test drive meme #1

[historiadores]

TDM #1

LA LLEGADA

The Museum of Art and History is the largest and oldest in Llave, and contains a grand collection spanning from the time the first humans landed on its shores to the modern day. The building encircles an open courtyard where an art installation sits amidst many of the plants important to the settlers of Llave. Behind the museum is a wide, shallow field of hard-packed dirt lined by large stones, the petroglyphs on their surface worn by time—the earliest known playing field in all of the Caribbean. And further out are the areas where excavations are ongoing, uncovering the pottery, jewelry and artifacts of the ancestors.

After awakening, things move quickly. The museum is closed, and the characters ushered into the courtyard to wait. Any needing emergency medical attention are kept in one of the air conditioned galleries until the paramedics arrive. A group of women with a military bearing take charge of the situation; identified as the Bajari Bara, they question the healthy and able. They cede authority only to the Prime Minister when she arrives. Two more of their group flank the nation's leader, though they step aside when she begins to walk among the new arrivals to speak with them.

Each side has many questions and few answers. Characters are informed they are in Llave. It's October 2020. And efforts will be made to return them to their homes. But how they came to be here and why remain mysteries…as does how they’ll find their way back.

A hurricane shelter nearby is activated for use by the recent arrivals. There, characters are provided with food and clothing, a cot and other basic supplies. No one is allowed out, but through the windows they can see the lush green of the their surroundings. At night, coquí sing them to sleep. Those taken to a hospital will remain there until they are discharged. Each patient is allowed one visitor to stay with them overnight.

Over the next several days, all characters undergo physical and mental evaluations; are provided with their first immunizations; have the next legal steps explained to them; and are taught about Llave. Every character, regardless of age, has a caseworker who checks in with them daily. None have been arrested, they are assured. But they must also complete the quarantine process. To enforce quarantine, at both the hospital and the shelter, the Bajari Bara guard every entrance and exit.

Welcome to Llave.

EL AREYTO

As luck would have it, around the time quarantine ends, all of Llave is in the midst of celebration. Today is the Day of Heroes, celebrated every last weekend in October, which this year happens to fall on the eve of All Saints’ Day. So when the new arrivals venture out for the first time, Nona, the capital, welcomes them with color and music.

The people of Llave have a special love for music and dance, and it shows. All day, groups gather to play, and many more to dance. The songs center around heroes of Llave with the chief of these being Nuna, a beloved figure who is said to have led her people here to freedom. Those performing wear traditional clothes: guayaberas, long circle skirts, palm hats and headwraps, all brightly colored.

From early morning, artisans have set up under tents tables laden with goods. Clothing, jewelry, musical instruments, paintings, and more made from leather and wood, seashells and fish scales, aluminum and copper. Many create right at the table. Most popular are those working on cemís: sculptural objects, said to house the spirits of ancestors. Many carry them as amulets especially on this the eve to the days of the dead.

The food is equally rich and one of the cooks takes an interest in the new arrivals. Those who eat his food find their mood changing depending on what they ate. The tostones he prepared while speaking of his childhood home in Santa Cecilia bring on feelings of joy and contentment. The alcapurrias fried while arguing with a customer about last night’s wrestling match cause those who eat them to feel irritated. And the casabe, a flatbread made of cassava, that he explains he learned to make from his wife who passed, induces a profound nostalgia for lost loves. His wife, recognizable from the photo he keeps on the wall, sits beside those most affected and comforts them until the melancholy passes.

More dead can be found. An old man in a fine guayabera recalls composing the lyrics to a particular song. He points out the man playing the congas and proudly says his great-grandson will soon outplay him. When characters look back to the old man, he’s gone. Those with a sense for it will recognize many dead walking among the living. These next few days honor and celebrate the departed, and the dead have seized the rare opportunity to join the festivities once more.

For those who prefer the sea, the impossibly blue waters of the Caribbean are just a short walk away. Cobblestone and concrete paths line La Bahía de Nona. On one of the larger rock outcroppings jutting into the bay sits a silver-white dog. If called, he will trot over. Up close, one can see his color is due to the sand and salt that has collected on its coat. Though he allows himself to be petted, he does not step off the rocks. A passerby comments that the dog has been waiting for his master to return. How long? The man shrugs. When he was a boy, the dog was keeping watch; now he’s forty-three, and the dog is still there.

EL TRAVIESO

Or perhaps the characters were more distracted by how clean the water was, how clear. Enough so that the sight of a bottle bobbing in the waves seems offensively out of place. Anyone who chooses to snag it out of the water will find it’s a corked bottle of rum, apparently empty.

From a nearby restaurant, someone yells and waves their hands—too late. By uncorking it, they have freed the bacoo. Immediately, everyone backs away. Two cross themselves.

Only one stays long enough to warn, “You have to trick it back into the bottle. It likes milk and bananas. Don’t ask it for anything.”

Turn around, and the bacoo is there.

Short and rugged with large eyes, long arms and legs, covered in unkempt hair and its fingers and toes ending in claws, the bacoo is a strange little creature. Stranger still, it can grant any wish—so long as it is kept appeased with a steady diet of milk and bananas.

A hungry bacoo will pelt walls with stones, move objects, keep its owner up at night, and otherwise wreak havoc until it is fed. A shapeshifter, they can be difficult to locate, much less trap. And a starving bacoo will turn vicious and its pranks malicious.

Best find a way to trick it into the bottle. Fast.

---

OOC NOTES

This TDM covers from mid-to-end of October. The first prompt lasts approximately two weeks; the second, a day. For now, all characters are restricted to Nona. Any attempting to leave will be gently, but firmly escorted back.

