TDM #1: WELCOME VISITORS

[calderamods]

TDM #1

It happens in an instant. A heavy weight in your gut, a trembling of your limbs, the world spins and you barely have time to register that you're falling before you lose consciousness. And when you awaken, it's not where you were last. Dark, unadorned oak walls surround you in a tiny room, the only furniture the bed you are currently resting upon, and the bedside table with a folded piece of parchment resting atop it that simply reads:

“The Tavernkeeper is awaiting your arrival downstairs.”

As you exit you find others like yourself emerging from the surrounding rooms. You are indeed in a tavern, but there is no hustle and bustle one might think to hear in such a place. The only person down on the main floor is a humanoid figure wiping down the bar, who smiles when they see you. They're familiar, but not, and you can't quite place their face. For some reason, however, their presence is comforting and warm.

“Welcome, Visitor. I'm sure you have a lot of questions.”

And you most certainly do.

SIT, STAY A WHILE

The Tavernkeeper offers more than just answers. This is a tavern after all, and what is a tavern without drinks?

"I know just what you need." They say, giving you little time to reply before some manner of drink (alcoholic or not) is set before you.

DRINK MENU

PEOPLE SKILLS: A deceptively simple looking cocktail that when imbibed makes one feel very social. Time to make friends and influence people!

A SPOT OF COURAGE: a tasty concoction so nice on the tongue it loosens it up. You suddenly want to reveal something about yourself!

SKY HIGH: a fizzy blue drink billowing with white smoke and served with a lemon slice as a garnish. It has been known to make the drinker giggly and sometimes even float a few feet off the ground.

CRYING FROG: a swirling bright green drink that makes you want to cry - or is it something else about this place that just makes you want to tear up…

SHARING IS CARING: a large, delicious frozen concoction that comes with two straws. You can't finish it alone! (No, like, you quite literally can't finish it alone.)

52 PICKUP: It's just whiskey. But for some reason it really puts you in the mood for cards, or a game of mahjong, maybe a couple rounds of checkers

QUICKSAND: The thickest chocolate milkshake you've ever had. The flavour is rich and delicious, but it moves like concrete. Sucking it up the straw takes effort. Makes the drinker mellow and lethargic. It's all good, man. Don't worry, be happy.

BEER: Beer? I thought you said bear! (animal transformation)

SEX ON THE BEACH: literally just sex on the beach, but also an aphrodisiac. Have fun! (The rooms upstairs are still open, for the record…)

CHOOSE YOUR DESTINY

As the effects of your drink wear off, the Tavernkeeper speaks once more:

”It is time, my friends, for you to find your new homes.”

You are compelled to walk through the only door leading out of the tavern, finding yourself not outside, but in a deep black, seemingly endless room with five portals arranged in a circle. As the last of you leave and the door closes behind you, gone when you look back again and replaced with nothing but that black void, three of the portals illuminate:

The first portal is surrounded by an almost blinding light, prismatic rainbows shining brightly in the dewy air outside of the tavern. A soft breeze may gently caress you, pulling you toward it. The portal seems to lead to a city in the clouds, airships and winged beings of all sorts soaring through the skies. Of the little bits of visible land, much of it boasts giant waterfalls that look like clouds melting into the land below. The portal calls to those who crave independence and freedom; and especially to anyone that wishes to find the strong bond of a family not forged in blood.

The second portal is encircled by a fairy ring of spotted white capped mushrooms, the faint scent of damp stone and rich earth wafting from within the faint green glow. Peering inside, one can see a sprawling harbor city of gray hewn stone, a melting pot of humanoid beings going about their day, and beyond, rolling green farmland and cottages clustered in small villages. This portal is destined for those who crave stability and solid ground beneath their feet. A simple life, an adventurous one, and everything in between can be found within.

