2nd Event: Choices We Make

[upcyclingmod]

Welcome to the Test Drive Meme.
| Premise | FAQ | Full Navigation | Rules | Reserves |

Arrival


Not all characters (known as Wickie, singular or Wickies, plural) arrive at the same time, surprisingly enough! That’s life for you. Some Wickies find their way to the island at a pivotal (or very mundane) point in their life, or even after or during their death.

Wickies who were standing or walking often find themselves entering the town South Sister, located on Lighthouse Isle, through an open doorway. Those that were laying down, or sleeping, tend to be found lying prone in beds, bathtubs, showers, couches, and similar places within the cottages on Cottage Row. There’s no rhyme or reason to it all! To Wickies familiar with the era, they will realize that everything looks as if it’s come from the ‘90s.

The house which a Wickie finds themselves within could already be occupied. This includes walking into a fellow Wicke, waking up in the same location, or accidentally scaring a room full of people with their sudden appearance.

Oops.

C-C-Changes

Thankfully the fog has gone down to what it was before, a slow creeping crawl over the ground. And too, the monsters of before are gone, leaving the town much like it was before. Well...close to what it was before.

For now the season's have changed, from a lingering summer to a cooler fall.

There’s new foods to try, even if some things like lattes cause people to slip into warm boots and tie up their hair, and soups make people curl up under blankets on the couch. And it also means decorations of all sorts, made of the leaves from the forest, orange, yellow and red things and...we can not forget...

Pumpkin overflow

Pumpkins! They're everywhere. Wickies will find pumpkins infused into all sorts of things, like coffee, ice cream, even spaghetti options! It's wild.

There’s also many jack o'lanterns. They have been placed everywhere in town, outside homes, and even small ones have been made into table decorations. The Jack o lanterns have very cheerful faces, and seem to watch Wickies every single move.

That is, until a Wickie bashes or otherwise abuses a pumpkin. That's when it changes- there seem to be more of them. Their expressions change to that of anger, sadness and disgust. None of them attack- yet. But their faces become more and more horrifying, as they follow the Wickie more and more- outside of the bathroom perhaps, or found on top of them as the Wickie wakes up in the middle of the night.

It shouldn't matter right? They're only pumpkins.

What a ride

Funny enough, with the pumpkin invasion, there also comes a dull colored horse wandering about the island. Its head is drooped, and it looks depressed and lonely. The horse is tame on approach and will accept pats and treats, even from those who are obviously not human.

But it also wants something, for all that it seems to be begging for attention. It wants someone to ride them, seems to even be begging for it with its big eyes. The horse will help Wickies to figure out how to mount; it will even stand beside the Town Center benches, rocks, or even go down in order to make it possible for the Wickie to get onto the horse’s back.

That’s when it changes. The Wickie is immediately wrapped in chains from their barrel to the Wickie’s waist. The horse turns a coal black and the Wickie’s clothing changes into that of a soldier's uniform, with a hand either holding a whip modeled after a human spine, or a jack o'lantern.

The Wickie cannot get off the horse on their own, no matter how much they struggle. As the horse moves throughout the town, they will go anywhere from a walk to a full canter, seemingly impervious to any magic or physical attacks. The same cannot be said for their unfortunate rider.

If the rider is hit, or simply in pain, the Wickie will feel an impulse that grows and grows until they scream a name of someone in town, someone they know.

And the named will drop, paralyzed. Paralyzed wickie are likely to die within minutes, more so if they are too close to horse and rider. The horse will happily trample anyone on the ground to death.

Even without the impulse, should the Wickie rider use anyone’s name, that person will drop, paralyzed, and unable to breathe.

There is only one way to possibly save the rider: scatter golden objects in their path. The horse will shriek, and promptly buck the rider off, before running away. Just make sure to catch the rider, or at least cushion their fall: they have no way of saving themselves until they hit the ground.

Heart game: confession

Current residents of the island may remember this particular beeping alert, and how it doesn’t go away, no matter what they do! That is, unless they open up the Heart Game, and answer the question.

Welcome back everyone! It’s so good to see you again! Now let’s play that game, Confession! And the question isssssss…

How do you celebrate the changing seasons! Don't be shy!

Comments

a.

[wray]

[ six is still getting used to his bearings by the time it feels like someone else has wound up in the same place as him. he was on his way to another area in the house when he is stopped short by a noise coming from the bathroom.

his hand hovers above where he keeps his daggers, just in case. it's hidden behind his cloak for now. ]

... Again? [ what an odd thing to say. ] This happens to you often?

[ waking up in a bathtub, that is. ]

[stargazed]

[Well, she'll take someone else being here even if it's not someone she knows. Opening the door a bit cautiously, she looks out into the room beyond to see who else is here with her.]

Not this in particular. But waking up in unusual places happens often enough. [Often enough to be a bother, going by her tone, but she seems to move past that quickly enough since she doesn't particularly want to go into detail. Moving entirely out of cover doesn't seem like a great idea when she knows nothing about this place, but she's not getting anywhere else standing in the bathroom, so after a moment she steps out properly into the room.] Did you appear somewhere else in this house or were you already here?

[wray]

[ if this was someone who wanted to attack him, they would have done so already, and that realization is enough for him to relax his stance a little, moving his hand away from where his weapons are. not that he drops his guard entirely— just in case.

he crosses his arms over his chest, left ear dipping to the side in consideration of the response given to him. how awkward it must be to wake up in strange places often... but it's not something he can judge someone else over.

he'll focus on the question instead. ]

I appeared the same way you did, not too long ago. There is no one else in this house.

[ no one else who at least knows what's going on. ]

[stargazed]

[Mikumo scans the room briefly before her gaze settles on the other man, looking him up and down too. She notices the slight shift in posture, but she's not readily trusting when dropped into a situation she's entirely unfamiliar with like this.

