test drive meme #19

[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 April 24th, and apps are open May 1st. Please remember that 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: WHAT A FUNGI
[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.

There you are, walking along, minding your own business, when you come upon a strange... something buried in the ground. No sooner have you noticed it then it pops out, ready to attack. This time, the Door has brought in some Mushbooms, from the Secret of Mana video game.

Mushbooms are large mushroom-shaped creatures that seem to be quite upset that you've infringed upon their territory - though who knew it was their territory to begin with? They attack unpredictably, dancing around before lashing out, and if you're not careful they might just hit you with sleeping powder. But who doesn't need a little nap sometimes?]

S O R R O W

SCENARIO TWO: SHALL WE DANCE?
[You received your invitation - now it's time to attend. Yes, it's the night of Sorrow's masquerade, and surely you're coming prepared. You've found an outfit in the shops, and maybe even a matching mask. You've learned the steps to a dance or two, or maybe you're counting on your partner teaching you.

What will you do, now that you're at the masquerade? Will you enjoy the delicate refreshments on the tables to the side, stuffing your face to avoid making eye contact? Will you make like a wallflower and watch people dance, hoping to be asked yourself? Or maybe you're the brave type, and you'll walk right up to a lovely person and ask them out on the floor. Whatever you do, the night is young - there'll be time for plenty more.

This is a mini version of the last day of our Seven Days of Hadriel event this month!]

C O N F U S I O N

SCENARIO THREE: NEW PHONE WHO DIS
[So you called your friend - you're sure you did. You opened up your phone, hit their name in your contacts list, and started chatting. Maybe you have something important to say, maybe you just wanted to shoot the shit. Only - somehow, it's not your friend. It might be a different friend, a perfect stranger, or even someone you hate. Let's hope they speak up before you say something too embarrassing, right?

Or you might be the one getting the call. You answered the phone, and someone started talking as if they knew you - as if you're a close personal friend of theirs. But who the hell is this, anyway? What are you going to do, speak up or let them keep rambling on about their latest fight with their best friend? You might even recognize their voice - wait, did they just call you sweetie? Oh shit, they definitely think they called their boyfriend. Wow, this is awkward.

The longer you wait to speak up the weirder it'll be. Unless, of course, you have no sense of shame at all and are happy to let them make a fool of themselves.]

Comments

Zoe Baker | Resident Evil

[telephoning]

[OOC: High chances of Resident Evil 7 spoilers for anyone who hasn't played/finished the game! If you'd like to tag anyway but want to avoid any spoilery mentions, just let me know.]

A.

[Zoe's found herself in the mental equivalent of the space between having a rug pulled out from you and falling back far enough that you've realized it's happened and are about to hit the ground.

She can't be off the property. Actually can't be. And yet she knows it like the back of her hand, and this cave?

It can't be anywhere near it. She's never seen it before. The air feels different - or is that just her imagination...?

She doesn't know whether to be hopeful (maybe I was wrong, maybe I can leave, maybe this is a sign, or a chance, or just sheer providence) or very, very afraid (too bad I don't know what this is - maybe someone's playing with my head, or maybe I'm just getting worse - don't know what I'm doing anymore).

There's nothing to do but scope, she thinks, with her mind keen and eyes wide open - try to navigate through this place, get her bearings, look for any clue as to where she is. For as disoriented as she is - almost dizzily or dreamily so; she's got to get her land legs when surrounded by this sheer degree of unfamiliarity - she remains cautious and on high-alert. She does notice a patch of ground raised in her path. She gives it a wide berth. Keeps her eyes dead on it.

And then something pops straight up from under it.

She takes in a sharp, high gasp; flinches back a bit. Her mind tells her all right. Now go. Make a run for it.

But she does so a little too late and, with better judgment suddenly overridden by needing to know, she's frozen a few extra seconds.

It's a fungus-creature, all right. Maybe she's not that far from home.

But where the hell were these things hiding, what is it -- doing...?

Even when she gets her head back, she still doesn't bolt as it starts to move dancingly around her. She keeps her eyes and stance trained on it, heart rate starting to calm but staying high -- she bites her lip, swallows, feels in her pocket... just got her lighter. She expected that, but, still, maybe it'll help. Maybe it'll react badly to fire, if it comes at her.

