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TDM018: TRICKS AND TREATS
TDM018: TRICKS AND TREATS |
Uploading user data to environmental systems. . . please wait. ![]() Augmentations c̴̦͋o̷͓̺̘̓m̸̮̈̾́p̸̻̃l̵̠̱̤̅e̷̢̧̺͐̃̽t̸͈̓ḙ̴͙̓͘. Proceed . . .? Y/N > Y ![]() Your eyes blink open to the blinding glare of overhead lights and the sight of a pair of glassy mechanical eyes boring into your own. The face above yours moves like liquid mercury, forming an approximation of a figure that you recognize and trust implicitly: a friend, a loved one, a caretaker. Perhaps even a god or a goddess. From its lips fall the patterns of a language that is strange and robotic, and yet familiar to you: Welcome to the N̵̩̈́̓ä̶͇́͂͘m̸̠͒e̴̞̻̾ͅl̷̹̄͝ḙ̷̺͗s̵̳͊̀ṣ̵̱̚ͅ ̶̧͒̄Í̴͔s̵̡̛̺̍̓ļ̵̥͖̄͛͌ḁ̸̳̟̒́n̵̻͑́͗d̴̩͕̰̂̊̔ Darkness overtakes you once again. I. Arrival ![]() When you awake, you find you have washed up on the otherworldly pink sands of an impossibly beautiful beach, the tropical scenery spoiled only slightly by your seasickness. New arrivals, waterlogged and covered in sand, will be greeted by robots who welcome them with towels and bracelet devices. The A5 card is already loaded up. If you don’t manage to get away from them quickly enough, they may even usher you toward the Laid Bare Spa, where new arrivals will be offered free massages, a sauna, hairstyling, and their clothing may come up permanently missing. But you will be given a complimentary towel to leave with if needed! Feel free to explore the Island, all is available for your use. Stake your claim on a place to live in the now, whether an apartment in the City, a shack on the beach, or a bigger space at the House of Worship with friends. Your inventory will be found a day later, wrapped up haphazardly and delivered to each arrival's home. II. Spooky Scavenger Hunt ![]() Even with the Nameless Island reborn and open to your every whim, the robots still like to provide stimulating opportunities for people to get to know one another and earn some credits. But instead of the manual labor typical of the previous situation, they have engineered a scavenger hunt in honor of the Island's new autumn scenery! Islanders will find themselves pulled off the street, from inside establishments, and even from outside their own homes and paired with a partner. Their bracelets will be scanned and they will both find identical messages in their inboxes detailed they have 24 hours to find 10 randomized items on their list provided. Do so and bring them back (or take a picture if they are too big) to the Scavenger Station and they’ll receive a hefty reward of credits! Bonus Credits if they can show proof or pictures of the items being put to use before they turn them in. The robots certainly encourage the full scavenger hunt experience. The items can be found anywhere in the City. Sometimes in likely places and other times in a place you might not even consider (on other Islanders, for example?), although each team’s list will provide clues of where to look.
