TDM 1.

[exsangui]

Hey guys, it's the first Test Drive Meme! Please note you do not have to app a character to play in here, and this is only game canon if you want it to be-- this is set up to be a freaky dream your character has pre-game, and maybe your character remembers, maybe they don't! It's left purposefully open-ended, because this is dream logic, so feel free to go off the rails if you're feeling creative.

CW: death, blood, (optional) harm to animals. Please warn if your thread has animal harm in it.

Since this is a dream, death is not permanent. Characters 'killed' in this log may find themselves coming back to life at any point, in any way.

𝕿𝖊𝖘𝖙 𝕯𝖗𝖎𝖛𝖊 𝕸𝖊𝖒𝖊: 𝟏

You awake in a strange dreamscape, without memory of how you got there. You walk through clouds, under a beautiful sky. You see others walking with you.

The sky starts to swirl into a strange shape: a face.



「You are mine, and I am yours. Great gifts have been bestowed. Within you now lives a terrible purpose.」 They say.

Suddenly, you know what vampire abilities you possess. It's as though the face spoke to you directly and whispered them in your ear.

The sky changes, like a storm is coming over sea. You feel grass bloom under your feet. Then cold. Then snow. Before you stands a cold, decrepit castle. Yet cheering can be heard inside: humans cheer and warmth radiates from inside. They beckon you to come in, you're just in time for the feast!

The feast itself takes place in a medieval castle, kept warm by the heavy tapestries over stone walls. Yet the people inside it seem to be clothed in more industrial era garments. They sing and laugh, joking as they serve you copious amounts of meat. Some of it is well-cooked and seasoned. Some of it is still raw and rare. All of it is recognizably fresh, and from an animal.

They chatter happily, about how lucky they are to be here, safe and inside the Lord's castle. He wasn't doing anything with it anyway!

As time goes on, it becomes evident this castle was taken over, hostile, from its previous owners. A rich lord and lady would not allow anyone inside, despite the frost. You begin to notice people around you, smiling and laughing, are very thin from hunger. Many have missing or blackened toes and fingers. Many are covered in blood, and from their joy, it is not theirs.

Several people, once the first few songs are done, ask you to aid the wounded-- they are similarly poor, and far more injured. Honorable injuries, these are, you're informed, got 'em storming this here castle.

The desire to drink from their wounds is overwhelming. Some even seem to recognize it. Come here, they say, it'll put an end to the pain.

If you drink, you will be rewarded. Your head will clear. You will feel stronger, safer, more yourself than you ever have before.

Others may hear screaming from the topmost rooms of the castle. It seems the young children of the dead nobles are still locked inside. They beg to be freed, to be saved. Upon hearing them, the festivities pause. The slightest hint of sympathy toward these children is met with violence.

You are chased from the castle into a verdant, if dark and foreboding, forest.



You walk through what now feels like spring weather, dark and hot and humid. The foliage is thick, the plants hang low, and each trudging step feels endless.

Your hunger grows, especially if you didn't feed on the wounded. Yet regardless, it is harder and harder to stop yourself from feasting on the fat, lazy wildlife that trudges through the underbrush. Deer, elk and boar are most common. They seem to watch you from the treeline with suspicious eyes, and barely make an effort if you destroy them.

IF YOU FED ON THE WOUNDED: You come across a red altar of blood and bone in a forest clearing. It asks you to sacrifice whatever you can give. Is that a memory? A fellow traveler? All you know is that it hungers like you hunger: for blood. If you make a sacrifice of any kind, it will be kept forever, safe and unmoving.

Yet you can hear something in the depths of the altar, as though they've slipped into the center and gotten stuck. If you work very hard to save them, tearing at the blood and the bone, you will soon find the altar enveloping you.

Who will save you? Or was that their sacrifice all along?

IF YOU ONLY FED ON ANIMALS: You come across a forest clearing with strange trees standing ominous and alone. Fawns, small rabbits, and little brown birds sit among the branches.

The sky grows dark. Time seems to pass with horrible foreboding. And then-- the animals attack. All at once, furious bites and pecks and kicks, and there is little you can do against an assault of this kind.

Except, perhaps, run, and hope someone will try to save you.

IF YOU DID NOT FEED: You find your way to strange monoliths at the edge of a field. You feel instantly better once you've left the treeline, but you can't escape the feeling that eyes are on you. And look at that-- a person holding a snake stands at the highest peak.

"Come join me!" they say, but the climb is laborious. It's basically impossible without help. A long, steep climb, but you can make it, and once you do, the person who beckoned you is gone.

Sitting at the top of the monolith, you can see the forest, the castle stretching out in the distance, and even the clouds you walked on to get there. You know this is a dream. You know you'll wake soon.

And you are so thirsty.

NAVIGATION.
img credit reachartwork & ai_curio.

Comments

[icasm]

There's silence as Loki watches him thrash and then burn himself out. No applause, no laughter. It doesn't feel safe enough for either.

The question is a surprise, somehow.

「I don't know.」

Honesty, in its rare appearance coming from Loki. He can blame it on this being a dream, perhaps, or on the newness of this situation he finds himself in; telepathy has never been his wheelhouse before.

He adjusts his position in the tree where his long limbs doing their absolute best accommodate his plans of not taking up a great deal of space. Difficult, to say the least. The man is tall.

「Are there creatures like us, where you're from?」

[rhenalfailure]

「I am 'creatures like us', where I am from.」

Eventually, given the nature of sharpened senses and time now for his attention to roam, Dettlaff's frigid stare does indeed settle on where Loki is perched high among dark branches. It changes nothing, of course; he's in neither the state nor position to give chase— and holds no desire to, besides. Overwhelming instinct, after all, isn't the same thing as true, clearheaded want.

