Test Drive Meme 004

[sinfulmods]

Test Drive Meme

Considering apping to the City of Sin, but unsure of who to bring or if they'll fit? Feel free to give the setting a test drive here! These are a perfect way of getting your playing sample done for the application.

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City of Sin on the ATP

→ Comment with the character you'd like to test drive in the setting, with name and canon in the subject line
→ Choose a scenario, or create your own
→ Tag around

Possible Scenarios 01. A New Arrival: You've just arrived in the City of Sin with nothing but the clothes on your back and a very strange sense of having been displaced. Thankfully, you don't appear to be alone. Here's hoping that person passing by is helpful, and doesn't plan on mugging you or something! 02. Demonic Presences: You were just minding your own business, weren't you? But that's always when bad things seem to happen, and the City of Sin isn't really that friendly. Maybe you'll find someone who can help you fight off that shadowy thing that's creeping towards you! 03. Party Hard: You've been invited to a massive, elegant party at the Tower by someone who calls themselves the Emperor. Obviously that's weird, but maybe you can get some free drinks and food out of it! This place might not be so bad. 04. Prominence: People have been telling you all about the City influencing your thoughts and feelings. You’re finally getting to experience that. One of the sins is in prominence, and you’re feeling the force of it fully. 05. Welcome to Fight Club: You’ve been dragged unwillingly into the Coliseum and told to fight some of your fellow Chosen to the death. Are you willing to comply? Or would you rather sacrifice yourself 06. Wild Card: Choose your own adventure!

Comments

[samahl]

Cyril paused then then, stopping in his steps, and looked at Dorian. His face showed just a bit of the tension in his body and he frowns a bit. There was also some real concern. Fenris had talked about this city taking memories.

"You remember the Inquisition but not the Inquisitor?" he asked.

[whiteknightnecromancer]

"Of course I remember her," Dorian snapped far more sharply than he'd intended. His eyes dropped to Cyril's sleeve and he frowned at the memory of her screaming as the Mark flared. "Inquisitor Lavellan is one of the best and bravest women to walk Thedas."

The words were spoken like he expected opposition.

[samahl]

Cyril's hand instinctively went to his broken arm, as if shielding the truth of it. "Woman?" he asked. "No woman carried the anchor. No woman lost their arm when Solas took it from them." It's the first time he's said that name since he came here and there's something in the corner of his heart that aches.

His eyes narrowed a bit, as he look in Dorian's face - one that he knew so well and yet has only been this irritated at him when he had refused to be honest about the man they left behind in the Fade.

"Not to say I think a woman couldn't. It was really bad luck that I was the one who walked in on Corypheus attempting to sacrifice the Divine, but I am Inquisitor Lavellan, or I was, before a man I thought was my friend took my arm and left me in a field surrounded by petrified quanri. Don't you remember? You were there. He barred you from entering the mirror until he was finished with me."

[whiteknightnecromancer]

"He barred me from the Eluvian until he was finished with her. She still thinks we can save him somehow." Dorian said with a bitter snort. He'd never said she was one of the smartest women in Thedas. "A woman could. A woman did. She led us in the fight against Corypheus. She played the Orlesian games to gain us the support of Emperor Gaspard. She helped the Hinterlands piece itself together once more after the chaos of the war between the mages and the Templars.

"She helped me hunt down my countrymen who give us all a bad name." She helped him with his father. He would never forget the woman who had seen his father's arguments and somehow agreed that Dorian had acted rightly.

[samahl]

For a moment, Cyril looks as if he's been hit but then he quickly covers it up with a passive, unreadable expression. To have his own deeds shot back at him as evidence that he wasn't himself. He too thought he might be able to save Solas. He too, had played the Game - though with a very different result.

Slowly, he reached over an undid the pins in his sleeve. Solas had cared enough to minimize the scarring, but the anchor's magic still lingered, would still eventually kill him. He thought that had to be proof.

"Did she also rush to you with a letter from your father? Did she go with you to meet his so called 'retainer' because if it was an ambush then we could just kill everyone and run. You said I was good at that. Did she listen to you explain that he tried blood magic to cure you of your desire for men?" he asked as he exposed the marking. "A desire I share and related to. He thought you and I were lovers, and you told him he wasn't allowed to make those assumptions about me."

And is he ever glad that he hadn't taken that leap, no matter how much his heart ached at the sight of Dorian. Having allowed himself to be that vulnerable and then to have this moment would have ruined him.

The scar was exposed now and he thought it had to be unmistakable.

