test drive meme #14

[hadrielmods]

Welcome to Hadriel's 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 November 24th, and apps are open December 1st. Please remember that starting in December, there is an app cap of 20 apps.

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, either through handwaving or through a shared mental experience while coming through the Door!

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: HOW SAUCY
[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 lurking in the shadows, waiting for the perfect chance to destroy you for your vegetarian ways. This time, the Door has brought in a large group of Killer Tomatoes, from the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes movie.

While it is not immediately clear how these odd creatures can kill you, rest assured that you should be quaking in your boots. They can bite with their weird little tomato mouths, they can roll after you surprisingly fast, and they can even explode! Truly terrifying. But if you manage to defeat some of these agents of terror and chaos, you could make some mean salsa.]

D R A G O N A G E

SCENARIO TWO: VACATION IN THEDAS
[While you're exploring the city, perhaps you'll run into another creature that's slipped through a rift and is exploring along with you - or perhaps hunting would be a better term. Yes, Hadriel is teeming with demons straight from Thedas.

Perhaps you'll run into a desire demon, who will offer you your deepest wish - in exchange for your body and soul, of course. Perhaps you'll find a pride demon, who will play upon your strengths and weaknesses until you give in to them. Or maybe it'll be a despair demon, there to crush all your hopes and dreams.

Or maybe, if you're very lucky, you'll just find a nug.

This is a mini version of our Fadeout event this month!]

C O N F U S I O N

SCENARIO THREE: SWEDISH MANUFACTURING
[You're in luck! You know that thing you've always wanted? Doesn't matter what it is - a cool weapon, a nice dress, a well-made bedstand, a rare magical invention. Whatever it is, you just managed to find it! Whoa!

Or, well, you managed to find a box with a picture of the item on it. When you open the box, you find all the necessary components for making that item, along with illustrated instructions for putting it together. There's no written instructions, just pictures, but you're smart, you can figure it out! And it'll look just like the photo on the box. You're sure of it.

Better get building! Okay, the instructions don't entirely make sense - did you screw that part in upside down? Wait, are these pages out of order? Maybe you can ask that person nearby for help, or maybe you'll just sink into the depths of confusion and despair. But keep trying! Just think of what you'll get if you succeed!]

Comments

Chrysanthe de Tania ❧ OC ❧ will match style

[contritumella]

one.

[ It's a fruit. A giant, toothy fruit and for a moment Chrysanthe just stares at it because what is she supposed to do? Fillet it? Pat it on it's side and tell it what a good giant food it is? She doesn't see the threat at first, until one of them rolls up to her and explodes.

BOOM! Tomato bits everywhere, especially in her hair.

Chrysanthe starts screaming. Mostly, honestly, at the mess. ]

three.

[ What is she trying to build? It's difficult to say, primarily because the image on the box keeps shifting every time it's looked at and all the parts have hinges that swing in four directions.

That doesn't stop her from trying, though. ]

one

[livandletdie]

[Screaming usually means pain or fear. Or both. Or zombie attacks. Liv follows the sound (with the added bonus of fleeing a handful of tomatoes baring their teeth at her), ready to go full-on zombie if need be, when she sees what she thinks is blood.]

Oh my god -- are you all right? Did those things hurt you?

[contritumella]

[ Screaming, in this particular case, means anger. She stops when Liv approaches, but her voice is still on the near edge of hysteria. ]

It blew up, covered in tomato, how am I supposed to get this out?!

[ Another tomato rolls towards them and Chrysanthe twists her fingers in it's direction, causing the giant tomato to stop in it's tracks, shudder, and deflate with a shriek. ]

They're tomatoes!

[livandletdie]

[Wait, what.

This-- that's it?]

You can just wash it out. You know, like mud or snow or sweat.

[Or human brains, if your food is messy and your hair gets loose, but who's keeping track.]

Yeah, I got that much. Killer vegetables. [Never mind they're not technically vegetables.] It's only going to get worse if we stay here, so let's find a way outside, okay?

[There's that bedside manner she'd had as a resident. Come on, screamy lady. Let's get the hell out. Liv heads over to her, gesturing towards what appears to be an exit to Chrysanthe's right.]

[contritumella]

Tomatoes have no business with teeth, [ She grouses, but this other woman seems to think there is an outside so Chrysanthe is willing to more or less follow her to find it.

Every tomato they encounter has the same fate. A twist of fingers, sudden deflating as all the water that holds them together bleeds out into the ground.

Chrysanthe scoffs, occasionally making a distressed sound at the amount of fruit in her hair. ]

Ugh.

