April-May 2025 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

April-May 2025 TDM

Introduction

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This Test Drive meme is open to all.
Welcome to Folkmore's monthly Test Drive Meme! Please feel free to test drive any and all characters regardless of your intent to apply or whether you have an invite or not.

All TDMs are game canon and work like "mini-events". For new players and characters, you can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Current players are also allowed to have in-game characters post to the TDM so long as they mark their top levels ‘Current Character.’

TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.

Playing and interacting with the TDMs will allow characters to immediately obtain a canon item from home, especially weapons or other things they may have had on their person when they were pulled from their worlds! There will always be a prompt that provides some sort of "reward" to characters who complete certain tasks.

Current players are always encouraged to tag new people on the TDM!


🦊 New Star Children meet the Fox still in their worlds, and she brings them into the new realm of Folkmore. As you follow her, your body begins to change and new characteristics emerge. These may stay for a while, or perhaps they will hide away after. And during all of this, the Fox explains to you where you will be going: to Folkmore.

and then... you fall like a shooting star, falling to the land in a burst of starlight.


🦊 Experienced Star Children are already familiar with this time of the month. There are shooting stars all across the sky, and some fall to the land, which means the Fox has brought new arrivals. These newly arrived Star Children will face some tests, but Thirteen wants the more seasoned residents to participate as well.

Perhaps you follow the falling stars on your own, or perhaps the Fox simply teleports you there, but it appears you too will be part of this.

[ Prompt One ★ Prompt Two]

A Math-magical Season . ★

Content Warnings: Potential Monsters

With the onset of spring, even icy Wintermute is showing signs of new life. Dragons have been spotted in the mountains, the spirits will tell any Star Children who listen. Dragons have returned, and there's something very strange going on in a new tunnel that opened up on the slopes of the tallest peak… Just in time for new arrivals to shower down from the sky. Most of the newcomers land–smack!--in pillowy snow not far from the tunnel’s mouth, close enough to feel the warmer breezes that waft from it. It's as if the land itself is tendering an invitation for all to come and see a fantastical new sight.

And fantastical it is. Star Children who enter the tunnel quickly find themselves in a warm and breathing darkness that extends for a half-mile into mountain stone. The ceiling is low enough that very tall individuals might come perilously close to a bumped head, but otherwise the tunnel is wide and inviting, the floor smooth of all obstructions. Luminescent moss scrolls along the walls in patterns of sine waves and complex equations, leading on and on into the dark.

Then, abruptly, the tunnel opens into a cave so vast one might think they’ve stepped back outside, under a starry sky – except it's warmer by far than anywhere else in Wintermute and the stars overhead are arranged in oddly regular patterns. A thriving mathematical forest spreads out across the cavern’s floor, populated by strange and winsome spirits. There are decision trees with mysterious choices written at every branching, and outcomes glowing on each leaf. There are fractal flowers and vines with square roots. There are spirits shaped like Platonic solids and spirits whose proportions follow the golden ratio and spirits of every number or lemma or theorem one could imagine.

There are, also, dragons: large and little, colorful and drab, but every one of them friendly and every one of them deeply enthusiastic about mathematics. They have their own dragon convention centered in the heart of a great grove of perfectly symmetric trees. There they compare their hoards – of theorems, unsolvable problems, mathematical manuscripts, court mathematicians – and compete to make students of the arriving Star Children. Ever wanted to learn calculus from a giant fire-breathing lizard? Now you can! Or maybe you really can buy sixteen apples from one dragon and eat twelve before giving the remaining four to the one that posed the word problem in the first place – not normal behavior in the outside world, but in math it is.

Then there's the race course. An enterprising pair of dragons who gather differential equations (the short, fat one with a scarlet crest) and train-based word problems (the long skinny River Spirit) have set up a racing track in the sky, to show off practical uses for the math of time and distance. For the very low price of listening to a safety lecture, Star Children can run the course to their hearts’ content – using their own wings, or magic that turns THEM into dragons for the duration of the race. Racers will find any number of aerial obstacles, speed and altitude boosts, and strange but harmless phenomena to fly through as they compete with each other for copies of a cute (non-magical) dragon plush. His name is Euclid. He has a slide rule.

