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FEBRUARY TDM.
● ● ● T D M . 0 5
… What are you willing to do to erase your regret from existence?
The words ring in your ears as in the darkness of your dream, an ocean-deep blue glow hovers in front of you. Transfixed, you reach out to it... only to hear a different voice, a distant echo of cruel laughter, and with a sudden certainty you know — whatever you’ve just agreed to has changed everything forever.
It is to this laughter that you wake, and as it fades and your heart slows into something resembling a normal tempo, you notice something you should have noticed 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 very much 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 to the other person in the room watching you.
What you do is entirely up to you: yell in surprise when you wake to someone staring at you? Or maybe you’ll try to sneak away before anyone notices you...
2.0 Those with life-threatening injuries find themselves awakening 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, giving an illusion of privacy. But is that a rustling sound you hear? Some footsteps? Perhaps you’re not the only one in need of some medical attention... or you've attracted the attention of those with experience in medical aid, and they rush to your bedside, surprised about this sudden new patient.
It is not just for your injuries that you may want some company, but also for leaving the infirmary — you can’t stay there forever, after all, and will have to make your way through the hallways of the station to the living quarters, and claim a room and a bed there.
Once you’re up, you may notice there’s 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? Best get to know what is now your new home.
3.0 When trying to decide where yo go, you may find your way to the armory, where you can try to work the machine there to make yourself a weapon — perhaps to replace one that didn’t come with you to the station… or maybe you want to be prepared for the future. The recently-returned team members will surely recommend having a functional weapon with you.
And speaking of weapons: to put it to good use, head to the training room, where the entire purpose is to provide you with a space to spar and train to your heart’s content!
4.0 After you’ve exhausted yourself training, it’s time to grab a bite. For that, you should head to the kitchen, which is equipped with all the basic appliances you might need, and ingredients for most regular dishes... and large amounts of chocolate. Weird.
5.0 A welcome reprieve to the cold, dark space that surrounds the characters can be found in the sunlight room. A skillful illusion surrounds 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. It seems that the illusion reflects the season — the leaves have fallen, a layer of white covers the ground, and the air is crisp and clean. If you follow the path, it leads to where a bridge rises over a brook that has now iced over — but maybe don't try your luck walking on it, as the ice may crack underneath your feet and you'll find yourself plunging into the freezing water.
Regardless of whether you like the wintery atmosphere, it is easy to forget you are in space at all. Perhaps that gives you comfort, or just makes you miss the real nature all the more.
6.0 If you’d rather choose tinkering over 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 containing 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 make!
7.0 If it’s items you’re lacking, though, some time after your arrival, the earpiece alerts you to a new message.
Indeed, the platform near the personal quarters is still whirring with power, and new items form neat piles on it. There’s clothes, shoes, dishware, skincare, books… even a couple of CDs, and a few cute stuffed animals. So sort through what there is and grab what you want, before someone else does!
Eventually, you’ll find yourself at the doors of the the simulation room — it has been equipped with a new simulation to take you through possible mission-like scenarios so it’s best to prepare yourself and see what it has in store for you.
8.0 The doors slide shut behind you and the room goes dark. Small pinpricks of light will start to build on each other until you’re surrounded by grey skies overhead and grassy green lawns, a row of old stone columns lining your vision. It seems you’re in a courtyard of some kind, but that’s not all. Something tugs at the hem of your sleeve or nudges at your leg, a warm presence that feels comfortable and ultimately very familiar. They look up at you, or maybe they meet your eye-level, a creature that varies in size, shape, colour, and form depending on what reflects you best. This creature, known as a compalion is a physical manifestation of your spirit or soul and will stay by your side on this journey.
You can stay here and get to know your compalion, or you can take your new companion and explore the campus. Because, if you do move forward past the line of columns (a hallway it turns out), you’ll find that the small cluster of buildings forms an academic campus of some kind.
a) They cannot go any further than a few yards away from their person; the further the distance, the more painful the separation will feel.
b) Your compalion will shift into one form throughout this simulation and can be any creature that best mirrors your personality.
c) They can be as small as a flea and as large as a small elephant; get creative!
d) Whether they speak to you in your native tongue is entirely up to you (some speak, some don’t)
e) Basically daemon rules apply.
