𝔄 𝔐𝔦𝔡𝔴𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔑𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱'𝔰 𝔇𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔤 𑁍 [WINTER TDM]

[gorelord]

Welcome to the Test Drive!

The TDM is welcome to current players and anyone who wants to play in the setting and is encouraged to be used by prospective players. If you are interested in joining the game, you will need to obtain invite from the mod or through an existing member.

For information on the game premise, setting etc, please utilize the navigation pages below. Questions specific to the TDM prompts or the setting can go to the comment thread. Anything else relating to game mechanics can go in the FAQ.

Events in this TDM are considered game canon and occurs immediately after the Chapter II eclipse event between chapters II and III. Any threads in TDM are considered canon as long as both parties agree.

Please make sure to identify in your top levels as either current or new player/characters.

GAME PAGES

premise
setting
faq
rules
glossary

i.
rise:
A Dream's Beginning

(cw:nsfwl; ritual sex, mood altering substances )

It begins with a nightmare, the details of which have slipped through your fingers. Only the curling echo of its dread lingers in your chest. Something has snapped you out of a catatonic state: a gust of icy wind whistling through the crack of a window, the soft beating of drums under the melody of strings, the cold kiss of fat snowflakes catching on your eyelashes, the smell of spiced wine and evergreen.

A few things become clear: You are not where you were, and you are not alone.

Feast for Saints

Tonight is a night of celebration for the Lonely Fortress. The horrors have been set aside, replaced with the warm mirth and grace of being alive. Whether this is your first night in the Crucible or your fortieth, all are welcome to partake in this renewing fete under the silver light of a full buttery moon. Snow dances like flower petals in a lazy array, leaving a shallow blanket of white. The fire roars in the hearth of the Great Hall, spreading its warmth throughout its adjacent parlors. Despite murmurings of a recent catastrophic eclipse cleaving the castle twain, its halls and buildings show no sign of decay. The Egregore has been cleansed, balance has been restored. Spirits are high, people are at ease.

If you choose to partake, there are a few select locations where people have gathered to celebrate:

𑁍The Great Hall is open for feasting and dancing. The fortress stores have provided a wintertime feast of roasted meats & vegetables, pies, fresh and aged cheeses, dried fruits, candied nuts, and seeded cakes. The hall smells of spiced honey wine and mulled cider, both packed with a warm and buzzing inebriation that creeps on unexpectedly. A makeshift band of strings and drums plays lively music for people to dance to.

𑁍The Velvet Parlor is a smaller hall branched off of the main festivities for those looking for softer and more intimate comforts under the candlelight. Tonight, its guests pay tribute to celebrate the passion of life and to beckon the sun to rise in a ritualistic tangling of bodies. Here is the place to become a true eater of sin. All furniture has been nudged to line the walls, making way for a sea of cushions and pillows for celebrants to laze upon as they imbibe in strong, distilled spirits, as the air above them swirls with a sweet, toasty incense imbuing a mellow calm and stirs carnal appetites. A masked man plucks away a sultry tune on his lute in a corner as the night gradually gives way to passionate bodies tangled among the pillows.

𑁍The Courtyard brings a breath of fresh, brisk air as snow falls playfully overhead. Large braziers line the yard offer meager warmth from their roaring fires as exiles partake in snow fights and release wishing lanterns bearing your inner most desires into the sky. Steam rolls off the yard's central fountain, which has been fitted to disperse heated water to provide a makeshift heated pool, a perfect place to thaw chilly hands or feet (or just go all in if ye be bold enough.)

A Colder Path

If instead you choose to abstain, it becomes apparent every dream has its limits.

The castle beyond the festivities is cold, dim, and abandoned. Behind every door, a drab and empty room (if the handle isn't locked or broken). The keep's gates are closed, the sunken village beyond a frozen wasteland. The further one strays from the warmth and merriment, the colder and darker it becomes.

