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Well Mod ([personal profile] wellie) wrote in [community profile] wellcome2024-04-19 04:40 pm
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6.0 Test Drive Meme

6.0 Test Drive Meme

Welcome to Well! See the first prompt for how your characters arrive in Well. Your character arrives with only a handful of memories, clad in a mix of Old Western clothes and clothes that might fit in at a renaissance fair, and no items from home.

Anyone is free to play on the TDM, but you need an invite to apply. Feel free to use these prompts, and interact with the arrival or locations. NPCs are around, but only say a certain set of phrases. TDMs can be considered game canon.

This TDM takes place from the first week of May onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during May and June. This will be the only TDM for May, June, and July.

Applications are open April 26th until May 1st, and May 27th until June 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.

Arrival: Escape!
Content warnings: forced captivity, blood, eating eyes, drowning in sand, forced intimacy

The First Room

You wake up somewhere dark and damp. Maybe this is your first time waking up here, maybe it's your fourth, but the beginning is the same. You're in a small stone room. The only light comes from torches flicking on the walls. The room is bare except for a metal door. And you're not alone. You and someone (or someones) are here together, and you have to get out.

The door is locked, and to leave it you must just find one key. On the door is a note with a clue:

Freedom is hot!

The key is in fact in one of the torches! Depending on luck, you might find it on your first try, or your fourth. Find a way to extinguish the torches, and handle the hot, hot key to unlock the door.
After this, you find yourself in one of the following rooms. Choose one from the first set, then one from the second set, then one from the third set. You will always end in the final room. You must travel through five rooms to escape.

If you don't complete a task in five minutes, you will return to very first room and have to start again.

You can choose your own path, or comment below to have a random path set for you!

The Second Room

You find yourself in one of the following rooms:
1. There Ain't Room
2. Glitter Bomb
3. Riddles Three
1. There Ain't Room
In this room is a shooting game. There's a barrier with bebe guns attached to it, and at the far end are small cut outs of people. There's a sign on the far wall, in old-West style script, reading:

There Ain't Room

The cut outs look sort of familiar! There are cut outs of you and your compatriot(s), as well as some typical cowboy looking cut outs. Shoot your own cut out to escape! You each must shoot your own one, if you shoot each others', that person feels it as if they have been shot, and will start bleeding.

When you successfully hit all of your own cut outs, the floor under you opens up and you drop into the next room.

2. Glitter Bomb
As you walk through the doorway, you feel oddly.... sticky? Like your skin is covered in honey. Because it is! Yum.

In front of you is a room covered in glitter. There's so much glitter. You can't see a door, but you have to find a way out. Search the room to find the exit.

The exit is a trapped door in the floor. You'll need to make your way through the glitter, all the while it will stick to your very sticky skin. You'll need to dig a big enough path to get through, open the door and get into the next room! Too bad some glitter will come with you, and you'll still be sticky.

3. Riddles Three
A large hour glass in the middle of the room starts ticking down with sand as soon as you enter this room. One three of the walls are riddles engraved in the stone, and chalkboards in front of them. You must answer all three riddles correctly before the sand runs out to escape:
  • Where waves kiss sand and breezes blow, where tropic dreams grow, I'm where you want to go. What am I? Answer: Kokomo
  • With auburn locks and eyes of green, a rival, a threat, a beauty queen. Answer: Jolene
  • With cowboy hats and boots that stride, no one told me where my horse I ride. Answer: Old Town Road
Once you answer correctly, the hour glass disappears, leaving a hole in the floor that you must jump through to exit.

The Third Room

Next, you find yourself in one of the following rooms:
A. Cry For Me
B. Love Me
C. Hold Me
A. Cry For Me
This room is beautiful and shiny, the walls made of crystals. In the middle of the room is a crystal plinth with a small crystal cup on it. In flowing script around the cup it reads:

Collect five tears

You must collect five tears in the cup to escape. Once you do, an entry way opens in the crystal in front of you.

B. Love Me
This room is very plain, and on a piece of paper dangling from a string in the middle of the room is the instructions for this room:

Exchange five sincere compliments each. Don't break eye contact.

