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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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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.

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.

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.

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."

'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."

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.

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?”

"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.

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.

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!"

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."

That gets a short, bleak laugh out of Arthur. "Oh, believe me, this isn't anything like Hell. And even if it is, my heart's still beating, my body still works - what's to stop you from harming me just to see if you can, just to see if it won't fix itself or keep harming me for all eternity? I certainly still feel pain."

He's definitely feeling emotions - stress, betrayal, worked up from the constant back-and-forth of this random person trying to help him and just making him feel more useless.

He lifts a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, making it crinkle further in disgust at the filthy sensation. "Look," he says flatly. "We are obviously both incredibly stressed right now, let's. Take a moment, take a step back- metaphorically. We shouldn't try and kill each other when there's no guarantee there's not anyone else around. We should try and help each other."

"The part where that sounds like an incredibly boring way to spend eternity, for one thing," Zam growls. What is she, a Hutt? Maybe she hadn't lived the most peaceful of lives, but she's no sadist.

Still, the more the man talks, the more Zam reluctantly has to agree with his conclusions. Yes, they're both stressed, to put it mildly. And while she thinks she's handling the possibility of her recent death far better than he is his, the fact that she's already gotten into a shouting match with the first person she's encountered on this island likely means she's not exactly coping perfectly either.

"Fine," she says, blowing a breath out through her teeth. "You're right. I wasn't going to try and kill you anyway." She's not even sure how she'd go about it in her current state. "Let's start over. My name's Zam. Last thing I remember before waking up here is taking a lethal dose of neurotoxin straight to the carotid artery, so... pretty sure I'm dead. Or dying. Guess this could all be a hallucination." It occurs to her belatedly that if he's blind, he might not have the best sense of what 'here' even means. "Uh... You've probably already figured out we're on an island. Further in looks like it's mostly jungle with some mountains towards the center."

It's not like she can tell him much; she'd only been awake for a few minutes before finding him.

Christ he misses John. What a nothing of a fucking description. His mouth presses into a thin line briefly, but he takes a deep breath and powers on.

"Arthur Lester. And I knew beach, not island. It's not the first one I've washed up on in the last few days, funnily enough. And-" He doubles over with a short groan, picking up the mess of a robe again. "-I rather don't think my situation just killed me, but given that I can't say precisely what it achieved, I can't rule out the possibility. For now, though, we should assume we have bodily functions and act as such. Therefore, shelter."

He pauses for a moment, and looks distinctly uncomfortable. "Now, uhm. Which way is the forest? We should at least walk in the shade, if we're to explore."

Zam can tell from his expression that she's not doing this right. Well excuse her, she was a bounty hunter before this, not a karking seeing-eye changeling.

"Just so you know, if you mean building a shelter, it's going to be slow-going between the two of us. I'm... not really in the best shape right now." She really should just tell him, shouldn't she? After all, she already knows his limits. If they're going to be working together, he should probably know hers. She sighs and then, reluctantly: "I'm short an arm; it's been a bad day."

As for the forest... "You can follow my voice or give me your hand. Your pick."

At least she's learned not to touch him without warning.

"Jesus Christ." It's more of a mutter to himself, when he hears the news about her arm, but at least it's sympathetic. "Well, er. I'm sure between both of us we'll have enough body parts for some manner of lean-to. I-I'm actually quite capable, despite the, er. Blindness."

At least it's very easy to learn not to touch Arthur. It's like trying to grab a hedgehog. "And I would- if, if at all possible, I'd rather follow your voice. Please."

Zam shrugs, not really thinking about the fact that he can't see it. "Suit yourself."

They'll make an odd team for sure: a touchphobic, cult-hunting blind man and a one-armed, freshly-murdered assassin. Zam will just have to hope it will be enough to handle whatever other surprises this place throws at them; it'll just be embarrassing if she dies again.

"Okay," she says, positioning herself between him and the forest. "Uh, I'm walking towards the treeline now. Lots of thick vegetation after that point, so you'll have to stick pretty close once we get there."

She realizes she's going to have to talk fairly constantly so Arthur can track her position. At least that's never been a challenge for her and it's better by far than being alone with her thoughts at the moment.

"I infiltrated a cult once," she ventures. "Nothing to do with your King in Yellow, but they seemed equally interested in violence. Murder, slavery, table-based torture—that kind of thing." She glances back at him. "Have to say, it's not the kind of work I would've imagined anyone doing blind."

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TDM #1

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

TDM GUIDELINES

I. ARRIVAL

II. NETWORK

III. EXPLORING

arrival

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Sorry babe he's just like this

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

they're both so good at this

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