chismosos | test drive meme #1

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test drive

test drive meme #1

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.

GFR Media

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.

Jorge Arce

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Perfectly healthy, thanks!

[Upon arrival, Nico had been directed and then gently guided, and then slightly less than gently nudged into the hospital. Which is stupid, really, he's not injured. Sure he's pale and tired and hasn't eaten a full meal in, well. A while. But that's just how his life goes. ~~It just be like that sometimes.~~ Not than anyone would hear any of it. No, instead he's being kept in a hospital bed, monitored daily, and even given an IV. It's all ridiculous if you ask him.

Which is why he's not in bed at the moment, having slipped the IV and the room, and even found his clothes to change back into. So long as he can make it out of the hospital, he should be able to make it into at least where the others are being kept in quarantine.

It would probably be a lot easier to do if he could actually pull off the 'I am just a regular visitor who totally didn't escape a hospital bed' look that he was going for, but mostly failing on account of the whole looking like death warmed over thing.

Help him escape? Call a doctor? Try to push him over and see if he falls?]

Day of Heroes

[For all that being here is even more jarring than his daily life has been lately, (which is honestly really saying something) for the first time since he'd arrived, Nico finds himself at peace. Being around the dead can do that for him. He's sitting next to the ghost of a young girl in a brightly colored dress, listening to her chatter delightedly and occasionally offering a comment of his own. After a while of this, the girl runs off with a peal of laughter and Nico rises to his feet again, a rare soft smile on his face as he watches her go.

He turns then to continue wandering, his eyes wide with the festivity of it all. It really is beautiful.

Eventually he stops to chat with another spirit. Feel free to notice the emo teenage boy who appears to be talking to himself.]

Do you know you're talking to yourself? [Sieglinde asks, looking the older boy over. She steps closer, with the clicking and ticking of metal spider legs on pavement, curious but with no sense of danger.]

[Nico raises an eyebrow as he turns to face the question and then that eyebrow just keeps on going up. On one hand, he knows this isn't actually Camp, but on the other, if this isn't a Hephaestus' kid, he will eat his shoe. (That would at least be something he's eaten today.)]

I'm not. [Pause.] Also if I was, don't you think you telling me wouldn't make much of a difference?

[Crazy people aren't often very good listeners.]

It might. [She says, shifting her weight slightly so those legs carry her forward. Not so far forward that she might accidentally bump into whoever Nico is talking to, but she wants a better look at the apparently empty space.]

Who are you talking to? Is it a ghost?

[His lips pull up into the slightest of smiles and he steps back to give her a better view. She isn't afraid, and that's something.]

It is. His name is Ernesto. He says he's never seen legs like yours. Will you tell me your name so I can tell him?

Oh! [And she reaches down to flick a switch somewhere, which bends those metal spider legs until her real feet just brush the floor. She gives the ghost a very well practiced curtesy, even though she still can't see him.

Another flick of that switch, and she goes back to her prior height.]

It's very nice to meet you, Mister Ernesto. My name is Sieglinde Sullivan. I'm sure you've never seen legs like these, because I made them myself. I call them the Arachne Patousa.

I have never met a real ghost before, but I have heard they make the air feel cold wherever they are. May I touch you?

[Nico watches her movement with a wry sort of amusement and then at her question, he turns to the ghost beside him, speaking to him quietly for a moment. When he's finished, he turns to Sieglinde.]

He says he'll hold his hand out to you, but first—[Nico places a hand in the air around what might be Ernesto's shoulders and closes his eyes, concentrating for a moment. When he opens his eyes again. Ernesto's form is standing beside him in plain view for Sieglinde to see, if a bit hazy and see through.

Ernesto is an older man who with a friendly smile and age worn eyes that crinkle when he holds his hand out to Sieglinde.]

[Those green eyes of hers go wide in astonishment as she holds out her hand to the ghost.]

Oh! There you are!

[Ernesto affords her a short wave with his other hand and when Sieglinde takes the hand he offers, she will indeed feel a change in temperature though it's more akin to a cool friendly breeze than a true chill. After that, he steps back and waves again, first to her and then to Nico before fading away once more.]

He said he wanted to go listen to more of the music but he was glad to be the first ghost you've met.

I didn't give you my name before, Sieglinde. I'm Nico. There are dozens of ghosts walking around today actually.

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Day of Heroes

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I’m here for one reason and one reason only