Like any self-respecting conference, this one also has MORE swag for the dedicated to collect. Star Children who stay to solve problems or listen to lectures might receive any manner of neat dragon-branded trinkets: Tiny solar calculators in dragon shapes, Penrose tile sets made of dragon scale, dice carved from shed horns. None of them are magical but they're awfully neat and might look so cool on a mantle or desk back home.

No more than once, when getting a reward for winning a race or picking up gewgaws from a dragon presenter, Star Children will receive a mysterious package of papery shed dragonskin. Inside is an item from home – one that might be far larger than its wrappings.

Star Children of a less mathematical bent might wander the forest instead to see the sights: A river with standing waves, a giant chess knight making a tour, strange attractors that draw in tiny spirits. And of course, at the furthest edges of the cavern, there are monsters – though whether these strange half-imaginary beasts mean to eat Star Children or make them suffer through algebra homework is up to the luck of the draw.

• Wintermute now has a crazy math cavern!
• All the scenery, spirits, and monsters in it are based on different mathematical concepts and constructs – trees with square roots, three-dimensional-polygon spirits, and so on.
• The dragons have returned and they're holding a mathematical conference inside the math cavern.
• Star Children who stick around to listen to lectures and solve problems can get neat dragon conference trinkets.
• They can also have weirdly mathematical experiences right out of word problems: Buying seventeen cookies and eating eight, anyone?
• Or they can try the flying race course – either using their own wings or turning into a dragon.
• (Dragon transformation available only while participating in a race – sorry dragon fans.)
• There are also math monsters to fight – or get assigned homework by – around the edges of the cavern. Scary!

Seek Hardship, Teach Mercy . ★

Content Warnings: Forced Participation, Forced Relocation, Other dangers of your choice

Not all of Wintermute’s changes are so light-hearted as a mathematical cavern.

It happens, suddenly, to Star Children new and old – there’s a moment like a too-long blink as they’re stepping through a door, or a moment of drowsy inattention in a class. A moment of dislocation, a hypnagogic jerk, and suddenly they’re in another place – maybe a strange one, or one that’s strangely familiar.

One group of Star Children, the choosers, will find themselves brought up to a mountain high up in Wintermute – so high it seems they can see all the world of Folkmore right before their eyes, wherever they turn. The air is cold and crisp and clean, and the mountaintop so near the sky you might catch the faintest strains of the Fox’s voice as she escorts new Star Children across it. Each pair (or more) of Star Children who find themselves on this strange mountain are given a little time to talk before a voice interrupts:

“Do you think the Trials are wrong?”

The voice is crisp as the air, androgynous and sourceless. It waits for Star Children to answer, then continues:

“Your responses are noted. Trials are necessary to provide opposition needed for growth.

“The following experiments are meant to reveal Star Child ethical preferences. Please make your choices quickly and explain your reasoning for each. Data recorded during your session will be used for improvement purposes.”

The “following experiments” are a series of binary choices, on the fates of different groups of victims. Victims might be Star Children or spirits or a combination of the two. The choices come in several flavors:

• One large group of victims will suffer an inevitable Trial unless the Star Children agree to inflict the Trial on a smaller group.
• Star Children may choose between two different Trials to inflict upon the same group of victims.
• Or they may choose between two different groups of victims to inflict the same Trial upon.
• Sometimes, the above scenarios might be combined: different Trials for different victims, but all inevitable. Someone has to suffer.

Is it better that one Star Child be forced to blurt out her darkest secret before her best friend, or three spirits lose their homes? That four Star Children suffer a violent, painful – but temporary – death by monster, or one Star Child spends what feels like weeks (but is only hours) slowly drowning in regret? Five spirits be stepped on by Cat Bus through inaction, or one by deliberate action?

Choosers are presented with their choice, a crystal-clear vision of their victims, and a glowing timer in the air before their eyes. They have until the timer reaches zero to agree on which victims to afflict with a Trial – and if they cannot agree, or refuse to make a choice, their view goes ominously dark and the voice simply proceeds to the next experiment. (Did all the victims get it? Did none?) In choosing, they are permitted to watch their victims’ fates play out, and asked to explain why they chose as they did.

