onlinedragonsgame | Test Drive Meme #0

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Legend has it that the god Henir endured Ragnarok, and afterwards created a place where there is no limitation of time and space. Here, she is able to see the rise and fall of the world. Should you reach this place, by Henir's force, you are bound to face the enemies you have met in the past and those you are destined to meet in the future.

Henir's Time And Space

You awake into darkness, surrounded by impossible geometry and an unnerving thrum that fills the cold air. Strange shapes move in the distance, drifting between labyrinthine paths that bend and twist into an endless, senseless maze. Gravity seems to be merely a suggestion, and you'll quickly find that any surface is fine for walking on—sideways, upsidedown, it doesn't matter as long as you're not thinking too hard about it. In a world of raw chaos, the only rule that matters is your willingness to press on. Just don't step too carelessly—one wrong move, and you could end up spinning down (up?) into an endless abyss, lost forever in time and space.

The air is cold, and the longer you stay here the more it feels like that chill will never leave... this isn't a place where mortals should be. Regardless of how you arrived in this place, you'd best make your way back out soon.

... but you're not alone in this alien world. There are others here like yourself, and it never hurts to have a few allies in a strange place like this.

There are also a number of strange... objects? Creatures? Monsters? Whatever you want to call them, they're not terribly friendly and "speak" only in terrifying, unnatural screeches. They seem territorial, which is a problem in a world where space itself follows no logical sense. At least they seem to lose interest once a target it out of their sights(?), and they can be killed(??) if you hit them enough times with something sharp or heavy... if you can't defend yourself, it's better to just keep your distance. There's a lot of sharp edges on those weird things, they seem to be fully aware of that fact.

Somewhere off in the distance you can hear a whale-like cry, followed by a giant shadow that flies past too quickly to see... that one, you probably shouldn't try to fight.

Walking In Circles, Squares And Triangles

No matter which way you go, you never seem to make any progress in finding a way out... and eventually, even the senseless scenery starts to look familiar again. You're not going to get anywhere just by looking around.

But it's on this second pass through that you finally stumble upon something new. Seated comfortably in the middle of the path is a strange man in an iron mask, bound in rusted chains. He is holding... a very dainty tea cup, which appears to be completely empty. He looks up as you approach, waving in a friendly manner.

Mysterious Masked Man

Ah, there you are! I was starting to wonder if you'd died already. Come, come, take a seat. You must be tired from all that running around!

You're an adventurer, aren't you? Yes? No? Ah, well, it's never too late to start! Don't worry about the details. Hmm, let me try a different question... you want to leave this place, don't you? Henir's Time and Space isn't exactly friendly to ones like yourself. Besides, it's starting to get a little... crowded, one might say. I think it'd be beneficial to all of us if you and your little friends went somewhere else, don't you agree?

Kukuku, that's more like it. Why don't we make a deal? You do something for me, and I'll see to it that you can escape this place in one piece. That's fair, don't you think?

Hmm? Who am I? Oh, no one important! Not anymore, that is. You can call me Glave. Come find me again when you're ready. I'll gladly put you to work.

Introduce yourself to the locals!

"You see those shape-like creatures over there? They're not the best for conversation, but you could say they're the natives of this world. The long ones are called Chaos Triangle, and the ones that spin in place are Chaos Circle and Chaos Square. Why don't you start by introducing yourself? Of course, they respond best to acts of extreme violence, so you'd best go in prepared. When you're done playing, bring me back the core of each one and I'll give you something good."
• Defeat Chaos Triangle, Chaos Circle and Chaos Square.
• They're not the toughest of enemies to fight... but they can still smack you pretty hard, they have sharp edges, and they don't like strangers. You can't reason with them and they don't seem to understand speech. Also, the Triangles skitter. It's kind of creepy.
• After striking the final blow, the Chaos creatures will collapse into their polygonal components and leave behind their core (a sphere, cube, or pyramid). Bring back one of each to Glave to complete this quest.

I didn't lose my marbles, but...

"You're not much of a fighter, are you? Or maybe you're just pretending so you can get the easier job... kukuku, who am I to judge? Very well, not everything requires brute force to accomplish. Let's see... well, I did happen to drop something earlier. A pair of blue cubes, about an inch across each side. I think it was somewhere... oh, maybe over there? I'm busy at the moment, so how about you find them for me?"
• Find Glave's two missing cubes.
• His directions are awful to the point of being useless, and they blend in with all the other glowing blue surfaces around here. This might actually be impossible, but try your best.
• Was this a trick to make you go away while he bothered someone else? ... maybe! But hey, it wouldn't hurt to try, right? There's tons of blue cubes just floating around, so maybe you can just find a pair that's almost the same...

To submit quest results, please leave a comment here.

Lamp Oil? Rope? Bombs?

Glave's offer is tempting, if suspicious, but he's not the only one who seems familiar with this place. Somewhere deeper in the endless maze is another such person, standing at the centre of a wide platform bereft of monsters or chaos-creatures... a rest area, if you will. The woman smiles, checking something off on the long scroll in her hands.

Mysterious Woman

Welcome! I'm Helen. We sell necessities for travellers... oh, I'm sorry. Normally I only sell items for ED, but these are trying times. It's alright, let me see what you have and we'll work something out.

Leaving this place? I'm afraid that's outside of my control. I'm just a simple travelling merchant. You'd be better off trying to convince someone like Glave. He can be a bit troublesome, but he's not so bad once you get to know him.

Who would say no to free samples?

