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

[lonelynotforsaken]

This is stupid. He feels stupid. Is this really going to work? It was his idea, but he shoots a mildly suspicious glance at her around his hand, all the same. It's hard to tell if she's making fun of him. If she is, this really isn't the time for it, but on the off-chance she's not... well, it had worked for the first one. And animals do tend to be skittish if they thinks something's attacking them.

Martin sucks in a lungful of air and lets it out as more of a shout this time than a scream. He splashes in the water at the same time, sweeping his arms in an arc across the surface to send a spray of it toward the herd. There's a beat, and then they're fleeing the lagoon, as well. Thank whatever powers exist here.

The man slumps a little. "Did you really think that was going to work?"

[cactusy]

That faint smile is definitely still there - but she wades up to her knees into the water, offering him a hand to help pull him up and out, if he'll take it.

"Maybe. Figured it was worth trying."

[lonelynotforsaken]

Something in him recoils at the idea of touching people apart from Jon. Or being touched, but he knows that's probably... lingering influences from the Lonely and everything else they saw in the apocalypse. She also looks so small compared to him. His movements are a bit mechanical as he reaches out a hand to take hers. He pulls himself out mostly, keeping his eyes averted, and lets go of her just as soon as it seems polite to do so.

"Guess there aren't any piranhas in here. Then again, if everything looks like it's come out of a mad scientist's Chernobyl laboratory..." A small shrug. "You-you should probably gather up your things. No fun running around in wet clothes, but at least they won't be salty. I just want to wash mine out a little more, then we should probably get going. I don't know if those things are meant to be-to be carnivorous."

[cactusy]

Small as she is, there's clear strength behind her grip - though she mostly lets him just use her to pull himself up, then drops her hand from his as soon as he's on his feet.

"I'll keep an eye out for more," she tells him, heading over to grab her t-shirt (she's going to wait as long as possible before she struggles her way into her uncomfortable wet jeans). "And I'll keep my back turned."

Honestly, civilians and their silly hang-ups about nudity.

"Unless you get into trouble, anyway; if that happens, no promises."

[lonelynotforsaken]

"That's... fair." He's really hoping the worst they have to deal with are skittish crab-deer. Once she's got her shirt on and put her jeans wherever she's going to put them, it's Martin's turn to make his way toward the falls. He turns his back on her, as well, and pulls off his shirt before awkwardly wiggling out of his jeans. Everything gets held under the waterfalls and wrung a few times to make is the least awful it could be.

Martin is fine until he does a check on himself and discovers a pair of leeches attached to one of his calves. Screaming again isn't an option, but he lets the waterfall drown out his whimpering as he tries not to have a panic attack. He manages to yank the horrible, disgusting creatures off and chucks them into the waterfall. Rinses his now-bloody leg off, and pulls his wet clothes back on.

Hopefully, nothing terrible has happened for his companion in the meanwhile.