ateratooc | Test Drive

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

"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.

Test Drive - 001

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