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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.”
no subject
[ She reaches up to touch her cheek where the thin, still-healing line of the cut the creature had given her still lingered. ]
Is that where he ended up? Well...
[ Riza takes a step back and gives Ed a look over--the glance of a concerned older sibling, maybe. ]
Are you doing alright here?
[ Are they feeding you enough?
Are you drinking your milk?]no subject
[There was the missions, he didn't come out of those unscathed but. Generally he has been managing. Even without Al to remind him to eat or sleep. The others had been keeping an eye on him as well, with Ed being one of the youngest among those on the station. Making sure Ed got enough to eat by sometimes giving him some of their food when they had rationed or such.
But no, he will never drinks his milk! Gross liquid secreted from a cow!! Ew!]no subject
[ She waves a hand at the graveyard and the surrounding area. ]
Is all fake? I don't know how you'd make something so convincing. And so personalized.
[ A grim look down at the gravestones. ]
no subject
[Ed answers in trying to explain even as he gives a shrug, trying not to look at the names on the graves himself, given his memories of the period he sat at Trisha's. He's already lost family, lost friends. He doesn't want to think on losing anyone else. And yet. He glances back in following her gaze anyway.]
That...that one must be your dad though? I assume? Not that I can talk because it isn't like I bring up mine that much if at all, but I don't think I remember you mentioning him.
no subject
[ Riza sighs. She thought she had a good grasp on this stuff, but telephones and radios are much different than this sort of thing, aren't they? As Ed asks his question, her gaze slides back towards him from the gravestones. ]
Yes. My father.
[ She isn't sure how much to reveal regarding her father or his research to Edward. It's a secret that she's kept close to her chest, but then it wouldn't be a surprise to know that she and Roy had been close for a long time, would it? ]
He's the one who researched and developed Flame Alchemy.
no subject
[He gives a shrug. It isn't like he has devoted that much time to it. Focusing more on learning about space given they are based on the station and all. He wants to be aware of what could go wrong and how to help if he can. Even if others have way more experience with this in comparison to him.]
So -- he taught the Colonel? I guess that makes sense. That he had someone too. I just never really thought about it. His training was probably different to what we did with Teacher though.
[No. They aren't her students anymore. Ed shakes his head and corrects himself.]
Izumi, I mean.
no subject
[ Who knows, now? ]
It probably was. I'd assumed you two had a teacher, but I've never heard you talk about her before. What's she like?
no subject
[And, well. There were reasons that he and Al didn't go into things about Izumi. Mostly that he is well aware she doesn't approve of him joining the military. But also that she is just generally terrifying to both boys with her temper if one did get on her bad side. Which of course he does, in mouthing off and being a brat like he is. As soft as she is with the Elrics most of the time in basically seeing them as family in spite of losing her own child.]
She's....kind of scary when she's mad. But she lives in Dublith, the South, with her husband, Sig, running a butchers. She's really talented so the military keep asking her to join as a State Alchemist but she refuses. I didn't see her for a while, for years after our initial training because I knew she wouldn't approve of me signing up. Heck, she initially wasn't going to even train us until she heard about our situation, about losing our mother and all. I guess, since she lost their baby, so....she wanted to do what she could to help us out. She made the same mistake we did, tried to bring the baby back. It's why she isn't well, her insides were taken, messed up.
[Ed tries to explain, while also not going into too much detail. Riza already knows it's taboo, knows what he and Al did. So he figures this is okay? To admit, to open up about in explaining Izumi's situation as well. Her likely reasons for being softer on the boys than she might have otherwise. Her reason in spite of her reluctance in taking them in to train them and coming to see them as family regardless of blood. The same way things were with the Rockbells, with Granny taking the boys in in keeping an eye on them after losing Trisha.]
no subject
[ There's something a little chilling, hearing that there had been others who had violated the taboo. But of course there were. It would be absurd to think that the Elric brothers were unique in that regard, wouldn't it? ]
You've been fortunate, I think, to have so many people in your lives who understand what you're going through. I'm sorry it's been so difficult.
[ It's genuine, her affection for Edward and his brother. They're just kids, and she had always felt a tinge of unhappiness about dragging them into State Alchemy, but then... it gave them the resources it needed to try and seek out a solution to their problem. And then dragged them into this conspiracy. Or maybe the conspiracy had been there all along. ]
no subject
[His regret. As if she were in any doubt. His regret on what happened to Alphonse back then. Of course that was what he wants the orbs for, to fix things for his brother. There's nobody else from home here, but. Ed's opened up to a few of them. Riza and Roy of all people though would understand. In having seen the aftermath of what they tried to do.]
I'm going to keep my promise to him. Fix things. Get his body back.
[Even if he has been distracted back home with discovering about the conspiracy of Amestris with the military and their history. What Father and the homunculi were really up to. And the missions, here. But at least with those he is making progress, slowly but surely with getting the orbs. He's just not sure how many left to go.]
no subject
I know you will, Ed.
[ Her own regret is more complex, or it feels that way. SHe wishes she could avoid the war, but at the same time her life is so wrapped up in the aftermath of the war that maybe she can't avoid it.
No. She wants to save Havoc and Roy the pain of what happened to them at the hands of the Homunculus Lust.]
no subject
[Some would have their limits. Like Ed. With his refusal to kill. He's sure eventually that will likely come up in biting him with the missions or personal missions somehow here. Eventually. Ed gives a shrug. Unsure if he should ask about hers. He knows about the war and all, but he isn't sure if that is her regret or not.]