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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.”
Wildcard;
She can't help wondering if he knows what happened after that last meeting, after Darillium, if he ever knew. They say he became the wisest being who ever lived. Would he have left her there, as the Doctor had, if he'd known?
River decides not to give that thought time to fester. Her smile is bright as she steps into view. "Well if it isn't my second favorite husband."
no subject
"I would be hurt if I didn't wish he was my first husband too." Jack crosses the space between the two of them in just a few strides and sweeps her into his arms, into an embrace. It's been a long time and he honestly doesn't know what part of the timeline either of them is at this point, it really lacks meaning to him these days, but it doesn't matter. It's River Song and that's enough.
"You have no idea how much I've missed you." He says into her hair, allowing himself to be sentimental just this once (lies, he's often sentimental).
no subject
"He's here, you know?" Even as she pulls back, she doesn't release him completely, her arms still loosely circling his hips. "Twice over."
There's a flash of something sad that leaves her expression just as quickly. "I'd ask where we are today, but it doesn't really matter." Then she chuckles. "You know we're married at least."
no subject
"Honestly, sweetheart, I don't even know what date it is or how old I am now. You know how it is." Jack travels the galaxy and sometimes through time and it's pointless to try and figure out the whens at this point. He does mostly know the wheres, until now. Vaguely. "But I'm glad we both remember the marriage because what a shame to be out of sync again." Not that it would be new.
He keeps his arms around her too and gives her a once-over. "Hey, is one of them a blonde woman? I just met that version and I want to have her baby."
no subject
Her eyes light up at his question. "I have a wife now? How exciting! I'm sorry I've missed it."
She doesn't give him much time to dwell on what exactly she means by that.
"No. No blondes, I'm afraid. The baby face, with the bowtie and the love of hats" The last is said very pointedly, as though she has something against the hats. "And the taller, cross Scottish one."
no subject
"Hats, huh? Well, that doesn't really surprise me, there was a version of him who wore all these bright colors, I felt like we were going to a circus." Jack met the Sixth version of the Doctor a long while back, although he erased his memories of Jack during that time. Jack is often doomed to remember things that other people never will, but it is what it is.
"Scottish, that's a new one too. I just spent nineteen years getting her out of prison. It wasn't my favorite prison experience, there were no good reading materials." Jack has had probably way too many prison experiences at this point. He gets in trouble. It's what he does.
no subject
Lucky for her, she has two of her favorite faces about. And now Jack, as well. It does make it rather harder to complain about her after afterlife.
"Yes, he and I got well-acquainted. He had his moments." He probably recognizes that tone of voice, the one that suggests there are times she thinks she'd still very much like to shoot him. "But he was much easier to get along with than his next face. The short Scottish one."
Then the rest of what he's said catches up to her. "Nineteen years." She may not know the particular version of her husband, but she knows the Doctor. And she knows prison, by any number of descriptions. "Sweetie, why didn't you come and find me? You could have looked me up. Maybe we could have gotten her out sooner."
Never mind the fact she'd been long-dead in The Library for...possibly centuries.
no subject
He's not in any way surprised she has met the other versions of the Doctor, that is basically the way they are. Time travelers, wandering in and out of everyone's lives in different centuries, different planets. It's how they met too.
"I have no idea where you are right now, sweetheart. I would've sent back a message but I haven't heard from you in a while." Listen, is there a part of him that already suspects it's because she's gone? Absolutely. Jack has lost everyone he's ever loved at this point outside of the Doctor, possibly the reason he holds onto that (wo)man as hard as he does. Otherwise he has to drown in the reality of immortality. But since they're out of time and place, it doesn't mean she's gone. She's right here, for example.
no subject
She's almost glad he doesn't know, that he doesn't know, know. River's lost enough herself. And...maybe part of her wonders if he might be a little angry about the way it had ended for her, too. She certainly had been, after a while, and the oldest of the Doctors has gotten the worst of it.
Patting his chest, she flashes him a smile. "I might have liked the company. And prison escapes are my speciality."
Finally taking a step back, she quietly gives him a once over, even as she asks, "So how was she, after nineteen years? I trust you left her back in the very capable hands of those cute companions."
no subject
He lets her pull away and considers the question, hmming thoughtfully. "She was distracted, anxious to get back to them." There is a part of him that used to be bitter about how loyal the Doctor was to his other companions. How much of contrast to when his abandoned him, and how much he's had to chase after the Doctor rather than him coming back to Jack. Sometimes maybe he still is, on his worse days, but it's been a very long time since that happened.
"The Daleks were back on Earth. Some humans tried to make drone versions of them, it was ridiculous." But not at all surprising. Humans. They're usually always the making of their own destruction. Jack hates Daleks a great deal, almost as much as the Doctor, considering they were his initial killers. "All's well that ends well, I went to see Gwen and then I was here." Gwen's the only one left from Torchwood, so he does try to remember to visit her so he doesn't blink one day and she's eighty.
no subject
She's always had a jealous streak, herself, always wondered at what the Doctor got up to with his companions when she wasn't in the picture. He certainly never seemed to give her much thought. Oh, they were never exclusive, not in the way humans like to square things away into neat little boxes, but loving the Doctor has always been different. But she could never be with the Doctor either, not the way she wanted, not the way his companions could. And so she's tried, especially since Darillium, since The Library, to set her jealousy aside.
Sometimes she thinks she and Jack are more alike than she cares to admit.
"They never learn, do they?" Her parents had been human. Most days, she claims to be human. But humans, particularly Earth humans, make consistently poor decisions. "It's interesting the moments they choose, isn't it? Some of us at our best, some of us at our worst, and some of us on a perfectly ordinary day."
Her palm flattens against his chest again. "About those spoilers, have you ever heard of The Library?"
no subject
"They really don't. I swear if I could go the rest of my very long life without hearing Exterminate again, I would be endlessly grateful." But knowing his luck, that is almost impossible. He forgot the chill and shiver that went up his spine when he heard that tone though. Jack is technically human, although most people would say mortality was a key part of being human, so he's something else too.
"They as in whoever is responsible for us being here right now? There were more exciting moments to snag me from, that's true." Jack was crashing on Gwen's couch and then here he is. It's almost nice that it was a boring moment though. It means he's less anxious about what he has to worry about back there, it'll all come together one way or the other.
He puts his hand over hers on his chest, eyebrows furrowing. "The Library, capital L? Yeah, of course, every book ever written is there, supposedly. Is that where you were?"
no subject
"The very one." She smiles, and it almost reaches her eyes. "I led an expedition there after Darillium. The pay was fantastic and you know I can't resist a mystery."
And if she'd hoped she might see the Doctor again, well, can he really blame her?
"No one had been for 100 years, quarantine protocol. I sent a message to the Doctor, but he got it too early. He didn't know me yet." Her expression darkens slightly. "Usually that wouldn't be a problem. But you know how he is. He can't stand losing."
And her husband still isn't any good at saying goodbye.
"I died. Saving him, naturally. And he uploaded my consciousness into The Library's core."