You must do this within the alloted five minutes to escape. If the compliments are less than sincere, you may try again, but if you don't reach the five each by the end of the five minutes or if you break eye contact even once, you will be returned to the first room.

C. Hold Me
This room looks a lot like the pub in town. The walls are wood paneled and there's jangling piano music coming from--somewhere?

In the middle of the room is a mechanical bull, with a sign reading:

Stay on the bull together for 45 seconds.

If you succeed within the five minutes, you're free to continue on!

The Fourth Room

Next, you find yourself in one of the following rooms:
I. Blood
II. Sweat
III. Tears
I. Blood
This room is very tall. There's a rope dangling down one wall. On the wall it reads:

Climb!

And that's what you have to do. The word "Climb" starts to bleed. And then the walls start to bleed. The room will fill up with blood within five minutes, so you better get climbing!

At the top of the room is a hatch that will let you escape through a hatch in the ceiling.

II. Sweat
When you enter this room, one of you finds that you are alone. You're standing at the edge of a pool, and that pool is full of sand. It's also searingly hot in here. On the wall, it reads:

Rescue your partner!

One person is chained at the bottom of a swimming pool full of sand. A counter on the wall counts down until they will suffocate. Better get swimming!

Once you've rescued your partner, a door on the other side of the pool will open up. Better move fast to get there!

III. Tears
This room is dark, very dark. You can just barely see, except for a glow-in-the-dark sign reading:

Eat some eyes!

And that's what you need to do! In the walls are eyes. They're watching you. You must each eat an eye to continue on. Once you do, a door cracks open in the far wall.

The Fifth Room

No matter the path you took to get here, the final room is the same:
The last room you end up in, even though you enter through the same door, you find yourselves separated by a wall. There is a door for each of you at the far side of the room. You can hear each other, but you can't see each other. Each of you have a plinth in front of you, which reads:

Who should escape?

In front of you are the names of yourself and your partner(s). You place the name of the person you believe should escape in a slot in the table.

Once everyone has made a selection, the names will light up:
  • If you all chose each other, your room lights up green.
  • If you all chose yourselves, your room lights up green.
  • If someone chose themselves, and someone else chose another person, the room of the person with the most "votes" lights up green. The others light up red.
If your room is green, when you open the final door, you've escaped! Welcome to Wellstone.

If your room is red, when you open the door, you find yourself back in the first room. Good luck!
When you escape, you step into the lobby of the Staywell. It's bright and airy with beautiful white stone. When you look behind you, it seems that you've stepped out of a supply closet. Weird!

The receptionist greets you as he always does, welcoming you home.

New characters arrive using this prompt. Characters can return from death from the previous cycle using this prompt. You can also just wake up and be in this prompt, so you can do this as many times as you like.

tl;dr:
  • You wake up in an escape room! You must finish (at least) five rooms to escape. You have five minutes to finish each room. If you fail, you'll be taken back to the beginning of the dungeon.

It's alive!
Content warnings: public shaming

When you shake off the glitter and the sand, it might be time to head on down into Wellstone town. The air is full of a shimmering warmth that might be familiar to some. It's like the sun has been baked into the very stones and is radiating back up at you. Run-down buildings lean against each other for support, made out of mostly weathered stone with a few old boards here and there to keep structures up. Desiccated, skeletal fingers of dried-out ivy climb them, waving occasionally as you pass. Waving, and… whispering? For more information about how the town has changed, check out this month's Wellstone Post or read the Locations Page.

The town is alive with sneering, whispering voices. It's unclear where exactly they're coming from, but they're everywhere. Step into the Cactus Pad Tavern and you might hear a decisive no manners! spat sharply from the doorway. Make your way to the steaming bathhouse to wash off that honey, but be careful when you're undressing: you might just hear rude snickering from the air around you. Wow, the walls might say, your toes are so long. What weird feet!

