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TDM #1

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

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[Okay yeah, maybe that was a dumb question.]

If I throw you my rope, can you climb it?

[He's kind of got noodle arms but adrenaline can overcome a lot]

Physical effort? Ew, not even to save my life.

[He gives a shaky little hysterical snicker, but abruptly goes quiet as the snake hisses and begins arching up.]

That was a lie. Just throw it already.

[Chloe snickers too. At least the kid's got a bit of fight in him]

One sec...

[Probably easier to hook the grapple to the tree rather than trying to pull him up herself. Once that's done, she tosses the rope end down]

Get ready to climb!

[The end of the rope thwaps the snake on the head, and it startles, shrinking back from the apparent threat for a moment. Kokichi takes that opportunity to scramble to his feet and leap for the rope. He gets a grip on it and starts climbing even before she can help pull him up. Noodly and averse to exercise as he might be, he is kind of a thief and an escape artist, so this is one brand of athletics he's good at.

He's not home free yet, though. The snake recovers and lunges at him, and he just barely manages to lift his feet up out of range in time with a yelp.]

[Chloe can haul this kid to safety - she's just kind of lazy and doesn't like to do it. She grits her teeth and grabs the rope in both hands]

Almost there! Did it hit you?

T-trust me, you'll know if it gets me.

[There will probably be a lot more screaming and blood. For now, there's just soft grunts of exertion as climbs, the cheery facade dropped for the moment. Why are these trees so tall? He's climbed buildings shorter than this!

It takes a bit, but he eventually pulls himself up onto the branch with her and flops over it, heaving a relieved breath.]

Not bad.

[Chloe wraps the rope again and clips it to her belt]

This thing’s gotten me out of a lot of scrapes. We’re probably stuck up here for a while now, though.

You just carry a rope around? Wow, what a weirdo.

[But it did save his ass, so he'll leave it at that. Kokichi adjusts to sit properly on the branch. He keeps a wary eye on the snake below – those things can climb trees, can't they? He doesn't want it sneaking up on them.]

Why were you even up here? Creeping on little kids walking though the forest?

[That's probably one of the least weird things she does, so Chloe just laughs, unbothered]

Avoiding a snake, it looks like. Heard a kid being real dramatic about it into his radio earlier.

[She winks at him in the most annoying way possible]

[Be careful starting a war of annoyance. He's good at being annoying.]

Jeez, you're late. That was a whole other snake! But don't worry, I killed it with my bare hands.

[He lifts his hands as if to show off, but the effect is kinda ruined by how oversized the jacket he's wearing is, the sleeves flopping loose over his hands until he shoves them up his arms.

Then again, there's a bloodstain with a small hole in the middle of it on one of the sleeves. Maybe he was out there fighting snakes.]

[Chloe snorts, amused]

What, was it smaller?

[Then she notices the blood]

Hey, you sure it didn't nick you? You've got...

[She gestures toward her own wrist]

[Oh right, that. He glances down at the stain. It wouldn't be worth explaining even if he wasn't allergic to the truth – it'd sound just as wild as any lie he could tell.

So he just gasps and clutches at the spot, affecting a panicked expression.]

Eh?? Oh no... Wh-what if it's poisonous...?!

[This is a tough game to play with a woman who once tried to convince someone that fire was going to come out of a fountain]

I think you’d have noticed by now, that shit usually hurts pretty bad. I've got a roll of bandages in my bag, though, if it's still bleeding.

Now that you mention it, it's definitely hurting...! Oh no...

[He grips at the bloodied spot with a nervous, teary look, rolls up the sleeve, and–]

...Just kidding!

[–shows off his pale, completely uninjured arm with a grin, the tears instantly drying up.]

[Chloe laughs so hard she almost falls out of the tree]

You dickhead, should have left you to the snake!

[It's a miracle. People don't usually find him funny.]

Yeah, you'd probably have been doing the world a favor. Too bad!

[He snickers, clearly far too pleased with himself.]

[Yeah, Chloe’s annoying now, but she was SO annoying as a teenager. Solidarity.]

Next time, huh? I'm Chloe, by the way.

[It doesn't even matter if he gives her a fake name. This is technically a fake name too]

[He grins up at her and spreads his arms wide, theatrical and apparently confident enough in his balance on the branch that he's not worried about keeping a grip on it.]

I'm Kokichi Ouma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader! And I'll be super nice and let you skip the groveling since we're in a tree and all. It'd be dangerous to try bowing down up here.

I’ll save the grovelling until you save me from a giant snake.

Supreme leaders of evil don't save people, sowwy. But maybe I'll feed you to one.

[Despite the threat, his tone is playful and...well, almost innocent. He comes across more like a kid playing around than an actually dangerous person. And it doesn't help that his age is hard to judge, given his babyface and how extremely shrimpy he is.]

Rude! After I dragged you all the way up here!

[She’s still laughing. He’s older, but there's something about this kid that reminds her of the little scamp who’d picked her pocket last time she was in India]

[Appropriate, given he definitely engages in the occasional pickpocketing.]

All you did was drop a rope. I did all the real work climbing up.

[Huh. Now that he thinks about it, he stopped keeping an eye on that snake at some point. He leans over to peer at the ground, trying to spot it.]

Uh-huh. If there hadn't been a freak with a rope hanging out in a tree, you'd be snake shit by now.

Ew, I don't wanna know about the freaky shit you do with ropes!

[He laughs, but he's quietly a little worried. Where the fuck did that snake go...]

God, I don't even want to know what infections you could get from this thing.

[She falls into a lot of rivers]

What are you looking for, anyway?

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

TDM GUIDELINES

I. ARRIVAL

II. NETWORK

III. EXPLORING

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