THE SKY WENT OFF-WHITE.

[wastemods]

WHO: Anyone and everyone.
WHAT: Our inaugural test drive meme.
WHERE: Anywhere in the world core.
WHEN: Whenever your character arrives.
NOTES: Expect surreal horror and possible violence. Please use common sense when warning for other content.

Art by Basile Godard

THE SUNLIGHT SPLINTERED.

You reach the end of the ash-gray hall at a run, hands fumbling for an antique door handle. And then you stumble, fall, tumble—any number of adjectives, depending on where, exactly, the door opened—into a radio station.

The equipment is old and dusty, but devoid of cobwebs to the observant eye. And it's dark, save for whatever light makes it through the windows. They display disjointed locations; perhaps one shows an upside-down tower, while its neighbors frame the crumbling pavement of a rotting car park and the stripped out interior of a sewer. Whatever the case, peering through one window reveals a landscape that impossibly doesn't connect to the next.

The door is still there, the only exit to this grubby room. It opens somewhere, anywhere else in this distorted world. And once you leave, it no longer leads back whence you came.

Where do you go?

THE LIGHT, DIVIDED.

A sun on one horizon, a full moon on the other. They're luminous but unreal, like they were plucked from a sky and pasted to a flat, starless backdrop. You can see only one, depending on which side you entered; it's essentially random. Both "sides" overlap like alternate dimensions and you can't see anyone who isn't on the same side as you. Light or dark, you walk in the light of a muted sun or an overbright moon. It never feels quite real.

Neither star nor satellite seem to move from their position. The passage of time is at a standstill.

Regardless of which side you're on, you'll find signs that you aren't alone. What someone does on one side affects the other, so moving an item or writing something down will translate to floating items and mysteriously appearing letters. Speech doesn't travel...unless there's a radio. Radios may turn on and off, with voices audible through the white noise. And if you walk past a mirror, the reflection isn't your own. Instead, it acts as a window to the other side.

In-character observations:

• Anyone sensitive to time, space, and related dimensional shenanigans will feel they're distorted. And it isn't something they can fix, at least not with powers.
• It's possible to cross dimensions if a character has related powers, but they'll suffer backlash and significant stress from the transition. Successive jumps aren't gonna fly.
• If a character is affected by the sun or moon, they'll find neither holds sway over them here; e.g., vampires can walk in daylight and werewolves won't shift in the full moon.

TL;DR: Whatever this is, it isn't natural.

THE SHADOW REALM.

Outdoors, there are shadows on the prowl.

Silent and eerily insubstantial, they trail after you like blind spots given form. Staring at them too long is unsettling but, for the most part, they're content to watch you back...if they can watch. They don't seem to have eyes.

When that isn't enough, however, they attack. Stealing the shape of monsters from other worlds, they may lack special powers, but that doesn't keep them from being dangerous. When in doubt, you're safest indoors.

But maybe that isn't good enough for you. Or maybe you just fucked up. Either/or.

RADIO WAVES.

If you aren't wondering how you got here, you're probably at least asking why. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anyone around who can answer your questions. Everyone else is as clueless as you.

But, some time after you arrive—whether it's days, hours, minutes, or seconds—the dead air stirs. The atmospheric pressure drops and playhouse lightning arcs across the facsimile of a sky. It's a storm that warns of what's to come, as an earthquake shifts the ground beneath your feet. Around you, buildings flood, and water pours out in falls only half aware of gravity. Wind hurls debris at such high speeds, it turns into shrapnel. Rain pelts you from above and below as the temperature plummets. It starts to snow.

Somehow, the sun and moon remain visible through the turmoil. A collection of mirrors scattered through the world don't reflect their light; instead, it passes through them and illuminates the other side. These specific mirrors, all set in ash-gray frames that match the halls, are untouched in the unfolding natural disasters, and standing before them will shield you as well. Consider them havens in the chaos, proverbial eyes in the storm.

In the dark, a radio turns on of its own accord. Is someone—something—talking to you?

INTO ALL OUR DARKEST FEARS.

Welcome to THE WASTEYARD's first test drive! Some quick things to remember:

• Our TDMs tie into the game plot. As such, any applicants can keep their TDM threads as game canon.
• The network is exclusive to in-game characters. TDM characters can only use radios.
• There is a language barrier, so please mention what language your character speaks somewhere.
• We don't have a fixed day ratio; instead, you pace yourself at your discretion.
• Characters may face backlash when using any powers.
• Mark if your character is on the sun or moon side of the divide. The choice is yours as the player.
• If you have any questions, please direct them to our FAQ!

And that's all, folks. So take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!

NAVIGATION.

PREMISE
RULES
FAQ
ACTIVITY
APPLICATIONS

TAKEN
HIATUSES & DROPS
CANON UPDATES
REWARDS
TPC CLAIMS

WORLD
EXPLORATION
DEVICES
QUESTS
INFORMATION

CALENDAR
SUGGESTIONS
MOD CONTACT
SETTING INBOX
CODEBOOK

Comments

[ragnarsson]

[Ivar has no idea how the voices are being transmitted through the air, but hey, he's not about to question it too hard. He's just glad that there's someone out there who can understand his language. He hasn't any luck in that thus far.