The last portal is adorned with shells and seaweed, the glow of blue around it catching on droplets cascading down the circular opening. Beyond it you see a city housed inside a massive bubble deep under the ocean, spiraling towers encrusted with coral, and a variety of different creatures mingling about the streets. Outside of that bubble, merfolk swim, a massive squid engulfs the view from the portal as it smoothly glides through the water, and schools of fish disperse as it passes. A sanctuary in the sea that calls to those with a hunger for knowledge and a desire to aid those in need. Or perhaps it is the mystery that beckons you - the lure of the unknown in the depths that bids you explore it.

A NEW NORMAL

Upon following the pull of the breeze through the first portal, you are thrust into the beauty of a lively city that goes by the name of Heaven's Bow. Much of this main city feels exactly as you would expect on a city below, but there are clouds surrounding every direction you look. The walls of buildings are made with light-colored limestone, and buildings are generally built up to heights made even more grandiose by their position in the sky.

The Skyfall Docks are the first thing you notice, boasting hundreds of airships sailing in and out across the clouds with shouts that accompany a typical port city. Just outside is a fantastic market with goods not only from the other regions of Caldera, but from what some shopkeepers claim are other worlds--items sold or left behind by Visitors. Almost anything can be found in the markets if one is willing to look hard enough. Transport to other locations throughout the sky and even to the land or sea can be found here.

If the docks are too lively for you, you may instead find yourself roaming the underbelly of Heaven's Bow and finding brothels and gambling parlors filled with the promise of pleasure and fortune. The guild house for the Sylphs can be found here as well, giving out quests and training to prospective adventurers and guards alike--though none of them seem concerned with the illicit activities that surround them. Perhaps the freedom the Sylphs boast of extends to what others may deem an undesirable activity.

But most curious of all, you find a shimmering opal gemstone in your hand. When placed anywhere on the body, it will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.

---

If it was the second portal that called to you, you will find yourself in the busy city of Grey Ward, with its cobblestone streets and sturdy grey stone buildings. You are in the heart of the city, the Glass Market, so named for the colorful stained glass windows of the surrounding buildings. The scent of cooking food and the sound of barkers fills the air; watchful guards keep an eye out for pickpockets and thieves, and citizens go about their day. From here, one can investigate the rest of the city: the Sundown Docks, where both sea and sky faring skips transport people and goods. The Soot Spire, home of inventors and engineers. The Hearthstill, the main residential area. The Downs, a smaller residential area for those with less means.

Outside the city walls, one can explore acres of farmlands to the east and west, or follow Terra’s Pass to the less settled areas, but take care. Past the Skyward Range, out in the smaller burrows and villages, the influence of the city guard diminishes quickly, and you’ll have to keep your wits about you. Bandits along the road are always a risk, and the wildlife are less controlled by regimented hunting.

In your hand is a gemstone, a brilliantly green emerald that, when placed anywhere on the body, will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.

---

If the last portal beckoned you through it, you find yourself within that bubble covered city beneath the sea, the city of Salt Spire. Your ears pop with the change in pressure, and the smell of the salty sea fills your nostrils. All around you buildings made of dark stone encrusted with coral and seagrass tower high above your head, the backdrop outside the dome a deep blue, seemingly endless sea filled with fish and merfolk and all other manner of creature swimming through the water. You stand in the heart of it all, surrounded by people with gils on their necks and scales upon their vibrantly colored skin, all of whom seem intrigued by your arrival. You have many options of where to visit in the city under the sea, but where oh where will you go first?

The Salt Spire Library is right before you, an impossibly large building housing thousands upon thousands of books of all genres. Fiction, non-fiction, romance and mystery and all between. You may even find books from your world and others! Oddly enough though, no Calderan history books are to be found, and if you ask for them, the librarians and locals all choose to ignore your questions.

If scholarly pursuits aren't to your interest currently, perhaps a trip to Bluetide Market would be more your style? The marketplace is host to every manner of shop one might ever need: artisans of all varieties, apothecaries and healers in the Shimmer Quarter, the most in fashion undersea clothing shops, food stalls, and all between can be found in Bluetide. There are also the Tideshore and Fogbottom docks on either end of the city. The former allows transport to the surface via large, magical bubbles for those that cannot hold their breath or make the swim themselves yet. The latter allows people to venture further into the sea. Those without their underwater abilities are offered rebreathers for travel that last for four hours before needing to be replaced.

