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

[anticalamity]

There is a very long pause while Link considers that existential quandary before deciding that is way above his pay grade. The guy is somewhere if he's talking to him, so he's either here on this island (he's pretty sure its an island) or he's on the mainland.

"So... Are you on the island or not?"

[royallyunappreciated]

Ardyn's sigh is heavy and theatrical. "You're no fun, you know? From what I can tell, I'm on a beach. Possibly an island. I haven't explored terribly much. Have you?"

[anticalamity]

If Link is bothered by being told he's no fun, he doesn't show it. "Not a lot yet. I'm on the beach too."

He looks up from the radio, trying to see if anyone is in view. If it's an island, there's probably beach all around unless there's cliffs. "Where's the sun compared to the trees for you? Over them or over the ocean? Maybe I can find you."

Because when a strange voice speaks to you from a weird device, you go find the person who owns that voice. Everyone knows that.

[royallyunappreciated]

"Ah, but you don't even know me. Didn't your parents ever tell you not to run off to look for strangers?"

[anticalamity]

"I don't remember." Amnesia will do that. But it also means everyone is a stranger so he either has to talk to nobody ever or take his chances. Even so, it's no bother if this guy doesn't want to be found. He'll probably run across him eventually. "But that's fine. I just thought you might need help or something since you answered me but I guess not."

[royallyunappreciated]

"I didn't say that. What sorts of supplies have you found?"

[anticalamity]

"I have two tree branches and the bow and arrows I woke up with." He's gotten by with much less. Thankfully, he still has his clothes. "I haven't gone in the forest yet but there's usually fruit and mushrooms and animals to hunt."

[royallyunappreciated]

"You're certainly not wrong about that. Are you a hunter, young man?" Ardyn expects he could hunt for himself, but that's a great deal of effort that could be left to others. "If so, I think, perhaps, we should consider meeting up. I'm afraid I'm not much use with that sort of thing, but I can lend my knowledge to anything unusual you might find. I have some extensive experience with healing remedies."

[anticalamity]

"Kind of. I do hunt a lot." Really he's a knight, the princess' chosen knight and one of the champions, but even if that's felt more real lately, it's still more or less just words, especially when he's starting to wonder if he's even in Hyrule anymore.

"Magic or potions?"