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

iii

[hyakuoku]

Senku is used to people showing up looking like shit; it just be like that around here. (Also he can't judge, considering he still hasn't made any effort to find pants.)

He knows a fake smile when he sees one, especially after being besties with Gen for so long, but it's better than someone pointing a gun at him again. Or a knife. A hammer. Whatever. He gets weapons drawn on him a lot and it's gotten old.

"Newbie, huh? Sure, we have some fish and a shit ton of fruit. Fresh water, too, if you need that." He shouldn't be so trusting, but he always figures they're all in this shithole together. No point in starting off with animosity.

[sang_bleu]

"Oh! Those all sound amazing." Vanitas says, wandering closer, in part to get a better look at this particularly-strange stranger. His tone is weirdly casual for someone just dumped into all of this bullshit, but Senku can almost certainly recognize it as the same sort of thing Gen would pull trying to cozy up to someone new that he wants something from.

"From the way you say it... I take it that people wash up on the shore here regularly? And from the way you look... I suspect it's not quite so easy to leave." (Is the last bit judging his outfit? Only a little.)

[hyakuoku]

Senku watches Vanitas come closer, unmoving at first. He absolutely gets Gen vibes from this guy, that casual tone, the way he seems friendlier than pretty much anyone Senku has met here. It's an act, but Senku isn't people-savvy enough to deduce anything further than that. At least he recognises a bullshitter when he meets one?

But that doesn't change his mind about sharing food and water. People can act however they want. Senku will still help them. He'll save every person on this stupid ass island if he can.

He shrugs and does that laugh he always does.

"Fairly regularly, though there doesn't seem to be any sort of set schedule to it. Been wondering if there's a limit, but so far it is what it is."

The last part just rolls off him. Is it about his hair? His clothes? A secret third thing? He doesn't give a shit. He's not fussed about appearances in the slightest. Someday maybe K will find him pants, but until then he's fine with what he has. Maybe he'll explain his bizarro world origins to Vanitas if they get that far. But for now.

"C'mon. I'm Senku. Fish is mostly dried or smoked. Fruit is…well, we have a shit ton of pineapples. One guy keeps finding them."

[sang_bleu]

"Pineapples? That's fancy." And foreign. Pineapples don't grow wild on the coast of France, or anywhere in Europe. While Vanitas has heard of them, they are an expensive and exclusive treat, cultivated in greenhouses or shipped from distant plantations for the enjoyment of the haute bourgeoisie. And even Noé's naïve culinary whims haven't yet brought one to their table. Just how far have his mysterious abductors taken him? And why take all these others as well? He needs more information.

"I'm Vanitas, and I was a doctor in Paris before I was dropped... wherever this is. What about you?"

[hyakuoku]

"Is it?" Senku asks mildly. He takes Vanitas in again, noting the clothing style. It could mean pretty much anything, considering how insane all of their worlds seemed to be, but…Victorian, maybe? European, if he had to guess, but beyond that he had no way of knowing. Levi's clothing looked vaguely Edwardian, though, and he didn't seem to know anything about regular Earth languages, so this guy might be from another world that didn't have them.

He knew what a pineapple was, though, unlike Levi.

"I'm a scientist from Japan," he answers. Vanities looks pretty young to be a doctor, but different worlds, and anyway, Senku looks younger than he is too. He decides to just take Vanitas's words at face value for the moment. He can tell there's some bullshit factor here, but he's not a lie detector.

Come to think of it, maybe inventing a polygraph test wouldn't be a terrible idea. He files that away for later.

"A bunch of us showed up just like you, but it started…not quite three weeks ago now."

[sang_bleu]

Japan? Even by astermite-powered airship, that is quite a journey. Where the hell are they? It seems like more he learns, the less sense everything makes.

Vanitas latches onto the other bit of that introduction for now. "A scientist, eh? Have any theories on how the fuck we got here?"

[hyakuoku]

Senku laughs again, like always, like punctuation. The grin on his face inches closer to his mad scientist grin. Does he have theories? Always.

"Sure, but who knows if you'll believe me," he says with a shrug. "Prevalent theory is some kind of multiverse travel. See, most of us come from wildly different realities and time periods. None of us knows how we got here, but I'm ten billion percent gonna figure it out. I have a couple leads I'm trying to work on, but the inhabitants of this place aren't the most forthcoming."

He stops for a second as if to say you with me so far? He knows this is about where people start to think he's nuts. Well, this or the petrification thing, but there's a reason he didn't open with what the situation in his world is.

[sang_bleu]

Vanitas listens with a more serious expression than he's worn this entire time. The idea doesn't sound crazy to him. He knows there are at least two worlds, and that the laws of reality are dangerously malleable with the right tools and knowledge. He nods, mostly following along, until that last comment.

"So there are other people here? Who were here before all of us started washing up?"

[hyakuoku]

Senku is actually surprised by Vanitas's reaction — or lack thereof. Not everyone has thought he's completely insane, but a lot of people have. If Vanitas is going to take him at face value, though, not like he's going to argue. It's easier if he's not trying to defend himself from people not wanting to entertain the idea of other worlds.

"Yeah, other people and…some that aren't actually people, I think, but I'm not clear yet on what they are. I'll start with the people we know about. They communicate in Morse Code. They don't use the radios. They're descended from some people whose plane crashed here, but who knows how long ago that is.

"There's another faction of people, I think, but they're extremely hostile. Like shoot on sight hostile. They don't seem to be actively after us, but if we go near them, they don't like it. No clue where those people came from yet.

"Far as I can tell, none of those people are the ones responsible for all of this shit. Those people are on another island and allegedly can't get back to this one. As you can imagine, they're pretty damn quiet about how this happened or what the point is."