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

[desperate_times_right]

"Well. Watch out for the guys who chucked me in the river." This guy probably doesn't even have a gun.

[lonelynotforsaken]

"O... kay. Who exactly are Shoreline? And why do they throw businesswomen in rivers?"

[desperate_times_right]

"Paramilitary types. They put their stupid logo on everything, you can't miss 'em."

These guys are really sensitive about pointless shit like Chloe causing the helicopter crash that killed their last leader, but maybe she shouldn't say that to an office kid from London.

"They don't like me, but they hate my partner, that's why I asked if you knew her. I wouldn't be shocked at this point if they'd scooped up one of Nadine's old friends and dumped him on a beach."

[lonelynotforsaken]

They must not be in the UK because he's fairly certain he's never heard of that. But this... well, this is presumably another world, isn't it? God, should he know who that is? Martin chews his lip. He's already said he doesn't know it. Probably best to stick with that. No need to trip himself up.

"Nope. I guess that's... good? Should I be looking for someone while I'm walking, though? Just in case. What does Nadine look like?"

[desperate_times_right]

“Good and bad, I guess. If it was that, at least you'd know why you're here.” Also it would mean that someone is definitely coming to rescue him, but that feels mean to say.

“She’s short, but in that range where women angrily insist their height is average, so don't tell her I said that. Curly hair in the most severe ponytail you’ve ever seen. Light brown skin, probably scowling because I fell in another river, but if you ask I think she’ll help you.”

All in all there are worse people to accidentally run into in the jungle.

[lonelynotforsaken]

That description endears him to this woman maybe a bit. Some measure of fondness dips into his voice. "She sounds adorable. A-and fierce. Cool. Y'know? Just... sweet, too. People who get all annoyed and gruff, but they're really worried. My boyfriend's the same way. He's got a lot of gray in his hair. Little pockmark scars all over his face. Acts like he's about 60, but he's really only in his thirties. And a lot tougher than he actually looks."

[desperate_times_right]

“Yeah, perfect combination.” Chloe sighs wistfully. She's trying not to screw things up this time like she always fucking does by jumping into bed with her work partner too early but it's not easy. “She was so excited to come here because we might get to see her favourite snake.”

Not that Chloe wants to see a king cobra anywhere - the monkey thing in India had been a lot easier.

[lonelynotforsaken]

All right, this is far more charming than the initial message had been. He does feel his worries about Jon starting to tick up again, though. He... he'd had to stab him. But Jon's so powerful now. He has to have survived that. He's here. Just somewhere else. They were going to go together. Always together.

"Aw! So, you know where this actually is, then? Or just where you were meant to be going? I figured we're near the equator, but I'm not... great at geography."

[desperate_times_right]

“Well, I know where I was when I fell, and I think if the river had carried me very far I’d be way more fucked up than this.” She's got a lot of bruises, but nothing’s broken for once.

“Couldn’t point to where I am right now on a map, though.”

[lonelynotforsaken]

"D'you think... We should probably find out where other people were starting out." He's coming from another universe, so that's fairly useless data. But if others were in the tropics, too, they might be able to triangulate and figure out what's going on. "I need to get out of the sun and look for some water, I think, but I can- I can ask everyone I talk with where they're from and we can maybe put together a sort of mental map to figure out the most likely place we all are?"

[desperate_times_right]

“Yeah, you could try that. I think I'm near Kuantan somewhere. I’d check GPS, but those Shoreline guys took my phone.” Finally, she finds one that doesn't break the second she falls off something and now this happens.

[lonelynotforsaken]

"Kuantan." He has never heard that name in his life, but he feels like he should have, the way she says it. "And that's... the city?" Martin's 90% sure it's not a country. Maybe 75%.

50%, at least.

[desperate_times_right]

“Yeah,” she says, “Malaysia. It's on the coast.”

They'd been chasing after a shipwreck before all this.

[lonelynotforsaken]

Right. Malaysia. He has a vague sense of where that is geographically. "Okay, so there should be other islands nearby, right? In theory. Ones that are inhabited, even if this one might not be? I mean, I haven't... explored much of it, yet, but this feels like the sort of place you'd set up a resort and have people or roads nearby."

[desperate_times_right]

“Yeah, usually there's tons of -”

Chloe cuts off suddenly, as if she’s forgotten that she has to hold the button for anyone to actually hear her. When her voice returns, she sounds weirdly nervous.

“You know, it's weird. I haven't seen a plane since I woke up.”

[lonelynotforsaken]

Ominous.

"I haven't, either. I can't see anything that looks like other land on the horizon. No, like... boats or jet skis. Maybe we're just on one of the really remote islands? There are lots of them, aren't there?"

[desperate_times_right]

“There are a couple of little archipelagos around here, but they're still pretty tourist-heavy. We were going to head further into the South China Sea after grabbing some clues from the caves here.”

If they're still ‘here’ at all.

[lonelynotforsaken]

"Clues? About Shoreline, you mean?" Why else would they have shoved her in a river?

[desperate_times_right]

“Nah, they're just here because they're assholes that can't let one get away. It's the worst.” At least her own army of enemies had given up after their leader exploded.

[lonelynotforsaken]

"I'm... sure it is?" A whole organization relentlessly pursuing you? Can't relate. Jon probably could on some level. She sounds like some sort of spy, though. Or Nadine sounds like a spy? "Well, I can keep an eye out for Nadine and the Shoreline people. Goons, right? Okay. Um... I can see your- you've got, like, a code for a name on this. I don't think I got your actual name."

[desperate_times_right]

“Yeah. They have these stupid hats. Trust me, you'll know these guys if you see them.”

Chloe isn't used to being constantly chased by the same enemy - rather than a sort of revolving rogues’ gallery of rivals depending on the job - but that's what happens when you take an evil organization’s former leader under your wing.

“Oh right. Assumed you knew who I was at first, didn't I? Chloe Frazer.”

[lonelynotforsaken]

Martin makes a mental note to remember her name... and callsign? Thank god he'd worked in the library before going to the archives. He'd got decent at memorizing seemingly random strings of letters and numbers.

"Yeah, well. We all make mistakes. I'll keep you updated. Also if I find anything useful. Or at least something to navigate by? Maybe there's a weird mountain somewhere we'll both be able to see at some point." A pause followed by a nervous laugh. "Hopefully, it's not a volcano or anything."

[desperate_times_right]

“What was your guy’s name... Jon, right? I'll keep an eye out, too.” Maybe he and Nadine have already found each other and are frowning at the skyline together.

[lonelynotforsaken]

"Yeah. Jon Sims. Good luck, Chloe. I'll talk to you... soon, probably."

[desperate_times_right]

“Thanks. Watch yourself out there.” This is no place for an admin assistant.