… and more! (Feel free to get creative! Items can range from silly to outright explicit.) III. Two Moon Film Festival ![]() In order to promote the various community college classes available at the Library for Islander enrichment, the resident robots have cooked up a very special opportunity for Islanders to show off the new skills they have been practicing in their Amateur Porn classes to the growing Erku community: the Two Moon Film Festival! Everyone on the island, both new and old, gets a ticket for the festival itself. In the meantime, there are openings for pairs and groups to participate in creating the entries that will be showcased at said festival. Up for a creative challenge? Found yourself involuntarily signed up and unable to back out? One way or another, many Islanders are now entered into the film-making contest. New arrivals are encouraged to buddy up with Islanders who attended the classes, but anyone is welcome and encouraged to shoot their shot! Each duo or group that participates is to meet at the Library at sundown for their assignments: a genre, a line of dialogue, a character type or name, and a prop, all of which are randomized and different per group. You now have until sundown two days from now to create a short movie that incorporates at least three of the four items. Everything they need, from equipment to props and costumes, will be provided. Engaging and interactive VR sets can be programmed by helpful robots, and catering is available to help keep the crews properly fueled up. The punch and pie provided have the added effect of inspiring great bursts of creativity (and for a lucky few, horniness) in those who consume them. Following the deadline, all finished entries will debut on the big screen at Two Moon Film Festival, hosted by the Full Moon(ty) Theater. Chat up other contestants and the viewers before and afterward, laugh at the cringeworthy moments and bad acting, and aim for winning the Audience's Choice Award! All entrants to the contest earn one small reward of their choosing, while the winners of the contest will each receive one free BINGO-level request from the Augur! [ OOC: Shout out of thanks to ![]() Load Simulation . . .? Y/N READY: Simulation 1.1 Tenebrae Town ![]() Your consciousness comes to you in the midst of a dense autumn forest. You haven't been asleep. You stand there, fully clothed, but perhaps not in your usual attire - perhaps you're wearing a belted tunic with trousers and leather boots to protect you from the cold ground, or a long and modest dress with an apron and a hood, hand-sewn in natural fabrics. The chill in the air and even the smell of the dirt and the trees are not like those of the Island. This place feels old, a strange energy crackling in the air. Some may recognize it as a very ancient magic. In the distance, colorful lights dance between the trees. Approach closely enough and they look like fairies, but they are always just out of your reach. Are they leading you somewhere? No - if you follow them, as they seem to bid you, they will only lead you deeper into danger: a snarling wolf, a sudden drop into a craggy ravine. They are mischievous, sometimes cruel little things. You'll never escape this forest by yourself. For as long as you are alone, the night is interminable - days long, it seems. Are you the determined sort, willing to choose a direction and continue walking no matter what, or will you give into despair of being hopelessly lost? With any luck, it won't take you long to find out that your only way out is with the help of someone else. Only by agreeing to work together will the dawn finally break, and your path into Tenebrae Town will become clear. Should you refuse, or never cross paths with another Islander? Maybe the wolves will take you in. OOC Notes:To accommodate our smaller community and split-setting environment, TDMs going forward will be open to old and new players for top levels! Please state in your subject line whether you are a TDMing a new character, or top-leveling with a character currently in the game! Voting for Audience Choice Awards for Prompt III will be held in November. Threads should be started by the time you submit your entries, but need not be finished in order to win! Entries will still be valid if they include characters who TDMed but did not apply to the game. ALL participants in the contest may handwave one small Augur reward request equivalent to an incomplete thread reward. N A V I G A T I O N |
it's totally uncanny like wow!! i'm also new to writing doppo so plz bear with me
[ SO MANY QUESTIONS but would asking them just confused him more? Probably. Whatever, he's glad his partner isn't lecherous. You'd think an island like this would have more people like that.
Although what does that say about Doppo ugh not this rabbit hole again...]Ah, well. I'm still figuring this out myself, but it does seem to function a lot like a phone. [ It'll come in handy, no pun intended. ] You should have more than that if you scroll down... The list is a bit disturbing though. [ A sexy wizard costume...Doppo imagines it to be something one would see in an MMO. Not that he would know. Ahem. A lot of these items are pretty self-explanatory, but... ]
Monster cuffs... [ It doesn't matter which image he goes with; all of them make him shudder. ] I'm not sure I want to know, but I have a feeling we'll recognize it when we see it. Should we go with what sounds the easiest? Um...it shouldn't be difficult to spot a... [ He looks at the list, and reads it out loud with a groan. ] ...tombstone...with a...hole...
its okay doppo is my fave and i love him already
Woah, I didn't know it could do that. Thanks! Are you used to items like these?
[Oh right, the scavenger hunt. The poor man looked absolutely embarrassed about this type of stuff and Cain couldn't blame him. Maybe it was because he was a wizard that it bothered him a bit less, but they also weren't surrounded by people he knew either. That was an advantage.]
