TEST DRIVE MEME 001 (#2)

[happyheartsstaff]

HAPPY HEARTS HOTEL

You wake up in a padded box. It rocks, gently, as though suspended in mid-air. You begin to stir, confusion or distress pushing you to try to sit up — and then the air begins to smell sweet, and you fall back asleep.

You wake up in a padded box. For a moment, you are beatifically calm. You don't know how you got here, or why, but that isn't really all that important. You don't need to know where you are. You're just... here. And here is a wonderful place to be.

But there is a niggling suspicion growing in the back of your mind. A suspicion that here is not somewhere you wanted to be. That it is not where you're supposed to be. You remember... chasing a white rabbit (or was it a person)? A mirror? Bright light, and green ivy crawling over your skin... Before you can worry too much, the box jolts, and then settles, and after a long moment the walls fall from around you to reveal —

A hotel lobby?

"Welcome to the Happy Hearts Hotel and Casino," says an attendant behind a desk. "We're so pleased you could join us for our grand opening gala. We have your room keys and Empathies here, please make an orderly line and we'll hand them out once we've confirmed identities. After that, feel free to explore the hotel! We highly recommend starting with the casino. Everyone's a winner here in Happy Hearts!"

Is this normal? It doesn't feel normal. And hey — you could swear you had shoes before!

I. THE CASINO FLOOR

As you pass through the entrance to the casino floor, an attendant passes you a small bag of chips. The casino is loud and bright and filled with games of every kind — you want to play poker? They've got a table for that. Sabacc? There's a table for that, too. Slots, pachinko, and bingo are just a few of the other games on offer. The attendant in the lobby wasn't lying, either — everyone who plays wins. Everyone, every time.

Servers wander the floor with trays of shotglasses full of multi-coloured liquids, offering them to every Oyster "Compliments of Her Royal Highness." If you're expecting alcohol, though, you'll be surprised — these drinks are teas made of the distilled emotions of every Oyster in the hotel. Each colour of tea corresponds to a different emotion, and as soon as you take a sip, you feel overcome with that emotion.

JOY — the distilled essence of happiness, this tea makes even the most rough and tumble of Oysters giddy with happiness — for a moment. The effect fades into a general sense of contentment and affability after a few seconds, and that itself fades away slowly over the course of twenty minutes.

ANGER — this tea, anger in liquid form, can make the most even-tempered of Oysters ready to absolutely blow a gasket. For twenty minutes, anyone who drinks this tea will find themselves much more easily annoyed, frustrated, and all around irritable and snappy.

SADNESS — distilled sadness is a potent tea, capable of turning a stoic, stalwart Oyster into a blubbering mess in moments. Events that may have previously only been a minor disappointment become the end of the world, every repressed unhappiness comes to the fore, and for twenty minutes, any Oyster who drinks a sadness tea can hardly keep themselves together.

II. MAKING WAVES

If gambling isn't to your interest, there are many other areas of the hotel to explore! For the moment, only The Pool Of Tears and the Pig & Pepper Buffet are available for Oysters to peruse, but the staff assure anyone who asks that the other facilities will be open by the next day. Unfortunately, that means no one can buy any swimsuits from This Elegant Thimble, but the staff aren't going to kick anyone out of the pool for jumping in in their clothes!

There are four main attractions to The Pool of Tears: the pool, the jacuzzi, the wave pool, and the lazy river. The water is always just the right temperature, clean and clear and refreshing. It feels as if the sun shines down from above you, warm and comforting. Scattered through the pool area are clusters of modern lounge chairs, just waiting for someone to come relax in them. The Pool is, in a word, serene.

But not for long. The waves generated by the wave pool begin to get choppier, and larger, until it becomes clear that the generator itself is malfunctioning — too late, however, to avoid the tsunami that crashes through the whole Pool and leaves it flooded. Thankfully, no water escapes into the rest of the hotel, and the hotel staff work quickly to rescue those trapped in the Pool and drain the flooding — but you better hope you can tread water until they get to you!

III. EAT ME, DRINK ME

The Pig & Pepper buffet serves lunch foods from across all different cultures, offering something for everyone, and some things you've never even heard of.

On offer with these lunchtime dishes are cookies and biscuits and scones of all kinds, held on tiered trays with signs that proclaim Eat Me! in delightfully whimsical calligraphy. Nearby, hotel staff man a small booth for doling out cups of fruit waters from large pitchers, which have Drink Me! painted playfully on their sides.