"Since you're helping Glave, why don't you take a couple of my potions? It's bad for business if my customers get hurt. If you give one of them to someone else, I'll consider that a favour to myself. Let me know how it goes, and I'll see what I can do to make Glave see reason."
• Find a traveller in need and give them a healing potion! It tastes like Tylenol, but it sure does work.
• Or just lie. Drink both of them yourself! What's the worst that could happen?
• Show Helen that everyone is working hard to escape and she'll knock some sense into Glave.

You can't go to Elrios without a bit of whaling.

"Actually... there is something else you could help me with. I run a fishing business on the side, you see, and I've heard tales of a great Leviathan that roams this space. I've always wondered if other fish might've ended up here as well. I'll let you have this rod, and if you find anything that looks like a fish, let me know."
• Go fishing... in space!!
• There is no water here, it only kind of looks stupid.
• If you keep at it for long enough, you might actually fish something up... or maybe you'll just hook one of the Chaos creatures. Try not to get killed!
• What is that whale sound, anyway? Maybe you can bait it out...?

To submit quest results, please leave a comment here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Most welcome." At his expression, she shook her head lightly. "Medicine never tastes good no matter where you find yourself," she noted, the corners of her eyes crinkling with good humour. "There seem to be many things that bite and scratch, here. Hopefully, they'll calm down so we can find a path to a town or village of some sort. I'd hate to interrupt the life cycle of so many things just to get from one place to another. But if we have no other choice, I suppose we'll have to do something."

"Creatures of Henir, as far as I'm aware, have no 'life cycle'." Denif hates to be the bearer of bad news, but from what he knows about this space, it's the truth. He could be wrong, of course; everyone has that capability. Perhaps this is good news, in a way. No need to feel bad for killing creatures. "By nature, they're simply borne of the primordial chaos. The space is infinite besides, if memory serves, so thinning their numbers will do naught but temporarily quell the tides."

He looks up toward the black... hm, "sky" may be the best word here. A clawed hand brushes over his cheek where the cut from earlier has healed over and, satisfied with that much, Denif looks forward again with a shake of his head. "To leave, we would have to find a dimensional rift, though who knows where that may spit us out."

"Well, if that's the truth, then I guess there's no issue with passing through them with violence, though I generally dislike doing such things. Shall we look around and see what our options are, then? Surely there has to be a place people have settled to make a home for themselves. We've already found someone who trades. Perhaps they, or someone else, would be able to give us more information?"

She rises to her feet, smiling. Arha's not very tall at all, only four feet and eleven inches, really, but she makes up for that with sheer presence.

It's a rare day indeed when someone is shorter than Denif is; he's about five feet tall exactly, maybe five foot three with the horns. For a dragon, he does not cut a very intimidating figure. They really are just two small people with large presences, it seems. It would do them well if they were somewhere with more sentient creatures that could actually be intimidated or what-have-you, but the angry polygons are set to "murder" at all times and do not care one whit about negotiations.

"I would be surprised if people made a home here, but you do have a point." However Helen goes where she goes will always remain a mystery to Denif. "We'll make a point in avoiding trouble along the way. Expending our strength unnecessarily will likely spell our downfall."

"Mm, indeed," she nods thoughtfully, her fingers brushing the lightsabres clipped at her belt. Hopefully, they'd be able to avoid the worst of the fighting by being cautious. "We know that someone has to travel through here and Helen there seems to do so often enough that she has potions available and wares, so someone must be buying them."

Her eyes were still fuzzy from cryosleep, so she'd been using the Force to fight and 'see', but it isn't too hampering. Her sight was already getting better, though Denif was still a touch fuzzy. It would get better in time, hours if she was lucky.

"Where should we go now?" she asked softly. "We can't just stay here."

"I honestly don't know how Helen does it..." Denif just shakes his head. Is she secretly just really good at fighting or do merchants have some sort of anti-mob spray or what? He'll ask her another time.

He scans the horizon, ever-changing as it is, watching as platforms rearrange themselves into bridges and simulacra of roadways. Some cubes move slower than others, some snap back and forth, some seem to blink out of place and reappear elsewhere. Denif thinks he might have come in from a rift around the general direction of where he's looking, and with a sigh, he points to it. "Let's try that way and hope it's within our best interests to do so."

She nods and begins walking with Denif. If they can find a way out of here that would certainly be nice. Her rift had come from too high up, she thought, and not even using the Force was going to get her jumping back into it.

Arha watches the sky for a moment's pause.

"I've never been anywhere like this before," she murmurs. "It was quite a surprise."

"Nor have I. Most people are lucky enough to avoid this place." Denif's tail lashes for a single moment. This shouldn't be happening, and yet... "If I may, do you recall your approximate location before you arrived here? What you were doing or where you were standing, the works. I'm trying to ascertain the scope of this."

"Before? The last thing I remember I was in a cryosleep pod," she said softly. "Or just going into it. We were on the run from some very bad people and I'd been wounded. I seem to be fine, now, save for my eyes which are still adjusting, presumably because I was in cryosleep and that's where I was taken from."

"Ah... cryosleep...?" The term is very unfamiliar to him. Astutely, he observes, "It sounds as though it's a form of stasis magic."

Cryo... sleep... yeah, so she was asleep in ice. Or so Denif concludes, anyway, as he takes in her next words with a nod to show that he's listening. "In the meantime, I'll be your eyes. This space changes on a whim, so I'll ensure you don't wind up falling off of a platform or getting attacked." Try to ensure, anyway.

She nods once with a soft mm. "I can see through the Force," a magic from my own world, but appreciate the extra help. If we need to fight, I can do that, too. Such strange rules of physics this place has," Arha shook her head in wonder. "I hope we can find somewhere that is a bit less chaotic than this."

Test Drive Meme #0

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