TDM 010: PARTNER UP, PARTNER

[erkumods]

TDM 010: PARTNER UP, PARTNER

00. Arrival This time, you come out of the water, the Nameless Island's own inherent energy drawing people in. It's like being suspended between realities and abruptly pushed from behind through a rift in dimensions. It may make you sick, or that might be the motion of the ocean, lifting you to the surface and carrying you to shore. Waterlogged and covered in sand, new arrivals will be greeted by robots who welcome them with towels and bracelet devices. The A5 card is already loaded up. Feel free to explore the Island, though there isn’t much to see. Most of the buildings are abandoned and in dire need of repair, and beyond the city lingers a thick fog that obscures much of the wilderness from view. Wander too far into this fog, and you will find yourself mysteriously looping back to where you began, your memories of what you were doing and how you got there erased. With that in mind, it may be wise to stake your claim on a rundown apartment, a tent on the beach, or a bed in the “comfortable” barracks. Your inventory will be found a day later, wrapped up haphazardly and delivered to each person's makeshift home. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● I. Laid Bare Basics There is a new addition to the scenery at the beach, and everyone is welcome! Especially new arrivals, who will be ushered to the recently-established Laid Bare Spa, where (provided they don't slip away from the bots' helpful grasp) their uncomfortably wet, sandy clothing will be stripped away and they will be lovingly pampered by the cold metal hands of the resident robots. Long-time Islanders and newbies alike are welcome to enjoy such amenities as hot and cold baths, sauna rooms, scrub-downs, thorough whippings with birch brooms, skin treatments, massage and energy work, and more! All rooms are thoughtfully decorated with tasteful murals of naked and disrobing bodies. Maybe you'll see someone you recognize?! (Maybe you'll see... you?) Islanders who happen to find their clothing mysteriously missing are welcome to borrow a Laid Bare branded towel to cover up with on their way home. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● II. Tattoo to You, Too The Augur understands that sometimes, it's difficult to find a partner to indulge you in those favorite Auspicious Acts - especially for new arrivals, but surely even long-time residents could benefit from a little assistance now and then. That is why ever-benevolent entity has gifted Her precious Islanders with tattoos which feature their most secret, urgent, and/or shameful of desires! (Even if that desire is to simply complete a Bingo.) The tattoo may be a picture or a word, and it can appear anywhere on the body. At first it is pleasantly warm to the touch, like a soft glow of light on your skin. It soon becomes apparent - through either robot advice or a notification on your communication device - that your task is to find a match for your tattoo and complete the depicted act with that person. The longer one goes without completing the act, the more the tattoo seems to heat up, until it feels like it is burning into your skin. Take too long, and the tattoo may become permanent. Otherwise, the tattoo will fade within hours of completing the Auspicious Act. [ For TDMers: feel free to select any favorite kink for this prompt! If you complete a kink that doesn't appear on your card, you may switch one square for the completed kink. For current players: by participating on (tagging into) this TDM, you may switch one kink into your card (it must be the kink in the toplevel prompt you responded to). ] ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● III. Creepy Crawly Caterpillar Crawl Are you on the hunt for credits? Then have the robots got a task for you! The 'bots of the Nameless Island are recruiting Islanders to go bug collecting in the caves, crevices, and hollowed-out logs of the wilderness. The quarry? The (shudder - literally, the robots will shudder) doom-summoning harbinger bug. They describe these creepy creatures as fat, fuzzy, and rainbow-colored, with long, fluffy antennae that look like rabbit's ears. The robots describe these critters as so dangerous that Islanders should only hunt them in pairs. Should your team return successful, you both will be rewarded very handsomely for every caterpillar caught! The bugs are typically very docile and seem to enjoy soft pets, judging by the cooing and squeaking noises they make (especially to scritches behind their "ears"). Poke or disturb them however, and they may bite! Body parts bitten by angry caterpillars will swell up cartoonishly, and can only be treated by having someone else suck the venom out. Good thing you're traveling with a partner! The 'bots strongly recommend against keeping these little buggies as pets, but they're not your dad. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● N A V I G A T I O N

Comments

01. Bath Chatter

[vegalthon]

If the new arrival seemed fussed about his current state, Oran had no qualms about it. The tiefling was a sucker for getting into hot water of all kinds, so though he knew there was always a risk, he couldn't resist settling in for a soak.

Though he looked decidedly odd undressed, he didn't seem all that shy. Dressed only in golden horn caps and little golden chains from one to the other, he leaned to one side. "Hello, stranger." He was feeling his oats, today. "Want a hand?"