Victims get much less of an explanation of what’s happening to them. They simply appear in a location suitable for whatever Trial or doom is about to be inflicted on them. If they're going to be lost to Encantado’s enchantment, a gleaming facsimile of the river appears, not much bigger than a large room in dimensions. Slated to die in bed? They’ll be in a mock-up of their own room. Crushed by a trolley? They appear, pre-tied, on tracks that come from nothing and go to nothing, beneath a cloudless blue sky. “You have been chosen to participate in an important ethical experiment,” is all the voice says – and then they are left to their Trials, to succumb or fight as they will. Though there is a strong – but not irresistible – compulsion to simply give in…

While the experiments have all the trappings of a scientific exercise, Star Children who try might argue the experimenter into changing the experiment. Heroic Legends may ask to suffer a Trial in the place of the victims. Cruel Myths might suggest ways to make things worse. (Or vice versa.) Sound reasoning is more likely to get through than arguments from emotion, though there is sometimes merit to a winsome appeal.

Remarkably, Thoth herself is sometimes there with the choosers – a gleam of light off lenses in a shadow, a thin and thoughtful smile for a choice made or declined. “This isn't me,” is all she’ll explain, if asked.

“But it's fascinating, isn't it?”

• Star Children are swept up suddenly to Wintermute to participate in a series of “ethical experiments” meant to make the Trials “better”.
• Star Children who are choosers get to pick, trolley-problem-style, which group of victims suffers a Trial.
• They have limited time to pick and must agree on what happens to their victims.
• Penalties for failure to agree or choose are left ominously mysterious.
• They are encouraged to explain their reasoning.
• The experimenter can be argued into inflicting a Trial on a chooser instead, making the Trials worse, or otherwise changing the parameters of the experiment to be kinder/crueler.
• Star Children who are victims get random Trials inflicted on them. Fun!
• Star Children may be picked multiple times as choosers or victims. They can be picked for a different experimental role each time.
• Inflicted Trials may range from actually fun to merely embarrassing to horrifyingly fatal. A list of options pulled from past Trials and weather events is available here:

  1. Hunted as prey by an inescapable power that will trap and kill you if it finds you.
  2. Fighting a monster.
  3. Involuntary memshare.
  4. Environmental death: drowning, burning, sucked into a black hole.
  5. Must tell painful/uncomfortable truths to others. The closer the relationship, the more dire the revealed truth.
  6. Tied to train tracks.
  7. Followed by mood weather.

• Players are encouraged to work with each other as choosers and victims – while the mysterious experimenter will not condone or enable communication between choosers and their victims, it's also not disabling the Relics or any other form of long-distance communication… Or you might just want to have fun inflicting woe on your close CR. No judgment!

Comments

[antimetabole]

[Kyrie beams, but Vergil looks a little less certain than she does. Vergil is not particularly gifted by way of lying. Never has been. Even as a boy, he couldn't summon up convincing enough words or deliver them in some believable fashion.]

...Would he not be upset with the deception?

[Vergil still errs on the side that Nero would likely prefer to know sooner rather than later. Kyrie, after all, is extremely important to him, and therefore, probably something that even a bare amount of ultimately harmless deceit as Kyrie herself suggests could easily go the wrong way.]

[oratoria]

It wouldn't be deception if you tell him you have a surprise for him, it would just be a surprise.

[Honestly, she can't imagine Nero being angry; he's always appreciated it when she's gone to the effort to surprise him.]

The last time we spoke he said he had a surprise for me, I bet he won't be expecting me to surprise him.

[She's also quietly hoping that he'll be delighted that she and his father are getting on well enough to go to the effort to surprise him. It'll be a bonding exercise.]

[antimetabole]

[Slowly, Vergil nods and opts to trust Kyrie's judgment that Nero would not be upset with not being informed of her presence. Vergil looks back down at his Relic before holding it out to her.]

Perhaps it would be best if you wrote the message then.

[oratoria]

Oh, okay, if you think that would be best.

[She reaches and takes the Relic, thinking over the phrasing. Probably best to just keep it simple, Nero's likely to come along out of sheer curiosity. It takes her a moment and then she types it in:

I've got a surprise for you! Meet me at the station in-

She looks up at the board and then at Vergil with a small frown.]