He scans the device and figures it must be the biggest button that he should press down. As he does so, he says a silent prayer to any of his gods that are listening that this will actually work.]

I hope you can hear me now. I am damn tired of no one understanding me.

[wontgraham]

[ The voice comes through clearly this time, or at least as clear as the radios have been so far. This isn't the first person Will has been fortunate enough to get ahold of via the radio, which...

Huh. Which means Will pauses in surprise at what this man says. For two reasons. ]

...Everyone I've talked to has spoken English. Who have you... [ It's useless to ask who, though, since Will clearly hasn't met them, based on what he just said himself. If they speak something that isn't English, Will's yet to talk to them.

But that means this man, who didn't know how a radio worked a few seconds ago, has met people in person. That's good. That means there's more people here. Relief clenches in Will's chest so painfully, it almost feels like fear. ] But-- yeah, yes, I can hear you.

[ragnarsson]

I've tried speaking English to people, but they must not understand my accent or something.

[That was one way of putting it. Ivar was speaking Old English, and while it had some similarities to modern-day English, it sounded more like German then anything else. It doesn't really make sense, since Ivar seems to be speaking the language fine now aside from a light Northern European accent of indeterminate origin.]

Who am I talking to? My name is Ivar Ragnarsson. Some know me as Ivar the Boneless.

[The name that history books would record as being the name of one of the most famous and feared Viking kings that had ever ruled.]

[wontgraham]

Well, whatever brought us here, I’ve yet to figure out its…theme for choosing us. [ Will stares out at the landscape around him, for lack of anything else to center on while talking. He’s found an actual, portable radio since leaving his bus-but-not-a-bus, and this has let him mobilize further into the…whatever this place is.

The puzzle of the language issue is there, but the clanging desperation in Will’s mind for any sort of human contact is too loud to bother looking for possible solutions over.

…At least until that name, anyway. ] That’s— a hell of a title. [ Will sounds and feels somewhere between amused and curious. He doesn’t feel inclined to think this man is lying, at least, but that leaves him with a puzzle while Will has no idea what final shape he’s even working towards. ] I’m— Will. Will Graham. [ His last name feels useless in a world so separated from his own – who would recognize him here? – but the mirroring of title is reflexive.

So is digging deeper for answers, immediately after. ] Where…exactly are you from, Ivar?

[ …Sweden?

Guess who’s only taken one mandatory history class in college, and it definitely didn’t cover Vikings? This guy right here. ]

[ragnarsson]

Perhaps we're all rejects of some sort. [He sounds both bitter and a touch amused at the thought. Ivar's got a self-image damaged by a lifetime of being seen with pity and as a reject, so even after doing things no other Viking had done, he still sees himself through those same eyes.]

My father wasn't terribly fond of me when I was a child-- [Understatement. He'd tried to leave Ivar out in the woods to die as a form of mercy killing, but been unable to go through with it.] --and the nickname he gave me stuck. But I took the title back with pride when I was older.

[Not that he sounds terribly old over the radio. That's definitely the voice of a teen on the other end of the line.]

The kingdom of Kattegat. In Norway. [He hopes this guy at least knows where that country is because Ivar is not in the mood to deal out long explanations to people.]

[wontgraham]

[ Will laughs at that suggestion. A world populated by rejects, existing amidst scrap...all of it manufactured and none of it natural...

His lungs feel a little hollow, now. Will doesn't even quite realize he's pressing that talk button as he wonders to himself, ] I wonder who rejected this place, before it grabbed us...

[ But— right, absent fathers and bad childhoods. Will can relate, unfortunately, and it's a sensation about as cold as one of his dad's shitty PBRs from the fridge. He drags himself back to what Ivar is saying, and...hold on, now. ]

A kingdom. In Norway. [ There is obvious, cautious doubt in Will's tone. He's seen enough impossible things to be distantly aware that maybe he should accept this, too, at face value, but he can't. There's a mystery attached to it. ] Maybe I didn't ask the right question.

When are you from?

[ragnarsson]

It seems like a dead thing. Like it decayed long ago.

[Quite poetic coming from someone who loved death, but maybe that's why he was able to put it into such words. Ivar's life was always full of death and he was well acquainted with all the signs of it.]

[It's only now that Ivar has been talking to other people that he's getting the idea of how far apart he is in time from other people here. He's quick to answer and it will be sure to be a surprising one if only for how far back it was.]

819.

[wontgraham]

[ Poetic and appreciated. Will can't help but agree with that assessment.

It's just that the shock of the next thing Ivar says really throws a wrench in bonding over weird interpretations of an ostensibly-not-sentient world. ] That's— [ This pause is both for Will's own surprise, and some quick mental math. ] —almost twelve hundred years before where I'm— when I'm from.

[ Give him a stunned moment before he's capable of a dry, ] Guess that explains the English problem. I'm not a— linguist, but it's definitely changed since then.

But then how come we can... [ How come they can understand each other? ]