[whiteknightnecromancer]

The blood drained from Dorian's face leaving him pale and ashy. His father had intended something slightly different but the same in effect. An end to his willful decision not to be a proper heir was somewhat more complex than simply whether or not he decided that keeping his proclivities in the bedroom. After all, no one would care he was gay so long as he got married and went through all the expected forms in public. He wouldn't have married Livia even if he were interested in women. Dorian's will to do what was right in the face of his father's disapproval, that was what his father had decided needed to be removed in his continuity.

His jaw clicked shut without saying that. "There were rumors of the two of us and Mother Giselle came upstairs afterward to see where I stood." She had apologized in Halamshiral. "If my influence was... benign." He said the word like something dirty. "Yes, she rushed to me with the letter and went with me and heard the things my father said about me. And she helped me talk to him, not just storm off in a cloud of my own righteous anger. And despite that she was my friend."

Despite seeing that hurt and angry part of himself was what he meant. Seeing the part of him that would cause a public scene for no better reason than his own weakness. Seeing that he could still care about his father even with that hanging between them. For all that Dorian was supremely confident in his magecraft and intelliegence and appearance, he judged himself harshly.

"And so I stood by her when she banished the Wardens. And I stood by her when she drank from the Well. And I stood by her when she left the dwarves to their mysteries. I stood at her side and I am proud to have done so."

[samahl]

More choices that were not his own. He never would have drank from the Well, despite his heritage. The risk of giving up his agency had been too high. In the end, that had been his greatest fear and watching Morrigan be controlled by her mother had proven it to be the right choice for him. He sighed a bit and looked down at the ruined arm.

"They say," he said after a moment and his tone is so carefully constructed. It's the same stoic tone he had when they spoke about the Fade. "That people here comes from different timelines, different versions of the same place. I had thought it madness until this moment."

Maybe the City was providing him a lesson. Then, after a moment, he quickly covered up his healed wound and took a step back from Dorian, giving him space. "I apologize for insulting your friend, Magister Pavus. I won't do it again. For now, I should help you find someone who can better explain the cities workings."

It was so strange to close himself off from someone who had almost had every little bit of him.

[whiteknightnecromancer]

"That might be best." Dorian said, a tightness in his chest. Part pain at the idea of a world without Ellana and part fear as he realized that this man, whom he knew nothing about, might know as much about him as she did. It was somewhat frightening to have that much of his past in a stranger's hands.

"I apologize as well," he said in a strained voice. He wasn't sure what for right then but it seemed the thing to do.

[samahl]

"It isn't your doing," Cyril responded, and he hid every bit of pain from showing in either his voice or his face. "It's still this way," he explained after a moment, and started to direct Dorian again.

He walked a little bit faster, as if wishing to be escape from the suffocating pain in his chest.

"You'll find many oddities here," he said now, completely changing the subject, ignoring the emotional outburst. "Their technological level is much higher than Thedas's. There is a library with books to explain how all of the devices work, but it has to do with the ability to harness electricity and channel it through wires and circuits."

[whiteknightnecromancer]

Smoothing his own expression, Dorian let Cyril change the subject without a flicker. "That sounds promising. Do they allow anyone in this library or do only a select group have access?"

He hadn't brought any bribes suitable for gaining entry anywhere. He didn't seem to have brought any bribes at all.

[samahl]

"Anyone has access, though you have to sign up for a card to take the books out of the building. It all has to do with these things called computers, but the staff is more than happy to walk you through the process," he explained. His tone was at least softening a bit, trying to be friendly once more.

"The main base of power is in the center of the city. It's called the Tower and that's where the Magistrate is. I tried to scout it to discover a way to challenge them but it seems impossible at the moment. Many of the other Chosen, those who have been plucked from their homes to stay here, seem to have given up on the idea of leaving."

[whiteknightnecromancer]

"By power, do you mean politically? Or something more like the way dawrven mines are powered? Are there many services we are required to sign up for?" Dorian asked, curiosity growing. He was fairly certain that whatever system this place had, he might need help to escape it but the better he understood, the better his chances.

[samahl]

"Politically. They are people. Humans, from what I've been told. Though they might also be the source of the city's magic. I'm not certain."

Cyril had started to learn everything about the technology here that he could with much the same idea. He wanted to escape. "Not that I've found, not in the same way as the library. You do have to pay for everything with their currency. If you have sovereigns, they will exchange them, but for now I'll leave you with some of my money so you can afford wine and food."

[whiteknightnecromancer]

"The necessities," Dorian said with a wry smile. "What do we do to earn more money? Kill bandits? Fight dragons? Fetch druffalo?"

He was aiming for droll but he was aware the last one might be too sensitive a topic as soon as he said it. "I'm hopeless at gambling for coin."

