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

[hollowly]

( this guy, he's beginning to sound a lot like castiel, if only with his speech patterns. ( he's never heard anyone else sound so formal, for any other reason than it's all they know. ) but he's right, and even if he hesitates in opening his gift, he finds his attention drawn to that of the box the stranger is opening. his reaction to the things buried among the bits of tissue paper.

it isn't a good one.

but not to be invasive, his focus shifts to that which rests in his lap, and long fingers begin working to tear the paper and open it up with minimal mess made along the way. ( look, it's just the way he thinks, because sometimes his priorities are skewed when he doesn't have anything pressing to focus on, and … well. at least until he knows what's going on around here, this is about as prioritized as he gets. )

the box itself is light, now that he's actually paying attention to it – and inside, among the mess of paper, wrapped up nice and neat is a very familiar necklace that he hasn't seen in years, something that he'd thought had been left in the bottom of a motel room wastebasket, left behind and forgotten along with his brother's faith in him and everything they'd been fighting for.

it's bittersweet, seeing it again, feeling the weight of it in his hand as he brushes over its surface with the pad of his thumb. it brings a tug to the very bottom of his heart, and something catches in the back of his throat, a lump he can't quite swallow around.

he turns to the other, just slightly, still holding the pendant tightly in one hand. )

Let me guess. It's something that can't possibly be here.

( trust him. he's thinking the very same thing. )

[hotspurred]

[The tone of the other man's voice and the way that he clutches a necklace --judging by the thong -- is a conbination that routes Henry's normal distance. It conveys loss of a similar sort to his own. He turns to better face his chance companion. Even he knows that understanding is nothing to scoff at.]

...Indeed.

[Henry turns Iamarl's hair ornament in his grip, warring with himself, then sighs and holds it up for inspection.]

'Tis no forgery, certes. See upon it the faint scars of battle?

[He doesn't share anything of himself easily, but he wants to speak of Iamarl. One such as her leaves behind no records of her life. At most her name is mentioned in the receipt of her commission as Prince Edward's bodyguard, but that says nothing of the extraordinary woman she was. It falls to him to spread her legacy -- little recompense for his life, but he will do it staunchly nonetheless. She deserves to be remembered.]

The woman to whom it belonged was named Iamarl. Her assistance spared me certain death, yet in her act of heroism she took a fateful wound.

[Not that it is easy. His eyes sting, which gives him pause. How much can words that only touch the surface communicate? He is wary of disturbing the well of grief he holds inside: as a blade without a sheath, he cannot risk losing any of his edge while monsters roam freely outside.]

I... had no choice but to leave her body where she passed. Well didst we know that any hope of retrieval would be slim.

[There's no conceivable way that the ornaments left secure in her hair could be here in his grasp. Still, to have something of her to bury one day -- that is a gift.]