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Test Drive - 001

TEST DRIVE 001

Welcome to Aterat!

Here is our first ever Test Drive Meme! There are a lot of areas of the city to explore, so please have a look around! In case you need a little help getting started, I've included a few prompts below, or feel free to start your own! Exploration and player initiative are the names of the game here!

NOTE: While you do need an invite to apply to the game, you do NOT need one to tag or top level on the Test Drive!

Helpful Links to Get Started

Arrival & General Information | Locations & Bestiary | Residences & Housing Info | Rules & FAQ (ask questions here!)

A. Welcome to the Jungle

The URBAN jungle, that is. You have just arrived and received a strange satchel from a tiny, strange little man and are left more or less to your own devices (more information on what to expect upon arrival can be found here)! Follow directions to the north and check out the housing, or maybe have a look around the Historium, see what you can waste your meager starter coin on in the Market District, or maybe just meet the neighbors.

B. We've Got Fun and Games

At least there's entertainment. In various parts of the city, there are street performers, slight of hand tricksters, and probably a game or two of poker in one tavern or another (there are several to be found, after all). Start up a game of darts, or just sit broodily in a corner and watch the others coming and going.

C. You can have anything you want but you better not take it for free

The Harbor District is a rough joint. There are pickpockets, swindlers, but also hardworking folk and more than a few buildings that seem to be locked. It sure would be a shame if someone were to go about performing some casual Breaking & Entering...you know, as long as you don't get caught. There are guards around, though not nearly as many here as in the other districts. It's almost as though they like to avoid the place. People talk about wererats in the shadows at night and it's not unheard of for the unaware to go missing when they're traveling around here after dark...

D. What's that smell?

As if being carted off to what looks like a city out of a video game weren't bad enough, there's an entire district to the northeast that seems to be walled off, warded, and in all ways inaccessible. According to the sign, it's the cemetery...and boy does it smell.

E. Speaking Crystal

You could always take a look at the instructions that came with your crystal and see who else is listening. Remember, though, these devices are Voice Only and cannot be filtered. If you speak, anyone with a crystal can and will hear you. Now, whether or not they choose to respond is another thing entirely.

If you have any questions at all about setting or what is or isn't acceptable, please submit it on the FAQ!

If you would like to explore any aspect of the setting more indepth, please PM the mod account OR comment here! All comments are screened!

» N A V I G A T I O N

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Listen, it's not that Nida was stalkign the guy. He's just a stranger. It's more... he had been walking nearby to explore, and he saw a man. Which was enough to get him to watch the stranger from a distance, trailing after him. Seemed the guy was good enough at sneaking, and that got Nida even more intrigued, following at a distance after the guy.

At last he moves forward, darting toward the man and tapping his shoulder.

"Guard coming from your left. Get to cover."

Edited 2020-06-30 23:34 (UTC)

Caelan knew he wasn’t alone in the harbour district, he’d seen several people meandering about since he’d started exploring and that wasn’t even counting the guards. What he hadn’t noticed was the fact that Nida had actually been following him, either this whole mess with arriving had left him off kilter or the young man knew what he was doing.

He was gracious enough to assume it was the later option, after all, he wasn’t so prideful that he couldn’t admire someone else’s achievements. Especially when it came with a much-needed warning.

Rather than waste time with acknowledging Nida’s assistance right away, he quietly ducked down the side of a building, coming to a stop next to an old rubbish bin large enough to hide behind. Sure enough, there came the footfall of booted feet as the aforementioned guard drew nearer.

He waited a few minutes after the footsteps faded before he risked speaking, glancing down the side of the building cautiously. “Thanks for the save.” Came out in a raised whisper a moment later.

Pushing away from the wall, a gloved hand brushing his hair out of his face as he gave the stranger a curious, searching look. Yeah, the guy had helped him but that didn’t mean they were on the same side.