Still, they're lost together, apparently, so she sees no reason not to be civil. Even if she frowns slightly at the revelation there's nobody else in here, looking as if she's considering their options.]

Well, at least we didn't drop in on anyone, but that doesn't help us find out what or where this place is. If you've checked the rest of the house for people, did you see any sign of useful information? We may as well go outside if not.

[More potential for things to go wrong outside, probably, but if they find other people then there's a higher chance they'll actually get some answers. She hopes.]

[wray]

[ at her next question, six could only shake his head — nothing turned up when he did a full search of the house. it looks like a regular home, nothing out of the ordinary beyond the fact that two people woke up in here for no reason at all. ]

I found nothing that would be of use to us right now. Heading outside was my next move until I noticed your arrival.

[ at least her suggestion aligns with what he already has in mind. he jerks his head towards the left, gesturing that the front door is over here as he starts heading towards it. ]

Do you know how to fight?

[ might as well get that out of the way. ]

[stargazed]

[Mikumo doesn't seem surprised by the answer she gets - she wasn't expecting it to be that easy. It's almost never that easy, in her experience, but it would be very nice if it could be once every so often.

Nonetheless, she doesn't hesitate, already starting to move as she answers his question. She has trouble staying in one place when there's things to be found out, but at least this time she's not wandering off as a lone wolf like she does half the time in her world.]

Yes, but I don't have a weapon. I might have prepared better if I knew this was going to happen.

[Lifting the gun of someone from Delta Flight seems like it would be forgiven considering the circumstances.] You're armed, aren't you?

[She's worked almost her whole life with soldiers, so telling a fighter apart from a civilian is one of the few body language related things she's good at.]

[wray]

[ it takes six a moment to decide what he should do next before he trails after she left.

he reaches behind the same spot he'd went for when he first realized that he wasn't alone in the house, drawing out a light, thin dagger that he offers to her without much hesitation. if she wanted to kill him, she would have already done so much earlier, and if she's waiting for a later opportunity, then he would be ready for her regardless— but it's not in him to leave someone unable to defend themselves in an unknown world like this. ]

Here. [ a beat. ] Keep it.

[ that should answer her question too; two birds with one simple stone.

he doesn't bother overtaking her pace when they head outside of the house, opting to lag a little bit behind just in case someone tries to sneak up on them. their immediate surroundings don't look don't look all that dangerous, but he knows better than to be fooled by first impressions.

what's more unnerving is the insane amount of pumpkins everywhere, which he is definitely staring at, intensely so. ]

[stargazed]

[That hadn't quite been her intention, and she seems a little surprised to be offered - she's not terribly used to dealing with random people who aren't enemies of late. But it would certainly be better to have a weapon than be without one, so it's only a brief hesitation before she takes it.]

Thank you. [She seems to test the grip for a moment, as if reminding herself how to wield a short blade, before tucking it away in a layer of her clothing where she can easily access it. Guns are vastly more common in her world, but she was engineered with a lot of seemingly incidental battlefield knowledge, including certain weapons that weren't completely outdated but only really used when one was desperate and had no other options.]

If I can return the favour, let me know. For now... [She eyes their current vicinity. It definitely looks a lot better than many of the places she shows up in for work, notably the active battlefield ones, but the abundance of pumpkins is...strange.]

...those are pumpkins, aren't they? [She sounds reasonably confident in her assessment, but also like she hasn't seen pumpkins carved like this before and it's throwing her off.]

[wray]

[ six's ears dip from side to side as he considers the pumpkins for a moment. he heard what she said about returning the favour, but that's something he'll address after he finds out the truth about these things. slowly, he approaches one of the friendlier-looking ones and toes it with his left foot.

nothing happens, which almost feels anti-climactic. ]

That appears to be the case. I don't believe they can be a threat, but I have been proven wrong before.

[ case in point: the fact that he doesn't notice how some of the other pumpkins' expressions have slowly turned sinister behind him when he turns around to face the one he's addressing. ]

[stargazed]

[Mikumo only gets a bit closer herself, but is content to let him be the first one to investigate them properly. That said, she's close enough to have full and glorious view when the pumpkins' expressions change as soon as he turns around, and the way her brows arch despite the lack of general expression change otherwise is hard to miss.]

Perhaps not a threat, but they don't look very happy all of a sudden. [She sounds somewhere between curious and amused. It's an interesting development, if nothing else.] I don't think I've seen a planet that grows sentient vegetables before. It seems like a bit of a moral problem.

[Particularly for vegetarians. Her home planet largely only grows things underwater, but a few of the others she's visited for work are more agricultural.]

[wray]

[ six barely notices the shift in her expression but something about what she says gets him to tilt his head to the side, visibly confused. his ears twitch, mildly irritated, because he can tell when someone is amused or not... but when he turns around, he realizes it wasn't about him at all.

oh. those sure weren't the expressions these pumpkins were sporting earlier. ]

More often than not, sentient plants where I'm from tend to be monsters. [ compared to those, the pumpkins are a lot friendlier (?!). ]

It might be best to just leave them be.

[ he won't be touching any of them with his foot again. ]

[stargazed]

[Mikumo lets him make his own discovery of why she's amused, though it only seems to make her slight smile widen a bit.]

Most likely. If your experience says monsters and mine says unknown, it does seem the safer option until we know more about this place.

[That said, she waves a hand towards the row of houses that includes the one they just came out of.] This looks to be a residential street and it's not in total disrepair. Maybe we can find a city centre somewhere, or at least other residents.

[If nothing else, it would appear this place is populated. By who or what is the real question at this point.]