ateratooc | Test Drive

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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

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A. Welcome to the Jungle: Housing Square

Did selkie's ever enjoy the urban nature of a city? No. Most that she knew had a true disdain for most human things. She was odd in that respect. She'd always found humans themselves interesting. Curious little beings with such short little lives. Yet even Nuala had begun to distance herself from them in modern times as they expanded their cities into monstrosities that felt suffocating to someone bound to the call of the sea. This place it seemed was no exception. The urban look to the residence buildings that Nuala had been given instructions to looked utterly dreadful. Everything about them made her human skin crawl and she found herself shivering as she looked up at the building. She wrapped her arms around herself and for the first time in a long time a distressed expression crossed her face. Usually she was all smiles and curiosity, but this, this was a disaster.

"We are to live here? In this...monstrosity?" she whispered to nobody in particular. What an utterly horrid day this was turning out to be.

C. You can have anything you want but you better not take it for free
The harbor called to her like an old friend. At first Nuala had found herself uneasy in this new and fractured place. So much about it was off. Wrong. Things that anyone with any sort of sense about them could pick up on. There was little in the city proper she found herself liking. In fact, there was little about this place at all she found herself liking. Truth be told she'd never been fond of cities, especially as they had expanded into modern times. Humans always had a strange way of ruining everything with their strange improvements. At least some things never changed, even if you were whisked away to some fixer upper world.

The harbor though, that had something she liked: salt water. She could practically feel it as she got closer and closer to the harbor district. The petite redhead looked out of place walking speedily towards the rougher neck of the woods. The guards and the general gloom of the place wasn't going to put a damper on her getting to the water though. Nothing was. Not even the people around her. It would be quite accurate to say that Nuala was walking through people like she didn't even notice them in order to reach her goal. Her bright expression twisted slightly as she walked through the thick haze of smoke.

"How terrible to have so close to the water," she muttered with a tiny cough. If she happened to bump into someone she stopped briefly, with a bright smile, and attempted her best apology. "I'm sorry! I suppose I'm a bit too focused on getting somewhere important. Please do excuse me." It was a sincere apology but also a blunt one from someone clearly more interested in just moving on than continuing a conversation.

Once she reached her ultimate destination her eyes lit up brightly at the sight of a half finished ship.

"A ship! Oh how lovely," she said aloud, still with little regard for if anyone was around or not.

D. What's that smell?

Curiosity killed the selkie. Or something like that. Once she'd found her footing curiosity had poured it's way back into Fionnuala's entire being. Heightened senses immediately pinged her to the disgusting smell coming from...somewhere? Where was it? A little voice in the back of her mind told her that perhaps she shouldn't follow the scent, especially alone, especially at night. Not once in her very long life had she listened to that voice though and so she followed. What she found was a place that smelled of death and decay. She touched the wall where the sign was and sniffed the air in an over-exaggerated manner.

"Death," she scrunched her tiny nose up and shook her head. "Why must they always bury their dead like this?" That aspect of human culture was one thing she'd still neglected to pick up on despite her investigations. Perhaps this would give her some answers or at least something interesting to explore.

E. Speaking Crystal

[ There's a long pause where Nuala doesn't say a single thing. She clears her throat first before she speaks. When her voice comes on it's got a strange quality to it. It's almost musical with just the slightest hint of an unidentifiable accent. It's an accent that time may have forgotten but that Nuala's held onto despite her attempts to blend in. She sounds excited and enthusiastic in everything she says. ]

Hello! Oh my, this is certainly a curious little thing! For anyone listening, I'm Fionnuala, it's a mouthful I know. I mostly tell people to just call me Nuala, so just do that! Easier right? Now, the more important thing: who are you all? I'd love to get to know you all!

[ Again, there's silence and the sounds of water can be heard in the background. ] Thank you all for your time! Perhaps if we all learn more about each other we can help this world more too. Then we'll be able to return to our places of origin faster. [ Is that too much optimism? Probably. ]

"They do not always, you know. There are sky burials, where the dead are given to the carrion birds. That is only an example, one of the ways it was done where I come from. But this is more than death. Old death. Wrong death. The kind that doesn't stay dead."

It wasn't the type of zombies that Dysart had created, but it surely smelled similar, like the aftermath. Even Cassandra turned up her nose at that.

"The gates have been sealed--I hope you weren't going to let your curiosity have you try them!" Her tone wasn't particularly scolding, but there was a likely hint of gentle reprimand in the Euthanatos' tone.