Well, it just says we have to find them. I don't think they're going to be used for anything special. Gotta admit though it is pretty forward, isn't it? I mean costumes and monster cuffs sound fine but I'm not even sure what a glory hole is.
[....so sorry Doppo. They probably have different terminology where he's from.]
;; ty and i love this himbo!
The fact that Cain apparently has never heard of a glory hole kind of makes Doppo hate himself a little more for knowing exactly what that is.
Listen...shut up.But instead of giving this seemingly pure guy (wizard? whatever!) an answer, he's just going to try to stammer this along and starts walking in...whatever direction where a tombstone may be. Hopefully, it's not a real one in that they'd have to commit a grave robbery. ]W-who knows...but a tombstone should be self-explanatory. [ Maybe it'll have Doppo's name on it because maybe this is some kinky layer of hell that his tired soul has been brought to. He doesn't want to think about that anymore, so this is a good time to get to know Cain more, and get a better understanding of just where the heck he's from. ]
Cain-kun, you said you're a...wizard? [ Explain????? Forgive Doppo for thinking a wizard would either look like an old man with a pointy hat or a skimpy anime girl avatar. Cain seems neither. ]
:3c
He did have a point though. Context aside, it probably was a tombstone with a hole so he was happy to follow the man where he wanted to go. Doppo didn't seem like he was having a good time and if Cain could help him out even a little, it was worth it.
He would do his best to be friendly.]
Sure, you're the expert. You can take the lead!
And yeah, I am. I guess...I don't know, people expect us to look different? But we look like most other humans, just we can use magic, we don't age past a certain point and well, we turn to stone when we die. I'm guessing you're not from my world, are you?
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No, definitely not. [ He catches himself then, bowing his head. ] I'm sorry, that sounded rude. I just meant...where you're from, even if you look pretty human to me, your world sounds more exciting than the one I know. For one thing, magic isn't real... [
I mean, he engages in rap battles because it's how problems get resolved but pshhh that ain't magic and it's nbd!]And even your way of dying sounds nicer. [ Cleaner, for one. Much less messy for those that pick up the body...though he supposes that'd be embalmers out of the job - ]
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Huh? Haha, you're fine. It's not rude at all if you're just learning about someone-I've had way worse hurled at me.
[Honestly Cain would love rap battles. Please do not teach him about hypnosis mics unless you want him to be even more annoying.]
Anything sounds exciting if you've never experienced it before. But I must admit I can see where you're coming from. I'm still new to learning magic, and Oz can do so many things I could never dream are possible. Yet the sage also speaks of machines that can fly faster than birds in the sky, screens that light up and sparkle, and these movies they are showing, they are a kind of magic to me! I've never seen the like.
But...please don't say that. Dying is a terrible thing to happen, wizard or human. I'd be sad if you were gone.
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I'm sorry, that was also out of line of me. [ So what if he's in a strange place that somehow runs on sexual energy...there's no reason for him to take it out on someone who is stuck here just like him, even if it's unintentional on Doppo's part. ] Things just have been...well, "weird" sounds like an understatement but it still applies. Back to what you were saying, what you've just described are what exists for me. Machines that fly are called airplanes or helicopters, for one.
[ And he's about to go on about signs and films, but he stops in his tracks when he notices one of their items on the ground nearby. It is indeed a tombstone with a...glory hole and it horrifies Doppo as he predicted. ]
...I don't know if I want to touch it. How do we know it's not used?
also sorry charger died so tags will probably be delayed
I may have just met you, but you are a very gentle and handsome man. I mean I feel at ease with you and I think we could be good friends. Besides, what kind of knight would I be if I didn't want to help out?
[Oh but maybe he shouldn't focus on it. Eastern people never liked talking about their emotions, did they?]
I would love to see an airplane sometime but-oh, is this the gravestone?
[Cain kneeled down in front of it, peering into the hole without an ounce of trepidation that Doppo had.
