TDM #2

[glencolans]

TEST DRIVE MEME #2

Welcome to Glencola Reef's second Test Drive Meme! This is a place where anyone interested in applying a character - or just curious to see how their characters might interact with the setting and others in the game - can mingle with one another. General prompts are provided below for inspiration.

TDM GUIDELINES

• Please read the rules before posting to the TDM. These still apply here and will be enforced, up to and including deleting tags/toplevels and prebanning.
• Posts from a TDM are required to apply. At least three tags across any number of threads within a TDM, posted within the last 6 months, must be provided in every application.
• TDM threads can be used for AC. Note that new characters only need to check in for their first AC cycle, but established characters can use TDM tags for their AC.
• TDMs are not considered game canon by default. This is mostly for logistics reasons - due to how characters travel on the map, it's unlikely that non-network threads that take place here will actually happen in-game. However, I won't stop anyone from working out how to make parts of threads game canon if they really want to.
• New TDMs will be posted every three months. Keep checking back into the current TDM for new toplevels!

I. ARRIVAL

You awaken on a tropical island beach, soaking wet, powerless, and without any idea how you got here. Were you carrying something important, or wearing powerful armor? How unfortunate - it looks like only the most basic clothes, items in your pockets, and simple weapons managed to make the trip with you. Are you even physically the same as you remember? If you had superhuman abilities tied to your physiology, you might be stuck in a completely different body that lacks your usual senses. You might've been whisked away from a tense battle or a near-death experience and wake up delirious, or even injured.

Thankfully, against overwhelming odds, you're not the only one to wake up on this particular stretch of beach. You and your companion have a lot of puzzling out to do.

II. NETWORK

Even if you weren't lucky enough to wake up near someone else, at least you've arrived with a military-grade radio transceiver gripped tightly in your hand (or mouth, or other vaguely opposable appendage of choice). The clunky walkie-talkie will start buzzing and crackling for every public message that starts coming your way. Answering them back is as easy as pressing the "talk" button on the side of the device and either speaking into the receiver, or using the keypad to type into the message box that appears on the screen, then pressing the button again to send. A list of ongoing conversations with responses that are less than 24 hours old can be found by scrolling through the menu, identified by the callsigns that are participating in them. It seems that you've been assigned a callsign, too - it shows up in the top right side of the screen, format AB123C. The letters and numbers picked are...probably random.

This is your easiest avenue to communicating, or coordinating with, or complaining at the other people stuck on this island; how you decide to use this tool is up to you.

III. A SAFE PLACE

Whether because someone else directed you via the transceivers, or someone found you and is leading you there, or just out of sheer luck, you have stumbled your way up the western coastline and run into an abandoned airfield. At least it used to be abandoned; there are obvious signs that the area has seen recent use, from the myriad of footprints in the sand leading up to the ocean, to the racks of drying fish lined along the shattered asphalt of a runway, to the strangely complex water stills and...who even knows what chemicals are brewing in those pots next to the largest airplane hangar? Even if you find the signs of people first, you're likely to run into the inhabitants themselves sooner rather than later, as the airfield has become a surprisingly busy hub of activity in comparison to the bleak isolation of the rest of the island. Maybe some of the more experienced inhabitants will help you figure out what's going on here, or try to rope you into exploring or cleaning out the more run-down buildings lining the runway, like the smaller hangars or the desolate traffic control tower at the far end. You likely aren't the only new person trying to find your way around, either. Hopefully the person you arrived with is more interested in helping rather than just looting the place and running off.

IV. STRANGE BOUNTIES

The weather on this island can be rather unpredictable sometimes. Just yesterday it was sunny and hot, then today, without warning, the sky opened up - literally, like the pale blue horizon was a vase smashed by a hammer and a billowing cyclone poured through the hole - and dumped at least a foot of rain on you in the span of an hour. You just barely managed to avoid getting swept out to sea, hunkering down in the relative safety of the deeper jungle, when the storm stopped as suddenly as it started. Dazed and possibly hurt, you stumble back to the beach to get a look at the sky--

--And find the beach absolutely covered in heaps of beach peas. There are so many that you can't even see the sand underfoot, and more of the pods are still washing up with the swollen tide. A flurry of very confused seagulls are already picking at the pile of legumes, but you should be quick about getting your own share - other captives are likely to show up soon, too, and they probably have much deeper pockets and appetites than the birds.

