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]

Lalo's eyes follow the forceful gesture towards his own gun. This thing is sentient enough for that? Lalo is quietly stunned. He could tell it was responding to his words, or at least his tone, but he hadn't realized it was this advanced. He understands what it wants now.

Does he comply? He contemplates shooting it instead, but that seems like asking to be mauled today. He has no idea how fast this thing is, or how many bullets it would take to put it out of commission.

It infuriates him, to have to give up his only protection when he's already so vulnerable, but Lalo does it anyway. "You got it," he says, nodding. He reaches into the waistband of his pants, movements slow. He takes the gun and gently, slowly, lays it on the sand. He takes a step or two back. Still slowly. No sudden movements.

"Good?" he asks it. He can't remember the last time he's ever felt this... this... helpless. A feeling of self-disgust wells up inside of him. His chest expands slowly, in and out, while he watches the creature, trying to assess what it's going to do next.

[excal_umbra]

It is with no small amount of surprise that Umbra watches the man do as he'd asked. Part of it is simple cynicism; he had expected the man to protest, perhaps even to threaten or attack him with the weapon. The other part is simple shock that he'd been understood. Maybe it should've been expected from such straightforward gestures, but Umbra, who has not even had that much for so many years, doesn't take such things for granted.

The growling cuts out entirely now, some of the tension in Umbra's shoulders relaxing. He makes a conscious effort now to keep his hands open at his sides—trying, although it is difficult between his imposing size and uncanny, faceless helm, to appear non-threatening as he approaches the man.

Without the ability to easily ask questions, Umbra first sees what he can learn just from a closer look at the stranger. He is not Ostron, judging by his complexion and height, and that alone is strange. Is this not Earth, or at least one of the rare untainted portions of it? If it is, he must be an outworlder, though without any visible implants or uniform, it's impossible to say his rank or planet of origin. Certainly, he is no Orokin.

Umbra's throat itches. He wants to speak, he realizes, and perhaps that is just an effect of facing a human being after so long, stirring some buried memory of what he himself used to be. He used to be a man, too. He used to be able to talk like one. There's a low rumble in his chest, quiet and halting, as Umbra tries to remember what it was like to speak.

Of course, the resulting sound isn't anything close to coherent. Just more animal noises, though not loud nor aggressive enough to be a growl this time. He cuts off, frustrated. What does he want to ask? What can he ask without words? Umbra is still for a moment, thinking...

Then, he slowly raises a hand and points at the stranger. Lifts that one finger to indicate them number one. A tilt of the head makes it a question.

Is he alone here?

[salamanca]

The growling cutting out causes that now-familiar whoosh of relief to flood through Lalo. Just slightly, his body droops a little in relaxation. He's clearly out of his depth here, even more than he realized at first. That's, again, still frustrating for him. He's not used to being at another living thing's mercy the way he's at this creature's mercy now.

But he won't look a gift horse in the mouth. The hands open at the sides, too, signal enough to be understood -- Lalo interprets it as 'I won't hurt you.'

It -- he? She? -- makes noises, but the rumbling isn't threatening this time. It sounds like it's trying to... to talk? Lalo is less stunned this time. Relatively speaking, anyway. To some extent, he's still shocked by this creature's -- person's? -- entire appearance or existence.

The lifted finger. The tilted head. Lalo feels like he knows what it's trying to ask.

"Just me," he says. "Nobody else with me. I'm alone." He holds up one finger of his own, and then he nods, to drive the point home.

He gets an idea. Moving slowly so as not to spook this animal, or creature, or person, or whatever it-- he?-- is, Lalo eventually lowers the finger to place a hand lightly on his chest. "Lalo," he says, indicating himself, hoping that will make it clear enough. 'My name is Lalo.' Of course, he has no way to ask this creature's name.

[excal_umbra]

The human understands. Umbra understands, too. The man's name is Lalo and he is here by himself. It occurs to Umbra then that the human is likely in the same situation he himself is—having woken on the beach alone with no knowledge of how he got there. Umbra doesn't know whether to find that thought comforting or not. On one hand, it would mean that the man is no captor or agent of Ballas. On the other, it means he's likely to be just as lacking in answers as Umbra himself is.

Hoping to communicate this, he mirrors the man's gesture, pointing first at himself, then raising one finger in turn. He is alone here, too.

Then, his hand rises, fingers opening to gesture broadly at his throat, then where his mouth should be—and then that hand closes into a fist and makes a violent ripping motion. A crude but evocative attempt to confirm what the man likely already suspects: that Umbra has no voice with which to speak.

He doesn't want the man thinking he's growling by choice or by ignorance. He may have lived the last several centuries as little more than an animal, but the Tenno had changed all that for him. He has his mind back—he hopes to act like it.

[salamanca]

It is absolutely infuriating for him to be so helpless. It's a feeling he's not used to and doesn't know how to effectively process. He feels like a piece of meat that's been left out for a scavenger to eat, and that feeling doesn't suit him.

But what can he do?

The violent gesture, the way the creature mimics his motion with his hand... it's alone, but for him that's a cold comfort. It'd take only one creature like this to rip his throat out.

But it isn't a creature, is it? This is a person. Or was a person.

Involuntarily, Lalo rubs a hand over his own throat. "You can't speak," he supplies. "You want to." He emphasizes the 'can't'. For someone like Lalo, who talks and talks and talks, it's hard not to feel like having your vocal cords ripped out would be one of the worst punishments that somebody could endure. He thinks of Hector, in the wheelchair, unable to speak or move.

"I'm going to ask you some questions. Raise one finger for yes. Two fingers for no. Okay?"

He waits for confirmation that he's been understood before he continues.