Keeps her hand on it. Doubts it'll understand her, but in bracing herself to try to ward it off, mutters:]

Stay back --

[And it shakes a cloud of spores into the air. She's slow to recognize it - she breathes in a little bit. Ducks her head and curses herself for doing it, leaning one hand on her upper leg and withdrawing the hand in her pocket to cover her mouth as she coughs, god, what are these gonna do to a person -- ]


B.

[Zoe is wallflowering it.

Not out of a lack of interesting in dancing, or in everyone else here - o contraire, it's because she's... resting for now with her mind wide open in the whole atmosphere itself. A wide, open room. Music she hasn't heard before, crowds of people (most of whom she also doesn't know) milling around...

She didn't exactly overprepare for the occasion. After the past three years at home, the idea of going to a formal ball needed processing, to say nothing of what the hell exactly she should wear to a full-on masquerade.

But, well. She's here now. Maskless, in a fairly-simple white dress (and wow has it been a long time since she's worn a dress), with a belt made of woven leather and a powder-blue ribbon wound together, to keep it from being too plain.

Sort of just... treating being here as a celebration.

She's stuck someplace again - and yet here? She has her life back.

Once she's settled in a bit, though, she'll move over to the refreshments, pour herself a glass of wine. Take a small, slow sip - her lip curls in at the taste a bit, and she swallows thickly. Got to adjust again...

And if anyone else winds up hanging a little bit near her? She'll look at them for a moment, smile with her head turned somewhat down, give her glass a swirl.

And if they don't break the silence? Well, she'll bite the bullet - it seems like the right thing to do; make herself a little more part of things here.]

Who'd a' thought that living here would give anyone the chance to go to a dance?

[She speaks steadily from lower in her throat and she has a bit of a Southern accent. She takes another sssmall sip of wine, and waits a moment. Picks back up without looking back at the person she's thrown a bot o' speech at right away, looking out onto the dance floor.]

It's almost normal. [Half-smile. Temporarily adds a tangy note of humor.] Certainly a bit fancier than any I've been to before, but still... [A little lift in the second word:] -- It's nice.


C. Wildcard.

[Feel free to request another prompt or hit me with one of your own!]

a

[sweariff]

[Zoe might be onto something about the air. From Bigby's perspective, it's one of the hardest things to get used to with these caves, the whole torn-from-your-world-and-everything-you-know thing notwithstanding. To begin with, the adjustment from the city's air is...disorienting, to say the least. It's muggy in here, but there's also a sort of strange, natural odor lingering around it that reminds him of earthier places, of mountains and rock, places untouched by industry and people at large. For the longest time, Central Park has been his only exposure to nature; while this isn't quite the same (and when Central Park has a leg up on you in that category, you know there's something wrong), it puts him back in a place he almost thought he'd forgotten.

Of course, a huge part of the problem is that he doesn't have a cigarette to help suppress the smells either. Putting a nose like his in a place like this is akin to throwing someone with sensitive eyes into a room filled with strobe lights, and while walking this place isn't exactly torturous, it's definitely making him feel more on edge than he should be.

Bigby can smell mold and mildew, can practically taste the water droplets clinging to the fuzzy growth in the back of his mouth, and it's beyond nauseating. He can smell the faint singe of smoke coming from somewhere down one of the branching paths leading further into the caverns, away from the one he's currently on. And, of course, he can smell people, and beyond that, something — a whole bunch of somethings — that smells like freshly disturbed soil touched with the faint scent of decay.

So he has a pretty good idea of what's waiting for him when he hears the voice, faint and high, bouncing off the walls of the cavern stretching before him. He takes off down the path and, sure enough, both scents grow stronger: one pungent and thick, the other heady with the familiar stink of fear, one he's so well-acquainted with that they might as well be old friends—

The hell is this?

Of course, it's capable of throwing him for a loop every so often. Like right now.

When he sees the girl hunched forward and the strange little creature dancing around her, the cap of its mushroom head quivering wildly as it releases a cloud of spores, Bigby's first reaction isn't one of self-preservation, but of instinct—]

HEY!

[—as he surges forward to sweep his leg back and plant a running kick straight into the mushroom's head, slamming the monster through the air and into the wall behind it where it lands with a sickening squelch.]

[telephoning]

[Her coughing catches in her throat and a firecracker pops in her head when she hears a man shout. She forces her head up, pushes herself up a little straighter --

And sees a stranger come rushing in.