With a small smile, he decided to try to figure out if the help was genuine or if the guy just wanted to make sure the guard wouldn’t be near enough to happen upon a mugging. “Was that a professional courtesy or was there something you wanted from me?”

"Wouldn't call it either. But let's go with courtesy," Nida says, his voice that special sort of soft, lacking a whisper to exaggerate sibilants. Those things carried everywhere. "Just looking around, you clearly didn't want caught."

With the guard gone, Nida moves away from the building, just far enough back to start loking it over.

"What are you after here?"

Hmm... Interesting. “You’re right. I didn’t want to.”

He shrugged his shoulders lightly as he continued. “Of course, I still did in a way.” Caelan responded, referring to Nida himself with a cheeky little grin before he folded his arms and thought about the question. He could tell the guy to bugger off, and he seemed a reasonable enough sort to maybe do just that... But Nida had helped him out, and an extra set of eyes might help if he intended to stick around beyond getting an answer. Caelan was more accustomed to working with someone than alone anyway.

“I suppose that I’m after what anyone in this part of the city is after. The answers to questions.” His head nodded lightly to the building, “Not holding my breath, of course, but this seems to be the harbour-master’s office. If you want to know what’s going on around these parts, usually it’d be a good place the place to start.”

"Answers tend to be elusive in places like this, if they can be found at all. And sometimes they're not what you want to hear," Nida muses as he considers the building. And here he was, without lock picks. "But if you need help, I can serve as a second set of eyes for a time."

Not that he felt this was the best way to adjust to a new world. But hey, he's game anyway.

“I know that all too well... Lucky for me that I’m not hoping for any one answer over another today.” He responded, attention shifting back to the building itself as he moved for the side entrance with a few short strides. Never fear Nida, Caelan was plucked straight out of a job in his own world, he most definitely had lock picks on his person.

“And I can always appreciate having more eyes around. Different eyes see different things, after all.” He responded, crouching down by the door and tucking his hand under the cloak part of his coat to draw out a set of lock picks from one of the coats many inner pockets.

Caelan backtracked the conversation a little while he picked out the appropriate tools, curiously going back to Nida’s first comment while he worked. “You sound as though you’re used to ‘places like this,’ do you mean suspicious harbours or being plucked from one realm and thrown into another?” Was the guy like him or was he a local? Caelan was betting on the former but you never knew.

Nida was plucked out of work as well, but not... that sort. Not this time. AS Caelan mentions eyes, Nida chuckles. Yeah, he can see those lock picks for one.

"Nice coat," he observed as he moved just a bit further away to make sure he's got good lines of sight without being instantly noticeable himself. "And I mean interdimensional kidnappings. It's my third. In a row. Home's so far and long away."

“Thanks, it does serve me well.” He responded with a little smile, “Not as well as others mind you, but for nights like this? It does the trick.” Caelen added a moment later, vaguely amused as he started working the tumbler pins in the knobs lock into place.

Third time? That... was not a pleasant thing to consider. “Well, that’s unfortunate... I don’t expect it’s easy to be kept from where you belong.” He responded with the earlier amused, cheery mood dipping into a small sad frown. “I’m used to walking between two realms, but by choice. Certainly not like this, throws everything off kilter.”

The man’s expression lifted again a short while later as the pins all had been slid into place and the lock gave way with a little turn. He put the tools away and tucked them back into his coat before getting to his feet and pulling the door open for Nida with a dramatic little flourish, “After you, then?”

"Who knows if there is anything left for me to go back to. So I don't even bother thinking of home anymore," Nida lies because it's easier. After that he's silent until after the lock is open. When the door was opened Nida moved easily and confidently past the other, immediately starting to look around the room, trying to mark the position of everything so it can be put back as if not disturbed.

He followed in behind Nida, one last glance to the outside before he closed the door quietly behind them. Caelan isn’t entirely sure that they’ll even find anything of use, the place was reportedly as abandoned as the harbour itself was, but he still had a little hope for something interesting being left behind.

