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MAY TDM.
● ● ● T D M . 0 1
So what do you say? What are you willing to do to erase your regret from existence?
These words ring in your ears when you wake with a gasp — perhaps the last thing you remember after hearing them is the sense of free-fall, or your throat constricting as tears threaten to fill your eyes. Whatever it is, you can’t shake the feel of dread — that whatever you’ve done in your dream has changed everything forever.
As the sense of dread 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 not alone. Perhaps the other occupants of the room are still sleeping, only to wake up with their heart pounding… or perhaps they have been awake for longer, a spectator to everyone else’s dreaming.
What you do is entirely up to you: try and wake the others from their dream? Yell in surprise when you wake to someone staring at you? Or maybe you’ll try to sneak away before anyone else wakes...
After all, nothing binds the characters to the room they wake up in. If you find your bed comfortable, you may claim it as yours, or try to change rooms. However, there are only eight one-person rooms — so those who want solitude may have to fight for it.
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.
In fact, if you’re very badly off, you may want to hope for some company — you can’t stay in the infirmary forever, 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.
Suddenly, the soft hum of the station is replaced by loud static, like an old radio being turned on. Wherever you are on the station, it’s impossible to miss it — or the clear voice that follows.
With that, the speakers go silent — though if characters follow Viveca’s instructions, the earpiece will provide them with a chance to speak to her again.
True to her word, there is a lot to do and see on the station. When characters leave their rooms, they have the chance to explore all of the Southeastern and Southwestern Wings, and the Center of the station.
3.0 In the armory, characters can try to work the machine to make themselves some weapons to perhaps replace ones that didn’t come with them to the station, or to simply be prepared for future missions... but there aren’t many materials available, so the more the weapon requires, the more chance there is of the end result being less than satisfactory. A gun whose barrel is made out of recycled rings, a sword that’s just the blade and no handle, a knife made out of cheap aluminium — well, it’s better than nothing, right?
4.0 Eventually, when characters get hungry and want to eat, the kitchen and mess hall are ready for them… mostly. What food there is on the station seems to have been stocked for long-term storage: canned foods, dried meat and fruit, dried herbs and seasoning, condiments, some rather musty root vegetables and cartons of chicken stock. It’s certainly not impossible to make good dishes out of those, but it may require some skill.
5.0 The lab provides an interesting space for those who enjoy tinkering and technology — though the parts available are all in large boxes with no apparent method to their sorting. It may very well be that what you need for a hoverboard or a robot dog are in the boxes — it’s just a matter of finding it!
6.0 Meanwhile, those who want to train (or perhaps let off some steam by sparring with others) find the training room suitable for their needs. On top of the entire room existing for the express purpose of training, whether it’s martial arts, weapon skills or magic, anyone entering the room will see a message pop up on their network:
Complete these tasks for a boon:
a. Teach someone a new move or skill
b. Win a sparring match against someone
c. Learn to fight with a new weapon, style or skill
Should you take up this challenge, any time you complete any of the three, you’ll see that one turn light green — a mark of completion. Once all three are completed, you’ll see a new message:
Congratulations! You are now eligible for one (1) boon. Please check in later for submissions.
But when is later? What submissions? Even if you try to ask, no answer comes… all you can do is hope that you haven’t done all that work in vain.
7.0 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: characters will hear birds singing, feel a light breeze on their skin, as they walk through a grass field, a meadow and a small forest. In the middle of the room, a small brook runs the width of the room, and to cross it one must walk over a bridge — wooden, creaky, yet undeniably charming.
There are other things to do, of course… but the only room that requires a mandatory visit from everyone is the simulation room...
For those eager to get started, it might be best to do a little practice run first, huh? When you’ve successfully entered the simulation, you will immediately be provided with a supply satchel containing the following: a grapple hook, a long cord of rope, a flashlight, and a couple of snack bars (these will not actually feed you IRL). And your mission, if you choose to accept it (and you must, right? Otherwise what else are you doing here?) is as such:
There’s an orb buried deep in the Lodgen Mountain Mines — a series of winding underground tunnels long since abandoned now that any and all useful resources had been picked clean — and it’s causing a little bit of a problem down there, but the good news is that it’s yours to claim so long as you can get in and get out. You see, there’s been a cave-in and the culprit is the orb itself. Extracting this valuable object might take a little bit of doing, and if that’s not complicated enough, the orb’s presence appears to be the cause for the mines being in their current state of fragility.
Still: you’re resourceful, and more than that, you’re determined, and you can enter the mines in the following ways: going in from the top and climbing down through the mine shaft; going in from beneath the rubble where a narrow but perfectly safe-ish tunnel opening leads back into the mountain; finding an entry point from the mountain’s side by way of a refreshing dive into the lake that neighbours the mines.
8.0 If you decide to climb into the mine through the mine shaft, there’s a risk of the rocks you’re using as hand and footholds to crumble, or for the rocks to give way against your weight.
9.0 If you decide to go in through the tunnel, be careful you don’t take the wrong prong in the fork of paths. One will get you closer to the orb, but the other might lead you into the darkness where the first thing you’ll notice are several beady little specks of light reflecting off the beam of your flashlight, accompanied by the sharp chittering of large monster rats who haven’t had a decent meal in who-knows-how-long, and are eager to befriend you. It’s probably a good time for that weapon you have on you, or if that’s not an option, maybe there’s something you can MacGuyver from your supply bag?