In a split moment, a signal hits her brain. Still covering her mouth and nose with a loose fist and with her free hand raised up to the level of her wrist for some additional sense of security, she lets herself fall back, just coming into contact with a cave wall.

And then the kick hits. She watches the thing fly, smack into the cave wall, and then...

A couple of seconds of it laying put pass, and after that, she's left with her heart steadily hammering, both off of the bit of excitement that's just gone down and off of present uncertainty that's keeping her nerves on edge - her helper here's clearly tough; probably wasn't his first time throwing a kick like that. Who knows what one heck of a fighter's down here for, please let her have honestly run into possible help here rather than trouble...

And then again? She doesn't know what she's down here for, and hell, she's relieved and appreciative for him having gotten the thing away from her.

...But about that, first things first before she can say thanks...

A short, thin, voiced exhale to test the steadiness of her breathing, and then:]

Think it's -- ...

[And a wave of wooziness hits her - seizes and starts to lightly tug down on her, damn it, it had better not be what of the spores she breathed in... There's a small loll of her head, and flicker of her eyelids, but she gets right on trying to will it off. Come on, Zoe -- tough it out, shake it off. Looks the man straight in the face.]

...Think the -- [Brings her fist up again - a closed-mouth throat-clear.] -- think the... thing's out?

[Briefly averting her eyes to cast a look at the thing in question.]

[sweariff]

[You gotta give it to Bigby: when he hits, he hits hard. It's almost comical how the mushroom-thing's body slides down the wall to land in a still-twitching heap on the ground, oozing some sort of foul gunk that bubbles and sprouts...something when the open air hits it, some sort of growth that looks as toxic as it smells.

But it doesn't get up. For all he cares, it can lay there and die if it hasn't already. Bigby spares a quick glance in its direction to assess as much, and for a moment, his eyes look...well, luminescent. It's difficult to see in murky lighting the cave provides, and it's gone just as quickly as it comes.]

...Yeah. [His brow raises. Boy, what a mess.] It's not getting back up, don't worry.

[It's something that would be spoken a little wryly if he wasn't so on edge, humming with adrenaline, and it doesn't diminish when he sees the way the girl looks out of the corner of his eye. She looks— Well, it's hard to tell. Tired? Sleepy? One or the other. Shit, she didn't breathe in whatever it was pumping out, did she?]

Are you okay? [He turns toward her and takes a few steps forward.] Did it hurt you?

[telephoning]

[She does think she catches a flash in his eyes there - her mouth opens ever-so-slightly and she tenses tight from the shoulders up - but when it's gone...

A good, emphatic breath through her nose. Could've been some trick of light or perception. Still - stay on guard. If this is freedom, then acknowledge that this is a strong taste out the gate of its downside - being lost and no longer having any clue of what to expect from the world and the folks in it.

She actually manages to twist a tiny smirk when he answers her question, through the tension, in spite of herself - it's small and is a little wry on her part, but honest. Hard to tell when things like these are down for good, but damn if he didn't drop it...

When he approaches, she stands her ground - her head falls a little again, and she lets it stay there as she shakes it.]

No. [Her throat's still feeling a little... obstructed after all that coughing. Just a little, but she swallows silently to clear it up, brings her voice up a bit clearer, better-projected.] -- I'm fine. It gave me a scare, but that's it.

[Not entirely true, but. No need to call attention to that.

She looks back up, takes a couple steady steps around the stranger, to reposition herself so her back's no longer to the wall.]

Thanks.

You showed up at the right time.

[sweariff]

[He's not so certain he believes her, not because he has any real mistrust over her and her character but because it's just the type of mode Bigby's used to operating in; constantly questioning the intentions of others, no matter how sound their logic appears to be. But... She's still standing and she doesn't look flushed or sound weak, things one would usually associate with being poisoned, so he nods slowly after a moment's deliberation.]

Honestly? It scared me a little, too. [Sorta.] It's not every day you see a dancing mushroom.

[It feels weird even trying to attempt joking after all that, but let's be real, there are only so many directions you can take being attacked by a walking toadstool that, prior to relieving itself to be a nasty little shit, actually looked kinda cute. Bigby's offers her a lopsided little half-smile, half-grimace, giving her a wide enough berth to feel more at ease.]

I can't take that much credit. It was kind of by accident. [He takes a look to the side and back, making sure they're truly alone before pushing himself back to wall, crossing his arms.] But I'm glad I could help.