In your hand is a gemstone, a shining sapphire that, when placed anywhere on the body, will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.

---

Visitors in all starter cities are offered a standard home with basic necessities provided (your choice in design, etc.) that can house 1-4 people if they so choose. Home upgrades can be purchased via rewards.

THE QUESTBOARD

Settled in? Good. It's time to make your way to the Questboard located in every city in numerous, easy to access locations. That is, if you want to make any kind of impact on the world or just get some Bones for anything you might wish to purchase. Visitors are given a very small stipend in which to survive every month, but all it does is keep you fed and housed. These quests will assure you greater wealth, and they're the main reason you're here: each finished quest helps the Calderans fix their shattering world.

Quests can be accepted at the questboard via magically signed parchment upon the board. Just sign your name to accept and the paper will be whisked away... somewhere. You're not actually sure. Probably nothing to concern yourself with.

Once quests are completed, earned Bones will be dropped off at the character's residence by Bonita, the mysterious artisan who has supposedly handcrafted every Bone circulating in Caldera. Please do not speak to her, she startles easily.

OOC

Welcome to Caldera's first TDM! All characters awaken in a strange tavern with nothing save the clothes on their backs, all of their powers stripped, and a piece of parchment directing them downstairs to the Tavernkeeper. There is a thread of all questions answered by the Tavernkeeper here, and if you have more, feel free to ask there for what would be offered ICly. For OOC questions, please direct them here.

All locations are available to be explored! Please mind that it is an active work in progress and will hopefully be finalized by June 8th.

We are looking at an opening date of July 1st with reserves opening on June 28th and and applications on opening day.

The TDM is game canon and all completed quests can be carried over once accepted into the game.

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Comments

[assjerky]

The Ghoul had crouched down by the edge of the portal to watch what happened when she went through the freaky portal...which was nothing, it seemed. She just...was somewhere else now.

Interesting.

"Yep." He shrugged as he rose slowly and dropped through after her, landing with a clink of spurs. "What, you think we was gonna hold hands and fling ourselves into the void together? Nah. Somebody had to go first, so I volunteered ya."

[okiedokies]

"Which is rude considering you should have been the one to go first considering you're better at surviving and can take more possible damage than I can," she huffed at him before turning away to bite back the rest of her irritation at the moment. It wasn't going to do any good to argue with him, he didn't like listening to reason and he didn't particularly care about her safety.

Looking over the gray buildings, she started forward before pausing and looking down at her hand where there was now a bright green emerald. Curious, she held it up and studied it before glancing over at him to see if he had the same thing happening to him.

[assjerky]

"Yeah, yeah, world's smallest violin, Vaultie," the Ghoul drawled, lifted his hand rubbing the pad of his index finger against his thumb--and almost dropping the emerald in his hand in the process. With a thoughtful sort of grunt, he held the gem up to the light. Couldn't tell if it was real or not, hadn't really given a shit about fancy gems for two hundred years. "Hm."

[okiedokies]

Her eyes flashed as she narrowed them in his direction and, just for a moment, she considered flipping him off but she didn’t. She merely turned away, giving her attention to the emerald again as she studied it.

She didn’t know what possessed her to do it then but she raised it up to press it gently to the hollow of her throat, trying to imagine what it would look like as a necklace. Then there was a warm tingling sensation which made her freeze as she looked at him with with eyes. Once the sensation faded, she lowered her hand as the emerald stayed in place, held gently now as a pendant by a necklace that consisted of two delicate silver chains.

[assjerky]

You know, it wasn't really any weirder than the rest of the weird shit today, but something about it left him unsettled enough that part of him wanted to yank the thing off her neck and toss both it and his own into the nearest gutter. Instead, he merely grunted thoughtfully and tucked the gem away in his pocket, for now. "Ain't sure what the hell that's about. C'mon." The Ghoul strolled down the street, not knowing where he was going, obviously, but putting off the kind of confidence and swagger that made that fact less obvious.