“Let’s see what we can see between us then.” He commented, gaze drifting carefully around the room at the old furnishings that had been left behind. The desk was of particular interest, but he wasn’t above rummaging in closets. “Let me know if you see any documents on the warehouses that are all locked up? I’m keen to know what they’re about before I go poking around.” Chances were all of that had been cleaned out when the place was abandoned, but he wasn’t about to make the assumption without checking.

“I imagine they were once about shipping,” Nida muses as he slowly picks around. Documents? Not his thing at the moment. Instead he looks through other things. Items that might tell him more about what this world is like.

“You expecting to find much here?”

“Shipping? At the harbour?” He responded lightly, little laugh in the undertone of his voice. “Once perhaps, but given the fact that the only ship they’ve got is sitting in the dry docks half finished I expect they’ve repurposed them. After all, you don’t lock ‘Nothing’ up tight.”

Caelan opened one drawer to find it empty, closed it, then moved on to another systematically with growing disappointment. “And no, I wasn’t really expecting to find much.” He answered a moment later, shrugging lightly as he glanced up from the desk. “But I’ve always thought that just because you don’t expect to find something doesn’t mean you pass it by entirely. Taking the time to have a little look around never hurt anyone, right?”

He had still hoped there might be something of use, something mundane that might have been missed in all the fuss and magic at play in the city.

No, but you sometimes lock up things you don't deal with anymore. But he chuckles, yeah, he gets it. He doesn't trust places where there are nothing. He moves slowly toward a bookshelf, letting his eyes skirt over it.

"This place feels wrong. Broken."

“I suppose that’s part of why we’re here, right? To help ‘rebuild the world’ as the welcome party suggested.” He responded with a little wry grin, his voice lilting dramatically. He still wasn’t entirely sure how that was even going to work. Especially when there were so many strange aspects to this place...

“You’re right though, especially around these parts...” Caelan finally moved away from the desk, both satisfied that he’d gone through it and unsatisfied with the lack of interesting discoveries. “There should be so much more activity here. It’s pulse should be as strong as the markets in its own way.” Much came in from the sea, fish goods, and news alike. Where did the fishmongers even get their stock?

"Yeah, the last two places said that too. One didn't want our input, the other just... didn't change. I'll buy it when I see it," Nida muses as he finishes with the book case and instead walks carefully and slowly about the room, letting his boot slowly knock at each floorboard, clearly checking to see if there was something under one.

"Perhaps it's a new place. Or it died recently. Or a lot of people left."

Edited 2020-07-03 15:53 (UTC)

“Any one of those seem possible... Though two of them present more questions.” He responded, glancing at Nida as he began checking floorboards. Very thorough... Caelan definitely approved as much as it made him more curious about the stranger.

He moved on to a closet, disappearing inside as he checked the walls and shelving for anything hidden. “If a lot of people did depart, you have to wonder what made them all up and leave?” What was the great calamity that caused the world to ‘die’ and to need to bring everyone in, and need they worry about an encore of that?

Of course, if Nida’s past experience were anything to go by, the could probably count on it being more likely that they wouldn’t figure anything out any time soon. “Well, you are the expert on what to expect between the two of us. Best to continue to keep expectations low for a while then to avoid disappointment.”

Spies, what can you do? Thorough is important, and they don't seem to be in a rush. He makes his way through the room and nothing in the floorboards. So he moves to the desk and starts to take drawers out to check for things affixed to the bottom.

"Could be the leaving wasn't willing. Could be there was a plague. Mostly, I expect this is something else entirely. Each time has been different for me."

“What a cheerful series of options.” He responded absently, tone muffled from where he was. He tapped lightly on the walls of the closet just to see if there were any hollow bits behind the panelling as he continued, “In your experience, have you ever seen the thing that caused a world to need to bring people to it come back around?”

Caelan moved out of the closet a short while later to move on to the heating grates, though he does pause to glance at Nida going through the desk with a small tilt of his head as worked...