[livandletdie]

[Oh god is she a high-maintenance person? This place hardly seems like one where she'll be happy.]

Unnatural things happen.

[Like zombies, and tomatoes with teeth.

Liv doesn't pay much attention to the complaining, barely even pausing when Chrysanthe kills a tomato-monster. Her goal is to get them outside. She'll figure out what to do from there.]

We're almost there. I see light.

[Hopefully it's not the light at the end of the tunnel kind of light.]

[contritumella]

[ Chrysanthe hums, eyes glancing across Liv's face before moving toward the exit outside; it strikes her that this place seems like half a ruin, that the woman with her has a very pale face, that she has no idea where she is or how she got here...

Another sound of disgust. ]

Do you speak from knowledge or supposition? Unnatural things. Light.

[livandletdie]

[A simple 'thank you' would've been fine. But no, Liv. That's not the sing to say to someone who you might run into again, whose help you might need. It's just like on an investigation, right? Just keep them talking.

What would Clive do, anyway.]

I have a little experience solving mysteries.

[Actually, he might say something like that.]

I was being literal about the light. [Liv gestures to the better-lit outside of the arena or whatever they'd woken up in.] It looks like we're underground, but there has to be a way out if there's light.

[Right?]

[contritumella]

Mysteries. How we find ourselves, underground, with giant sentient angry tomatoes, might be worthy of solving.

[ She isn't scoffing, though, and she follows Liv's hand as opposed to looking in the direction of the actual light. People are much more interesting than wherever she is and, by extension, however they got there. ]

You're very pale. Light might be good for you.

[ Light, however, does not equate outside as it turns out. Just a city, half crumbling, within a cave. ]

[livandletdie]

Yeah. I'm working on it. [So far, I'm working off the theory that there's a lot more non-humans than zombies out there, and that someone wants us all in the same place. They probably want to kill us, or to force us to live separately from our families and what we're familiar with. Which seems like a pretty sensible theory, after everything she's witnessed since the boat party.

...and not since the wake of the boat party has anyone commented on Liv's pallor.]

I don't like tanning. [Now, moving on as they head into the city--] How did you do what you did to the tomatoes?

[contritumella]

When you arrive at a testable theory, do share.

[ Chrysanthe makes a confused face. ]

Do not see what leatherworking has to do with your pallor.

Magic is the simple answer. Only they have no blood, just water.

[livandletdie]

Sure. [Will do, bossy lady.

Wait, what?] When did I say anything about--

[Magic. Tanning, as in leatherworking.]

Please tell me you're just some sort of prestofest/ren faire person? [Because I don't think I can take actual, real-life magic from another world. That's too weird. Too comic book.]

[contritumella]

What is a prestofest? [ The question about wren faires doesn't get an answer other than a light scoff. Besides which, anyone setting up a cult for wrens gets what they asked for, honestly. ]

Your blood is very...[ Chrysanthe narrows her eyes. ] Still.

Are you dead?

[ Much more interesting to her than how they ended up in a giant cave, tbh.]

[livandletdie]

PrestoFest is--

[The explanation is cut off before it even becomes an answer, and Liv herself stops walking to look at the woman right in the face.

What the hell do you even say to that, though?]

I-- no. I'm not. [She's about to launch into a lie about how she hates sunlight and likes to keep her hair bleached when she remembers the fact that this woman mentioned magic. Maybe zombies are normal where she's from? Maybe there are vampires too?

Or maybe this is a coma dream. They're in an underground city full of murderous tomatoes, for fuck's sake.

Okay. Out with it.]

I'm a zombie. And I do have a heartbeat, it's just slow. Six beats per minute. You don't need much else when you're undead.

three

[makeshiftkingdom]

[There's a smell here that Sol can't quite place, something tangy and sharp, like the time she was six and Cousin Ben bet her a cactus plant she couldn't swallow a whole penny. It's got that same metal twist that settles in the back of her teeth, something she can't quite shake. Magic does that to her. But there isn't much in the way of magic way out in the woods she lives in, so she doesn't recognize it.

A large black almost-wolf comes padding up, sniffing at the box and the funny-smelling woman. It moves carefully, as if in pain or trying very hard to avoid pain, and paws at the box. The creature looks more like someone's idea of a wolf than the actual thing, an animal drawn out of the imagination. The shoulders are wide and the spine pronounced, teeth and eyes unnaturally large. Sol has always been larger in this form.

She tips her head to the side and makes a curious, chuffing sound at the woman.

Hello, strange thing.]