Isolation breeds madness, too much time spent away from others may lead to paranoia. Figures shift in the dark, a breath tickles the nape of your neck. You may see familiar faces, hear familiar voices, beckoning you to stray further from your path towards uncertain doom: a crooked nail sticking out of the floorboards, a hurried shove off the top of the stairs, a door that opens over the edge of a rocky cliff.

As determined as you may be, the only way out of this dream is through.

ii.
revel:
Trials of Merciful Holly

(cw:potential for dubcon/noncon, mood-altering.)

As the midwinter evening persists, a visitor long awaited comes knocking at the Great Hall's doors. A tall man emerges with a body molded out of braided wood, bearing thorn-tarnished armor and a tattered crimson cloak. With every step forward, thorned vines that stitch across the walls and floors, blooming with plum purple leaves and small budding flowers.

"The Briar Lord," one exile gasps. "Gregor's returned," another praises tearfully. With a bow, he treats the celebrants of the Lonely Fortress with the innocence of a festive game.

"O' eaters of sin, indulge me in this friendly Midwinter game. Ye have survived a harrowing and for that ye shall be rewarded for purging of thy wickedness. I ask thee this final offering to purge this winter and beget a new spring. Give me thy blood and affection with honor and I shall see this cold vanquished. What I am given, I will return what was given me. Then, in trust and friendship, we shall part."

Bats and Lashes

The Lord's game is a simple marital task held out in the frost covered garden: a duel of branches. Each competitor will be given handful of briar as their weapon. The aim of the game is to whip each other until the thorns of the briar's branches draw blood. The first to draw blood from the opponent is the victor and the blood price paid.

Yet, not all these branches are created equal. A fortunate competitor may be given a Bewitching Branch. Those whipped by this branch will become utterly obsessed and infatuated to whom they've been struck by for a short period of time after, beholden to their branch master until the sting of thorns wane.

Tithe of the Mistle

If you choose not to partake in the Lord's game, the Lord warns that his winter's briar will collect a tithing of affection. The vines that bloomed with his arrival grow rampant behind seeing eyes. Buds turn into flowers, petals shed as they mature into plump white mistle berries that release the sweetest scent to draw you in.

Either you have accidentally stumbled upon the mistle, or it has decidedly grown itself above you without your noticing, but you become bewitched by its scent. As the tricksy bramble coils around your ankles, giving the gentlest of biting from its thorns, it becomes clear that you will be consumed if you do not pay the mistle its tithing. For some, it only takes a kiss, for others, the mistle will demand more. Give it something meaningful. Give it something real, and you will be released.

iii.
respite:
Midwinter Mourning

All good dreams must come to an end. The following morning paints a different picture of the Lonely Fortress witnessed in the night's collective dreaming. The Crucible sits under a thick blanket of snow, the waters surrounding the keep have frozen solid. None of the warmth of the night remains; it feels as though the world has died. The whole of the Crucible feels cold, quiet, abandoned.

Every hearth has burned out, every brazier snuffed under the snow, every candle smothered. It's quiet, empty, dark. Daylight may have come, but a thick layer of storm clouds casts a foreboding shadow. If the desire remains to leave, it quickly becomes apparent there is nowhere else to go.

Warm Winter's Kiss

With luck, you have woken in a bed under a pile of old furs to keep some semblance of warmth with you. With even better luck, you've woken next to company to keep each other warm throughout a cruel cold morning. Without proper protection, the cold is biting against exposed skin. Joints and limbs become stiff and numb, making it difficult to move around without constant tending if one lacks gloves.

While hearths can be re-lit and heated baths can be drawn, the true comfort from freezing can only be found in the close company of other living creatures. Exiles on this cruel morning keep each other warm through sharing heated breaths and pressing bodies. Expressions of passion and compassion help the warmth to linger just a bit longer for those who cultivate it together, granting brief autonomy of movement before finding another's heat is needed again.

Breakfast is served, but it's nothing remotely glamorous to the feasting offered by the Midwinter dream: simple porridge that leaves a stale taste that coats the tongue, nuts and fruits that are half rancid, boiled wine that's been watered down to detract from how far along it's turned into vinegar. Its only promise is to fill an empty stomach until more food can be found.

