repeter | OCTOBER TDM

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OCTOBER TDM

TEST DRIVE

OCTOBER TEST DRIVE
The city of Recollé...

When the crypt doors creak, and the tombstones quake, spooks come out for a singing wake. Happy haunts materialize and begin to vocalize...grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize...

Every year during the Halloween season, the city of Recollé comes to life with plenty of fall activities for everyone. There's something to do in every district if one were to take a look.

What will you do today?

I.
Family fun seems to be the theme today over in Tribunal Terrace. Several tables are set up and in a semi-circle near Recollé Square with stacks of pumpkins, carving tools, paint and anything else you may need to create your own jack o'lantern. Other stations are set up for face-painting and games to win mini-sized candy bars including a ring toss, bowling, and bobbing for apples. Be careful with the apples though. They like to wiggle and jiggle with their happy little faces staring up out of the water.

...so maybe apple-bobbing is for the brave at heart. Are you the artsy type to carve a beautiful pumpkin? Are you helping to run the games (or even cheating to get more candy)? It's time to relax and let your creativity flow.

II.
Pumpkin-carving not your speed? Never fear, horror is here. Over in Tisse there's plenty to do for those looking for a little more adventure. Several coffee shops have harvest specials made with pumpkin, maple, and pecan flavors. Over at Flix a monster movie marathon and costume contest are taking place (with a prize of two free passes for the best monster costumes.) But the highlight of this district is the annual haunted funhouse.

Anyone daring enough will find the usual spooks and scares in a haunted house, jump scares and fog machines galore. But...the house certainly didn't look so big from the outside. How did you possibly get shuffled straight to the center? No worries. This hall of mirrors will guide you out safely...if the walls closing in don't crush you first. It's a race against time as the halls narrow, and if you're one of the lucky ones you'll escape and exit through the main doors.

For those not quite so lucky, the walls will stop just inches from crushing you completely before the floor drops open and you find yourself on a slide, falling through the dark and tumbling into an underground room filled with plastic skeletons, rubber spiders and more. There must be a way out, right? Hopefully you aren't alone and you can navigate the lair with a friend or two.

III.

Meanwhile, the rest of the city's usual hustle and bustle continues. The shopping districts are busy, students wander the sidewalks after class, and that oddly-shaped ghost appears right in the middle of the crowd.

Wait, what? You could have sworn that ghost wasn't there before. Maybe you don't even believe in ghosts. You may blink a few times to clear your vision, but the faint outline of the ghost remains as a few more of them pop up around the city. They won't speak, but they will cause some trouble for anyone who gets too close whether it's by playing pranks on passerbys, stealing items and running away, sitting on a person and applying a gravitational force so they can't move or other crafty, sneaky tactics.

Are the ghosts messing with you? Or are you going to find a way to mess with the ghosts?

IV.
As the sun begins to set, a strange sort of fog rolls in. Several citizens of the city may not even think it's unusual and others seem to capitalize on the weather. The Churchhill Downs Stables are hosting their annual haunted hayrides through Recollé Woods as soon as the sun sets. There are plenty of carts and chocobos saddled up and ready to go.

Once passengers are seated the chocobos begin to trot forward into the woods as a pre-recorded ghost tour of the city takes place. The stories range from silly ones about two ghost children who like to play hide and seek in these woods to scarier ones about a jilted lover chasing her husband off a cliff at the edge of ocean. For the most part they're a bit cheesy and in good fun, but something about this haunted ride seems a bit...off. Peering into the fog you may see something strange that follows you, be it a monster or a shadow or an object. You may hear things whispering your name and you may see your greatest fear manifest right out of the fog and chase your cart through the woods. Even worse, it seems to follow you right out of the woods and back into the city. No matter where you run or where you hide, the fears from the fog will track you down and they change for every single person in the city.

Will you run or will you fight? You may wish to be careful since the creatures will fight back.

BONUS.
With only a few short weeks left until the end of October, Retrospec's Halloween Mode is in full swing and popping up on new users' devices. Retrospec users will find their application decked out in cheerful Halloween colors, and their userpics in a randomized (work safe) costume. However, there's always a trick to each treat and this time the seasonal mode can't be turned off for new users. Notifications chime with zombie groans, a rousing game of Candy Crush must be played and beaten before you can use your device again, and the new Trick or Treat function has a few upgrades. When a user enables this function, they will be met with the phrase "Trick or Treat?" Users who select "treat" will get one virtual candy! Yay! The catch though is that they will also find themselves in a costume representing that specific candy.