V. HOSTILE STRANGERS

As others have had the misfortune of discovering first-hand, there are entities on the island that have been here for much longer than the active group on the transceivers has been, and they aren't necessarily friendly. One in particular guards their territory fiercely from intruders - or maybe they just enjoy toying with those that wander within their reach. For those exploring the dense jungles in the northeast, this individual's motivations are probably the last things on your mind when you encounter them personally. Minding your own business, by yourself or traveling with others like you, noting the odd lack of animal calls in an otherwise vibrant jungle, suddenly there's the faint whistling noise of a crossbow bolt hissing through the air on a collision course for your vitals. You might consider yourself lucky if you stumble into one of their expertly-hidden rope traps instead and end up dangling by your ankle ten feet in the air. Hopefully, if you are currently traveling alone, someone will find you quickly enough to keep you from being killed outright by this hidden assailant.

NAVIGATION

Comments

[meadqueen]

How people named Levi keep sneaking past their perimeter scouting is a question best left for later.

The woman watching him is wearing roughly made blue clothing - it was an underlayer until this island took everything else - with an array of strange items including a radio like his (except blue with a cheesy palm tree design on it), a travel water bottle, and a child’s red plastic pail containing what look like small pieces of scrap metal hanging from an intricate leather belt.

There is an ornate war hammer at her hip, and although her hand is resting on the pommel, what she says is, “I mean you no harm if you come in peace.”

[solitarysoul]

His eyes go to her weapon, but the fact that she hasn't drawn it isn't lost on him. She's talking to him, and not just threatening him, so he relaxes somewhat. A sane person, then. Good.

"I do. I'm not here to hurt anyone. I was just hungry."

He has so many questions for her, but best to see if she's likely to answer anything first.

[meadqueen]

The sound of his voice surprises her. This is a child, likely close in age to Kokichi - or Ceolbert, but she's not thinking about him - and despite the fact that she had been a blooded raider by that age herself, it relaxes her stance a bit.

“It's all right. We provide food and clean water to others who were brought here as we were. My name is Randvi, and I founded this village nearly a month ago. Have you just arrived?”

[solitarysoul]

Was he that easy to pin down as a kid? He's 18, and he really hoped people would stop treating him like one. The army coveralls usually stopped it, at least where he came from. Then they didn't treat you like anything at all.

"You were brought here? Uh...yeah, I just woke up on the beach. This is the first place I found."

[meadqueen]

She does this to Steph and Senku too and they're both 19 so RIP I guess

“Yes, I awoke at the base of the cliffs to the northwest. I thought I had been abducted by bandits and left for dead, but this is something far stranger. There are people from many different realms here.”

This multiverse situation is a lot for someone who doesn't even know what a planet is.

[solitarysoul]

"Different realms?" Like different countries? "Is there anyone from here?"

[meadqueen]

“Yes. Depending on where you come from, many of your customs and concerns may be completely unfamiliar to the others who have been abducted alongside us. You may also find that some of your own abilities have been… diminished… although it was not so for me.”

She's still very disappointed that K can't turn into a cat anymore.

“I'm not sure whether anyone here now can claim to have originated here, but there were people here before us. There is a village to the east made up of the descendants of people who had survived a shipwreck of sorts -” they'll get into 'do you know what an airplane is' later - "and there are people hostile to us living in the foothills to the northeast.”

[solitarysoul]

"I don't really have many, ah, abilities." Especially without his rifle. Or did she mean more like the things Marina and O'Saa could do? He guesses he picked up a few...tricks...during the festival. It'd be fine if he couldn't do those anymore, though.

"...tell me about the hostile ones."

[meadqueen]

“That's all right. It will likely make adjusting to living here a bit easier.” Not that they want to get used to it, but at least he won't find himself trying to lean on an ability he doesn't have access to anymore.

