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

Arthur Lester | Malevolent (Podcast)

[lestercraft]

Arrival

The slosh of a wave against his face brings Arthur back to consciousness with a small, pained groan - and then another one sluices up his nose, making him cough and sputter in surprise as he jerks upright, pushing himself onto his hands and knees. It takes until he tries wiping his face with one hand, when he lifts a hand to wrench the wet sleeve of the yellow robe up to wipe his face that he realises.

His left hand. He's leaning on it- he can feel the sand beneath his knuckles, can feel his fingers tightening around something blocky and- and plastic?- against his palm. And when he shifts his foot, he stumbles when he realise he can feel all his toes.

But he still... he still can't see.

"J-John-?" His voice is a murmur, shocked more than anything, as he finally starts stumbling awkwardly away from the water. "John, where the fuck are we-?"

Then his foot catches on the hem of his sodden robes and he trips with a loud curse and faceplants back into the sand.


Network

[Callsign L35T3R clearly doesn't know what he's doing with the radio, and it takes him quite a few false starts to work out which button starts the call - and a bit longer still to realise he has to hold it.]

Er-- h-hello? Is- whoever else is out there, m-my name is- Arthur Lester. I don't- does anyone know where exactly we are? -anyone?

callsign: JE573R

[royallyunappreciated]

Oh, somewhere off the coast of Cleigne, I shouldn't wonder. Judging by the climate. Will the Infernian's heat ever know a chill wind? Hmm! You sound terribly distressed, young man. Are you injured?

[Isn't he helpful?]

[lestercraft]

[So helpful! He's being so polite and useful that Arthur is immediately suspicious and on edge.]

I-I-- no, I'm, I'm alright, I'm not injured. [Ardyn probably won't recognise the accent as English, but he certainly sounds refined. Apart from the nervous stammering.] I don't- I'm sorry, I don't recognise that- those places, you're referring to...?

[royallyunappreciated]

Are you entirely certain? [Needling so very thoughtfully at whatever anxiety seems to be there. What a nervous creature.] Maybe you ought to collect yourself a bit. I hear deep breaths can be helpful. Have you taken any?

[He'll address the man's outrageously poor geography skills in a moment.]

[lestercraft]

Maybe you shouldn't patronise me.

[It's a whip-sharp snap, the voice of a man who's heard that far too many times and isn't about to fucking take it anymore.]

If you're so confident then where the fuck are we?

[royallyunappreciated]

Temper, temper. These sorts of swings in emotion really are a bit worrying. Is hostility your general coping method? I am trying to help. You have me so terribly concerned. [He doesn't sound terribly concerned.]

[lestercraft]

[Hilariously, yes. Yes it is.]

And I suppose you're the only friend I have right now, is that right? [In viciously disparaging tones.] Fuck your concern and answer my question.

[royallyunappreciated]

Oh, I'm hardly your only option. The radio you have? All sorts of people seem to be responding on it. You may be whittling away your likely respondents by swearing viciously at me, mind.

[The answer shall never come. Spite reigns supreme over Eos and this place.]

[lestercraft]

[Arthur turns his radio off for a few seconds so he can swear viciously without being heard. Because fuck that condescending bullshit attitude.

But, he can only reckon with his own pride for so long before he's forced to acknowledge that he can't afford to make enemies right now. So when he turns on the radio again his tone is calmer, by force of will if nothing else.]

I don't- this is not like any radio I've ever encountered before. Least of all because I- I am blind. So in all honesty I don't even know what it is I'm holding. I have no point of reference for anything on this place yet.

[royallyunappreciated]

My dear boy! Why didn't you say so from the start? Well, that changes everything.

[It changes nothing apart from the fact Ardyn doesn't expect this man to be a great deal of use for direct information about the island. He's reminded of Ignis. But at least he knew how to be civil without being chided to it.]

Do you have any means of guiding yourself? Even just a stick you've found to feel your way?

[lestercraft]

[The radio catches the deep, quiet breath he takes to calm himself.

Christ he misses John.]

Just my own persistence, as of yet. I haven't yet found a walking stick, or-or cane or anything to help.

[royallyunappreciated]

That really is going to be a problem. I woke up next to a cliff overlooking the ocean. And I've been hearing all manner of sounds from the jungle nearby. Coeurls, cockatrices, and zus, oh, my! Honestly, from the sounds of it, I wouldn't be surprised.

[lestercraft]

[.........sir.]