Outside, the snow begins to fall again. An omen that this winter is here to stay. Welcome to the real Martyr's Crucible.

Comments

[pharmacy]

"No. No, I'm not gonna forget about it, we need to--" His hands spread palm up, like he's holding the weight of the concept between them, fat and slippery. He hold his gaze there too. Steve doesn't have to bear that at least. "There were layers of fucked up to that night, we have to peel back a couple."

[babysitters]

Oh, Quentin wants to talk talk. While Steve did suggest they hash this out, he was really thinking that his patented style of apology paired with dismissal of the issue was going to be enough to smooth things over. Steve is not unaware that it doesn't exactly fix things. He would just rather brush the damage under the rug than risk breaking everything entirely.

So he is uncomfortable on principle. Do they really want to hash out the ugly details? With all these people around? Steve rubs his eyebrow, contemplates making an excuse that he has somewhere else to be. He did literally just say he wouldn't bail on Quentin, though, and he really did mean that, so ... that might mean he's kind of stuck. "Okay," Steve says. Drawn out a little. Leading. Like, what layer, specifically? If Quentin wants to dissect this, it is on him to decide where to put the scalpel.

[pharmacy]

Well, it's not running and screaming, even if the little lilt on his ascent gives Quentin pause. Is he making too big of a deal out of it? No. No, even if it was something about this place-- 

"Okay, so. I was...out of my mind. To start with." Him mouth screws hard to one side, shoulders rise and fall in a sharp shrug. "I hadn't slept for...a while, and everything hurt from being cold...I don't think everyone was that cold. Were you? I couldn't--feel you, but I was--" 

Y'know. Out of his mind. 

[babysitters]

Steve's eyes flick in Quentin's direction at the heave of his shoulders, pause just long enough to try and read the look on his face. And then they're back to neutral ground, the wobbling water over their bare feet. "I know." He's actually kind of surprised Quentin thinks he needs to explain he was losing it. It was all blurry and cold, and maybe Steve was half asleep when it started, but that part was pretty hard to miss.

Of all the points to pick at, though, at least the excruciating inescapable cold is relatively simple. "I think the castle was fucking with us. The cold I mean. Ever since you got here, it just kept getting worse. I didn't really think about it at first, but, by the end? I really thought about swan diving into a lava pit just to not feel so goddamn cold." Speaking of, Steve should probably make nice and thank Cesare for not letting him do that. Maybe later.

"So if it was that..." Steve shrugs, as if that explains everything. Doesn't it? Because it seems like such a nice explanation. It was weird, and uncomfortable, and ran away from them at a full gait, but the weird shit that goes down in the Crucible is to blame. It's water under the bridge. They can tie it all up with a nice little bow and leave it behind them. He will do his part and pretend he does not remember the wet sound Quentin's lips make against his. And that he does not know what the pads of Quentin's fingertips feel like at the back of his throat. What are friends for, right?

[pharmacy]

That's good, that's great. Quentin can stand to look at Steve as he elaborates on the cold, punctuating each phrase with a nod. He can feel the tension leaking out of his extremities, dripping and drooling into the warm pool. Maybe not everyone was going crazy from the chill, but if Steve was, that explains plenty. 

There's still a wire pulled tight in his lungs and around his heart, though. Steve shrugs like they can write it all off with that, and his inside lurch around the wire. He can look at Steve, but he can't say it without welling up in like an instant. At least his voice is steady, even if his mouth twitches with a want to twist. "That was part of it, yeah, but. I fuckin--molested you, Steve. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did it, I don't want you to think I was trying to--take advantage of--I wasn't." 

He scrapes his eyes with his thumb and clarifies in a flat, frantic rush, "And, like--I don't want you to think we could only hook up when we're going nuts, like--not that you'd want to, but if you wanted to! I just--didn't want it like that, not that I don't want to, but not--

"Man, I'm really trying not to sound like a predator right now." 

tw ... discussion of noncon ???

