ateratooc | TD006

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test drive

TD006

Test Drive 006

WELCOME TO ATERAT

Here is our Fifth Test Drive Meme! There are a lot of areas of the city to explore, so please have a look around! In case you need a little help getting started, I've included a few prompts below, or feel free to start your own! Exploration and player initiative are the names of the game here!

Helpful Links to Get Started

Arrival & General Information | Setting & Bestiary | Locales & Businesses | Residences & Housing Info | Rules & FAQ (ask questions here!)

I. Crash Into Me

Not exactly, but close enough. You have just arrived and received a strange satchel from a tiny, strange little man and are left more or less to your own devices (more information on what to expect upon arrival can be found here)! Follow directions to the north and check out the housing, or maybe have a look around the Historium and try to get some information from that giant glowing ball, see what you can waste your meager starter coin on in the Market District, or maybe just meet the neighbors.

II. What Goes Bump in the Night

It looks like Aterat proper has a spirit problem. Maybe you're seeing specters, hearing disembodied voices, your windows rattle when there's no breeze outside. Maybe there are cold spots in your place of business (or your apartment, which is so much worse). Either way, you're 100% convinced you're haunted. Hopefully, someone else believes you, or maybe you're used to feeling crazy.

III. When the Carnival Came to Town?

Take a look at the prompts from our latest event and go to town (or the carnival).

IV. Try the Network

The Tell-Phone allows for text, video, and audio transmissions to everyone else who has one. Give it a whirl!

V. Wildcard

The above prompts are all options, and there's much more to the setting than what they provide. Do your best (or your worst)!

Navigation

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Harry was less uncertain about the mirror in his pocket; he could sense the enchantment on the item even through his mantled duster, but the protective magicks he'd woven through the leather garment kept the mirror from being too distracting...even if he was tempted to give the thing a shot.

Harry was a big guy, though, and could always be distracted by food. It's how he found himself near the food stalls himself, casually fingering the offered mirror in his pocket and looking over the assortment of choices at his disposal. It was his PI experience that drew his attention to El-Melloi, because for all the strange, eclectic surroundings any place in Aterat offered, his sour countenance made him stand out even more.

He slid in line behind the man at a food stand, as eager to grab one of those turkey legs as he was to greet the newbie.

"You look like you're enjoying yourself." It was an ironic statement, given the situation, and he continued with a friendly smile and an extended hand, looking toward El-Melloi's face, but not meeting his eyes. "Harry Dresden. Just thought I'd say hey to the new guy." Because he was a new guy. Dresden made a point to at least know the faces of the people who came here from other realities.

I hadn’t been hard to spot, tell someone had taken the place in line behind him. The man was a giant, after all, and so he cast an impressive shadow. Not as tall as Iskandar had been, but pretty damn close to it if memory served him well, which it always did concerning the king. Which was all say that the stranger had an impressive stature. What he hadn’t expected was for the stranger to speak up at all, though maybe he should have expected it. People always got fairly chatty at these things, something about the atmosphere.

Drawing in a deep breath, he mentally prepared himself a ‘social interaction.’ He didn’t know anyone in this world. Didn’t know if anyone was a mage, and even if Harry wasn’t, he had a hell of a lot of height on him. So it would be stupid to offend someone who might potentially hold a lot more power than you. “If we’re playing at opposites, I could say you look like you're having a terrible time.” He responded in a smooth, tired tone with a lightly British accent.

Even if she was awkward herself, his apprentice Gray would have been far more suited to a meet and greet, really. Not having her around as a buffer was something he only realized he missed now that she wasn’t there.

The introduction gets a proper glance back while waiting on the line. Again, glancing up when he hadn’t really had to do that since nearly ten years ago now was interesting to mentally note. “Kind of you to introduce yourself. I presume that means you’re not a local.” He responded, considering the locals didn’t really seem to pay you much mind compared to the people who weren’t ‘of’ this world. “Lord El-Melloi II, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Dresden.” The title isn’t pronounced pompously or with much importance, since most mages knew he was only a seat warmer. Simply stated as something of an introduction, naturally given. His own name was mostly unused outside of when his friend Melvin Weins was speaking to him.

"Nope, I'm from out of town, too." He couldn't say he was too keen on being 'Mr. Dresden.' Most of the time, it was people who ended up being villains who called him Mr. Dresden, but while this guy did seem grumpy, he didn't necessarily seem evil, not that appearances were any description.