I'm-- I-I'm sorry, but- cockatrice, aren't those. Fictional? I, I don't even know what those other ones were.

arrival

[backsassin]

For the brief amount of time that's passed since Zam awoke on this island, she's come up with three theories as to her presence here. One, she's dead and this is the afterlife. Two, she's dying and this is a hallucination. And three: she's still alive and somehow has been stabilized from having a lethal dose of neurotoxin pumped into her veins, and has now been dumped onto an island on an unknown planet for inscrutable reasons.

Of all the theories, it's the first one that fills her with the most dread. Death as oblivion, she can stomach. Finding herself still alive, of course, would be even better. But eternity? The prospect of a solitary, quiet afterlife alone on this island strikes her as a terribly boring fate, the kind of cosmic punishment that they say people like her deserve. So it's with a great deal of relief when she catches sight of the figure clamoring away from the water in the distance—even if he does fall face-first almost immediately back onto the sand.

"Hey!" She runs up to where he lies on the beach, heart racing. (Should it be able to do that if she's dead? She decides not to dwell on it.) "You alright?"

She offers her one remaining hand to help him up, already eying him for some sign of what he is: an ordinary man, a hallucination, or a ghost.

[lestercraft]

The voice calling out to Arthur makes him flinch, but when the footsteps rush towards him a wave of panic crashes over him and he finds it in himself to throw himself sideways, away from the feet and scrambling backwards away from it.

"Fuck-- S-stay away from me-!" He looks panicked, half-tangled in the yellow robes, beneath which is what was once a nice suit - but his eyes don't meet hers, flicking wildly around the area in front of him and clearly not landing on anything.

[backsassin]

Well, this is definitely putting a solid tally under the 'afterlife' theory. The man reacts with the same panic and dread she'd expect from someone recently killed, as if he expects her to pick up wherever whatever killed him had left off.

"Hey, hey, easy!" She steps back, her one hand raised in a placating gesture—though after a moment, she realizes he isn't looking at her at all. Instead, his eyes cast around in frantic confusion, as if he's groping around in the dark. Her brow furrows—and then she steps quietly to the side, watching the man to see if his gaze tracks her at all. It doesn't.

Okay, so possibly dead and blind. Zam's missing arm suddenly doesn't seem like that much of a hindrance.

"Hey, slow down. Listen to me." Zam does her best to sound calm and soothing, though it's hard to completely hide the edge of strain in her voice. "I've backed up a few steps. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just trying to figure out what the hell is going on."

A pause as Zam struggles with the desperate question she's wanted to ask since she'd spotted the man moments earlier. She loses.

"Listen, uh... Are you dead?"

No one has ever accused her of being subtle.

[lestercraft]

His head doesn't move to track her footsteps, too caught up in his own panic and heavy breathing, almost hyperventilating, until she speaks again and he jolts, head jerking towards her but his eyes still don't focus.

And he bristles again, when she speaks, because a part of him can't help but be offended- she's already realised he's blind. And immediately that puts him at the disadvantage. And with John refusing to help him, it's- it's all--

Fuck.

The question, at least, gets a hollow chuckle, bitter and heavy. "No. No, b-but- not for lack of trying," he mutters, and carefully - groping for the robes, so he doesn't trip on them as he stands - he manages to push himself back to his feet. He's not all that tall (but still taller than Zam), but he carries himself like a prey animal, ready to bolt despite his ungainly outfit. "I, I don't know where we are. A-a-at all."

[backsassin]

'Are you sure?' she wants to ask, but this time she bites her tongue. At the very least, he doesn't think he's dead and it's not really her priority to convince him otherwise.

"Yeah, well, join the club. I just woke up here a few minutes ago."

She toys briefly with the idea that this is actually a real place, that she isn't dead or hallucinating, and that she really has somehow washed up alive on the shore of a seemingly deserted island. Somehow it seems even more absurd than the other two possibilities. Still, she needs more information before coming to any sort of conclusion and right now, the bedraggled man in front of her seems to be the most promising source of it.

"I need you to tell me the last thing you remember before waking up here," she says, taking a cautious step closer. At least he doesn't have much chance of running away. "So I can figure out what exactly this place is."

[lestercraft]

Don't underestimate how much Arthur will readily throw himself into the unknown to escape an immediate danger; he takes an instant step back when he hears the footstep crunch closer.