How long will it take us to get to the station once we're on the train?

[antimetabole]

[Rather than watching her write it, Vergil sips his tea and looks ahead towards the track. His attention is only drawn back to Kyrie and the Relic when she asks him about the train ride.]

Twenty minutes or thereabouts.

[It's one of the longer portions of the ride considering how far out of the way this station is compared to the rest wherein just a matter of five to ten minutes, one can find themselves at their destination.]

[oratoria]

Thank you.

[...perhaps the exclamation mark was a mistake.

Kyrie scrolls back and deletes what she's written.

I will be at the station in twenty minutes with a surprise for you. Meet me off the train at-

She looks up at the departure time on the board and does the mental arithmetic to determine the arrival time. That degree of math she can handle, at least.

It's instinct to add xxx at the end of the message, but looking at Vergil's quiet demeanor, she decides against it. She won't ask if it's something he'd use either.]

Here, does that sound like the kind of thing you'd text him?

[She passes the Relic back over to him to see if it meets his approval.]

[antimetabole]

[He takes the Relic back when she hands it to him, glancing at her with uncertainty. Vergil hasn't even a faint idea what he would write to Nero considering they've never particularly communicated via text. Oh, the occasional note left behind, sure, but that was usually for the benefit of Dante and Nero both. Still, he thinks better of admitting such a thing to her. Or, at the very least, he feels too acutely self-conscious about the whole affair to acknowledge as much. He just looks at what she's written.]

[It's not entirely unconvincing, he decides. It avoids being commanding, but firm still in its directive. Perhaps it is a little redundant, but still possesses clarity of the information rather than burying it beneath superfluous chatter. It is a touch too... Hm. Casual. For lack of a better term.]

[He looks at Kyrie before he touches anything.]

...Is the lack of salutation or closing signature a common practice for these sorts of messages?

[oratoria]

Oh. Well, you could put a greeting in if you wanted to but you don't really need to sign off with anything. I usually end with a few xs if it's Nero or maybe one of those picture things, but I'm not always sure if they mean what I think they do. A friend of ours told me to put an eggplant in a message once and Nero nearly had a fit.

[She takes another sip of soup, appreciating how it is easing her scratchy throat.]

I don't think you'd need to add who it's from because he'll have your number saved, won't he?

[antimetabole]

[Now that Kyrie mentions it, Vergil did know right away that it was Dante who messaged him. Of course, that was primarily because Dante didn't pick some foolish name for himself. It would have likely been far more confusing if he'd done that and added unnecessary letters around it as well to make it even more difficult to remember. Fortunately, Vergil is much like Dante rather than Nero in that regard.]

[He hums thoughtfully.]

I suppose you're right...

[Vergil makes his changes to what Kyrie has written.

I will be at Luan Station in approximately twenty minutes with a surprise for you. Meet me there.

It still feels strange to write something without a proper salutation or signature, but Vergil sends the text to Nero before he can overthink it any further. Snapping the Relic shit, he pockets it once more.]

The train should be any second now, [he says, rising to his feet. He sets his tea on the bench for the moment so that he has both hands to fasten and secure Yamato to his person, and free up his other hand. Vergil does not bother asking her if she needs help carrying anything. He simply picks up her ruined shoes along with his tea.] Let's get you home, shall we?

[oratoria]

[Kyrie dutifully finishes up her soup and picks up the empty container (can't be littering after all), her tea and she's about to collect up her shoes when she realizes Vergil has beaten her to the punch. He really is such a considerate person, those similarities to Nero really are beginning to number up.

He says they're going home. It seems strange to think of herself going somewhere for the first time and it already being 'home', but if Nero's there? Then it's home. That much is for certain. Home with new family to get to know.]

Are you sure you don't have somewhere else you needed to be? I can't help but feel I've interrupted your plans...

[antimetabole]

[He shakes his head at the notion his plans were interrupted before leading Kyrie over closer to the track.]