It helped he didn't know what exactly it was for.At least he didn't feel the need to touch it....]I remember they said we can take a picture of it if it is not something we can carry. Do you know how a camera works?
no problem! I've been having a busy week myself
Also it's just hard to process good things when they happen, like meeting a nice guy who may just be genuine with his kind words. ]
I-I...do but... [ If there's anything office life has taught Doppo, it's to read the fine print until you want to gouge your eyes out. He remembers a detail, where they'd get "bonus" points for putting these items to...use.
Hopefully just taking a picture will count for something, so he He navigates through his bracelet, showing it to Cain so that he knows where the app is
or something idk the tech here. And bam, the camera is on. He lines it up so the camera can focus on the tombstone and thereby....the hole...and shows Cain where to press the button to capture the image. ]I don't care about the bonus points. I am not using this. Even just taking a picture makes me feel dirty...
i have my charger back time to torment doppo more
Ah, but what do you even use a glory hole for? Do you know?
[Fortunately for probably everyone involved, Cain now knows how to use the camera app and is absolutely fascinated with it.]
Truly that is amazing. There is no physical picture, but you can still look at it? It's like it holds memories!
[He did take a picture of the mysterious tombstone with a hole, and then turned the camera on Doppo himself, snapping a picture of him before he realized.]
I see....this is what the Sage meant by wanting to take a picture of everyone. Now I can see you even if we are separated.
let's not talk about how i forgot my laptop at home yet again and couldn't tag during my break
This may be a coma-induced dream or Doppo has somehow discovered a new level of hell; the most awkward level of them all. And it just happens to be the 69th level because this is Fuck Island logic we're going on here. ]
That's the idea of photos, usually. [ Hopefully by just tolerating getting his picture taken (undoubtedly looking like an idiot because candid photos of him never look good, he thinks), the glory hole question will make Cain forget about it, but with Doppo's luck, he's not holding his breath. ]
I don't know who this Sage is, but if they know what photography is, why is it that you don't?
shhhh its fine
Ah. The Sage is actually someone from another world. Their name is Akira, and they say they are from a land called 'Japan.' They apparently have a lot of amazing technology over there that we don't.
[Cain is still messing around with all the different buttons on the camera, and he was definitely going to treasure the picture of Doppo he took staring at him in disbelief.]
Since we are a team, do you think we should take a picture together? I would love to show the other wizards whenever we return.
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Somehow, I'm not surprised that you're asking us to do this... [ Like, wow. Cain is already jumping into the world of group selfies despite only knowing what a camera is less than a few minutes ago. ]
Alright, but let's keep going after this. [ He relents, moving to stand next to Cain to show him how to reverse the camera, so it'd be pointing at them. Anything to get away from the topic of glory holes. ]
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Haha...sorry. I guess I got a bit too excited there. But thank you anyway. I'm sure it will become a happy memory for me!
[And now he was going to wrap an arm around Doppo in a sense of companionship. Yeah....sorry. He was kind of touchy feely.]
What is next on your list? I do believe we have the same ones.
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Nothing on this list is normal... [ He mumbles, scanning through it before saying the next best thing. ] ...sexy...wizard robe... [ He's waiting to see if the gears are turning for Cain there. He did mention he's a wizard so please please please don't make Doppo try to explain clothing fetishes.
NOT THAT HE KNOWS ABOUT THAT LIFE...]no subject
[Doppo reminds him a little of Heath at this moment; the poor guy could get easily embarrassed and flustered over even the smallest of things. He resisted the urge to pat Doppo on the head because he was sure the man was older than him and that would be kind of disrespectful honestly.]
We can look for that then! [Don't worry, Doppo. He at least does understand dressing up in sexy costumes.
He's even done it himself before just look at his purple wizard outfit.]Anyway-I shouldn't just talk about myself. Why don't we try to get to know each other better as we walk?
[He remembers someone mentioning a costume kiosk earlier! Might as well head there. It was the best bet.]
