flame into existence.]
Don't breathe on the chocolate.
no subject
Thanks. ...I'll keep my distance. You seem to know your way around the kitchen.
[As in, when the hell did you walk in and declare yourself king of this room in particular?]
aaaaah I'm so rusty / have a post-ITN girl
[ then she hears the familiar voice, recognizable and nostalgic even in furious mutters, and her heart stutters in her chest. ]
[ she peeks her head through the door, slowly, and yes, there he is. there he is. ]
...Sanji-san?
eeeeeeee!!!
Then, only then, does he turn around.
There she is. Pudding. She doesn't look exactly like she did on the day he left her behind, but it's undeniably her. She's as beautiful as ever, and she's calling his name.]
Yes. Yes. YES!
[With every repetition, his grin broadens, his muscles tense with further excitement. Even alone on a ship that sails through the stars, he's found a familiar face! Sanji rushes for her, wraps his hands around her waist, and lifts her into a bouncy twirl.]
Pudding-chwaaaaaaan~!
no subject
Eeeeeee!!
[ Oh no oh no two years is a long time but the FLUTTERS are back in full fucking force. She puts her hands on his shoulders as he twirls her, devolving into laughter after her initial squee. ]
[ What's not back - oh, thank god it's not back - is the overwhelming, violent urge, nay, necessity, to flip into repulsion, to yell obscenities. The emotional panic still crawls up her arms, but she can push it down. Her face still heats up, embarrassment strong, but she doesn't have to cover that with anger. ]
[ Instead, as soon as he lowers her at all, she leans in and wraps her arms around his shoulders in a hug. ]
I missed you.
(no subject)
(no subject)
04; idk your canonpoint but i hope this works!
[ honestly, yamato had come to the kitchen to see what there was available, but they forget all about food upon the sight of sanji. excitedly, they dash forward. ]
I know you! You're Black Leg Sanji, one of Luffy's companions! I didn't think any of his crew would be here!
[ sorry about this tall horned person with a giant kanabo club and wearing clothes clearly from wano, dashing up to you and practically sparkling. ]
that's okay; idk my canonpoint either!
OH GLORIOUS DAY. FINALLY, HIS REPUTATION PRECEDES HIM IN ALL THE RIGHT WAYS!]
I suuuuuuure am!
[He sing-songs in hideous falsetto before twirling around her in noodle-armed glee. A chair is pulled out for her and a bowl of chocolate-drizzled popcorn immediately placed in front of it.]
That means you must be... THE GIRL OF MY DREAMS!!
hdkghfh HI5
[ with that absolute non-sequitur, yamato sits down and glances down at the quickly-made treat, blurting out, ] Wow, that looks good!
But no, Black Leg Sanji, I'm Yamato! Kaido is my father. I'm fighting with you guys against him, on the side of the Kozuki clan! I'm sorry I haven't made your acquaintance before. I've only really met Luffy so far.
01
He doesn't say anything at first, blinking to get himself accustomed to the light, and then the blond speaks.]
Story? What kind of story?