The voices might interrupt a conversation at breakfast to make fun of something you said. Your mirror and your wardrobe might question your outfit choices. They're loud enough to be heard by everyone in a public space and seem to delight in saying cutting things at the worst possible moment. You don't recognize the voices, exactly, but they seem just familiar enough to really hurt, and the voices seem to know you well enough. They might even call you out when you tell a little white lie, or let everyone know exactly how loud you snore.

There's no way, seemingly, to get them to shut up, so... may as well get used to it?

tl;dr:
  • The town is alive, and it is judging you. Your outfits, your words, your body, your habits: nothing is off-limits.
  • The voices sound just familiar enough to feel like voices you know, but aren't able to be pinpointed to a single person.

snackin: (huh | look | sus | neutral)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-04-25 03:41 am (UTC)(link)
...to cook.

[ Astarion answers his own unasked question and he watches Laios for a moment longer before turning away and walking through the door, where he finds himself in a room by himself, without this strange man who wants to cook eyeballs ]

Me, obviously. [ He says, to answer the "Who should escape" question ]
livingarmor: (where I come up empty)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-04-25 03:48 am (UTC)(link)
[ ...oh.

Hold on. Who should escape? This is a trick, obviously— or just a straightforward question? If it was a straightforward question, it would match the tone they've been working with so far. They've been doing clear tasks with relatively straightforward instructions, so it would make sense that the pattern would hold.

But then, why ask? Why not just let them go? There has to be some kind of game element, right? So then, he needs to say Astarion, and Astarion needs to say him.

so, over the barrier, he pitches his voice loud,
]

We have to say each other to get out!
snackin: (sus | look | huh)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-04-25 03:52 am (UTC)(link)
[ That feels like a trick. This new man making him choose Laios' name instead of his own.

And yet, this man doesn't seem to have a single manipulative bone in his body. He's been so straight forward that it's refreshing, and off-putting, and Astarion stares down at his own name and Laios' in front of him.
]

Why? Why not just choose ourselves?
livingarmor: (those painted songs)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-04-25 04:01 am (UTC)(link)
I wondered that, too. Everything else we've solved by following the instructions more or less exactly how they're written. It would make sense if the pattern continued. But why ask us if that's the answer?

[ It's kind of nice to just think through this aloud with something like permission. Laios is having fun, and it shows in his voice. ]

So I kept thinking about it, and I realized that if it were that simple, it wouldn't fit the other pattern. Have you noticed everything has been getting harder and worse the longer we stay? Each room has been more difficult than the last. For it to suddenly reset and be that easy wouldn't make sense with how the dungeon is laid out. It has to be some kind of trick. So, it makes the most sense to choose each other to maximize our chances of getting out.
snackin: (soft | look | scared)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-04-25 03:21 pm (UTC)(link)
[ It feels like a trick. And the more Laios talks, the more it feels like a trick. They went through all of that together, and he isn't letting this strange man get out while he's trapped in this irritating dungeon alone.

He picks up the card with his own name on it
]

Pick whoever you want. I'm picking myself. Selfishness has served me so far.

[ Is it stupid? He doesn't know. It should be straightforward, and trying to over think it is making his head hurt. ]
livingarmor: (What if)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-04-26 01:56 am (UTC)(link)
If you're picking yourself, then—!

[ Okay no give him a minute. They could just pick themselves, and then they'd each get to go. It's just wrong if they both pick one person, right?

They have no way of knowing. That's the problem: ideally they'd get to test it and see who's right, but there's no way to be sure what's going to happen, so...
]

...I'll pick me, too. Good luck. Watch out for traps when you put your name in.
snackin: (Default)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-04-26 06:51 pm (UTC)(link)
[ The caution and kindness are so strange to him, but he ignores it for the time being and selects his own name.

The room lights up green, and he breathes a sigh of relief, stepping over to the door, which lets him out into the lobby.
]

I knew I was right.
livingarmor: (those painted songs)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-04-27 02:35 am (UTC)(link)
[ It works.