[babysitters]

"Jesus Christ." There is no way for that to not sound harsh, because it is. So much for taking the long way around the ugly. Or a bro pact to forget about it. It is mortifying to hear, out loud, and Steve cannot help but wonder if all the creepy castle people are listening to the illicit details of their ill fated cold fumbling. They might be talking about this over their gruel later.

Steve did not like how things went down. He's been really in his head about how far it went, how bad it ended, that it didn't feel like he thought it would. He somehow figured Quentin's thoughts were about the same. Turns out, no. Very much no. Their thoughts were not the same.

Quentin is crying. Spiraling. It's a lot to try and digest at once. It feels awful. Steve hazards an arm across his back. His hand pinches at Quentin's chicken neck, even just... shakes him a little. Steve leans closer to try and catch his watery bambi baby eyes. "Would you relax? What the hell are you talking about? You didn't... I started it." Steve is from the 80s, where guys can't get molested to begin with. But even if he wasn't, how could Quentin have molested him, if he's the one that started it? Liked it, even. Well... mostly. He was certainly an equal participant until it went too far. How did Quentin forget that part?

[pharmacy]

Quentin has the dual gifts of earnestness and a sense of party-based anonymity that keeps him from worrying about what anyone else milling this courtyard thinks. As far as his concerns over what Steve thinks, the hand squeezing around the back of his alleviates the lion's share. The noise that bursts out of him is a solid 80% laughter and only 20% upset, and he leans against Steve in fraternal, molestation-less reciprocation. Okay. Okay. 

"Sorry, you were just so mad, and I didn't know if it was...the cold, or you, or me, or what, and--I just kept thinking, it's fucking insane that I'm gonna lose him over some--stupid He-man-lizard-brain shit." Nea's lectures and rants have taken their hold on him. "I know you're not like that, it just felt like...I tricked you. Or you had to, or something. But if the cold's all it was..." 

[babysitters]

"Well, yeah. You tried to touch the inside of my trachea. Who the fuck taught you that?" The words aren't that funny, but somehow Steve's delivery makes them funny anyway. Death heals all wounds, including your buddy turned impromptu makeout tickling your tonsils in earnest. The part that was fucking him up was never any kind of resentment. It really does feel like shit to think about Quentin chewing on this, over and over. That he managed to distill it to the ugliest possible version. What went down wasn't pretty, but it also wasn't that.

And Quentin is still chewing on it. Half-hazardly trying to guess what he was going on in his head. It is a little sad that is what drags more details out of Steve, but at least SOMETHING did?? "It wasn't that. I just... I don't know, all right? I freaked out. It didn't feel right. And then I'm the one that started it, and it was fucking weird, and I didn't want to fuck things up more." It seemed at least somewhat reasonable, in the eviscerating misery of the moment. He couldn't make it worse if they stayed in their corners!!! Only, yeah, it definitely feels like he made it worse.

"I fucked up. I'm sorry. Okay? Stop crying already, god." Really sweet, Steve. He does try to scrub some of the tears off Quentin's cheek with his free hand, though, which is a little better. Maybe the creepy castle people are watching, maybe they aren't. Steve doesn't care about it so much as he cares about chasing that remaining 20% stain of guilt away.

[pharmacy]

"I'm not crying," He protests over tears. The wire around his heart twangs loose, and after Quentin wipes his eyes again and his nose once, he finds himself able to breathe deep. His hand claps loose over Steve's knee (His clean hand? Maybe. Hopefully!) and shakes twice. "And you didn't fuck it up. I mean, you didn't do it alone. We fucked it up. Teamwork."

A breath puffs his cheeks up as he leans back, red eyes ticking around Steve's face. "Can I be, um. Can I be fucking freak for a second?"

[babysitters]

Steve scoffs, an unspoken, yeah, okay. But if it is impeding on bro code to point out when your buddy is misting over, it's downright tapdancing on tradition to call him out for a blatant lie. So, fine. Who's crying? He does laugh at the we fucked up thing — they do have a habit of that. Steve thinks of the aggrieved face David would make when he saw the pair of them in a trial. It makes more sense than it ever has.