Should a user pick "trick", however, they will find all sorts of harmless but unpleasant things happening to them including but not limited to pranks, being splashed by vehicles driving through puddles of water, being unable to speak in anything but rhymes and other such things. None of these effects last over ten minutes, but the game will show up periodically over and over again and even giving you the option to play the game with others.

Welcome to the

recolle test drive meme! All characters will be begin in-game AU'd as Recollé residents. You may use any of the above prompts for ideas or make up your own depicting your Recollé AU! Prompts do not have to be set in the districts listed above. You can review our list of locations for what's available. Please note that TDM threads can be used as samples, can be kept as game canon, and can also be used for bonus points for future item regains. Share a few minor details of your AU, tag around, and have fun!

For current players, TDM threads will not count toward your Trick or Treat freebie! Additionally, please remember that TDM threads can only be used for bonus points, not regains.

Please note: you will need a reserve to apply, and current characters must have full AC posted at the time of their reservation.

Your October TDM directory is here, and your AU workshop is here! Our mod questions thread for this TDM is over here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I.

[ It has been some time since Natsume carved a pumpkin with his mother. As a small child she had mustered up the energy to sit down with him and carve out the faces he'd doodled on the gourd in marker. Once he was old enough to use knives without (too much) worry, she'd slowly begun to back away from assisting him until she stopped altogether.

Pumpkin carving had lost some of its luster after that.

That's what makes it kind of surprising that Natsume is here now slowly working on his own jack-o-lantern creation right now. Boredom mixed with the fact that it was there and something to do managed to get the best of him.

He will borrow other people's carving tools without asking first. Art doesn't require permission to be made. ]

II.

[ When the walls had started to close in on him, Natsume had stopped moving completely. There wasn't a single second that he thought that they'd actually crush him. The lawsuit wouldn't be worth the moment of true horror that a dead college student would bring.

Unfortunately, he hadn't expected the floor to drop out under him, and there's a moment of genuine surprise as he goes sliding down into the skeleton pit. It takes him a good fifteen seconds to climb back onto his feet.

There's a huff that's somewhere between a laugh and a sound of disdain as he picks a plastic spider out of his hair, and tosses it blindly into the darkness around him.

Now how exactly is he supposed to get out of this? ]

IV.

[ The haunted hayride hadn't seemed like anything particularly interesting when he'd opted to go on it at first, but he thought that hearing some of the local ghost stories might be interesting. You never know when you want to branch out of your normal fields of study and attempt a seance.

But... not really. In all honestly, Natsume's not entirely sure he believes in ghosts. For all of the other topics he's fascinated by, he's never felt there has been strong, definitive evidence for the existence of spirits. Far be it from Natsume to be a complete non-believer, but he's certainly a skeptic.

He'd love to have something appear to prove him wrong that's more compelling than a man in a costume. So far he hasn't seen it, but there has been movement behind the cart for awhile now, and Natsume has lost interest in the stories. As everyone else in the cart seems to huddle closer to the front for warmth and safety, Natsume has been pushing his way to the back, until he's the closest to the the shadowy figure that moves through the thick fog.

It's still some ways off, but he's certain now it's not just a trick in the gloomy light. ]

Now that's unusual.

[ When he finally speaks up, his voice has a strange cadence too it, adding extra stress to the last syllable of his last word. He doesn't take his eyes off the figure to see if anyone else heard him. ]

Edited 2017-10-18 04:31 (UTC)

[The house was laughable to say the least. It could use for some major improvements and Ritsu spent most of his time on his phone taking notes for a video later. Halloween was his time of the year and with his new change in eye color he made sure his costume would be great, being a vampire costume...because why not? Though as the walls close he watches at the guy in front of him seems unaffected too until, that is, there is no floor. Ritsu watches with some amusement as he falls into the floor but then seems to be doomed to the same end. As he tumbles into the pile of skeletons her sits up rather grumpy and throws a look to the other that's here.]

Did you step on something?

[ The light isn't the best down here, and Natsume has to stare in Ritsu's direction for a moment while his eyes adjust to the gloom. Even when he gets a better view of him it's too hard to read his facial expression in this light.

So Natsume will just have to go by that less than happy tone in Ritsu's voice to tell he's not overwhelmed to be down here. A shame, because this room seems a lot more interesting than the rest of the haunted house above it. It's just too bad that the bones and spiders lack any realism to them.

Standing up slowly, Natsume tugs at his shirt to straighten it up again as he turns in spot to check out the room as best he can. ]

You're implying I triggered some sort of pressure sensitive spot on the floor? As innovative as that particular brand of action movie cliché would be for a cheap funhouse, I don't think they would bother to invest the funds needed in order to produce it.