It works! Laios puts his own name in with a deep sense of trepidation, hoping that he's wrong, and the door opens and spits him into the lobby with Astarion, blinking into the bright daylight. He spends a moment adjusting, dazzled by all the stone, and then rounds on Astarion with a wide grin.
]

Great thinking! That could've gone really wrong, but we must be free, right?
snackin: (soft | smile | proud)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-04-28 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
[ The smile is a lot, but he finds himself smiling back if only because he's free and he can take a bath, thank the gods.

He opens his mouth to reply, but then looks around with a furrowed brow
]

We... yes. But this looks different. We should be in the Staywell Manor.

Welcome to the Staywell Hotel!

Ah, yes. Well. It looks a little different, but this is the right place.
livingarmor: (and unparted sea)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-04-28 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
A hotel?

[ Laios doesn't exactly know what he was expecting. He'd gotten kind of caught up in the actual solving of the puzzles, maybe, and forgotten to think about the end goal, which is a pretty big oversight. It would have been a lot better to think about where they were aiming. Probably his strategy inside the dungeon would have been better for it.

But they are free, so obviously they did it, and this place is obviously nice. High walls, white stone, bustling enough to be some kind of hub. A lot of noise and no clear purpose, really. Laios finds himself maybe sticking close to Astarion.
]

What a weird place to be on top of a dungeon like this. It's just a door.

[ Said in a tone that very clearly conveys a certain amount of disappointment. ]
Edited 2024-04-28 01:11 (UTC)
snackin: (eyebrow | sus | hard)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-04-28 01:49 am (UTC)(link)
[ Such a strange man. Astarion arches a brow at him, brushing off the comment ]

Yes, well. I suppose you are new. You are, aren't you? Honestly, I don't know. There are several large, blonde louts running around here.

This is the hotel. If you were expecting to be home, wherever that is, you will be sorely disappointed. Although we're free from that--dungeon, we can call it--we are still captive of this strange town.
livingarmor: (Break the bonds)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-05-01 07:27 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Laios mouths the word "lout" to himself with a bemused sort of expression, looking from stone arch to front desk to the smear of blood just outside the door they just left and then back to Astarion.

They're captives, huh. Captives of a whole town, not a dungeon, and with the added implication that while Laios has no idea what's going on or how he ended up here, Astarion might. There's a lot to puzzle out here. Laios is sore from that contraption they'd ridden, and unsure of where to go next. If they're trapped, the next step has to be finding a way out, but that's obviously a bigger task or Astarion would've figured it out already.

So...

He looks again at Astarion.
]

Hey, are you hungry?

snackin: (talk | soft | move)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-05-01 07:51 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Of anything Laios could have said, he wasn't expecting that. He stares at Laios for a moment, a small smile curving his lips. He's starving, is the thing. He's very hungry, but he's used to the feeling, and hadn't bothered to think about it until now. He can go find some rats or rabbits in the forest later.

But Laios is large and hardy and human. His mouth waters
]

Very. Although, the food here isn't quite to my tastes.
livingarmor: ('til every part)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-05-01 09:36 pm (UTC)(link)
[ That's disappointing. A whole town and there's nothing good to eat? Or maybe he's picky? This place looks nice enough, but maybe that's not a good indicator.

Laois shifts just enough to fall into step beside him, caught on something in that smile-some glint he catches and can't make sense of.
]

What's it like? Even if the food isn't great, it's probably a good idea to eat something before tackling anything else.
snackin: (wave | tease | talk)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-05-03 12:33 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, I don't know. I don't pay attention to it. [ Which is the honest truth. He waves a hand to brush it off ] I'm sure it's fine, if you like that sort of thing. The wine is decent, at least.

[ Which he's love to have. A glass of wine and a bath sound perfect right now. ]
livingarmor: (Between the seams)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-05-03 01:01 am (UTC)(link)
[ Something isn't adding up here. Laios is too hungry to puzzle through it exactly— now that it's occurred to him that he is, it's kind of all he can think about— but there's something weird in the way Astarion talks about food. Maybe he just doesn't like it? ]

Having wine without a meal after something like that isn't a great idea. You'll get sick.
snackin: (huh | scared | angry)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-05-03 01:12 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe you will. Poor human constitution and all. [ He's started to walk without thinking about it, heading to the tavern. Wine does sound nice, and then he'll get clean. Maybe he'll take a whole bottle...