「I assume you are not.」

[icasm]

「I see.」

Does he? Well. There are many creatures in the Nine Realms, and in the planets beyond them; even Midgardians have stories about creatures that drink blood and can't enter a place without being invited.

Loki debates climbing down but opts against it. Perhaps when they start having this conversation aloud, he'll reconsider.

「I'm a god. Well. Demigod, I suppose.」

[rhenalfailure]

Not human. That is what he takes from that confession, rudimentary and sharp.

「Is this your home, then? Your doing?」

[icasm]

「Definitely not.」

There's a note of disgust in the emotions tied in with the instantaneous response. If Loki were going to make monsters in his own image they wouldn't be so...

Gross, honestly.

「My home looks very different.」

cw gross limb violence

[rhenalfailure]

「I would ask of it, but...」

But his exhaustion is affecting more than just his body, a truth that speaks for itself. The obvious solution would be to ask for help. Instead, like any wild creature, he stays silent.

He’s had ample time, now. Seconds to steel himself. To face— with slow-recovering clarity— the simplest means by which to free himself from the jaws of this trap, though it will come at cost: his claws grow long with nauseating effort, gleaming bright as they raise high. His inhale is sharp.

And when he brings those talons down, they cut clean through his opposite arm— freeing him with an embittered, gritted howl.

He grips the wound as it bleeds. Stumbles away to watch that severed arm sink deep into the altar, swallowed entirely. His own offering, perhaps.

Blood seeps between his fingertips. He feels—

Tired.

[icasm]

Well, that was... gruesome and wholly unexpected, actually. He shudders, up in his tree, and then makes a decision. This man is unlikely to attack him now so he may as well stop cosplaying as a small black bear and get his feet back on the ground.

There's some climbing involved until Loki just gives up and drops down the rest of the way, ending in a crouch at the base of the tree. He stands, dusts himself off, and then inclines his head towards the monstrous man.

"You could still ask of it, if you like." Or they could discuss literally anything else.

[rhenalfailure]

If this is a dream, and not the work of some twisted magic, the damage he's suffered means nothing. His own tightened expression as he observes Loki’s shifting approach, wary as a stray beast, means nothing.

If this is not a dream...

“It will regenerate on its own,” he grits, a matter of too much breath, all tame compared to prior fury. An explanation offered if only for the look in those unsettled green eyes. “albeit in time.”

And with effort.

To that extent, he moves to rest more fully in deep moss. There’s nothing comforting about this place, but he hasn’t the energy left to roam. Not anymore.

“I could use a story while I wait, if you’ve one to share. Your world. Yourself. I’ve met many creatures, yet none have ever claimed to be god or godling.”

[icasm]

Loki nods a little at the offered explaination. He can definitely imagine having the ability to simply slice one's own arm off when it's entrapped and opting to do so, before asking for help.

Sometimes asking for help is the hardest possible thing.

Dettlaff settles in the moss and Loki does the same, across from him and at the base of the tree he'd climbed earlier.

"When my people, the Asgardians, required a wall to be built around the central city, they enlisted the help of a Jotun — a frost giant — who, by way of payment, demanded marriage to my mother, Frigga. Now, since Frigga was already married and happily so to the All-Father Odin, this was a bit of a problem. As you can imagine.

Asgardians are not fond of Jotun.

The wall was great, and so my first suggestion was to set an impossible deadline — six months, no more — by which the wall would have to be completed for the stone-mason to take his payment. However, as the fifth month dawned and the wall was nearly completed, my people began to panic.

The stone-mason had a horse, named Svaðilfari, that he was using the haul the stone to and fro. So I became a mare, and enticed Svaðilfari away, causing the stone-mason to have to complete the wall by hand and to lose his claim to Frigga." He opens his hands. "Odin got an eight-legged steed, Sleipnir, out of the deal as well so he wasn't too unhappy with me." That time.

[rhenalfailure]

Dettlaff listens, lulled where he sits hunched like a wild beast spoken to. Silent and attentive, perhaps taken to focusing on the words over the pain of either deep wounds or potent hunger, chilled stare set and slow-blinking.

“I would imagine the promise of keeping his wife would soothe more than a powerful animal.” Or at least that is all Dettlaff can feasibly conceive, taking the story to be true.

Having loved and lost, the sting of it fresh as fallen droplets of blood still (evoking a twinge of tension in his expression before he wills it away), were he in Odin’s place, he would feel nothing but relief.

“But why risk so much for a wall to begin with?”

[icasm]

Loki makes a noise of acceptance. "I was young, and constantly afraid of my father's poor opinion of me, especially in regards to trickery; perhaps I recall his attentions inaccurately." It's possible, it was so long ago, and any story of Odin and Loki is going to be colored by a number of factors. Most of them? Not great.

"There was no one else to build it, if I remember correctly." And there were concerns... about war, most likely.

[rhenalfailure]

The frown that crawls across his features is deep-set, as though cut from stone itself.

"Then it ought not to have been built. And she should not have been the wager to begin with."

Just criticize the king of the gods, Dettlaff. Solid approach.

"Was she at least appreciative of your efforts? His wife— your mother."

[icasm]

He doesn't think Dettlaff is wrong, per se, it's just... that's what happened. The wall was necessary and the Jotun required. He wasn't privy to more than knowing about that.

So he just shrugs.

"She was." Loki smiles softly, remembering. "She told me I was very clever for my action's outcome."

[rhenalfailure]

“And your father,” Dettlaff murmurs, shifting where he sits to withdraw his hand— tacky now— from an injury already knitted closed. He can breathe more easily. Think more clearly.

The worst has faded.

“You mentioned you feared his opinion of you. Did that ever change?”

[icasm]

"Not particularly, no."

Loki shakes his head a little. "I can't say that our relationship improved greatly at any point, and he's gone, now."