"Once upon a time they sent them to the sea," she replied with a small shrug and a look that betrayed her dislike of the idea. Her home was not meant to be a dumping ground for human corpses and yet that was what they had done. If she remembered correctly it was something about honoring the one who had passed. In her mind they could have simply honored them by living a good life themselves. But what did she know?

"The kind that doesn't stay dead?" The undead, zombies if one wanted to call them such, weren't unheard of in her world. They were however something Nuala had very little experience with. Mostly by choice.

For a second her expressions shifts to a little sheepish look and she gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. "I was curious about the source of the stench." There was no hesitation in her admission. Lying rarely occurred to her and, well, it was clear the woman had already realized Nuala's intents. "You seem familiar with such things."

"Vikings?" Cassandra had heard of that people sending their dead to the sea--and perhaps more recently, the island peoples. She wasn't so certain that it was the best idea to send the deceased into the waters, either, but...interring them into the ground was questionable. No good way to send them off. Though were she asked, sky burials weren't bad--at least then they were perpetuating a cycle. Or cremation...

"Undead. Zombies, usually, but I've heard of others. Necromancers' work." The Euthanatos' lip curled derisively at that--her Tradition had always looked down on true necromancers--studying death was one thing, but cultivating it?

"Well, we found it." Cassandra shrugged as well, gesturing at the sealed gate. "By trade, yes, I am." Not that there was any bragging in her tone, she was simply stating a fact. "I've encountered their ilk before. Why they're sealed in there, I'm not certain, but I can sense there's...something off about them. Besides their stench. What, though, I couldn't tell you at the moment."

On her world, or the one she'd first jumped to, they hadn't had anything precisely like this, though Dysart's zombies had come close, disgusting as they were.

“Don’t worry about it, Miss...” Came the response, the stranger quick to reach out to steady the woman post collision. Caelan had been wandering the harbour district for the very similar reasons as she, even if his intentions were a little different in some ways. But distractions so close to the sea were natural for their sort, it could be hard to not let it overwhelm. Especially after ending up in this absolute mess of a world, with it’s many questions and too few answers.

He opened his mouth to ask if she needed assistance, but she was wandering away again already. Clearly the woman drawn towards a very important destination. Humming lightly, head tilting rather comically at the strangers retreating form. Interesting...

Well, letting her wander only to bump into a less gentlemanly sort later on wouldn’t do. Not with the amount of unsavoury sorts that seemed to be meandering about (not that he didn’t count himself among their number in a way) looking for easy marks. He followed, at a distance to be less conspicuous and to avoid alarming her, but near enough to step in should some sort of trouble roll around a corner.

None comes, but... Her delight over the half finished ship brings another curious raise to his brow. “Lovely indeed, pity she was left incomplete.” He finally spoke up, coming to a stop a few steps from the dry dock.

She hadn't stopped to give a name, instead just taking his statement to not worry about it at face value. When someone says to not worry about it, they usually mean it, right? At least that was what she went with. Perhaps though it was simply a convenient way for her to excuse herself while she tunnel visioned the destination she was interested in. Regardless, she hardly meant to be rude, even if she came off as it quite a bit sometimes.

When the same man appeared again she wasn't particularly startled or surprised. Instead she offered up a small smile and nodded her head.

"Indeed. Unfortunate for those who might need one to explore," luckily she wouldn't fit into that category herself. She tilted her head to the left inquisitively. "Perhaps someone will be able to fix her. I imagine she was quite lovely when she was whole. It makes you wonder what sort of people used her, doesn't it? Where did they sail to?" And more importantly, where had they gone to? Why had it all been left like this? Those curiosities she kept to herself though. There was no need to bombard a stranger with all the questions in her own mind.

"You're the one I ran into on my way," her tone had an apologetic hint to it. "Fionnuala," she paused briefly. "That's my name."

“If our hosts thought to abscond with a few of another world’s carpenters perhaps?” He responded with a wry smile, rather uncertain of their logic given that they had dragged him here. What good was a thief at rebuilding anything, and one who worked with a group seemed even more useless without said group. It’s an interesting line of thought that she posed though, “Indeed it does, and makes you wonder what other shores are out there waiting to be explored. Are their harbours more full of life than this? Do they have as many secrets to keep? It’s a curious thought.”

The man smiled more genuinely a moment later at her apologetic tone, waving it off with an easy shrug, “I certainly am. Hope you don’t mind my intrusion on your wandering. I’ve seen a few unpleasant sorts milling about the district, thought it best to see that you got where you were going without bumping into one of them next.”

Of course, introductions were probably in order. He tended to gloss over them until he felt like he knew a person better, if they were the sort he’d like to get to know well enough to need to remember their name. She definitely was fitting into the category, and he was practiced enough in human social etiquette to not ignore it. “Nice to meet you Fionnuala. You can call me Caelan.”