Except when he steps out of the lobby he stops stalk still, staring at the new, changed town. He instinctively shies away from the sun before remembering that somehow it doesn't hurt him here
]

That's... different.
livingarmor: (Waters deep to the roots of something gr)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-05-03 02:34 am (UTC)(link)
[ Immediately, Laios prickles with awareness, freezing just behind Astarion in the doorway to stare more at him than the town. He looks alarmed, and that's not good. The town itself— it's a weird, sprawling thing, hot and dry with buildings crowded close together in a familiar sort of way— doesn't look that dangerous, but the reaction of someone who's been here holds more weight than Laios' new impressions. ]

Is something wrong?
snackin: (huh | sus | look)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-05-03 06:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I... don't know. It's different. The town is different.

[ Dry and barren and unlike anything he remembers seeing before. It's so bright. It's so different.

Well. He's here. He needs wine even more now.
]

It was green before. Hells. I need that drink.
livingarmor: (Whether by accident)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-05-03 07:38 pm (UTC)(link)
...weird. Lead the way.

[ Different isn't necessarily dangerous, but Laios is still on-edge, blinking in the sun with the taste of the eye still salty on his tongue. Real food, or wine, would do them both good, and maybe Astarion will tell him what's going on with this place. ]
snackin: (determined | look | think)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-05-03 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He steps out into the dusty street, shielding his eyes with his hand. It's bright, so bright. The rainy mists of the town before made it feel more homey. This is completely foreign.

He leads the short distance to what he thinks must be the pub--called a Saloon now, or was it always called that? He's not sure. It looks different on the inside, but the bartender is the same. He's grateful that Diluc isn't here right now, although he needs to talk to him, really talk to him this time.

He debates for a moment, then goes right behind the bar to grab a bottle of red wine. He turns back to Laios, pauses, then grabs a second one. Laying them out, he grabs two glasses and a cork screw, playing with it between his fingers before he uncorks one of the bottles
]

Alright. People said things changed, but I didn't think it would be this much. The entire town is... well.

[ He should let the bottle breathe, but instead he pours them each a glass right away, and downs half of his before he can go on ]

I don't like it. The dust. [ And he's not sure if there will be as many animals. It makes his stomach clench in hunger ]
livingarmor: (Into the cracks)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-05-03 08:54 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Laios murmurs a quiet "thanks," as he picks up his own glass, holding it close without really taking a drink. He's still half-thinking about food, which is a shame, because it doesn't look like this dusty place has any. He certainly can't smell anything, and Astarion obviously isn't that worried about it.

That's alright. He knows it's here, so he'll be able to get it later. Really he should be paying attention to what Astarion has to say. It's the most useful information he's likely to get.
]

So it wasn't this dusty before? What was it like? How long were you gone?
snackin: (pleading | soft | please)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-05-03 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
It was green. Surrounded by forest, flowers everywhere. Gouache, but at least not dusty and hot.

[ He might like the hot, he thinks. He leans on the bar, nursing the glass of wine as he watches his new companion ]

I have no idea how long I was gone. I remember dying horribly, and then waking up in that awful dungeon. Gods, the horrors never cease.
livingarmor: (And all the memories)

[personal profile] livingarmor 2024-05-03 09:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ So then someone must have revived him, Laios thinks, although he's not sure where the thought comes from or what it means. It makes sense somehow, and so he doesn't really react that strongly to the idea of Astarion dying horribly except to frown about the fact of it. ]

For a whole town to change like that, including the climate, you must have been gone a while. And this happens regularly? People getting trapped here?
snackin: (sus | look | huh)

[personal profile] snackin 2024-05-03 09:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes. There are, oh, I don't know, three dozen of us? Maybe more, maybe less. People come and people go, it seems.

[ He doesn't like the idea of having been gone for a while and frowns, rubbing his fingers on the rim of his glass ]

Perhaps I was. I don't know. Does it even matter? We're trapped here with no hope of getting out and have no idea where home even is!

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