circulationsection | TEST DRIVE MEME ( 001 )

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you.”

Wait and Hope ( Chapter One )

The stone floor is cold and damp, musty. The scent of salt is heady and strong. There’s a cascading sound to the left. Loud and growing, tap-tap-tap-stop. Waking is a lonely affair. The cell is empty except for the mice playing in the corner. Four walls and no bed. Food comes in the form of mush every morning, and the guard refuses to speak or answer questions. A day comes and goes. Each monotonous moment the same. A month passes. Then another. During the third, the sound that is a friend now begins. Tap-tap-tap-tap-stop-taptapp. The floor near the wall splinters and cracks, a hand pushes through. The stone gives way to dirt, and the hand becomes an arm, a head and body. A stranger emerges.

They’ve come from the adjacent room and have been digging out a half-finished tunnel. A tunnel that was one of two started in their cell, but they chose the wrong one, didn’t they? If both agree to work together, they can carve out the other tunnel in a few hours. The tunnel breaks open and exposes a cliff overhanging the ocean. There are two choices: jump or go back.

The second chapter only comes after escaping the prison.

Fool That I Am ( Chapter Two )

It’s slowly becoming apparent that the story unfolds in unyielding succession. No matter how many times you check out the book, moving forward only occurs after carving out the tunnel and diving into the salty sea. When you hit the water, consciousness blackens, and you wake on a sandy beach. The sun is bright, and you’re not alone. There’s a rolled map on the ground between you and a short dagger. Fight to the death to protect yourself or band together to get to the final destination.

Choosing the latter will take you through caves, dense foliage, and past a pair of natives that don’t want you there. After diving into a small pool and surfacing in an underground cavern, you’ll find more treasure than you know what to do with. To advance in the story, you must claim some of the treasure for yourself—a crown, a jeweled necklace, a ring.

The third chapter only comes once you’ve taken what is rightfully yours.

I am hungry, feed me. I am bored, amuse me. ( Chapter Three )

The masquerade in Paris has spilled out onto the streets. The Count’s wealth is endless. Jugs of rich wine and trays of delectable sweets cover every surface, staff carrying them through the crowds of masked men and women. Every vice is indulged in, and nothing is off limits. The music is loud, but the people are louder.

You’ve opened your eyes, only to have traveled from the cavern and into the finest French clothing. Dressed in the style of the period, your mask secured, the night is yours. A game of chance and fate begins. You’re pushed towards another masked individual. The first to convince the other to reveal their identity wins. What, may you ask? That’s up to you and your partner and must be decided upon before the game of questions begins. A kiss, possibly? A bag of gold?

The epilogue only comes when you lay down to rest.

A Large Fortune Covers All Defects ( Epilogue )

The night ended on a good note, but like most stories, the road is full of twists and turns. Vengeance for the wrong done you is the only thing you can think of when you wake. All those months sleeping on cold stone. Hungry and alone. Treacherous exploration and harsh waters. Their face is crystal clear, and the need to wash it from your mind is overwhelming.

You'll find them outside the city waiting for you. Their back is turned, and your blade is sharp. They gasp and fall to their knees, taking those thoughts from your mind and restoring the truth: a stranger bleeding in front of you. Neither of you are any longer consumed by implanted hatred, and yet, their fate is in your hands.

The story only stops when the reader decides to end it.

OOC

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. 1815 - 2018. The sting of a blade.

Character arrivals may differ slightly from month to month. We suggest playing out the test drive meme as if your character has already been there a few days/weeks and this is their first time traveling into a book that isn’t for housing or shopping. Players who want to thread out their arrival can find more information on the faq, and those who want to play out the housing situation can find more information there.

To use a book, the character presents their library card and takes the check-out card from the slip inside the cover. On this card the character will see the Title, Date, and means of exit. Players may choose whether their character took stock of this information or not. The card is stamped, and with a rush of wind, the person will find themselves inside.

Please remember that characters may only die once, and any subsequent death would need mod approval as it comes with IC consequences. The librarian will urge all characters to be cautious as everything they experience inside a book is very much real.

code bases by tricklet

Threaded | Flat

Chapter 3

[This is... too much. It's not exactly the same, and maybe that's why it took him a while to figure it out, but Albert's noticed enough uncomfortable similarities by now. Seen too many things that come just a little bit too close. The party is the last straw. Perhaps ironically, this is the first chapter he hasn't had to figure out. He knows how to end this one.

But... no. This story has gone on long enough and he's pretty sure he knows how the whole thing ends anyway. So instead of engaging the other masked party goer like he' supposed to, he mutters some vague excuse and all but flees to the balcony, not stopping until he's leaning on the railing and trying to catch his breath.]

