dankmemes | Test Drive Meme # 1

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Test Drive Meme # 1

Welcome to Hadriel's very first test drive, and thank you again for your interest in the game! As always, our reserves page is here, and our applications page is here! Reserves open September 24th, and Apps are open October 1st.

Two quick points here as well:
1. Any thread made in Hadriel's test drive will be accepted as the sole Action Log sample in the application.
2. All threads made in the test drive can be considered game canon!

Test drives will be broken up into specific god mini-events, during which your characters can see how well they fare under the watchful eye of one of the gods. Choose wisely or just simply pick 'em all, and have fun!

F E A R

SCENARIO ONE: ANYONE GOT A LIGHT?
[The Door brings in all that is chaotic and evil in the world. This may include you, may include the person next to you... and may include the monster behind you.

Watch out as you explore the streets of Hadriel, because you're not alone, and there's always something on the rooftops watching and waiting for the perfect opportunity to separate you from your group and tear you into pieces. In this instance, the door has managed to grab something truly horrific, and it's definitely out for blood (and brains) tonight.

Smokers are enemies in the video game series Left 4 Dead, who use their prehensile tongues to capture unwitting people and either drag them away for consumption or hang them up to strangle them. With all of the activity of characters trying to find out what's going on and where they are, there are more than a few of them, lingering in the shadows and waiting to try strike at anyone who may be lagging behind.]

SCENARIO TWO: YOUR HEART WILL GO ON
[You awaken in a windowless room, the walls strangely curved. The door, when you try it, is quite firmly locked. No amount of force is able to break through, so it seems to be sealed by supernatural means. Next to the door stands a slender pedestal, about as big around as a large man's thigh. At the top of the pedestal is a indentation, as if something were meant to go there.

But you're not alone in this room. There are two things with you: a person and a corpse. Pinned to the body is a note: Place a heart on the pedestal to leave. Tucked neatly into the corpse's pocket is a letter opener, small and not particularly sharp.

Did you have weapons or tools on you before? You don't now. But look at it this way: what better form of bonding is there than helping a friend or stranger dig a heart out of a corpse with nothing but a letter opener and your bare hands?]

H O P E

SCENARIO THREE: HAVE YOU HAD YOUR BREAK-IN TODAY?
[You're standing outside a storefront, colored glass set into intricate designs. It's beautiful, artistic, but more importantly - there's definitely food inside. Good food, too, by the glimpses you can see through the window. In fact - wait a minute - isn't that your favorite dish in there, just waiting for you? You've been searching for food for hours, it seems, and the city is bare. Your tummy is getting awful rumbly. What luck!

You try the door. Cruelly, it is locked. The food taunts you, just out of reach.

The glass is lovely, intricate, but it's just glass. Or maybe you know how to pick locks. Or maybe there's a back way in. Or maybe some passing friend will be able to help you. There's a lot of options here, if what you really want is a mouthful of the finest... whatever it is you like.]

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[ you'll have to excuse Cashmere, Hook. she's trying to get a hold on this whole situation while retaining something that looks like sanity. while the hotel turned out to not really be an arena (maybe), she's starting to get the feeling that the Capitol is behind this again.

does she want to cut this body open? no. can she? yes. but if she can get someone else to do it that's all so much better. she'd started to get comfortable in the hotel but everything has to be calculated now. if this new companion think she's a weak little girl than she might as well run with that. get an ally out of it, or at least some she can use to her advantage and dump later.

it doesn't take long at all for the Games mentality to come back. she'll worry about hating that part of her later.

Cashmere's giving the body some distance and instead busies herself trying the door and running her hands along the wall looking for cracks or seams. Hook gets very little of her attention, having already given him a quick glance and deciding that he wasn't enough of a threat to concern herself with. she doesn't realize it's her friend until he speaks, and she thinks her own heart might leap out of her chest.

she's glad to have a friend - if he still knows her - but the joy is short lived and quickly drown in dread. the hotel was very real and now it's very gone, and along with it all the people she'd come to be very fond of (where's raleigh?). ]

I can do it.