“We have not seen these people, but they have killed several of our own before. They seem to be armed with crossbows. At least one of them lives in a cabin in the foothills, and they don't appear to venture outside their territory.” Randvi hasn't exactly been circumspect about the location of their village and none of the crossbow people have ever confronted them there.

[solitarysoul]

His mind immediately starts going to ways to defend against these people or scout to get more information about them. It wasn't needed now, though, so he frowns and forces himself to focus on her.

"Are there a lot of people here? Who were abducted or whatever."

[meadqueen]

Randvi gestures to the radio hanging on her belt.

“There are currently around thirty call signs visible on these - this can fluctuate for various reasons - but there are only twenty or so who use them regularly.”

The others aren't dead, but probably aren't their people either, and she had promised to keep Sol’s existence private.

“Here in the village there are three of us who live here full time, but any of our people can stop by to rest indoors and stock up on food and clean water.”

For whatever reason, these airplane people just love water.

[solitarysoul]

He looks at her radio and then to his own. Only one thing comes to mind. "...are we an army? Did they bring us here to fight something?"

Has he been drafted again?

[meadqueen]

“If we are it isn't very well organized.” Randvi had been a tactician in a war in her homeland several years ago and she would never have allowed things to be this haphazard. “Many are unarmed and we have received no instructions.”

[solitarysoul]

"They took my gun away," he mutters. He'd have felt a lot better with it on him. "So...we don't have any idea what's going on?"

[meadqueen]

“The people in the village to the east believe that their god brought us here, but I don't know whether that is true or not.”

The Saxons in England love to use their god to explain everything too.

[solitarysoul]

"A god...A god could do this." He sounds bitter. Hadn't the gods fucked with him enough? "I hope its not...I don't really remember anything. Maybe I was just drugged."

Damn now he sounds like Karin. He can understand her not wanting to believe magic was involved, though.

[meadqueen]

“It's equally possible that someone used a piece of technology that none of us understand to bring us here for some unknown purpose.”

She gestures to the row of hangars to their left. “Do you know of the machines that are stored in places like this?”

[solitarysoul]

"...yeah, it is. Maybe this is what those things did." But then were was the rest of his party?

He looks to the hangars. "Um, yeah. Airplanes. I didn't really interact with the Air Force though..."

[meadqueen]

“Things? Something where you come from?” It’s doubtful but Dirk had said something similar so she can't discount it.

“Where I come from, nothing like that exists. When people described them to me, I couldn't believe it. I'm sure that as you meet more of us, some of them will know about things that would be like that for you, too.”

Unless everyone at this boy’s home was also turned to stone by a strange device.

[solitarysoul]

"There were these weird...machine things. With lots of tubes." And possible fleshy reflections if wood hell was real. "I've never seen machines like that before. No one knew what they did." They sure did turn them on anyway, though.

"I don't know how common planes are...I think they're kinda new?" So its not too surprising that she doesn't know about them. And he's yet to grasp the multiverse thing despite what she's said. The only other realm he knew was full of monsters and she didn't seem like one.

[meadqueen]

“I see.” She has no idea what that could be. Maybe K or Senku would know.

“Senku told me that such airplanes regularly carry hundreds of people across the sea.”

She's still a little dubious about that, but doesn't really think Senku would lie about that.

[solitarysoul]

Hundreds of people? And across the sea? The planes he'd seen could only carry a few, and why anyone would want to go across the sea is beyond him.

"...I wouldn't know. There's no reason to go across the sea where I come from. I think they just used planes in war."

Then again, all he really knew was war.

[meadqueen]

Randvi makes a face before she can stop herself: to her people fighting wars at such a remove is a coward’s method.

“All of this to say, while many of us have things in common, very few - if any - of us come from the same place. I doubt it was anything from anyone’s home that did this to us.”

[solitarysoul]

Levi would have preferred a little less up close and personal, really.

"What else do we know about this place?"

[meadqueen]

This is something that Randvi doesn't really like to talk about, but the others aren't exactly discreet about it.

“We don't know if or how it is possible to die here. Some people have disappeared and not returned, but two among our number have been killed by the hostiles to the northeast and still live.”