“Are you double checking my work, sir?” Caelan wasn’t complaining of course, he did appreciate having someone take a second look after all. Working in a group sometimes meant catching things the other set of eyes missed. He grinned instead as he pried at a grate to see if it was loose or showed signs of being moved regularly.

"I think the first world was sort of experimenting on me and those people there. So I guess yes. We were one of a series of tests. The second...? Who knows with that place."

Double and triple. His fingers work easily over the bottom, without him even looking.

"Consider it professional curiosity, not double checking."

“What...?” That was... a sobering thought, more so than the earlier suggestions. Experimenting on people of varying sorts in his era was generally always a bad time, social experiments or otherwise. “Sounds like you’ve had to travel some very unpleasant waters then.”

He hummed a little, pulling out his boot knife to pry at the grate just to be certain it wouldn’t come free. “Professional curiosity. I like that better, I think?” Moving on to another grate a moment later across the room he added, “My lot usually makes a game of double checking though, person who misses something has to buy supper for the one who found what was missed.”

Still focused on his work he finally found himself curious enough to ask, “So... What do I call you, oh mysterious but helpful stranger?”

"Sadly in neither of them did I make it to anything like real waters. Which is frustrating. I grew up on an island," he admits. And he missed the smell of sea air. Siren, deep inside him, echoed his longing.

"Maybe I'll find something then, and insist on dinner," Nida muses as he moves next to some items on the walls to check behind them. "Nida. You can call me Nida."

“I can understand that frustration... I suppose Its part of why I’m so keen to figure out why the harbour district is in such a strange state first and foremost.” There was nothing like the familiar sound of waves on a shore and the smell of sea air. You noticed when it was absent, traveling to land locked places were so starkly different because of that.

Then there was the distant call, a reminder that the ocean waited for him to return to his kind. After all, the sea cared not for the work he did, it only cared that he was absent and to remind him where home was. Even here, even though it was a different sea... A surrogate of sorts. A substitute until he were sent back to his world.

Caelan couldn’t help but chuckle at the idea, “Maybe you will, Nida?” He tried the name out now that he had it, “I’d certainly not complain. Better to find something than nothing, I think. Then I’ll just be sure to return the favour next time.” If there were a next time, and if Nida was so reliable he found himself not minding if there were.

A moment later, fussing with the next grate, he added, “I’m Caelan, by the way.”

"Nice to meet you, Caelan by the way."

Yeah, this isn't the time for jokes but he's making them anyway. There's nothing behind the wall decorations and Nida gives a heavy sigh.

"I'm starting to feel like if there is something hidden here, it's a harder access slick than we're really got time to waste looking for. And we'd have to tear into stuff."

Luckily for Nida, Caelan can appreciate a joke. Making light on a day that was rather strange and left one feeling out of sorts was just the way to distract. “Ah, you needn’t refer to me by my whole name. Caelan will do, I think.” He responded with a little grin, rising from the next grate and considering the other man’s suggestion.

“I was about to ask if you thought this place seemed a touch too clean to you, so I would agree with that line of thought...” Disappointing if only because the impatient part of him really wanted to figure something useful out today. “As much as this coat can hold, I’m afraid I don’t currently have the tools or means to really tear into this place in such a fashion, and I doubt we’ll be so lucky to not attract the district watch if we did.”

No, he would have to go back to the drawing board and perhaps collect a little more information. ...Or let his impatience get the better of him. It was a toss up, really.

Jokes are lovely things, what else was he supposed to think of them? Bu no, Nida wasn't going to force more out, even if he was smiling at Caelan's playful acceptance.

"It could be there is nothing to be found. Perhaps it's honest and was cleared out when it wasn't used anymore," Nida suggests. But yes, he doesn't like how clean the place was.

Nida sighs and his fingers card through his hair as he heads toward the door.

"I'm about out. This place is starting to bore me. There is nothing to find."

Harbor-Master's Office

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