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Um...I'm not really that interesting of a person. [ But he knows that won't be an acceptable answer, to which then he remembers what Cain said about the "Sage" person earlier. ]
...I guess to start, I'm from the same country as Ak...the Sage. "Akira" is a fairly common name back home. [ He doesn't mean that as a bad thing, just stating the fact. ] Besides that, pretty much everything you just told me about yourself is completely foreign.
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You know, the Sage before Akira too was apparently also from Japan. That means you know what mixers and idols are, right? He was a sort of salaryman, he called himself.
I'm a little sorry I can't bring you to meet everyone else, they'd love to say hi! And I know Akira gets lonely being the only one from their world. We do our best but your world is equally foreign. Ah, I don't see that as a bad thing, but I can understand how it can make things feel out of place.
For instance, apparently there is this holiday called Halloween where you are from, where you tell someone a spell and that makes them give you candy!
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[ God made a joke and Doppo's life is the punch line.
Where does he even start? ]
One thing at a time, please. [ PLEASE...this is whacky enough as it is!! ] You're telling me that your Sage - [ The Sage, whatever ] ...is also a salaryman?
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I'm sorry...did I say something bad about your world? Is salaryman an insult? Akira isn't but the one before him, he uh....complained about his job and the evil overlord of his guild who would withold his "overtime pay".
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...right, so most of...us salarymen, have to deal with "evil overlords" every day. [ He does feel a kinship with this guy just from this fact alone. Although Doppo will stick to calling his manager Baldy because Evil Overlord sounds way too cool even for him. That actually gets him thinking... ]
They're not "overlords". We have a term that's worse. Managers. [ Yes, there are the good ones but Doppo unfortunately doesn't work with them! ]
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These managers are the ones in charge? Such people should not be allowed to have their way. I mean-well, I suppose it isn't out of my station to speak of it here...but nobility often have egos to match.
[Doppo would understand, and he knew that his prince hated some of the rich people games these nobles and 'bosses' played. That's why the previous sage had been under so much stress all the time!!]
I'm truly sorry that I can't do more to support you.
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Er, wait...I don't want to give you the impression that all managers are...[ piece of shit stains ]
...bad, certainly not evil. [ D'oh but plenty of them can be...! ] They're salarymen themselves, but with a lot more responsibilities. [ THAT THEY SOMETIMES DUMP ON EVERYONE SO THEY CAN LEAVE EARLY AND GO DRINKING... Doppo can't help but mumble at the thought. ] "Delegating" my ass-...um. [ He clears his throat. ]
Generally speaking, if the person in charge is stressed and having a rough time, it...can take a toll on those that work under them. [ As evident in the dark circles under Doppo's eyes. ]
I had just spoken out of stress myself just now...it was wrong of me. Sorry about that. [ Yeesh...did he just defend Baldy? WHAT IS THIS PLACE DOING TO HIM... ]
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[Cain used to be the leader of the knights. He KNEW. Hell, he'd been on the recieving end more than once of people who had more social power than he did.]
Perhaps it is against our station to speak like that, but I can't condone such actions. I used to be the captain of the knights for the central kingdom. To think that someone would take advantage of that-of men under their command-it's sickening.
[Perhaps he too, should calm down.]
I....I'm sorry too. I get too emotional about things like that a lot...it's a habit I'm trying to fix. But you are truly a kind and gentle person if you can still think of them that way. I...feel the same.
[Well, at least they happened upon what looked like...a sexy wizard costume that was hanging oh so innocently from the tree. That was a good distraction from the spiral of apology, right?]
Oh. Huh. Was that there before?
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Cain seems to accept his words in earnest. It's only right for Doppo to try to do the same, no matter how "out there" the concept of magic and such is for him.
Although it's a taaaad difficult not to balk at what they're seeing in light of their overall situation. The costume hanging on the tree like it's a fruit to be picked and it's as skimpy as a sexy costume can be. There's even a sign pointing at it saying, "Try me!" with a winky face. From the look on Doppo's face, it's clear that he also has no intentions of putting this particular thing to use. ]
...looks like that's it...
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