Quentin is recovering. That's good. Because Steve does not have much practice with companionable touch with another guy. Aggressive shoving, bumping, smacking, and an occasional kick is about the scope of his jock based touch lexicon. So now that Quentin is repaired enough to make jokes, it seems like the expected time to take hands off of him. Steve leans back long enough to untangle from obvious intimacy, but besides forcing his hands to himself, he doesn't really go anywhere.

(There's a strange thrill in the idea he doesn't have to. That somewhere in that spiral Quentin was going on and on about them fooling around again, if he wanted to. Steve really did hear that part, he just needs to chew it over for an extended period. Like a lab stubbornly gnawing down a bone.)

"I don't know. Is it about how I smell? Because Louis already told me more than I could ever want to know. Did you know he's got a super sniffer? Like a goddamn bloodhound. He knew I used to wear cologne. Man, what kinda vampire power is that? I'd ask for a refund." He's trying to lighten the mood by being a charming dumbass. Is it working?

[pharmacy]

A grin makes his mouth teeter, softens the oddness in his question. "You smell--fine. Normal. I'd bet money Louis was just fucking with you. But you said...it didn't feel right.

"So, how should it have felt? Y'know, what was wrong for you?"

[babysitters]

Yeah, no. Until Quentin has received a nonconsensual olfactory diagnostic from a vampire, he has no business presuming Louis was just fucking around. Bro was sincere as shit about it. It's fine. When they circle back to theorycrafting the gay vampire powers, Steve will just have to hammer this point harder.

Because in the meantime, Steve is too distracted. Generally, Steve is not easily embarrassed about horny posting on main. Usually because he's the one doing it. So, it is a rare treasure to get his goat like this. Quentin should enjoy it. Steve makes a surprised choked sound that is like a botched attempt at saying something, only his brain couldn't figure out what and just gave up. And he's definitely a little pink out of nowhere. Must be the cold??

(The worst part is that WASN'T EVEN FREAKY.)

Steve elbows Quentin again and puts more heat behind it this time. He doesn't entirely retreat Quentin's space after, so it can hopefully be understood as flirty bullying. "Ask me again later." The locals already watched them hug it out and shit, they're going to have to use their imaginations for the more lurid stuff. Besides, that's the kind of question that leads somewhere (hopefully). And Steve is still too 80s to be ready for everybody to watch him kiss his bestie.

[pharmacy]

His feet are warm in the water, hands warm between his knees, and the little knock that Steve gives him in response warms Quentin from the top of his ears all the way to his belly. Later. He likes the idea of later, likes the idea that there's an answer Steve wants to give that is too private for here and now. Maybe they'll never get around to asking again--but he likes that open door.

He returns the push, biting hard on his mouth to keep from grinning or saying something stupid. Steve doesn't pull away, so Quentin doesn't either. For a long minute, he just soaks in the genial, quiet contact, as comfortable as his feet in the water. After, his head tips over Steve's shoulder. "I gotta go for another drink." Universal party code for I'll see you later. "Don't forget to push a wish in the lantern. Maybe we can bring someone else here.

"But I'm glad I've got you."

🎀

[babysitters]

Do you need another drink, my guy? Steve mildly considers warning Quentin that too much wine at one of these parties can occasionally result in making out with french guys despite being hypothetically straight. But who knows, maybe that's sort of the point. Steve did plenty of drinking and getting stupid with the no stakes celebrations when he first got here. Hell, the night is still young! He may very well get to the getting stupid part later in the evening.

Quentin should get the chance. He's got a lot of stupid fun to catch up on.

Steve waves a hand. "I know." Get Han Soloed, idiot. It's just sort of something that doesn't need a lot of words. At least right now. Steve is equally glad to have this little asshole. Even if he has done a somewhat bad job of showing it, what with the whole silent treatment thing. He'll do better this time, he tells himself.

So Quentin goes. Steve stays. He only hates it a little bit. Which is better than the last time they went in opposite directions, right? So, progress. Or close enough.