[okiedokies]

He was hiding his concern well but she wasn't as she touched the gem, her eyes wide as she looked at him. "Do you think I can take it off?"

She was still toying with the gem, trying to make sense of what was happening as she followed him, her eyes darting this way and that. It was a nicer place than the Wasteland but she wasn't sure what to make of it. At least he seemed pretty confident at the moment, so that made her feel better.

[assjerky]

"Hell if I know, Vaultie." He slowed his steps enough to let her fall in beside him, his brow furrowed as he eyed the chain, leaned back to see if there was a clasp. Looked like there was. He studied the chain to see if it was long enough to slip over her head. "You want me to try and take it off?"

[okiedokies]

It wasn't quite long enough to slip off over her head, so it would have to be undone if that was possible. Slowing to a stop, she nodded as she looked at him, trying to hide the hint of worry as she gave him permission. "Go ahead."

[assjerky]

The Ghoul made a quiet sound of acknowledgement and reached up to catch the fingertip of his glove in his teeth, tugging it off his right hand as he moved behind her. As he recalled, jewelry clasps were fiddly little things; he managed it, though, and the chain loosened, the pendant sliding into her hand with ease. "Dunno, Vaultie," he remarked, moving back in front of her and frowning down at the gem, poking at it with a forefinger that...probably shouldn't be there, to her memory, since she'd bitten it off, the digit an entirely different color and texture than the rest of his hand, not to mention daintier. "Maybe it's a tracker or some shit," he shrugged, shifting to pull his glove back on.

[okiedokies]

She was quick to gather her hair to the side, pulling it over one shoulder as he moved around behind her, making her heart race even though she didn't know why. Maybe she was simply nervous with him being behind her? She pressed her lips together as she waited for him to figure it out and she breathed a small sigh of relief when she chain loosened.

"Maybe it's something to do with going through the portal? I wonder if the gem would be different if...." She had been looking down at the gem, watching as he reached out to touch it with the finger that shouldn't have been there. Then it registered as her gaze snapped up to his, her lips parting in confusion and shock before her voice came out a touch higher. "Is that my finger?!"

[assjerky]

"Hm?" The Ghoul glanced down at his hand, the jagged black thread just above the knuckle binding her smooth fair skin to his leathery irradiated flesh. He'd kind of stopped thinking about it so much when it stopped itching and burning. "Well not no more it ain't." With a quick flash of a grin, he flicked her chin with the tip of the stolen digit, then resumed tugging his glove back on. "Like I done told you, Vaultie: honest exchange."

[okiedokies]

Lucy couldn't even make sense of the thoughts racing through her head as she realized that he had kept her finger. She didn't know why but she had thought he would throw it away after cutting it from her hand and now it was attached. To him.

Her mouth opened and then closed as she continued to stare at her, wondering why she wasn't as freaked out as she should be. Shouldn't she be horrified at the fact that he now had her finger? That it was his? It was clearly attached and working which he showed to her by tapping it against her chin. He wouldn't see it but her own strange finger, the dead one that replaced the one he had stolen, flexed before relaxing again. Almost like she had been the one tapping her finger.

"Okie dokie," she murmured somewhat breathlessly, pressing her lips together before he curled her other hand around the gem and seemed to shift gears. "So I'm thinking wherever we put the gems, they must somehow magically turn into a piece of jewelry. Try yours."

[assjerky]

Well he couldn't exactly go without a trigger finger, now could he?

"Sweetheart, I look like I go around wearin' jewelry?" he drawled, though he fished the gem out of his pocket and eyed it curiously. Struck by a quick trip of inspiration, he stopped walking long enough hold the gem against his belt buckle. Much like hers had, it changed almost instantly into a decorative piece. "...Hm."

[okiedokies]

He could have gotten someone else’s or trekked to sew his own back on!