[samahl]

"They expect... employment." Cyril said with his brow raised. "I befriended a mage here named Draco Malfoy. I'm currently working at a tavern he owns. It helped me understand the culture here." Then, after a moment. "Plus he's a rather beautiful man. That's always a consideration one has to make."

[whiteknightnecromancer]

"Naturally," Dorian said with a laugh. "Is that where we're headed?"

Dorian had mostly negative feelings about being expected to seek employment. He was much more used to attaching himself somewhere that wouldn't care about him raiding the wine cellar. But he would do what it took to see this through with as little harm to his pride as he could manage. If that meant employment, he'd manage it.

[samahl]

Cyril nodded. "That's right." Then, after a moment. "You might be able to find something at the library itself, or as a researcher of some kind. That would put you close to information that would help you find a way out."

He assumed that was what Dorian would want. After all, it was what he wanted to.

"I doubt that they just leave that lying around, but if you're anything like the Dorian Pavus I know, that wouldn't stop you." The only acknowledgement that Cyril had his own Dorian back home.

He stops at the bar that Draco partly owns and puts his hand on the door. "Here it is. Be aware that it can be a bit overwhelming at first." Draco had a nice place, but it still was in this world with all of its overwhelming technology and variety of choices of alcohol.

[whiteknightnecromancer]

Dorian entered cautiously, years of experience fighting causing him to observe carefully for potential threats even as he kept his expression pleasant.

"It would, wouldn't it? I suppose you'd like to crib from my notes?" His tone was approving. Playing to his strengths and having those strengths acknowledged made him almost as happy as flirting. Happier given the flow of this conversation.

[samahl]

"Of course I would," Cyril responded and a sincere smile crossed his lips. "Just as I would like to share my scouting notes with you. Two heads are always better than one."

Cyril leads the way to the bar and orders a wine that he knows Dorian will like.

"I will also warn you, a lot of the food here is... different. They have what you might expect, bread, cheese, fruits, but they also have these processes which made the food taste rather artificial and didn't agree with me at all." Then, after a moment, "You'll also notice almost everything is cleaner than Thedas usually is. Sometimes to the point where it seems shiny and unnatural. Even Orlais' endless scrubbing from elven servants can't really compare."

The wine comes and he passes one of the glasses over to Dorian. "We can start with the wine though."

Despite the fact that he had said he would dump Dorian off on someone else, he finds he can't really bring himself to leave Dorian's side. As always, he feels like an odd pull towards the mage. Even the knowledge that this wasn't his Dorian couldn't quite pull him away.

[whiteknightnecromancer]

"It just isn't home without that layer of dust or mud," Dorian agreed mildly. "How will we know if we're being poisoned?" Dorian asked, always a concern in Tevinter. More concerning among strangers who ate food that might not agree with him.

He gently swirled the wine to smell it and took a careful sip. "That is very nice," said the man with no discernible palate.

[samahl]

Cyril made a slightly amused noise as he picked up his own glass and enjoyed the scent a moment before sipping it. "We very well may be, but I trust everything in this tavern."

Then, after a moment. "Sadly, they have no ham which tastes of despair."

[whiteknightnecromancer]

"Good thing. That was ghastly." Dorian shuddered elaborately. "At least the cheese was good." He took another sip of wine, still careful because he wasn't sure of its potency yet.

"As you've been studying the local culture, what are the biggest taboos?" He wouldn't hesitate to break them but it was better to do so in knowledge than ignorance.

[samahl]

"Surprisingly, there's very little. They frown on running around naked but... There's no taboo about magic. People openly practice it here. There's no taboo about sleeping with whoever you want to, people are event openly affectionate here. Draco was even married to a man for a time."

He paused for a moment and grew more serious. "People do have a habit of disappearing. Fenris believes that the city is using them to power their magic. I would like to get to the bottom of that as well. Draco lost his husband that way."

[whiteknightnecromancer]

"Their loss," Dorian said flippantly in regards to the nudity taboo. He'd spent enough time in Orlais to know that some places truly didn't care. IT was a little unsettling in the way that the first few steps off a boat and onto dry land were unsettling. Not bad but not something he was entirely used to.

"That is sinister," Dorian frowned. He would want to help with that. People vanishing was never a good thing in his experience. "Also difficult to prove or disprove without bodies."

[samahl]

"Most of the Chosen seem to think they go back home," Cyril pointed out after taking a sip of his wine. His voice was softer now, clearly he wasn't sure that was what was happening.

"Some have memories of being brought here, returning home, and then being brought back - so it may be possible."