It takes a while to feel the effects — perhaps you've even left the Pig & Pepper by the time it happens — but those who eat the cookies and scones inevitably end up growing in size, whether a few inches or feet, and those who drank the fruity water similarly shrink. Eat enough and you might strain the ceiling; drink enough and you'll be the size of a thimble! It's not permanent — if no one else can help you figure out how to get back to normal, the staff certainly will — but it's definitely inconvenient!

IV. WELCOME HOME

Maybe you just want to be alone — well, that's what you have your room key for! Oysters room on the second and third floors of the hotel, one to a room. You were assured your room would be exactly what you'd always wished for — and for some, that's right! It's exactly as you would have decorated it yourself. But for others, their rooms are totally wrong. A grizzled cowboy can't have a pink room! Hotel staff are firm, though: every room is exactly as its owner wants it to be. Search your feelings, Oyster. You know it to be true.

On each bed are the Oysters' personal effects, minus weapons, as well as a towel folded in the shape of a heart, and a single foil-wrapped chocolate. If eaten, the chocolate is delicious, and incites a feeling of tender warmth in Oysters — not lust, but a desire for closeness. Why spend time in your room, when you could go find a new friend in the casino?

Welcome to the (second!) first TDM of Happy Hearts, a new panfandom roleplaying game here on DW! If you have any questions, please direct them to the first comment on this page. Happy playing, Oysters!

PREMISE RULES FAQ TAKEN RESERVES APPLICATION MOD CONTACT HIATUS & DROPS WORLD INFO NPCS CALENDAR AC REWARDS

© tessisamess

Comments

[inlovewithmycar]

"So we poke around in the employees only areas. Sounds good."

He misses his little working jacket. He misses his lanyards with identification. He'd barely been here two hours and he misses just being able to pass as human.

He's itching to rifle through some filing cabinets. And maybe gumming up upper-management's coffee maker.

Crowley isn't very good at the whole 'evil' thing.

"C'mon, let's get a good vantage point and see who's giving orders and where they go for breaks."

[stopinthenameofawe]

It may cause an existential crisis if Melissa ever figures out that she's possibly better at 'evil' than the literal serpent. It's fine, she deserves it.

Melissa scans the room for a moment before spotting an elevated area- it's still full of people, but honestly that's better since they won't stand out as much. "Come on," she says, jerking her head towards it and leading the way. It's actually pretty easy to get through the busy crowd thanks to her rather domineering presence; people tend to get out of her way.

[inlovewithmycar]

Crowley follows, grinning as people scatter. He didn't often take to individual mortals, but he got the feeling this one may be worth knowing.

The mezzanine is everything they could have hoped for. There were even nice, blocky pillars to stand near to seem less obtrusive to those milling about below.

"So, keep an eye out for shift changes. Very vulnerable time, shift changes. Those getting on assume everything is already taken care of by those getting off, and that lot usually aren't being paid enough to care about more than getting home."

[stopinthenameofawe]

Melissa quirks her lips at him in a somewhat amused smirk, leaning against a pillar. If he was so clearly not human, she could see herself liking him. He reminds her a bit of one of her friends, even. Pity it's probably just an elaborate ruse to seem more relatable, trustworthy, all that. In her experience, any kind of trace of 'humanity' in these creatures is all lies, to make them blend in and get more of what they want.

Except her, obviously. She's the only good one.

"Why do I get the impression that were this situation a bit different, you're the one I'd have to be looking out for?" she asks, a wry sort of tease- hiding the fact that she still is very much watching him, just consenting to the temporary team up. The enemy of my enemy and all that.

[inlovewithmycar]

Crowley would have whole-heartedly agreed that a healthy paranoia around demons was key to a long and successful existence. He was living proof of why you shouldn't really go around trusting demons. He'd spent little over six thousand years not trusting his coworkers and it had only landed him the occasional drawing-and-quartering.

"Uh," said Crowley. It was always a great start to launching a counter defense. Not that there was much to say - he was a bloody demon, and it was pretty obvious with the scaly feet and feathery wings. Humans would take from that what they would.

He managed to partially stuff his hands in the half-hearted attempt at pockets that came with his Top Shop skinny jeans, looking just a tad sullen.

"In most cases yeah, always good idea to keep your guard up. M'pretty much retired these days though, so if you're worried about the sanctity of your immortal soul, I'll get it out the way quick. No, I don't do that sssort of thing anymore."