[ she abandons her wall exploration to kneel down next to the corpse, and holds out her hand expectantly for the blade. she doesn't say anything to indicate she knows him (what if he doesn't know her?) and instead stares at him for much longer than is necessary or polite.

please recognize her. ]

( he saw his company practically climbing the walls, trying to find an alternative, but he hadn't thought to look too closely. he doesn't expect to recognize anyone here. emma's not here, all the faces he remembers from the hotel are nowhere to be found ... he imagines that's where they are, still. not exactly a promising thought, because he doesn't know where the hotel is or how to get there. he's not going to give up, because he probably doesn't even know the meaning of the word, but it's discouraging to say the least.

considering the fact the person trapped in the room with him is trying to find a secret passage out, it goes without saying that he can assume she's not keen to follow the command of the rather vague bit of paper. perhaps the demand for a heart means one could favor one that isn't out of the dead fellow, but even Captain Hook would hesitate to cleave a heart out of a living person.

apparently he's wrong, as the blonde turns around and even falls into place with grim expectation. that's well and good and everything, but... )

Cashmere?

( he's perplexed and he can't quite decide if this is a good thing, or a bad thing. she doesn't seem to do much in the way of recognition, which probably makes his next question a little faulty. ) Have you seen Emma? ( he's really, and truly, hopeless. sorry, friend.

right. cutting up dead people. sorry, he got distracted. )

They do say ladies first, but I don't believe that applies to autopsies. ( does she really want to do this? because he may be injured, but he'll still give it a go. she doesn't have to do this. he's done worse things in his life. though, come to think, even from what little he knows of her world, Cashmere has likely done worse things herself. )

[ she nods when he says her name, and even manages a smile. everything is still shitty, but at least she has a friend. it's good to see him - she'd worried about him after the whole hand incident and then again when he'd disappeared. with the hotel you never knew when gone was gone for good... but eventually you have to give up on seeing people again.]

Hi. No - uh. No Emma. [ just this room. her brow furrows - has he been elsewhere? has he seen the others? is this just another part of the hotel? they have a lot to talk about if when they get out of this weird room. he turns his attention back to the corpse and her gaze falls downward. it doesn't seem fair, exactly, to let him do all the work now that she knows she's with a friend and not a stranger. she's trying not to think about what it will feel like under her hands or how she'll end up coated in blood like in her arena, blood she probably won't be able to wash off. her stomach wrenches with that memory, and she lets out a deep sigh. there's no time to linger on the past right now.

but this person is dead. it's not taking a life. there's no reason to feel guilty. she thinks she can convince herself of that. her jaw stiffens as she steels herself against what's to come. ] We'll take turns. Neither one of us should have to do all of it.

I thought I was alone here. ( she's right, it is good to have a familiar face. someone he knows, even though the situation is far less than ideal. are they better off here, or the hotel that neglects to feed them? honestly, it's pretty hard to say, but sheerly based off the fact Emma isn't out with him, he'd rather be back at the hotel. no matter how confining and stifling it was, he'd be back there in a heartbeat if he knew Emma was still just as trapped...

or, perhaps he'd be strong enough to stay away and find a way to save her. he'd do more good that way, after all. )

I'm not sure how I got in here, but... I can't tell if this is the hotel or not. It doesn't seem anything like it. It reminds me of New York, and we never could see anything out the windows. ( then again, it could just be another trick. it's really hard to say, and they haven't been granted any information, except for the hint that a heart is the only way out of this room.

it seems odd to agree to tag-team such a macabre process, but he sighs and nods. ) If you can get him open, I'll get the heart. ( he's not as strong as he could be with his wrist still injured, but that bit he can manage, and one might argue fishing through organs is the more unsavory of tasks. not that any part of this will be enjoyable. )

The hotel's the last thing I remember too. [ she considers the room again, with its strange walls and the door that apparently only opens when delivered a heart. ] The hotel was never this... sleek looking. It's old and dusty. Not like this. [ but she could be wrong. ]

Well. Here it goes. [ might as well get started. she sets to removing the corpse's shirt first, doing it with care instead of just ripping or sawing with the letter opener. maybe the shirt will be useful later, though she's not jumping at the chance to wear corpse clothing. the body's not stiff just yet, as though he'd passed on recently and just happened to do so in an empty room with strangers and instructions to mangle the corpse he left behind. it feels like she should apologize or something, poor guy surely won't get a proper burial and he'll have his insides as outsides. she doesn't apologize, but runs her fingers lightly over his chest, wondering what the best way to go about all this is when the ribcage is in the way.

she settles on jabbing it below his collarbone and running the letter open straight down the center of his chest, pressing hard enough to puncture through skin. it's slow and the cut is ragged, the letter opener no where near sharp enough to do this duty properly. ] Ugh. [ this is truly awful. ]

I've been outside, it's some sort of... city? Hard to say. Mostly empty, but you need to be careful. ( he lifts his chin to indicate the lovely curl of purple he's sporting from that disturbing creature he ran into shortly after arriving. ) There are monsters, and getting free of them alone... not sure I could have. ( he was lucky enough that someone happened by to make sure he got away. he might not be that lucky next time...

though now that he has a familiar face, he won't just abscond once they get passage out of here. did you want a grouchy pirate shadow, Cashmere? well, oops, you've got one. they'll do better together, he thinks, and they've gone through something at least slightly similar before. he trusts her more than he trusts unfamiliar faces. ) We'll need to be careful. ( it's a correction, hinting that he'd rather stick together than run off blind and apart.

