Test Drive - 001

[ateratmods]

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!)

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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.

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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

Comments

[skyward_eyes]

"You've lost someone too."

It's an observation from experience. Nida... felt the same way once he lost, well, WHOEVER it was that he had lost. Hurt more than he could say. Even hurt now.

"I'm sorry."

[eaglesonofnone]

That...

How could he react to that.

His jaw set, his shoulders straightened, and the thought of her flooded him once more. He remembered the unknowing comments - oh, surely she would turn up, they said. But no. She never would. He knew.

Answering was... He couldn't. There were no words. All he could do was nod. The understanding was unexpected, but he accepted it all the same.

[skyward_eyes]

"I don't even remember the name of the man I wanted to marry," Nida whispers, his voice soft. Broken. His hands clutch at the edge, and for half a moment he... flirts with stupid thoughts.

"Treasure the memories."

[eaglesonofnone]

"I cannot," he answers quietly. "The ache is too strong." But they were there. Her voice, her eyes, the promise of their future. All cut short.

[skyward_eyes]

"Someday you shall have little more," Nida answers. "And to be honest, I'd give anything to have that."

All cut short, yes, but the man has a chance for it to be more. To remember more. To have been his for longer.

[eaglesonofnone]

"I look forward to losing this memory." Sightless eyes on the deck of a ship... He'd never be able to be near water again. He already knew.

[skyward_eyes]

“Memories are sometimes all we have,” Nida sighs, because he doesn’t understand why this man is so foolish. “Do you think your partner would want forgotten?”

[eaglesonofnone]

"Were it me, I would wish to be forgotten."

And, truly, what more reason would he need. To give her the same courtesy that he, himself, wanted.

[skyward_eyes]

“I guess the same is true of me,” Nida admits. If his lover was still out there, still alive somewhere, then he wanted the man to be happy without him. If memory served, the guy had someone to go home to anyway. “Perhaps remembering isn’t worth it.”

[eaglesonofnone]

"Some things should be forgotten for one's own peace," he murmured - more muttered, truly. How many memories did he have that he wished would fade. He didn't even want to spend more than a moment thinking about them.

[skyward_eyes]

Perhaps. But he doesn't quite agree. He sighs and stares out at the city.

"Forget if you want. That's shitty coping."

[eaglesonofnone]

"Believe as you will." He wasn't in the mood to argue. Instead, he stood in silence, watching the movements of people below. It wasn't so different from any other city in that. There were the people moving to and from the market, others going to their work at the harbour. There were women washing clothes, men working metal. It was a city like most any other. And yet, so green.

It was something to get used to.

[skyward_eyes]

Was it like any other? Not like those Nida knew. It was so dark, the lights maybe oil at best. And it was so open. He had grown used to a crowded metropolis. And so...

"It's strangely quiet," he muses, considering the people. "Peaceful even."

[eaglesonofnone]

"Cities must be different to you," he said. "Most in the Levant are this way." It was a different subject. One he was grateful to change to, though he'd not say as much. This city reminded him of Alep, perhaps - though Alep was less green. That detail kept coming to him, time and again. In the places between rivers, the Levant tended toward shades of brown.

He had the thought to go toward that forest. To be under so many leaves and tree branches. He found himself wondering how green the air would be there. How sweet the water would smell.

[skyward_eyes]

"Very different. Even Balamb Village feels larger."

Strange how he misses it now, a place he never expects to return to. He sighs and stares out over the city. It's nice, but it's so... different. Darker in a way, and the threes aren't the right type.

"I more or less grew up on a tropical island, with plenty of mountains. So this isn't what I'm used to."

[eaglesonofnone]

"This city is smaller than Alep. Larger than my own. But it goes quiet at dark in much the same way."

However. He stepped up once more, turned, and let his brows twitch downward "Fewer guards. Which is foolish." But convenient. Fewer men with bows threatening him for being on a rooftop. Fewer lives he would have to take.

[skyward_eyes]

"Could just be peaceful for them," he muses. But then he's moving to stand, and when he does he smiles down at the city.

"Balamb is like that. No guards. But Galbadia isn't. And it doesn't go dark at night. Life's like that. Difference places are different. And it's all nice. This one is peaceful and they're... lucky. They deserve the peace, the quiet, the relief. Let them have it. And maybe resist crime waves, if that's what you're thinking."

[eaglesonofnone]

Altaïr snorted. "I take offense at your implication. I am no criminal." Murderer, yes. Killer, certainly. But each life he'd taken, he'd taken with a purpose. Even the old man in the tomb had died for a reason.

[skyward_eyes]

Murder is absolutely a crime.

"Yeah, well, that makes one of us I suppose."

There was a lot he did that wasn't fully legal.

[eaglesonofnone]

"Then perhaps cast your aspersions upon yourself before aiming them at others," he bit, tone sharp. He'd not listen to himself be labeled like a petty thief.

[skyward_eyes]

"Like knows like," Nida counters, his eyes on Altair. "There aren't a lot of good reasons to be this high, observing how many guards there are. I'm certain we both know it."

Good is the ends you achieve, not what you do.

[eaglesonofnone]

His lip curled. "I've no need to justify myself to you or to share my reasons. You assume a great deal." And his temper was beginning to fray.

[skyward_eyes]

"Do I?" Nida asks, not even looking at Altair. "Maybe. Maybe not. But the only people who care about how many guards are around are thieves, killers, and spies. The former because they will be stopped. The next because they will be hunted. The last because it complicates our jobs."

Our. At least he's explaining himself to a degree.

[eaglesonofnone]

There were just as many other reasons - to see the wealth of different parts of the city. To see the state of the city in general. To judge if the leader of the city was militant or peaceful. A hundred different evaluations could come from looking at guards.

Altaïr said nothing of any of them, though. He had already spoken: He would not explain himself. All he did was look away, letting his gaze trace the streets in an effort to ease his own anger. It came more easily now than it had before. Even when Masyaf had previously been under attack, he hadn't been so quick to snap.

[skyward_eyes]

Perhaps. But those with dark minds and dark work, they assume dark things of others. Which means he's being unfair to Altair, but there it is.

"Forgive me if I am truly unfair. But the fact is that I do not judge you for it. I have no connection to anyone here, no reason to care. Do what you will. And I'll do what I will. Life goes on. Welcome to another world. Don't get attached. It all gets taken away."