The TDM will also double as the first IC post of the game. Threads between any two or more characters who were all apped and approved will be considered game canon. As such, actions characters take in this TDM will impact the game once it opens. How characters behave will shape the inhabitants’ first impressions of them. Make it count.

Questions regarding this TDM can be asked below, while questions regarding the game at large should be directed to the FAQ.

Thank you for your interest and we hope to have you join!

NAVIGATION • IC COMM • OOC COMM • MEME COMM

Comments

[inkings]

[ it might have been milk if she had ever had milk growing up. but on the barges loaded with garbage that comprised the entirety of their supplies, it was always curdled by the time it came into their hands.

little wonder maleficent preferred poisons. ]

Gigantic brutes who preceded the gods and were imprisoned in Tartarus for their atrocities. Kronos led them.

[ the information is rattled off as if she were in class again. at her first school, however, the titans had been framed in a much more sympathetic light. just four guys out here sending the earth shaking and volcanoes erupting, interrupted in their fun by the arrogance of the gods who thought themselves the titans' better. she has since learned that wasn't the truth.

it's why she hesitates, glancing at hades before quietly finishing, ] He…ate his kids. Minus Zeus.

[aionc]

[ he feels his body tense, fingers curling tightly into fists. his form shifts slightly, skin darkening as the edges of his hair lift unnaturally, hades inhales and tries to steady himself, eyes closing as she talks. as much as he doesn't enjoy talking about it he can think of no better example of why he can't be what she wants him to be, why this is as difficult as it is. ]

Mm. [ there are eyes on him. eyes that feel far too piercing, that somehow slip past his walls with such little effort. ] As you can imagine it isn't the most shining example of parenting.

So, I can't make any promises but I am not going to abandoned you. [ he leans back, turning his gaze up to the sky itself. ] I'll... I don't know, be here? If you need anything?

[inkings]

[ mal watches the changes coming over hades without a word. empathizing with her dad: yet another thing she did not expect to do today.

picking up a loose piece of rock, she holds it between her hands before tossing it into the waves. she keeps her eyes on the spot where it vanished underwater. ]

I went eighteen years without a dad and my mother transformed into a dragon to attack me. I don't think she was trying to eat me, but she definitely tried to charbroil me. Which is all to say I don't have high expectations where parents are involved.

[ her mother was a lunatic who hurt so many people. it took mal a long time to finally acknowledge that maleficent had hurt her too. but where hades had abandoned her, maleficent stayed…and that makes it harder for mal to direct her anger at her mother. maleficent was terrible. but she never left.

lifting her chin, she faces hades directly. mal's eyes are green flecked with gold, not black. but the rare intensity of them, the devastating power barely restrained behind them…that she inherited from her father alone. her throat aches when she speaks, but her voice is measured as befits the once soon-to-be queen of auradon. ]

If you're going to try with anyone, do it with Nico. He's still a kid. Ask him how he is or invite him with you to come see the dog. If you can get him to eat, I'll send you a gift basket.

Help me keep him safe. I don't know half of what that boy's been through, but I know it's too damn much.

[ as has mal. but she was raised to be strong at all costs. to toughen steel, it first must be fed to the fire.

her mother succeeded at that. ]

[aionc]

[ he isn't sure he is comforted by the admission, knowing her mother, while maybe not trying to eat her, would transform into a dragon to attack her. it rings too close, picking at scars that litter his body, at the invisible wounds that still haunt him. hades exhales, watching the rock hit the water sink beneath it quickly. ]

I can try. [ there is so much he doesn't know, doesn't understand, how does he even start to try with either of them? it feels wrong to simply ignore them, so he can't do that, but to be something that he isn't? ] I will try.

[ the lines of his body shifts, calms down, reminders of cronus fading until there is nothing more but hades sitting down beside her. ]

Making him eat shouldn't be a problem, I've been told that I am good cook. [ he tries to smile, take the edge of the conversation. ] Maybe I can cook you something sometime, after we've figured all of this out.

[inkings]

[ the thought of hades in a kitchen, apron and all, is at once ludicrous and hilarious, and mal chuckles despite herself. ]

You handle the entree; I’ll cover dessert. Nico can set the table. [ she pauses, nose wrinkling. ] Hopefully.

[ a sweet, wholesome image. an unlikely image. sitting down like an actual family, a father without children, an only daughter, and a little brother stuck with strangers in familiar places. fate is strange with a stranger sense of humor.

whether hades can be trusted to uphold his word or not, this is as much as she can ask from him. and it is more than she expected to get. if he proves himself, she will be pleasantly surprised. if not… she can look after her brother on her own as she was already planning to. nothing lost.

getting to her feet, she takes her parasol in hand. ]

I’m gonna walk around a bit more. See what else is here. Are you staying here?

[aionc]

Sounds good.

[ it is not an image he ever dared to dream of. the god of the dead cannot have children, after all, so he would never have such a thing in store for him. but now? strange as it is, the possibility is there. the only thing missing is kore and that thought alone makes his stomach sink, a hand absently reaching for the ever-watchful dog staring out to sea.

a part of him truly wishes she were here. she would be safer here, wouldn't she? far from the reach of zeus and his temper. ]

Yeah, I'm going to stay here for a while longer.

[inkings]

[ there’s more she wants to say, but is unsure if she should. with a conversation completed without tears or fury or attempted bribes, it also seems best not to test their luck. with a quiet sigh, mal nods. ]

Send him in before he starts burning, will you? [ she tells the dog who emits a low growl, like a louder cat’s purr, in agreement. smiling at the animal, and offering hades a little smile, she returns to the streets. ]