9.0 While it might seem like fun to spend hours just exploring the old buildings with your compalion and any Orbers like you that you might bump into along the way, it’s important to remember that you have a goal to achieve: follow the clues and retrieve the orb. Your compalion might offer an idea or two for where to go, or it may just be voicing the thoughts in your head, but it’s not a bad thing to follow your heart (or your gut) as it were. You might find that the rooftops of the campus buildings are easily climbable to get a good vantage point of your location. (Just be careful not to slip and fall! The height from here is quite dangerous.) A clocktower stands proud in the distance among a cluster of other campus buildings, marking the time.
Inside, you might be led down dark stone halls and into a series of classrooms: including reading quarters, study rooms with old leather couches and warm carpets covering stone floors; lecture halls with stiff wooden seating and individual desks to match, a chalkboard with indiscernible scribbles half-wiped away; and a laboratory that deals with something a little less modern than you might be used to, or perhaps with its twisty vials and bubbling potions, it suits you perfectly. There is the large library filled from floor to ceiling with books beyond imagining.
If you look out from the tall arch-shaped window from a classroom, or if you’re outside and you tilt your head up to the sky, you might notice that the sky appears to be darkening further, growing heavy with what is inevitably an oncoming rainstorm. If you’re inside, it might be best to stay indoors; if you’re outside, perhaps it’s time to find some shelter. Or if you’re determined to find that orb outside, risk you and your compalion getting wet.
● ● ●
N O T E: 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 Team up with another Orber and their compalion to find the orb's location.
B Climb into the clocktower and ring the bell.
C Explain your best theory regarding your compalion’s manifestation to a fellow team member.
F Y I
• This TDM covers the month of February.
• TDM threads can be used as samples for apps. In fact, we encourage it!
• Reserves are currently open!
• Apps open February 24 and will remain open until February 28.
• 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:
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Sarah places a cup in front of her.
"The de Clermonts, the family she married into, they have money. I'm sure Matthew would send a helicopter as soon as I agreed to visit." She's exaggerating for effect, but she doesn't entirely doubt it. "And his family's been more welcoming than I would have expected."
It just isn't the future she'd hoped for Diana. But she's learning to accept it's never really been her choice.
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"Being welcomed is perhaps the blessing all would dream of. Love takes you in unexpected places."
She'd learned that a long time ago, her life being far from anything she'd expected when she left Cairhien or even throughout her time in the White Tower.
"A welcome can bridge the gap left behind when you leave somewhere."
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But maybe she's stumbled into something Sarah needs to hear. Pulling up stakes and leaving Madison seems unthinkable. Even more so, she imagines, when you live in a living house haunted by your ancestors. But what does she have left in Madison. It's only her now.
"You could be onto something. It's just me in Madison now. Maybe it's time I consider a change."
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It's not that comforting especially when they don't know how this happened or if they can return but it can give her things to think about.
"I left my home as a girl for studies that could only be completed in another city." And though the distance between Cairhien and Tar Valon wasn't as large as what some make or the travels that she's taken since she hasn't been home since. Though after her father passed there was nothing there for her.
Her life isn't a topic that Moiraine often talks about, pieces selectively at most but there's a point in this story. "Even with the choice made, even looking forward to what would come there were parts of it that were difficult. Everyone finds it in some way even if they're less fond of where they've grown."
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"You sound like Diana." And while it's clear enough she and her niece don't see eye to eye on much, it's also clear she loves her and, even if she has a hard time saying it, she's proud of the woman (and witch) she's become.
"We'd drive each other crazy without some distance, but it wouldn't be all bad if I were closer to her and the babies."
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"I can only assume she'd enjoy that too."
She doesn't know Diana but being welcomed by family, taken in by them sounded the nicer thing. And their theme so far.
"The people she has around her she's likely still getting to know. Not the woman that knows her well already."
no subject
"What about your home. What's it like?"
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"But the Westlands are... quiet. Quieter than this place. Cities are busier but the smaller towns, villages have a sort of peace to them. People working their lives, spending moments with those around them."
It's a bad description but she's never had to describe it before.
