TDM #3

[glencolans]

TEST DRIVE MEME #3

Welcome to Glencola Reef's third 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. A SAFE PLACE

Whether because someone else directed you via the transceivers, or someone found you and is leading you there, or just out of sheer luck, you have stumbled your way up the western coastline and run into an abandoned airfield. At least it used to be abandoned; there are obvious signs that the area has seen recent use, from the myriad of footprints in the sand leading up to the ocean, to the racks of drying fish lined along the shattered asphalt of a runway, to the strangely complex water stills and...who even knows what chemicals are brewing in those pots next to the largest airplane hangar? Even if you find the signs of people first, you're likely to run into the inhabitants themselves sooner rather than later, as the airfield has become a surprisingly busy hub of activity in comparison to the bleak isolation of the rest of the island. Maybe some of the more experienced inhabitants will help you figure out what's going on here, or try to rope you into exploring or cleaning out the more run-down buildings lining the runway, like the smaller hangars or the desolate traffic control tower at the far end. You likely aren't the only new person trying to find your way around, either. Hopefully the person you arrived with is more interested in helping rather than just looting the place and running off.

IV. STORM WARNING: REDUX

The weather on this island can be rather unpredictable sometimes. Just yesterday it was sunny and hot, then today, without warning, the sky opened up - literally, like the pale blue horizon was a vase smashed by a hammer and a billowing cyclone poured through the hole - and dumped at least a foot of rain on you in the span of an hour. This wouldn't be the first time this has happened to you, and you doubt it will be the last, but this time the freak rainstorm doesn't let up. Days pass. Did you decide to take shelter in the rainforest, only for the ground beneath you to start sinking with water? Were you camped next to a tranquil stream that has turned into a swelling river? Regardless of the circumstances it's time to go somewhere else before things get worse, and you probably ought to help the person you're stuck with come with you (or maybe you need some convincing yourself).

V. TERRORS OF THE REEF

CW: Shark Attacks

The large coral reef on the western edge of the island, just south of the airfield, seems like it's come straight out of a magazine. The waters are shallow and crystal clear, and the spots that aren't full of vibrant rainbow corals are coated in a soft layer of white sand. Fish of all sizes and shapes and colors swim in shoals along the reef. This seems like an ideal place, then, to do some productive fishing, or to take a relaxing swim in the warm tropical waters. And for the most part, it is.

Except, you aren't the only one interested in the fish. The sounds of struggling prey and the scent of blood in the water draws reef sharks by the dozens - or, if you're further away from shore, tiger sharks that could grab you by the ankle and drag you underwater in an instant. Hopefully someone is around to warn you, or at least pull you away and tend to your wounds, before you become a casualty like the fish.

NAVIGATION

Comments

Giriko | Soul Eater

[failsaw]

I. Arrival
[Giriko shoves damp bangs out of her eyes with a glove that's already fucking ruined by the rapidly drying salt water. A glance down the beach and up the beach, and there's nothing but too-bright sunlight and pounding waves and a swamp stretching away into the distance. It's obviously not the castle, it doesn't feel like another chapter of the Book, and she's got absolutely no idea where she is.

(for a second, she looks worried, confused, scared, and then her glance finds a stranger and that moment of panic morphs into seething anger)]

Hey! Who the fuck are you!?

III. A Safe ^{[citation needed]} Place
[There's a lot that Giriko doesn't like about this. The whole situation, in fact. It makes her skin crawl, there's a pressure in her chest from an engine that won't start up, and her head is pounding (that last one is probably just the last lingering bits of a hangover). She stalks around the airfield, poking the various bits of functional machinery with a frown.]

At least these idiots aren't completely useless. [She mutters, mostly to herself.]

IV. Warning (Storm and Otherwise)
Hey! Idiot! [That... friendly greeting comes from the young woman standing out in the rain, soaked from ponytail to heavy workboots. She looks furious about the whole situation.] Move your ass before you get yourself killed!

[[ooc: or wildcard! Giriko is a terrible person and I apologize in advance. Hit me up at hydok if you have any questions!]]

IV

[desperate_times_right]

[Chloe, drenched, face almost completely hidden behind wet hair that's come loose from her ponytail, laughs.]

You think you’re gonna give the orders on your first rodeo, honey?

[Some of her experience with the last storm is visible on her body: the right leg of her jeans was cut away at the knee and the visible skin below is crawling with healing burn scars.]

Just be glad you're with me and not some Italian psycho threatening you with an axe. Watch your head, a statue fell on a guy last time.

[failsaw]

[She was going to (insultingly) point out the extremely treacherous looking dead branch caught up in the tree above Chloe's head, but--]

The fuck did you just call me?