My plans were concluded well before our paths crossed. [There's a chime as his Relic goes off, but he ignores it for now. It's likely Nero responding and therefore, not an emergency.] Although you are somewhat right in that normally I would be home by now. Mizu's cabin is rather out of the way even by Wintermute's standards, and it is easier to use a portal than to take the train and walk. But I thought it best not to chance it with the Fox's interest currently teleporting people from wherever they are to Wintermute.

[It still, of course, could happen, but why make it easier for Thirteen?]

[oratoria]

A portal?

[She dutifully follows Vergil out to the track, walking perhaps half a pace behind him and having to practically jog to catch up; he's tall and his stride is purposeful, tall isn't an epithet someone would typically apply to her.]

Are there many portals around here?

[She debates asking what Mizu's cabin is but perhaps she'll leave that for now, if it's something she needs to know about she's sure he'll tell her.]

[antimetabole]

No, [he says, glancing down further along the track as there is the distant sound of the train's horn to announce its impending arrival to the station.] Yamato is able to create portals.

[Vergil looks back at Kyrie.]

He managed a great deal with it while it was in his possession, but Nero did not learn to wield the blade to its fullest potential properly.

[oratoria]

[Kyrie's been aware that the heirloom sword was special but had no idea it had such an ability. She glances down at it, wondering how on earth he was able to get the sword back after it was stolen. She's sure Nero will have the whole story for her soon enough, and whatever his surprise is for her.

If it was that powerful, then it stands to reason why it had been such an important part of the Order's plans all those years ago and, more alarmingly, why someone would almost kill Nero to get their hands on it.

She fights down a little shiver of foreboding.]

And this fox... Thirteen? Is powerful enough to interfere with that power?

[antimetabole]

So it would seem, [Vergil says, loud enough to be heard over the on-coming engine. When he acquired the Yamato again, he tried to use it to open a portal back to the human world, but without any luck. And there have been other instances he's found himself stuck wherever it is Thirteen wants him to be as well.] But she created this entire realm through her own power. I would imagine she'd make certain nothing could interfere with it beyond what she allows.

[Pulling to a stop, the train opens its doors to allow passengers off and others onboard. Few leave the train, and none from the car Vergil and Kyrie are before. Vergil motions for her to go in first to grant her the window seat.]

[oratoria]

Do you think she's a demon?

[Kyrie blurts it out before she has time to think about who she's talking to, and then realises that it might be rude to assume that unusual happenings are automatically demonic, particularly when talking to a half-demon.

She steps up onto the train and settles into her seat, putting her tea down beside her.]

I would never have thought that something like a fox could be so powerful, but here I am so it must be so.

[antimetabole]

[Whatever offense Kyrie thinks Vergil might take to her question is entirely Kyrie's concern alone. If anything, he doesn't find it an unreasonable question to ask. Vergil takes his seat beside her once she's settled, glancing at the other passengers nearby to them. It's unlikely that anything is going to happen, but old habits die particularly hard, and Vergil would prefer to know who is where in such an enclosed space. He sets her shoes down on the floor just beneath the seat in front of him before pulling out his Relic.]

She is not from the Underworld. [So, if she's a demon of some kind, it's not one that Vergil is familiar with. That much is for certain. Vergil frowns at his relic for a moment before writing back a response to Nero. After he's done, he continues,] I do not believe she possesses malicious intent towards any of us. She pokes around in affairs and business that do not concern her, and she may push occasionally for you to remain true to your word regarding where your stated morals lie, but it is for her own amusement. She gains nothing from truly harming anyone.

[As far as Vergil can tell, anyways. Not to say that he is not still often on edge shortly after certain trials come and go, but he knows the fox does not mean them harm. Why destroy her own toys when there are more games to be played?]

I would not worry yourself too much over it. You often have a choice whether to play her games or not.

[Vergil also cannot imagine Kyrie has nearly as much by way of old wounds and ghosts and mistakes that litter his or even Nero's past. Some, of course. That is simply evidence that one has lived at all. But not nearly so many.]

[oratoria]

[She listens intently to what he has to say about the fox and it's comforting to hear that he doesn't think she's demonic. Just something... other. That doesn't make the predicament any more reassuring, but it helps to know that the kind of harm that might befall them here isn't the gruesome, bloody kind she's become all too prepared to brace herself for, given her upbringing and the company she keeps.]