[gloriouslygood]

Shaun bent forward to dip his hair in the water and start washing the salt from the curls. They had tightened so much from the salt water. They were going to tangle something awful if he didn't tend to them.

He glanced over at the company in the bath with him. A tiefling, a familiar sight from home. How wonderful.

"You wouldn't happen to know where some soap and conditioner would be, would you?" he asked as he combed his fingers through the long, black locks. "I must tend to this mess before it becomes a nest of snakes."

[vegalthon]

"In easy reach," Oran replied. There were baskets with all the necessities (and then some, but Oran can read the room and he wasn't about to toss any of the robots' additions at a man looking for a wash) not too far away, and Oran flicked a mage hand over to nudge one off the table, leaning out of the bath to catch it before everything could go spilling across the tiles.

Before he passed them right over, he went through each and every one and, shortly after: "Aha, they've actually labelled these. You've got to be careful. Even a whiff of some of these can be detrimental to your loins, if not your locks." That warning said, at least, he passes everything over. "The hearts contain a kind of, ah, charm. The robots can be incredibly persistent."

[gloriouslygood]

"Perhaps once I've prevented my hair from turning into a rat's nest I could be in the mood for such activities." But he did not want to spend two hours or more combing out his hair. Shaun was reluctant to use magic after it seemingly brought him to this place. He was a little worried after all these years he had suddenly developed wild magic or some such nonsense.

He reads the bottles before he sets them on the edge of the bathing pool and keeps only the shampoo. He pours a generous amount and starts to carefully work it through the tight curls. While he scrubbed he considered his companion.

"I've heard a few things about the way this place encourages certain activities. How have you found it to be here? Kind? Cruel?" He was curious to get more opinions on this strange island and it's strange behavior.

[vegalthon]

"Ah... both, definitely both." Oran settled back into the water, his overlong tail flicking up a wickedly pointed blade nearer the middle of the huge tub. Closing his eyes and enjoying the scent of the shampoo wafting in the humid air, he gave a loose shrug.

"The Augur some kind of god of... not love, exactly, or a being that might as well be. What it thinks is kind seems to vary from one tenday to the next. Er, one week to the next."

Cracking one eye open, he gave his companion a sympathetic smile. "I'm afraid the salt water can be the least of your worries, sometimes, but people living here are working on... resolving that."

[gloriouslygood]

The Augur. That's the first time someone had given him a name to the force that pulled them here. Searching his memory of deities and beings the Augur didn't ring a bell at all unfortunately.

"And what exactly are they working on?" he asked curiously. If someone was trying to find a way to get them home Shaun would like to help. As interesting as a sex based economy was in theory he wasn't sure he liked it in practice.

Time would tell.

He bent forward again to wash the first round of shampoo out of his hair. He liked to wash it multiple times.

[vegalthon]

"Speaking with her," Oran said, "was like trying to understand a dream while still in it. Every sign points to 'restoring the island to its former glory', and if the little robots are to be believed, that means a sex-obsessed civilization that frankly seems better off floating at sea.

"The people here who don't believe in gods think that it's something called a program, and that it's not working correctly. I don't quite see how that's any different from a god or... or a fey thing going insane, but apparently it's fixable? Nobody seems to have the skill to pinpoint what to fix, though, so in the meantime, we're all left twisting in the wind, a little."

Seeing as how the newcomer is busy with rinsing and repeating, Oran doesn't see any reason not to fill the space. He's a gossip, after all. "It's not all bad. Time is strange, here, for better or worse. And... there's something to be said for earning your daily bread in bed. It's easy to make friends, and nobody has yet got it in their head to do anything stupid like become a public enemy. We're all sort of skirting around one another trying to figure out who is actually going to be able to do anything about the Augur, and having varying levels of success either working for her or against her... or both."

[gloriouslygood]

To be fair this wouldn't be the first sex obsessed society to exist. There were some scattered throughout history though they were mostly cults as far as Shaun knew. None had taken over a whole island.

"A program?" Shaun was rather fascinated by that idea. It didn't make any sense. If a program could control a whole island and pull people here, wasn't that just a God? Or something playing at being one. He really needed to find these people and pick their minds about the problem. It sounded like a fascinating puzzle to solve in between meeting the demands of the island itself.

He stood up after the second rinse and began to gently work his fingers through the strands, carefully combing them. "It's a strange basis for an economy. But then again, I don't think it's about economy, it's about power. Many things feed off sexual energy. Why not this Augur? What other reason do you have to make people have sex?"

Here only a few hours and Shaun was already trying to pick apart the veil of mystery. Ah, he must be bored of the luxury and he missed home. What would happen to his business if he was trapped on another plane of existence?