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Sarah kind of misses the quiet, it being just her, Em, and the house. But it's also been good to have people around these past months.
"You ever think about staying in one place?
i'm rewatching adow now c:
So until then... it was just a hope, a dream. That may be in another lifetime.
"But I've seen a lot to enjoy."
this makes me happy. i was so anxious about putting her up here, but so glad I did.
"I can appreciate a free spirit, but it's worth remembering where you come from and having somewhere to go back to." It doesn't have to be the same place. She can trace her family's history all the way back to Salem. But knowing who you are and having a place to be only yourself are two things Sarah holds of highest value.
i'm so glad you did!!
And has run from it. More than once. But she assumes that Sarah's point is more than just about knowing herself, but having somewhere to ground herself. And go.
If only Moiraine thought that felt like an option.
"Many places forget their past but I've read a lot of the world."
no subject
"Once it's over, most people think it's better to forget, dress it up. Pretty lies are easier to retell than ugly truths. That's why the ugly truths get repeated." Usually over and over. "Our history tells us who we were and who we are, who we can be and who we shouldn't be."
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She pauses, casting a weave to reheat her tea that had started to cool, smallest motion of her finger over the cup.
"One of the last places I visited was known as the Two Rivers. It's known as such now, its original name and history lost to those that descended from it. They've heard some of the tales but only believe it as such."
Until Moiraine spilled the histories.
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"What was it before?" Because she has a feeling she knows or she wouldn't have brought it up. "Did their legends have it right?"
no subject
It's thought of just as a song, a story, not actually their history.
"Few seem to look for their histories." At least in smaller areas. "Or even remember their own."
no subject
"Your home seems very fascinating." High praise from her. She can't quite bring herself to say 'world,' as if acknowledging they're from entirely different universes as well as times would make this all too real.
no subject
Not that Moiraine wants to prove that. Some of the histories she'll happily share, others will come with hesitation or her trying to change the topic. History is complicated for as much as she enjoys knowing it.
"Learning one history always seemed as if there was more than I could ever manage to learn. Now there are more each as strange as the next."
no subject
She knows bad has to come with the good. Every history is bound to have its dark period.
"Diana always wanted to learn about any history that didn't involve us." No matter how many times Sarah tried to tell her it was a lost cause or how many times Em tried to steer her the same direction more gently. "In the end, she found out it one had more to do with the other than she thought."
More than any of them thought, but that's another story entirely.
no subject
Moiraine's thinking more of a family history more than an origin or something like Manetheren's descendents. Though she also hid from her own family history. One bonus of being Aes Sedai.
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"We're witches. Diana's parents died when she was young. She blamed magic."
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"It sounds like she didn't change that opinion." At least not for a while anyway. She doesn't ask if it was magic, not something so personal but she can understand the fear and blame.
"It isn't simple to find a different view on something when experience or history would tell you something else."
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"No. But I think she's made peace with it." As much as one can make peace with what had been done. "She found the people to help her realize there's freedom in accepting who you are."
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Moiraine assumes given the happier sounding tones that Sarah had when previously mentioning Diana compared to this.
"There's someone I know that in a way has been forgotten, seen only as a title and what that means rather than who they are. It's no one's fault, it's the title, but it causes a lonely life." Even the people that knew them before seem to forget who they are and see only the title.
"Sometimes the more that there is it's easier to become lost. Sometimes you can keep all of those pieces together." Though in her home titles trumped all else it seemed.
no subject
But the bitterness she used to have is gone. She's come to realize not all vampires (or daemons) are equal, and Matthew and some members of his family are more than acceptable.
In another time, she thinks something similar might have happened to Diana, to the twins. But not now, not with the family Diana has drawn around herself.
"I think she may have felt that way. She won't again." And after a pause. "I hope the person you know won't always."
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i just finished s1 on my rewatch and i'm loving the show again!
moving along!! s3 is such a good season for Sarah content. I was so happy.
excellent! s2 and s3 are new for me so it's gonna be great
i apologize if i've spoiled too much for you!
oh you haven't! some of it i'd already seen 😭
crushing. written her from the novels off and on for a bit too, so sometimes i forget
i can't believe they did it
it was one thing i'd really hoped they'd change from the books.
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