I think someone using other people for their own amusement sounds pretty harmful to me.

[It must make her sound very weak and foolish to someone whose father was worshipped as a god. She takes a sip of her tea as she glances out of the window briefly as the train starts to move, then looks back to Vergil.]

Have you and Nero had to play any of her games?

[antimetabole]

Nero has only been subject to a few of her trials, I believe.

[Another chime and Vergil's frown deepens further at his Relic once he reads what Nero has written back. The nerve of this child to insinuate that just because he's chosen not to use the Relic that he is incapable of it...]

There has been only one occasion in which we have been together during a trial regardless. We both refused to go along with what she wanted, and when she realized she could not wait us out to change our minds on the matter, we failed and were ultimately released. [He sends off his message to Nero and looks at Kyrie again.] In that instance, refusal and failure did not prove to bear some terrible consequence. But that is not always the case with all the trials.

[Although in that instance, Vergil would have sooner welcomed calamity than raise his blade against Nero with any sincerity. Folkmore could burn and tear itself asunder for all Vergil cares when it comes to that matter.]

[oratoria]

In that case, I'm glad you weren't harmed. It must have made things easier, being able to present a united front together, even if it meant failing. That can't have been an easy decision.

[Knowing that the pair had been put together in a trial is troubling; she has no idea what the trial might have been, but the distaste for whatever it was is evident in Vergil's tone. She hopes it hadn't been anything too dangerous or cruel, imagine having to fight family! Nero had taken it hard enough when he had had to fight Credo, to say nothing of how it had affected her.

At least there hadn't been any terrible consequences, but she doesn't like the idea that there could be.

The chimes from the Relic are fairly consistent and Kyrie doesn't miss the look on Vergil's face as he looks down at it.]

Is everything alright?

[She glances down at the Relic in his hand then back up.]

Please tell me to mind my own business if it's private, but you look like something is troubling you...

[antimetabole]

It's nothing to trouble yourself over, [Vergil says with a slight shake of his head.] My son has simply spent enough time with his uncle that certain qualities have rubbed off by now.

[Which is Vergil's very polite, indirect way of saying: Nero is being a little shithead and he wants to throttle him (affectionately).]

[There's another chime and Vergil just stares at the response for a moment before asking a clearly unrelated question.]

Kyrie, out of curiosity, did your schooling in Fortuna include grammar lessons?

[oratoria]

[Kyrie is about to emphatically agree; Dante's presence in Nero's life has brought out a lot of new qualities in him that she would argue have been pretty positive. From Vergil's reaction, it seems he might not have the same view on that influence.

...and to be honest she thinks she may have an inkling of what he means, considering how formally Nero's father conducts himself. Credo hadn't been that keen on those aspects of Nero's personality either.]

Grammar?

[She frowns in surprise. What's grammar got to do with it?]

Yes, he had grammar lessons, certainly after he joined our family. My mother loved to write so she made sure we all could too. Why do you ask?

[antimetabole]

[Vergil just shows her Nero's latest message wordlessly. He has yet to provide Nero with feedback on what exactly is so atrocious about the way he writes, but he likely doesn't need to for Kyrie to see the crimes being committed against the written word.]

[oratoria]

[Well, she reads it. And somehow seeing his words, poorly punctuated and grammatically incorrect though they might be, makes her miss him and long for him so much it's like a gut punch.

She laughs when she sees it and shakes her head, laughing. xBlackKnightx? What a username.]

Oh Nero...

[antimetabole]

[Oh, this girl is utterly smitten. Vergil would offer to allow her to talk to him through his Relic since he has it out and open, but that would somewhat defeat the purpose of surprising him as she would like. At the very least, they won't have much longer to be apart from one another. Vergil shakes his head slightly and takes to responding to Nero. Once he's done, he glances out the window from his seat. The landscape outside remains snowy and forested, giving little hint as to how far along they've managed to make it through Wintermute. He can hazard a vague guess that they are at least as far out as Mizu's cabin if not further, but it will be some time yet before they reach the edge of the region.]

Once we cross into the mountains, we'll be close, [he says, redirecting his gaze back to Kyrie.] Epiphany lies on the other side.