TEST DRIVE MEME #4

[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 December 25th, and apps are open January 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, 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: A FACE FIT FOR A MEME
[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. This time, the Door has brought in trolls, from the Dungeons and Dragons tabletop roleplay series for you meet.

These trolls have a height of nine feet and weigh up to five hundred pounds. They may be slower and less intelligent than you, but their regenerative abilities make them difficult to kill. Trolls are capable of healing nonfatal damage dealt to them and can use simple tools, like swords and knives- all the better to incapacitate you so they can roast you alive!]


SCENARIO TWO: RED SNOW
[It's cold. A layer of snow envelops the city, turning the caves into a winter wonderland. Feel free to have snowball fights, scrounge for blankets and coats (there's never enough to go around), and make snow angels! It's just like back home during the holidays, isn't it?

That is, if your home had yeti and white walkers roaming around trying to kill you. Be careful when wandering out and about, because they seem to blend in with the snow, and they definitely want a snack.

Or, uh, to raise you from the dead to murder your friends at their behest. Either way, you're dead.

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


H O P E

SCENARIO THREE: HOPE FOR THE HOLIDAYS
[You're sitting on a couch in a living room. All around you are hints of magic- the mirrors seem to flicker with moving objects and people, the fireplace crackles with light, but no heat. There's a Christmas tree in the corner with soft, glowing lights that are unattached to any sort of wires.

Underneath the tree are four presents- two of them clearly marked for you, two of them clearly marked for the other person in the room with you. Inside one of these gifts is something you badly want- a stack of cash, a magical bow, an out-of-print book- but inside the other is something a little less pleasant. There may be spiders or snakes, or the box may be empty but coated in acid. It could be a wolf in sheep's clothing- wonderful-looking fruits, rotted on the inside- or it could just be a particularly nasty smell.

You can only open one, and there's no way to know which is which. Which gift will you choose?]

Comments

[synthedick]

Nick shakes his head, waving toward Rey and her gifts with his robotic right hand. The synthetic skin is missing on that one, leaving it nothing but a metallic skeleton. Still good enough to hold a smoke, if you ask him -- two of the bare-framed fingers are clasped around his cigarette, wisps trailing through the air behind it as he gestures.

"Ladies first."

[circumitus]

That remark earns Nick a scoff. With a face like Rey's, not many people would consider her a lady. Then again, where she's from not many would consider either of them people. Suppose the irony goes both ways.

She nods, abandoning any witticisms as she starts pulling apart the wrapping around the gift. Undoing the bow, she finds that it's a box. She sets it down, and pulls the lid open to peer at the contents.

"Nice," she mutters flatly, her eyes narrowing.

Inside is what appears to be a human heart. Still beating. Blood smears the inner walls of the box.

[synthedick]

"Nice to know someone cared enough to give it to you while it was still warm," Nick mutters, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. That's one hell of a gift to give someone; something like that is more likely to be a threat. It's clear from her muted reaction to the gory sight that she's seen some true horrors in her lifetime, real demons and monsters -- not that that wasn't apparent from her appearance. Scars like hers don't come without a price.

Nick sets aside his observation for the time being, getting back to the matter at hand -- or at heart, more literally. "That give you a clue as to who might have sent it? It's not everyday someone goes through the trouble of making sure you've got organs to spare."

[circumitus]

"No, not really..."

There weren't that many people aware of the fact that Rey herself lacks a human heart, brain, and skeleton. These things are, in fact, the bionic facets of her anatomy. So the heart would be virtually useless to her, anyway.

She sighs and closes the lid, a little too casual for someone who's holding a box with a beating heart inside. "Perhaps someone with a sick sense of humor." And Rey thought hers was in poor taste.

[synthedick]

"Sick is one word for it." Nick's eyes flick back to his own set of boxes as Rey closes hers, hiding the heart away once more. That doesn't erase the memory of it being there, nor does it keep Nick from pondering what grisly surprises await in his own packages, but at least it's something.

He reaches into his coat, pulling out a pack of Gray Tortoise cigarettes, and offers it to Rey. Not everyone smokes -- hell, it wasn't as though a Synth like himself needed to -- but the offer is there, just in case she needs something to take her mind off the gruesome gift. She might be more composed than others would be when presented with the same situation, but Nick knows all too well that some people are just better at hiding their wounds. He doesn't have to rely on his detective skills to tell him that.

[circumitus]

At first Rey is reluctant to accept the offer. It isn't that she doesn't smoke -- she has her vices. Rather, she is perplexed at how that is supposed to work; a synthetic smoking with Nick's physiology.

Regardless of the mysteries, she takes what she can get and plucks a cig from the carton. She doesn't ask for a light when she does. Instead, she cups a hand over the tip, blinking slowly as a spark flashes from the palm of her hand, and ignites the tip of the stick. The controlled heat from her hand is gone as swift as it took to light the cigarette.

Smoke plumes with her exhale as she she rises to her feet. She looks back at the synth. "Your turn." She juts her chin at the two boxes with Nick's name on it. "If you're the least bit curious."