"Am I supposed to call you 'my lord'?" He hoped not. He was terrible at respecting authority, even less so here, where it didn't really mean anything. From the way El'Melloi mentioned it, it sound like he cared too much about his title. Maybe there was more to this guy than there appeared to be.

Harry was welcome to correct the man on the matter of what to call him. It had simply seemed polite to go with ‘Mr. Dresden’ when he didn’t know the man particularly well yet. At the very least, Harry’s judgement wasn’t off. While many mages could be described as such, he wasn’t among those ones, even if he was prone to being grumpy and uncomfortable with situations outside his control. Especially new ones that came out of nowhere, immediately on top of another unexpected situation like he’d been faced with just before arriving.

The question gets a light huff through his nose at that. “I’m not your lord, we’re probably not even from the same world, so no.” Even if he was, Harry hardly seemed the type to call someone that, at least based on his overall demeanor. “El-Melloi II would do… but I ask that you not shorten it further.” Otherwise, it was too heavy a name for him to carry, considering who it belonged to before him. He was a fake. A seat filler.

And in his opinion, it was his own fault that the position needed filling at all.

Maybe if he was here long enough, he’d give people his actual name, but it had been about 7 years of since he’d had to agree to taking the title and that would be a hard habit to break. Besides, sounding important made people mess with you less. Which was nice when he wasn’t particularly skilled enough to handle that on his own.

It was a wizard's prerogative to be grumpy, and Harry would be lying to himself as well as anyone else if he tried to claim he'd never acted out of anger, or even just snapped a client when they were being difficult. It was not the prerogative for wizards who offered a service in exchange for the money they used to pay rent, though, so he tried to keep that curbed back as much as he could, at least when talking to people who might eventually need or want to pay him.

"Cool. Well, El-Malloi the Second," he made sure to punctuate the 'second' part. It felt a little silly to include the number, but if the guy insisted, Harry Dresden could do silly, "you can just call me Harry. Usually clients and evil bad guys call me Mr. Dresden, or debt collectors. They really like to play nice until you tell them where they can shove their 'attempting to reach you's." He smiled also, breathing a sigh as he heard the guy at the front of the line ask another obvious question about the food. This queue was going to take a while.

The guy insisted if only for a very specific reason, and the only time he couldn’t really enforce it was around the other lords and powerful families tied to the Clock Tower, who simply found his existence slightly amusing. You didn’t talk back to those people. You played their game and simply bit your tongue.

But he appreciated that Harry at least tried, even if he got the distinct feeling the guy probably thought it was silly. It was an interesting story, and perhaps he’d tell it one day. “Thank you, and in return, I’ll call you Harry. Not particularly evil, unless you count the assignments I give my students for weekends to be particularly cruel. And I’d hate to be likened to a debt collector. They’re rather bothersome.” He responded with a small frown. He couldn’t even tell his that they could shove it. It was a pain in the ass… “Although the fact that you’re familiar with both makes me wonder what kind of trouble you’re prone to.” ‘Evil Bad Guys’ indicated someone fond of playing the hero, a noble desire but failing weighed on you after a while… He never wanted to think of himself as one, even if his apprentice Gray suggested the contrary on more than one occasion.

His frown deepened as he noticed the person ahead of them in line asking more pointless questions and delaying everyone else further. God damned bothersome behavior. He just wanted to grab something to eat and get away from the crowds. His foot tapped lightly as the wait continued. “Is ordering food really that difficult…” He mumbled in a tone that suggested he already knew the answer to that.

Harry would say those are exactly the sort of people one should talk back to, but this would also be coming from the guy who started a war with that mentality. It was the same motivation that inspired Harry to so dramatically recite "the second" in the first place. His own Council knew, to spite having desperately drafted him into the wizard army/police, Harry had no respect for authority and thought most tradition was something that should live and die in the past. They tolerated him because he was powerful and useful with his heroic streak and need to protect people.

"In my defense, trouble has a habit of finding me. I'm just around to catch it when it flies by." Which wasn't completely true, but Lord El-Melloi the Second didn't need to know that, at least not yet. If the guy spent enough time around Harry "his middle names might as well be trouble and maker" Dresden, he'd figure it out on his own.

"For some people. Want to try a different stand? I know a place on the other side of the midway with awesome funnel cake."

Continued here

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TD006

III

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