What am I supposed to do now...?

[Can he really let this go on? Is there a way to stop it? And is it even his right to do so? It would be a different him. A different version of Franz, of Eugenie. But that hardly makes it any better. He might be stuck on this chapter for a while.]

Chapter 2

[Jumping into that water had taken quite a leap of faith, no pun intended. But that prison was maddening, and there really seemed to be no other choice. So when she wakes up on that sandy beach she's glad to see that she was right. She's also glad to see she's not alone. She's less glad to see the map and dagger and pulls herself to a sitting position with a frustrated sigh. This chapter is going to be annoying. She can just feel it.]

Are you alright?

[First thing is checking on her companion. The map can wait, and she doesn't want any part of that dagger.]

Edited 2018-07-01 19:58 (UTC)

Chapter 1

[Lissa had gone into this book with relative confidence. After all, they just have to move the story along, right? Easy.

Or... at least it should be. But she's been sitting in this cell now for a long time. The objective is obvious: escape. But it's turning out that escaping from here is easier said than done. Several attempts to talk to the guard have gone unrewarded. And the door to the cell is unfairly sturdy. And that's not even mentioning the completely unfair lack of any secret passages! And that constant taptaptap sound isn't helping. But it's with that thought, and just as she's dramatically flopping onto a pile of straw in defeat that the taptaptap turns into taptapcrack!]

Whoa....

[She gapes as someone emerges from the newly formed hole in the floor.]

Did you.... dig through the floor?

[She's impressed. That must've taken forever!]

CHAPTER ONE.

[...Admittedly, Akira had never actually read The Count of Monte Cristo. It was always one of those things he wanted to do, or should have done, but failed to get around to. He thought going in that perhaps that would come back to kick him in the ass during this adventure, but wonder of wonders, the first area he dropped into was one he was intimately familiar with: a prison cell.]

[That's not going to stand.]

[This was an old book, wasn't it? So there probably weren't an awful lot of security measures in place here. Despite that though, it took a while before he made any progress. There were loose stones in the walls, with half-finished tunnels beyond; guards took their time to come around, only showing up once in what he assumed to be a twenty-four hour period. From there, pulling out stones and digging became a simple if time-consuming matter.]

[Immediately after the guard left his shitty food one morning, Akira made a break for it. That should give him time before anyone came around again and noticed he was gone. Eventually, he made it to the other side, pushed out the stones, and stuck his head and arm out... into another fucking prison cell.]

...dammit.

Edited 2018-07-02 21:34 (UTC)

Chapter Two

[There's a long suffering sigh from Kuro as he rolls to his side, stills, then pushes himself onto his feet. Or paws, so to speak. With the sun hanging high overhead, even if it was within the confines of a book, sunlight was still sunlight which meant he would be stuck as a cat for a bit.]

What a pain... Hey... You awake over there?

[He addresses the person on the other side of the map and dagger, seemingly unconcerned by their presence.]

Chapter One

The first thing that registered as she opened her eyes was that this probably wasn't where she was trying to go. Pidge groaned and sat up, nose wrinkling at the damp, salty air. Where was she? Most importantly, how did she get out?

A quick look around told her all she needed to know. The cell was empty, lacking even a bed, and her only company came in the form of three fat mice running around in the corner.

Time was something she had to wonder about. The days seemed to blend together, the daily bowls of mush the only basis she had for keeping track. The next month went by without incident and Pidge learned quickly how to make a single bowl of mush last all day - not that she'd ever needed to eat much at a time in the first place.

Two more months went by in the same way, wherein Pidge had named the mice sharing her cell - Matt, Hunk and Lance - and made up lives for them. It was around the third month that she heard the tapping. About a week into month three, the hole appeared, and later, the stranger who turned out to be from the adjacent cell popped up through the hole.

Pidge was alarmingly easy to convince to help with the other tunnel, the one that would hopefully allow them to escape. Hours later, the easy part was over, and they were faced with a much larger dilemma; jump off a cliff into the water below, or go back and spend the forseeable future in that cell.

She didn't even wait to see what her fellow prisoner's decision was before hurling herself over the edge, because if she could disguise herself as a boy to find her family, pilot a robotic space lion and fight in an intergalactic war, she could certainly handle one little belly flop.

questions

Albert de Morcerf | Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo

Alice Liddell | Alice in the Country of Hearts (Clover/diamond/joker/etc.)

Lissa | Fire Emblem Awakening

Akira Kurusu | Persona 5

Kuro | Servamp

Pidge | Voltron: LD