“Maybe? I could see you wearing it in one of those ties or in your teeth,” she managed to deadpan as she looked at him. She watched as he considered it before drawing her gaze down as he moved his emerald to his belt. Then she realized whereabouts she was looking and glanced away quickly, preferring to focus on her gem as she pressed it to her wrist. Almost immediately it formed a cuff bracelet with the emerald on top, winking subtly in the light.

[assjerky]

Maybe he would've if he hadn't gotten arrested for her crimes.

"Oh, you're right, I ain't worn a bolo in years," he drawled sarcastically, looking up and watching her fiddle with the gem. "Reckon it'd bring out my eyes." He narrowed said eyes thoughtfully as the necklace became a bracelet, just like that. This was some fucking weird ass shit he didn't understand at all. "Hm."

[okiedokies]

Maybe he shouldn't have stuck around and got all high on the vials left behind.

There was a huff of laughter that escaped her when he replied sarcastically but she had turned away before he could see the amusement on her face. She scanned the buildings around her as she tilted her head to the side, seeming to forget about the gems even as she brushed her fingers over the one on her wrist.

"Do you think we're supposed to stay here in town?" She sounded hesitant about the idea.

[assjerky]

Now that's just crazy talk.

"Hell if I know, Vaultie. Reckon unless they're handing me keys to a rent free apartment they can kiss my ass, cause I'm gonna park it where I damn well please." She raised a good point though. He glanced around them, his eyes landing on what looked like a tavern. "Tell you what. Why don't we go ask somebody. And by we, I mean the one of us what got a face won't send folk screaming."

[okiedokies]

Or it was the sane thing to do.

She wasn't so sure that she agreed with him because it often seemed like people didn't respond well to her or maybe that was just back in their home. He was right though because they needed answers and so she nodded as she looked at the tavern, hesitating before she wandered inside to see what they could find out.

[assjerky]

The Ghoul followed her in, but hung back, keeping his hat low and finding a spot he could keep an eye on her without interfering or drawing attention. Could be he was being over cautious--plenty of other weird looking motherfuckers 'round these parts--but better safe than sorry. Either way, nobody paid him much mind as he hovered, ready to step in if things got hairy.

[okiedokies]

Lucy was rather pleasantly surprised when she approached the tavern keeper about places to live. She had gotten an odd look or two but gaining the information was surprisingly easy, so she looked pleased when she made her way back to the Ghoul a few moments later.

“So there are a few options. But we can find a place outside the walls if we want. He said we might have to worry about bandits but I told him we’re not worried about that with you here,” she told him with a nod as she led him out of the building.

[assjerky]

"Guess we're taking a walk, then." He pushed off the wall and followed her out with a clink of spurs. Bandits didn't worry him. Unless slavery was a problem--and this didn't strike him as that kind of society--then they didn't currently have shit for a bandit to take. "Assuming you ain't changed your mind 'bout city living."

[okiedokies]

"No, I don't think I have," Lucy answered as she looked around with a little shake of her head. Maybe it didn't make sense considering how she was brought up but the idea of living somewhere a little further away sounded more appealing to her at the moment. She was still musing over it when they reached one of the exits out of town, then she glanced over at him. "If we find a place big enough..."

[assjerky]

The Ghoul studied their surroundings out of the corners of his eyes, still keeping his hat down to conceal his missing nose from view. "If you're bout to suggest startin' a commune, Vaultie, I'm gon' have to pass," he drawled, glancing at her and tipping his hat back with a fingertip enough to raise an eyebrow at her.

[okiedokies]

“I meant for the two of us,” she answered as she glanced over at him, pursing her lips briefly as she still wasn’t sure this was the right call to make but she knew she’d feeling better having him nearby since he was familiar to her. She was sure too that he would have something to say about that. “I don’t want to build a commune.”

[assjerky]

"Well yeah, sweetheart, thought that was obvious." Like he was gonna let her wander through this weird ass new world all on her own? She'd be a babe in the woods on her own. "Ain't gotta be that big a place. Don't need much room m'self. Figure you ain't exactly used to havin' that much space anyway. S'pretty tight in those vaults, from what I remember."