[desperate_times_right]

Oh, ha, are you Italian? No offence.

I'm sure you can't be as bad - [She’s interrupted by the branch in question crashing into the ground just behind her.] Oh, look at that. What’d I tell you, huh?

[failsaw]

Do I look like a fucking Italian? [She's Czech, thank you very much. ]

If you're the fucking expert, lead the way. This is the shittiest wet t-shirt contest I've ever been to.

[desperate_times_right]

You look like someone who got up on the wrong side of the beach this morning to me, but that's fine.

Tell me about it! There’s not even alcohol unless you find some on the ground and don't mind taking a risk.

No worries, I’ll show you where we’re holed up. How are you at climbing?

[failsaw]

The assholes who kidnapped us just what, leave bottles of shitty booze around? And you drank some? [She is going to judge. She would also absolutely drink suspicious alcohol she found on the ground in a jungle but that's beside the point.]

Don't tell me you've got a fucking tree fort. I'm too old for that bullshit. [She looks like she's about 19.]

[desperate_times_right]

[You don't even know the depths this woman would sink to - she smoked weed from an unlabelled bag a drug lord masquerading as a cop found in the jungle.]

These storms throw shit all over the place, I think a bunch of it comes from that. Who knows, though?

Rude, it's not a treehouse! It's a cliff face and someone broke the fucking ladder.

[failsaw]

What, you waiting for a storm to blow you in a new ladder? Can't tie a fucking knot?

[desperate_times_right]

[Defensive:] I don't want to talk about it. Use the climbing axes or spend the rest of this in the river. No skin off my nose.

[A magic cat dematerialized her rope.]

III

[meadqueen]

[A quiet voice sounds behind her as she's poking at the vats.]

I don't think you want to touch that.

[failsaw]

Yeah? [She's not stupid enough to keep messing with something she's being warned off of.] What's in it?

[meadqueen]

It's for tanning leather.

[Don’t worry about it.]

Did you just arrive?

[failsaw]

I've got a fucking nose. [The small scale of the operation means it stinks less than the village tannery, but she's done enough work with leather to recognize what's going on.]

There any decent sized animals in this shithole, or you just skinning rats and shit?

[meadqueen]

It varies. So far it's mostly boars, one strange midsized rodent and a horse Squalo found, but someone saw a deerlike creature in the jungle a month ago. Our options for long-range weapons for hunting aren't what I’d like, but we manage.

You have experience in this sort of work?

[failsaw]

If you're taking down boars, you might not be completely useless. [And Giriko is deliberately not considering how useful she'll be here, with her motor silenced and her magic disabled.]

I've got better things to do with my time than fuck around with tanneries. [If there wasn't one, she'd probably get something going, but as it is she isn't going to get involved. Let someone else mess around with scraping hides and stirring vats.]

[meadqueen]

[Thank you for that glowing assessment of her abilities, strange child.]

I'm sure you do. You're welcome to stay here for as long as you’d like - we have food and clean water and at least a partial roof to sleep under.

[failsaw]

[She's probably in her late teens, old enough to have better manners than she's currently displaying, young enough to still be an absolute asshole instead of actually cooperating to survive.]

Is that what the stills are for? You're wasting dry firewood on boiling your water clean?

i

[solitarysoul]

[Levi freezes as Giriko shouts at him.]

N-nobody...

[She looks pissed...and wet. Was she new or did she just try to go swimming.]

Did you just, uh, wash up?

[failsaw]

No shit I just washed up. Is that fucking common here, "nobody"? [She doesn't make the airquotes, but they're there in her tone.]

[solitarysoul]

Uh, yes. Actually. We all washed up here.

[failsaw]

You gonna point me towards the asshole who decided we needed a beach vacation, or what? [At least Giriko seems more interested in targeting an assumed mastermind than going after Levi.]

[solitarysoul]

I would if I had any idea where they were. Or how to get there.

I.

[somethingintangible]

[ Maddy bristles at having anything demanded of her by someone she clearly doesn't recognize. Usually she'd be a bit more antagonistic right off the bat to somebody who DARED talk to her like that, but she saw the confusion and the fear first, and it's hard for her to just outright snap at somebody in a survival situation. Besides, she's supposed to be, like, this bitch's rescuer or whatever. So here she is. Doing rescuing.

So she's nice... ish... for Maddy, anyway. She does roll her eyes though, and her tone is... not snotty, exactly, but it's a dispassionate monotone with just a hint of an edge. ]

Hey. Nice to meet you too or whatever. [ She softens slightly. ] I'm Maddy. Who the fuck are you?

[failsaw]

What, there's a fucking welcoming committee for this kidnapping? You just wander around all day looking for people who got no fucking idea what's going on here?