"I, I was- I was in Harper's Hill-- that's- Massachusetts, er, America-" always worth clarifying, with the English accent. "I was- there was this city, underground, there was a cult that- that strapped me to a table, I don't--" He grimaces, eyes flicking down with the expression despite himself. "I don't remember much of what happened after that."

Which is only half-true, but it's true enough in that it's not relevant to how they ended up here, surely. Unless, the King had...

"Y-you, uh, you don't- have you ever heard of the, th-the King in Yellow?" he offers, warily, hands lifting in a gesture that's somewhere between submission and defensively raised.

[backsassin]

Zam doesn’t recognize any of the location names he provides, but no matter; the galaxy’s a big place. More of interest to her is the man’s description of what he last remembers: being strapped to a table by some kind of cult. Zam has a vivid memory of the Bando Gora and of how she had rescued Jango from a similar fate. Ungrateful barve. She should have let that Vosa maniac play in his guts.

She refocuses on the present. The man’s story is enough for Zam to strongly suspect that he is indeed dead, even if he himself disagrees. Another point for the afterlife theory, then.

“The King in Yellow?” she repeats. “No. I haven’t.” Most of her association with royalty comes in the form of killing them—or being hired by them to kill others. Still, it’s an evocative title and one that has Zam eyeing the sopping yellow robe still clinging to the man’s shoulders. “He have something to do with why you’re dressed like that?”

[lestercraft]

"Ah- y-yes, yes, that's- well, it's his cult," he says, flapping the robes vaguely. Or at least attempting to, but they just drop against his legs with a wet slap. "It, it's complicated. I'm not a member, I'm just- it was a lead we- I was following up on. It got- a bit out of hand."

And since he's been reminded of it, he's going to make the attempt to struggle out of it. Which is way more difficult than it would be normally, since it's fucking soaked.

[backsassin]

Zam listens carefully, gradually putting the story together. It sounds like the man is—was some sort of investigator and that things had gone south when he'd tried to infiltrate this King in Yellow's cult. Still, something doesn't add up. Namely: he's a blind man who, as he's currently demonstrating, can't even fight his way out of a wet robe. What business does he have taking on violent cultists?

"Here," Zam says impatiently, stepping forward to grab one corner of the garment so the man can wriggle out of it. "Before you hurt yourself." She's not the best helper here with only one arm but it's better than nothing. "I'm going to be honest with you," she continues. "It sounds like the only thing our situations have in common is that the last thing we both remember before this place was someone trying to kill us. So if you have a reason to suspect that this isn't the great hereafter, I'd love to hear it."

Really, she would. Convince her she's not dead. Please.

Sorry babe he's just like this

[lestercraft]

As soon as he feels the robe tug, in a way that was very much not a result of his own struggles - plus this woman's voice suddenly being so close - Arthur wrenches it out of her grip and jerks back a few steps with a sharp bark- "Don't fucking touch me!"

Which looks stupid when he's still half wrapped in the robes, but he pulls the rest clear and throws it to the ground as fast as he can, and staggers back a few more paces just in case. "Look- you have clearly already observed I'm fucking blind, don't just grab me, for- for fuck's sake!"

lol it's okay i'm sure zam will respond really well and maturely

[backsassin]

Zam is, generally speaking, a pretty easy-going individual. When faced with insults or anger, her most common reaction is a quip and a laugh—which always gets under the skin of any would-be antagonist more than responding in kind would, anyway. But right now, already pushed to her limit by the past hour's events and frustrated by a lack of answers, Zam's temper flares with uncommon heat.

"Oh, I'm sorry, next time I'll wait for you to fall on your fucking face again before I ask you a question." 'Fuck' is a new and alien vocabulary word to Zam, but she's always been quick on the uptake when it comes to profanity—and if he's going to try and curse her out, she'll do her best to return the favor in his native dialect. "Which, I don't know if you heard me the first time: I think we're fucking dead. What the hell do you think there's even left for me to do to you here?"

She doesn't even have her blaster. The one weapon she has left to her in this place, in some hilarious cosmic joke, is her garrote. You know, the one weapon that absolutely requires two hands to use.

"Fierfek, she mutters. "Maybe this really is hell."

Network, Callsign: YL078T

[doomcame]

No. No, I'm sorry, Arthur.

[Another distress call. She imagines someone else has found themselves not far from here. Taissa is still trying to piece together what brought them to this place herself. Too bad she can't trust her own memory.]

Do you remember where you were before now? What happened to you?