Hook works at rolling up his sleeves, trying to make sure when it comes to his part he's not going to be wearing any more of the blood than he has to be. he frowns deeply as the cut starts to show, not quite allowing himself a grimace. this isn't the right tool for the job, and it's not as easy as just cutting through, either. )

We might have to break the ribs to get it out. ( organs were pretty much tucked nicely inside the ribcage, unless he wanted to dig through the guts and reach upwards... christ, why would anyone ask this of them? )

We make a good team. [ there's no further discussion needed. if he wants to stick together, then so does she. trusting him with her life in the hotel was mostly figurative but here, if it came to that, she knows she'd be good hands. they've already seen each other at their respective worsts and if that doesn't cement a friendship, nothing will. ]

Wouldn't want it to be too easy, right? [ if she thinks about it too much, this will all turn her stomach enough that she's sick and then she'll be covered in gore and embarrassed, which is one of a few situations that ranks below 'covered in gore' on her mental list of things she'd like to do today.

how to break the ribs, though, is another matter entirely. while the letter opener will cut through flesh - just barely - it's too dull and the edges too smooth to cut bone, or even cartilage. Cashmere closes her eyes, and does her best to push away the nagging part of her that says this is horrible, that she is horrible. all of this? is just necessary. she can't get caught up in the details of feeling sorry for this poor dead sap or for herself (or for Hook who has agreed to what's probably the more horrific of their tasks). forcing herself to be ruthless is easier than it should be for a woman her age, but she's been raised to take human life for sport. why give this a second thought?

she's just got to raggedly cut a little more open so they'll have a better chance of yanking of the heart and anything that might be in it's way. ] I'm thinking I can probably snap 'em if I stomp on them. [ thoughts on that, bestie? ]

( he spares himself a slight breath of relief at her agreement, even though it's not exactly in plain terms. that's all right, he doesn't need them, the confirmation she's given him is more than enough. they didn't have any need to really put their similarities to the test in the hotel, but that seems very likely to change here, and it's good to have someone he trusts to have his back. there's not too many he'd offer that kind of trust to, either. ) Right. We'll do better together.

( he hopes that they can avoid any more of the horrid things that tried to string him up the wall, it still doesn't hurt to be careful. and he's not the most optimistic soul. he doesn't think that threat, or the task set in front of them, will be their last.

it's fairly easy to imagine losing the stomach for what they're doing. the body isn't old enough to reek, but that doesn't make the work any easier. he's trying to operate on the same thought, that they have to do this and they can't feel guilty for what they do to survive. it's not as easy as it used to be. the blood sinks over whitened skin and down to the floor, and he can feel his own gut protest, he just doesn't intend to let it revolt. at her suggestion, he glances around again, as if a better tool could possibly provided in the meantime. ) Might be the only way.

( they could try to lug the body up and let gravity do the work, but that would get blood everywhere... though, frankly? breaking the ribs isn't going to be clean work, no matter how they do it. )

[ some of the color drains from her own face as she finally gets flesh pulled away far enough to see rib cage. how disgusting. but they're one step closer to getting out of the room and that's all that matters right now. staying in the room isn't plausible for a number of reasons, and the creeping paranoia in the back of her mind says the longer they stay the more likely that whoever put the body there will find some other way to encourage them in the right direction.

she glances up from her work again, and studies him a long moment. she hadn't meant for it sound like she was indifferent to the idea of sticking close to him. she's still trying to get settled into the idea that the hotel is gone, and that wherever they are now is much more dangerous. the only thing that's really clear is that the rules have changed. ]

It's good to see you. [ she pauses. not to get sappy, but: ] I missed you.