"They intend for us to rebuild, so I imagine they have. Or will." It didn't occur to her that their hosts may have lied about their intentions. Why would it? What purpose would lying about their purpose here serve their hosts? Besides kidnapping their hosts hadn't precisely done anything to them, which lent some level of credibility to their claims. Either way, Nuala had no reason to not believe their reasoning behind the kidnapping. The only odd part to her was that she had been taken at all. There was little she could imagine herself offering towards the rebuilding of a world.

"If there are ships then there are other shores. I wonder how long it has been since these people have interacted with people beyond their own shores?" The condition of the ships made it seem like they had not been used in quite a long time. How long had the people here been isolated from the rest of this place? More than anything however she wondered what might be found in the water. Though that she kept to herself.

She let out a tiny little melodic laugh at his explanation and shook her head. "I'm afraid sometimes I find myself a bit too focused on the object of my curiosity. That was a very kind of you to think of protecting me, Caelan. Now I wonder if I should have been a bit more cautious."

But what's done was done so she simply gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. "Most call me Nuala. They find it easier."

Caelan was... a little less trusting in situations like this, more prone to looking for possible angles that another might have in such a situation. He was used to looking out for the team and for others, he’d seen more than enough fae in bad situations and needing help than he cared to admit. So their hosts? He wasn’t ready to give them the benefit of the doubt yet, not until he unlocked all the locked doors and worked a few curiosities out of his system.

“I would say it depends on what happened here in the first place and why the ships were allowed to fall into such a state. Seems like a long time by the looks of it though... ” Caelan was eager to search these waters himself, though he was showing some restraint if only because there was a lot to parse through since arriving to begin with. Not to mention, there were a lot of wanderers around the harbour district at the moment. Best to wait for a time when a selkie could find a little more privacy.

He focused instead on the subject of her curiosity and the thanks she’d offered. He waved it off lightly, tone kind as he responded. “Think nothing of it, I know what it is to be too focused on something... I’m just glad I was able to offer a little protection while you got to where you wanted to go. We shore dwellers must look out for one another, right?” Caelan presumed she at least lived near water, her interest and the way she thought about the place made it seem like a safe guess.

“Oh, do they now? Well... I find Fionnuala as easy as Nuala, as it is such a lovely name. But, if you insist I shall call you as you like.” He added with a little grin, the name rolled off his tongue easily enough in his opinion.

"They did seem to leave that part out, did they not?" she pauses for a second and then repeats what the woman had said upon her arrival, "A great calamity caused the death of the world. That seems like a rather lackluster description. It makes one wonder what sort of calamity could cause such immense disaster?" And how was this small area spared? A thought flickered to life in her mind as she thought about the words they had all been given.

"What if there is nothing else left? They wish for us to be rebuild, but to what extent is the damage? Like you say, it must have happened quite some time ago for a ship to fall into such disrepair. That begs the question as to why it's simply been left like this. Is there nobody already here that could repair things or do they know something we do not?" She shakes her head as she returns her gaze out to the ocean. "Curious indeed." After a second she returns her focus back to Caelan and chuckles.

"Well, you have my thanks regardless of if I should think nothing of it or not." She smiles. "Shore dwellers. Yes, I suppose that describes me sometimes. I have always had a fondness for the sea. You could say I was born drawn to it." Well, one could say much more than that, but there was danger in revealing too much about what she was. She knew that much all too well.

"I will answer to either. Though it is nice to hear my full name for a change." She had gotten rather used to just answering to the more simple and short form of it.

The questions she posed were unsettling in their own way, but still good ones to be asked. There was too much to consider in a situation like this, especially when the average person would have no way to seek the answers other than ask. Those who could travel the waters more easily though? They stood a chance at figuring that out. “Now you’re asking excellent questions, Fionnuala.” Yes, he’s definitely going to continue to use the full name. A familiar sounding name in a strange world is a comfort in its own way.

Caelan would find himself a little more curious at what she meant by the statement. The likely answer was she was just a human that was fond of the sea, or perhaps descended from the union between an ocean fae and a human where the pull was natural but small. Or... Well, he doubted it, but she could have been like him. The first seemed more likely, but he did appreciate her clear love for the sea. “I think I can understand that... It does have a lovely voice after all, hard to resist its charm even on a stormy day.”

In some ways, one could say that like was drawn to like. Even if neither of them quite realized just how alike they were in a literal sense.

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Test Drive - 001

Fionnuala || Original Character

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