[synthedick]

Nick watches as Rey lights the cigarette on her own with a spark seemingly conjured from thin air. He didn't spot any exposed wiring that could have caused the spark, no metal or gears or anything to indicate she is also a synth -- it has to be something else. Either that, or his eyes are going bad, and he needs to see a mechanic, pronto.

Shelving his immediate curiosity, he takes a few measured steps to the other side of the tree, idly nudging one of his gifts with his shoe.

"I can't say I'm not," he replies. "Though I'm more curious to line up suspects as to who would do this. That heart had to come from somewhere."

[circumitus]

If he ever cared to investigate further, Nick's presumptions would be half-right. But she is more willing to stay on focus. Rey can't deny that she's a little curious as to what consists of the other contents, including the other one with her name on it. It could be something even worse.

"Perhaps it belonged to the Tin Man," she says with a wry tone. She needs to work on her delivery when she isn't being serious. "But really, it can't be a normal heart. There's no way the organ would still be beating like that, and it wasn't making that sound until after the box was opened."

Even now, she can hear the distinct pounding of the heart inside the unwrapped giftbox. It's a little maddening when you have keen senses.

[synthedick]

"Sounds like the kind of organ a synth might have rather than a mechanical woodsman," he utters to himself, kneeling beside his pair of packages. Not the kind of heart he has, of course -- his is more on the mechanical end itself, something with more wires and gears than synthetic muscle. The Gen 3 synths, though... Well, that might be right up their alley. However, leaving such a thing sitting around in a box, triggered to pump when it was opened, is definitely odd.

He'll save that investigation for later, he decides, for when he's not trying to choose between the boxes bearing his name. Both look the same, and picking up each to gauge weight reveals nothing about the contents. He finally settles on the one on the left, slipping his finger under the ribbon and tearing it off.

He pauses before opening it. "If this thing explodes, help me find my missing pieces, won't you?"

And off comes the top. No explosion, no beating heart - just an issue of RobCo Fun. Pipfall.

[circumitus]

Almost as though she was used to seeing dismembered organs on a regular basis, Rey's desire to investigate the owner of the heart isn't nearly as strong as Nick's. Even if they did find what they were looking for, the likelihood of anything being done about it is slim to nil. She has a feeling that, whoever left these gifts, is no normal giver.

She leans forward, peering over Nick's shoulder when he unearths the contents of his own gift and blinks.

What she finds is definitely not what she expects. And it sure as hell isn't another human organ.

"Any idea what that's about?" Rey asks, gesturing at the game tape.

[synthedick]

Nick can't help but give the barest of smiles as he removes the magazine and accompanying holotape from the box, turning them over in his hand for closer inspection. "None at all," he answers dryly. "Shame there's not a terminal or a Pip-Boy anywhere near here to play it on."

Not that he could settle down to relax with the questions on his mind. What kind of sadistic Santa Claus would give such gifts? The heart alone is a disturbing offering, but when contrasted with the harmless -- even entertaining -- publication he got, it seems even worse. Both gifts were clearly not intended to evoke the same reaction.

Which makes him wonder: did someone really have it in for Rey, or did he happen to pick the better of his two presents? And if it's the latter, what's waiting inside the other box for him?

[circumitus]

Judging by his reaction, it appears to Rey that Nick's gift is just that -- a gift. Which begs to question what would have happened had she opened the other one. Would it have been something more pleasant, or worse than a bloody heart?

"So it's a game?"

Huh.

She bends down again, this time scooping up the second box and giving it a shake when she straightens. Which was weird, because it sounded like there was nothing inside. And when she picked off the ribbon and the wrapping, she found just that within.

Nothing.

"This is just weird," is all that she can really say about the matter.

[synthedick]

"Weird is what you call it when your hat isn't in the place you last remember leaving it," he returns, noting the complete absence of a gift in Rey's second box. "It'd be generous even back home for someone to give me this. But a bleeding, beating heart in a box? That's just twisted no matter which way you look at it. You can bet the Wizard never gave the Tin Man anything that appalling."

He grabs his second present and straightens up, the magazine tucked under his arm. The box feels different now, lighter than when he was handling it a moment ago -- he can assume why. He tears off the ribbon and opens it with little fanfare, and finds his suspicions to be true: it's just as empty as Rey's.

Or it is now. "I'm guessing we only got one shot at this. But why? Why put a genuine gift in one box, and something sickening in the other? Heck, why bother with two gifts at all?"

[circumitus]

Nick is really much more stuck on the beating heart than even Rey is. The more he seemingly tries to get to the bottom of it all, she just shakes her head. "Suppose there's a joke to be made there somewhere."

In that Rey is as much synthetic herself as she is made up of cloned human tissue. The last she checked, her cybernetic components were still intact in this place, including the organ that her gift seems to be making dark humor at.

"Think it has something to do with the disposition of our hosts." Rey hasn't been here for very long, but she's seen enough where she's from to know when she's being toyed with. Plus she's gathered plenty of intel herself to have a better idea as to why she's been brought here.