TDM #1

[glencolans]

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

Welcome to Glencola Reef's first 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. EXPLORING

For a place that appears, by all signs, to be an equatorial island in the middle of a tropical ocean, the local environments are surprisingly diverse. Beaches range from idyllic white sand to storm-swept pebble crags to cliffs with waterfalls cascading off the edges; the interior forests can be thinned from sandy soil or dense jungles full of prickly underbrush and with towering canopies; and the central mountain peaks, perilous enough to climb on their own, terminate in ravines and sinkholes that are hidden by thick foliage until you already have one foot over the edge.

The animals that make their homes here are equally as varied, and sometimes just as dangerous. The standard Earth fare of tropical fish swim right up to most shores, especially where reefs have grown, and a multitude of seafaring and jungle birds make their homes in ocean-facing cliffs and trees. Any one of these creatures would make for an easy snack. But you're not the only opportunistic hunters here; sharks prowl the waters, big cats stalk the jungles, and feral boars raid any camps that smell enticing. And that's just the stuff that looks like it came from modern Earth. Your improvised fishing rod might have captured a trilobite, or maybe that deer you were stalking has rounded on you with a set of alien mandibles full of sharp teeth. Or maybe, among the plants and animals completely foreign to you, you've stumbled across one that's strangely familiar to your home and no one else's.

There's a lot to figure out about this place. At least, in this instance, you aren't doing it alone.

NAVIGATION

Comments

[salamanca]

It's with distinct and very obvious, almost leering, interest that Lalo's eyes linger on Rust's broken leg. The sight of it makes a phantom pain shoot up the side of his own wounded leg, even though his own injury isn't nearly this severe. He feels it pulse with pain anyway at the sight.

More interesting is that it's in a splint. Did he arrive that way? Or did someone help him? If someone helped him, are they close? Will they be coming to his rescue any time soon?

"Good," Lalo coos when Rust raises his hands. "Very good. You're doing great."

The gun stays trained on Rust as Lalo ambles over to the pile of random shit. There's a derisive snort he makes no effort to conceal as he picks up the Louisiana badge. "Nice to meet you, Officer...?" He looks at Rust, meaningfully, prompting him for a response, before he tosses the badge aside, out into the wilderness. Not like this pig needs it here.

The pager and the keys are useless. The wallet, he picks up to leaf through for any IDs or indication as to whether or not Rust lied about his identity. But it's the pistol that Lalo is really interested in. He tosses the wallet back down on the ground when he's done with it before he goes over to Rust's side.

Gun still out. And he smiles.

"I'll take this," he says, with unnerving and inappropriate cheer as he goes to remove the pistol. Hopefully this asshole has the sense not to try to stop him.

[aluminumandash]

Rust's hands stay up. He watches the other man—how he moves and handles the gun. Dusty boots. Clean-shaven. No rips in his clothes, no stains from what Rust can see; no sign of what has him limping. The bandana coupled with the babytalk make it seem like he's playing at some jerk-off idea of a bank robber.

He leaves Rust's leg alone. Surprising.

“Detective,” Rust says in lieu of a name, blank-faced and almost innocent of sarcasm. As if he might be dumb enough to truly believe this man gives a shit about his rank. His eyes flick after the badge, return to the gun just as quickly. At least he doesn't have to worry about this motherfucker trying to pass himself off as a cop.

The wallet's thin and on the new side, as impersonal as a personal effect can get. Driver's license with Rust's name, face, birthdate. Expiring 2000. He is an organ donor. About eighty dollars cash, most of it twenties. No scraps of paper or receipts. No business cards. No smiling family.

His gaze doesn't change as the other man advances on him: intent but glassy, as if fixed on something only he can see. Rust waits for the sliver of a second before the other man hunkers down, before he's forced to either put weight on that bad leg of his or stay off-balance. In that interval Rust drops his right arm to intercept Lalo's gun hand at the wrist, fingers digging in, slam it into the tree trunk with as much force as he can manage at this fucked-up angle, with a shattered leg still stretched in front of him.

For that moment Rust flows fluidly as time—and then he's groaning, graceless. Trying to draw his own gun and shift his gigantic fucking target of a useless leg and bite down on Lalo's forearm all at once.

[salamanca]

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Detective. How rude of me." The sarcasm laces every syllable.

The expiration date on the license gives him pause, although he shows it only in the faintest knit of his forehead. Expiring 2000. Somehow, Lalo doubts that this guy is the kind to be carrying around a license that expired four years ago, so...

What the fuck?

The cash he has no use for here. He's slightly annoyed by the lack of any receipts that would tell him more about this asshole, but it's not that important. That there's no picture of a girlfriend or a family or cute little kiddos does reveal something, though.

Then they're struggling. It happens fast. Lalo is strong in his resistance to Rust's movements as his captured wrist. Slamming it into the tree trunk isn't easy. Muscles ripple under Lalo's skin as anger blossoms over his face. Not just anger. Rage. The gun falls into the sand. It's lucky for both of them that the short distance to fall and the soft substance it lands on mean it doesn't go off.

Lalo's free hand snakes out to somehow find the purplest, most sensitive part of Rust's fractured leg and squeeze, hard, right as Rust's teeth sink into his arm. Son of a bitch! This piece of shit is fast. But Lalo is fast, too. He's quick to grab the leg before it can be shifted from his reach. He'd wanted to save this for later, but some things just can't be helped.

"Dumb decision," he hisses. His eyes shine with fury as they stare directly at Rust's face. Despite his own pain, despite Rust's groaning, his grip on the fractured leg doesn't let up for a second. If anything, the harder Rust bites, the harder Lalo squeezes. Lalo Salamanca does not fear pain.