10.0 Swimming is always an option, but like all unknown waters there’s the risk that you’re not alone, and we don’t just mean your fellow teammate swimming somewhere close by. (Though you might want to continue onwards together, Buddy System Style and all.) There are beautiful, haunting creatures that live in the depths who have the ability to draw their prey towards them through song — Sirens, some might call them. They call to you now, and oh boy, don’t you want to dive deeper? See what secrets they hold? Now would be a good time for your swimming partner to pull you back to your senses or be lost to the waters.
But okay! You’ve made it. Don’t forget that the mines are still in a very fragile state, so it’s best to tread carefully and avoid making sounds that could agitate the delicate infrastructure and risk the whole mission — and your simulated life. This is on you. This is about you.
Or is it?
When you’ve neared the location of the orb, you’ll find that it’s mostly quiet and you’re on your own, except … if you stand still for long enough, you can hear muffled cries for help behind a large wall of rock right by you, sounds that are clearly distressed and panicked. But before you can make any kind of snap decision, there’s a tiny blip of static in your earpiece and a matter-of-fact voice will state that you should probably get going — there’s an orb to recover and you’re nearly there. Anything else you attempt to do is outside of your mission, and time is ticking. Will you listen to the voice or will you try and save the trapped? You might be successful, but time is running against you and the longer you stall the more unstable the mines become.
● ● ●
N O T E: During each mission, characters will be given one personal goal to complete. For the purposes of the test drive, we’re offering three goals to choose from and leaving it to players to pick one for their character and run with it:
A Choose the most difficult or challenging path into the mountain.
B Help a teammate during the mission.
C Retrieve the orb at all costs, leaving any possible trapped individuals to fend for themselves.
F Y I
• TDM threads can be used as samples for apps. In fact, we encourage it!
• Reserves are currently open to those with invites. They will be open for everyone May 26.
• Apps open for those with invites May 26. They will open for everyone May 29.
• For any questions regarding TDM, please direct them here. For questions about the game, please refer to the FAQ.
no subject
hm. alright. no... let's tackle oneish revelation at a time. for both their sake. ] I'm also glad to hear you're doing alright for the most part. Others I've been checking out in here- [ daylight gestures to the vitals chart he had set down on the bedside table, halfway through it. ] -have been in some pretty rough states. Like. Woof. Hope they're going to be okay soon.
[ he sticks a hand in his pocket now but he's a bit too distracted in looking around to realise he didn't consider the depth of his avaform's 'clothes' and his body.
his fingers are now, more or less, clipping through the pocket of his jacket and can be seen through it. the sight is both comical and a little bizarre. ] If you want, we can poke around together? Nothing wrong with using the buddy system here.
[ more than ever thanks to their unknown environments. ]
no subject
[Richie's entire experience with non-human beings is an eldritch monster that eats people. Daylight is already a marked improvement over it, if only because he apparently doesn't seem interested in eating anyone, and so Richie just sticks his hands in his pockets, slouches a little as he relaxes. Not completely, but enough.]
Oh, those? Yeah, couldn't help but notice all the serious injuries. Why d'you think I left when I woke up?
[Well, that, and Richie just really needed some fresh air. He...probably needs more now, because his eyes fix on Daylight's fingers and briefly go wide. Holy shit.] Hey. Uh. Your fingers are glitching.
[Like a fucking video game. Jesus Christ. He rubs a hand over his face, huffs out a breath.]
I mean—sure, I guess? I did fine on my own, everyone else who's here is as confused as the rest of us over what the fuck is going on here.
no subject
before he can stop himself- daylight jerks his arm back in an overreaction/overcorrection and pulls his servo through the jacket itself. ] ... Sorry about that. Uhhhh I guess I forgot myself there.
[ forgot himself.
yeah. let's go with that for now. ]
Ummm- If that wasn't too weird for you- We can still look around the station? [ he offers a sheepish and apologetic smile, knowing how weird that sight could be. ] Been meaning to poke around the kitchen. See what sort of supplies we have at hand and take inventory of them if needed.
no subject
[Said with a shake of his head, but not all that heatedly. It's more like the words of someone who's had to reevaluate his entire life so far and has hit something of a threshold. Fine. Fine, this is happening, apparently! He's just going to roll with it!]
Fucking everything about this station is too weird for me. [He gestures a little wildly to the infirmary surrounding them.] But I've had the weirdest [and most traumatic] fucking week of my life, so hey, what-the-fuck-ever. At least nothing's trying to eat me.
[That sounds like a particularly ghoulish joke, and Richie smiles a little, as if to play it off as one. But he's serious.]
Sure. Let's go see the kitchen. Who knows! Maybe they'll have some goddamn coffee.
no subject
that can wait. right now- coffee. that sounds like a good idea for everyone here and he's hoping the galateion equivalent will be there. ]
Cool! Hopefully there's a good brand waiting for us.
[ he gestures for richie to follow after him as he (thankfully) moves on from the infirmary.
wanting to keep the conversation and to move on from the unsaid question of 'you nearly got eaten??' from the air, daylight tries to ask a casual enough question, ]
Soooo... Can I ask what decade it is for you? I know Chicago and Los Angeles but they, um, changed over the ce- [ hm. don't say 'centuries' now. ] -I mean over the time when I was last there.