[ He starts wading through skeletons towards Ritsu now. ]

Besides, I didn't move. How would I have stepped on anything?

[Interesting, yes, but not somewhere he wanted the surprise of landing. Still it was rather large and Ritsu looks at the props he can see. They look just as fake as the rest of the house...a shame really. If he had some say this house would make someone's skin crawl.

Natsume's reply gets Ritsu to stand before he folds his arms over his chest, a cheek puffed out for a moment before he shrugs.]

It is a cheap trick, that most normal people might fall for but it isn't too hard to rig?

[Though it did seem like a lot more effort than the rest of the house put on.]

How would I have know? If you and I didn't press something perhaps it's something left behind of what the house use to be? Something like a secret door they never discovered...though the fake bones might suggest otherwise.

Edited 2017-10-19 03:41 (UTC)

[ He's right, of course. It isn't hard to rig at all, and in all honesty for Natsume going on about the expense, it'd be a pretty cost effective pitfall to add into the funhouse as well. The most costly part of all of it is actually this room down here that they're in right now, and they clearly decided to splurge on that.

... Sort of. The skeletons look pretty cheap.

Natsume stops wading through them once he's about five feet away from Ritsu, and bends over to pick up one that looks mostly intact. ]

It's a shame two entirely normal people must have fallen for it then.

[ He's actually kind of ticked off at Ritsu implying he's normal, so he'll take a little passive aggressive dig at Ritsu in turn.

Standing up straight he holds the skeleton by the rib cage up in front of him. If he's going to get dumped into a surprise room and forced to crawl his way out then he's going to bring a souvenir with him. ]

There's no obvious dust. These must have been left here recently.

[Ritsu has seen much better haunted houses...hell, he's been to them. So this one was pretty cheap for thrills. He can only assume watching other people get scared provides some thrill.

Watching Natsume as he listens to see if people are nearby, he feels that jab and frowns.]

If you want to call me normal~? I was saying it's nothing I would usually fall for and you seem smart enough to see through it to.

[He had been watching him as they navigated the house. If Ritsu was anything it was observant.

Ritsu grabs a skull himself and looks it over...even the teeth are made of cheap plastic.]

So it isn't some killers lair...boring.

[ Call it a natural sense of distrust that Natsume has for most people, but he's not sure he believes that. Especially when Ritsu first demanded to know if Natsume had been the one to step on something. He'll let the compliment pacify him enough for now not to press the issue. ]

I would have thought so too, and yet here I find myself...

[ Despite the strange way he stresses his words, his voice still manages to trail off as he takes another look around. There looks like there might be a hallway off to his right.

He slings the skeleton over his shoulder, and takes a wobbling step through the skeletons towards it. ]

If you're lucky, maybe the set up some troll in a costume for you at the end of that hallway.

[ The remark this time seems less passive aggressively sharp, and a little more good natured. Ritsu's certainly not making it sound like he's thrilled for the idea of the less than scary normal haunted house fair. ]

[Oh that's because Ritsu was pretty sure the floor was rigged. So even intelligent people could caught off guard. Later he really wants to figure out how it knew to drop people...maybe it was pressure sensitive?]

Guess we are suck with that then.

[The way he talks doesn't bother Ritsu...after dealing with hearing "so annoying" almost on loop from Sena not much else bothers him.

Following after with his own skull in hand, he chuckles at the thought of a troll.]

"A troll in the dungeon!" [He mocks and holds his skull up. It was a funny thought though.]

It would be more fun if this house was actually scary.

[ Pressure sensitive, or there are unseen cameras hidden around, and someone watching who passes through the hallway. Natsume wouldn't put it past either being true. The cameras would be a simpler setup, but it would cause more manpower to pull it off...

He'd have to go back to investigate if he really wanted to know, and he's not sure he's curious enough to get dropped in a pit of plastic again.

At least the guy he got stuck with seems interesting enough, earlier perceived slights aside.

Natsume wiggles the skeleton in his arms around a little, keeping his expression neutral and his tone even as he asks,
in mock seriousness-- ]

You don't find our new plastic playmates frightening enough?

[Cameras would be a good choice and cheap if done correctly.

Ritsu really wants to explore to see how they did it as well, especially since the rest of the spooks were lame.

A smile creeps onto his face and he then holds up his own skull and makes it talk.]

They could be more reeeeal~!

Natsume Sakasaki | Ensemble Stars

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