[ and then she stands and sets one fit on the ribs to test her weight against them. ]

( a part of him wonders if this isn't just another test the hotel is throwing their way. impossibly locked rooms is their signature, after all... and the place grows more gruesome with every trial, and this isn't honestly that much different than the little girl slaughtered at the breakfast table, is it? just another step farther, asking they desecrate a corpse to abide by their unsettling demands. a part of him wonders if they wouldn't be better off waiting it out, the hotel always did seem to be a waiting game. tolerate the trial long enough and it'd end, whether you entertained it or not...

but he knows Cashmere well enough, the skittishness in her eyes. he doesn't think she could stand to be in this room too terribly long. and honestly, cutting into a body they didn't kill isn't the worst thing he's ever done. it'd be another story if he was expected to kill someone currently using their heart. a dead body isn't going to get any less dead, now is it.

he's knocked out of his thoughts when she says it's good to see him. well, he's touched and everything, but... ) It's only been a few hours, darling. ( he's puzzled and sounds it, frowning slightly at the genuine look on her face. she certainly means it, he just... can't entirely comprehend why.

he stands too, holding the arm out of the way and putting a foot down on the body to hopefully keep it still. just standing on it might not be enough. ribs are hardy things, it took a bloody car to break his, thanks very much. she'll likely have to stomp and he knows she's strong enough, physically. so is he, if he needs to be. )

[ she's puzzled now too, and shakes her head. a few hours? that doesn't make any sense. it's been - well, she doesn't know exactly. after her return to the hotel, the days had blended together. more and more people disappeared and she'd waited for them to come back but they never did. ] Killian, it's been weeks. I looked everywhere for you, but you were gone. You and Emma both. [ and others, but what interest does he have in the others? ]

I don't know what's happening here and I don't know where you've been but it wasn't with me. [ she doesn't sound accusatory, but it's easy to see that his disappearance was upsetting to her. Cashmere thought she wasn't going to have anybody left. no one at the hotel, and no one left behind in Panem either. her entire adult life has been carefully managed to prevent her from losing the few people she hold dear, and in a matter of weeks she managed to lose them all.

Cashmere's sentence is punctuated with a sharp blow of her heel into the corpse. the noise is sickening, but there's no crack of ribs and she huffs in irritation. she'll just have to try again. ]

Gone. ( the last thing he remembers is a ... well, a not terribly eventful day in the hotel, and suddenly he was here. she's very right that all the time spent in the hotel made it impossible to properly track the days. he'd etched a few marks in his wall to keep track of them, days and weeks spreading to months, but come to think of it, he doesn't remember how many days that was before he wound up here.

he frowns, and it's punctuated by the heavy hit of her heel on steady ribs. ) I don't remember anything but being there. ( he can't explain to her the missing gap, he wishes he could. it's very unsettling to lose stretches of time, and it makes him worry after the Savior he still hasn't found. if he didn't realize he was missing, he really couldn't have been trying to find Emma, or any of the other people trapped in the hotel that he cared about. and, yes, Cashmere was one of them.

Cashmere is tall and quite strong, but it doesn't seem entirely fair to make her do all of the work. breaking ribs might take a few blows. ) I'll give it a go.

[ so if he doesn't remember leaving, and that was weeks ago, where has he been? maybe she's been gone longer that she thought too. maybe it's better if they come back to this discussion later when they can sit down and puzzle it all out. there's a small wave of hope that washes over her - if Killian's here, and she's here - maybe Raleigh is here too.

Cashmere sighs again, disappointed by her lack of progress. so she's quick to agree when he offers to take a whack at it. ] Okay. Yeah. Thanks. [ she steps back and looks away. her hands are stained with blood, and it's made a mess of her boot as well. the boot she can ignore, but her hands remind her of being a tribute and that unsettles her more than being trapped in this weird windowless room does.

she breathes out. she'll be okay. it'll be over soon, and she'll be okay. ]

If it breaks, it's because I loosened them up for you. Just for the record.

Just couldn't let me have a boost to my masculinity, now could you.

( there's no room in their confinement and body mauling to be amused, but if there was, he might have been. he doesn't watch her as she steps back, though if he caught it, he wouldn't be surprised that the blood on her hands unsettles her. even the worst of people tend to be disturbed by such things — yes, even Captain Hook, though he's a lot better at appearing disconnected to the vile things he does.

she may be a victor, but he's had centuries of practice at convincing himself that he cares about nothing but himself and what he wants. as of late, that's not particularly true, and everybody knows it... but it does make it easier on him in the moment when he's got some unsavory task in front of him.

as always, it tends to haunt him after it's over. it's not like they have a choice, though, do they?

with that thought in mind he tries a stomp of his own, and whether it's the first blow that started the work or the steel of his boot or the combination of both, there's a sickening crack as the ribs fail under the pressure. hopefully this heart they need isn't going to need to be in pristine condition. the chances of that are not high. )

I'll need that blade.

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Test Drive Meme # 1

2 - hehe hehehe

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