Not that he did it much when he was actually working either; humans were astonishingly good at doing his job for him, and he just took all the credit, and raked in the commendations that meant buggerall. Never a raise, never up for a promotion, and he practically carried Hell on his shoulders while the likes of Hastur and Ligur tinkered away on priests and politicians.

[stopinthenameofawe]

Wha-- is he-- sulking? What the fuck. Melissa doesn't know what to do with that. She will, of course, assume it's more of the same ruse but-- really? Really??

"I actually wasn't even talking about that," she says, managing to keep the dry tone even though she hasn't a fucking clue what brought that attitude on. Not to mention that she's pretty sure her immortal soul is already fucked thanks to the whole vampire thing. Can he not tell? "More along the lines how you were instructing on scoping out the place like a goddamn art thief. I'm a cop." Which... does not negate the fact that she's absolutely pre-judging him for being a demon, but she's pretty sure she's right to do so. Also-- "...How the fuck do you retire?"

[inlovewithmycar]

Really.

He had no idea he was speaking to a vampire. Something had been done to the majority of his powers and senses - everything except the fact that he had his usual control over his biological meatsuit where all internal organs were marked 'optional' - had been drained from him. So he'd picked up a peculiar scent from Melissa, but humans were a smelly lot; he'd never had much to do with police and he'd never had anything to do with vampires (too much bad poetry). As far as he was concerned, this was normal-cop-smell.

"Failed to drown in Holy Water after royally pissing off His Unholiness by having a hand in averting Armageddon," Crowley blurted, as if that explained anything. "They didn't know quite what to do with me after that so I buggered off back to Earth."

He offered a lopsided grin.

"Besides, don't you lot do this sort of thing? Case out a joint to counteract the cunning criminal mind? Must be second nature. You got a gun, yeah? 'Course you do, you're an American cop, bloody love guns, stupid question, nevermind me."

[stopinthenameofawe]

...Ok. That's. There is a moment where Melissa clearly doesn't know what to do with that. Does she ask? Does she think she'll get a real answer that makes sense?

She winds up landing on 'no,' no she doesn't think she'll get a proper explanation for it right now. Why would he? Why would anyone just tell her something like that honestly on first meeting, much less a demon???

(Melissa's distrustful nature does not work in her favor when dealing with things not trying to kill her.)

Instead, she huffs out an angry sounding sigh, looking back at the crowd. "I would have my guns, if these fucking assholes hadn't taken them before I woke up," she grumbles. Why would they think that she could not be trusted in this place with firearms?? It is a true mystery.

[inlovewithmycar]

She wanted to know how a demon could retire, Crowley told her. Truth tended to be stranger than fiction in these cases.

"So you would have your guns, and I would have my - " he snapped his fingers and nothing happened. Clearly something was supposed to, but it didn't. "- if they hadn't fiddled around where they weren't wanted. Would love to know how they managed to put me out of commission - usually you need all kinds of circles and sigils and little squiggly bits for humans to get it right, but I'm not seeing so much as a pentagram anywhere."

[stopinthenameofawe]

Melissa doesn't quite know what was supposed to happen there, but she can guess 'magic'. She hadn't even really thought about her own, other than the Flush, and even that she didn't really think too hard about. They might not be things she uses much, but knowing that all of it is probably gone is even more annoying. AGH.

"That-- ok, taking away guns is one thing. That's another." Fuck. Are these people also not human? What the fuck are they dealing with here??

[inlovewithmycar]

"It's something is what it is. Shouldn't be possible at all. But here we are."

He reckons he'll have to get over that one right quick.

"Anything else your missing? Besides the shoes. Bit creepy that, stealing people's shoes. Figure our captors have a weird foot fetish or is there a more sinister reason to take footwear?"

[stopinthenameofawe]

"Nothing physical." Melissa is not the kind of person who likes dealing in abstracts, so she is talking about her lack of powers and not shit like 'her freedom.' Which. She would also say if she thought of it. "Haven't come up with a reason for them to take shoes. Tracking through heat on the floor or something, maybe?" There has to be a reason.

[inlovewithmycar]

"What, really? Is that a thing? ...That actually happens?"

Crowley looks some mix of amazed and appalled.

"Blimey. Good thing I got out before downstairs ever caught onto that. Never pegged Big Brother for a foot guy."

[stopinthenameofawe]

Melissa snorts. "I mean, heat and pressure sensors exist, why not?" It sure as hell isn't common as far as she knows, but she imagines someone somewhere uses it. And this place is fucked up enough to do it.