dankmemes | test drive meme #20

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!test drive

test drive meme #20

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 May 25th, and apps are open June 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: BURN BABY BURN
[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.

Or that... bonfire behind you? That's sure what it looks like, but if you get a little closer - which you probably shouldn't - you'll see a face in those flames This time, the Door has brought in some Doomers, from the Baten Kaitos video game.

Doomers are creatures made of flame that sure would like it if you were on fire too. It works for them, right? What do you mean you don't want to be engulfed in flames? These Doomers will send clouds of sparks in the direction of anyone that might be a threat (or anyone they don't like), searing them with the heat and trying to catch them on fire. Hot damn!]

SCENARIO TWO: IT'S JUST A CAT
[Why does it always have to be like this? There you were, going about your day, when you turned a corner and something jumped out at you. Maybe a monster with sharp teeth and claws, maybe a snake striking at your feet, maybe just a terrifying dark shape - whatever it was, it scared the shit out of you.

And then it disappeared in a puff of brightly-colored smoke and glitter, because that's just how Hadriel rolls. Awesome. And maybe if it just happened once it would be a big deal, but it's happening all the time. Practically every other corner you turn, half the doors you open, even just when you look over your shoulder. Careful about getting too jumpy, though - what are you gonna do if your friend taps you on the shoulder and you freak out? How embarrassing.

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

H O P E

SCENARIO THREE: I LIKE YOUR HAIR
[Everything seems normal today. No monsters, no weird shapes jumping out at you. Maybe it'll just be a normal day. Maybe it'll even be nice. No - it'll definitely be nice.

How can we be sure of that? Easy! Every time you touch someone today - whether it's an accidental bump or an intentional touch - you'll blurt out a genuine compliment. If you don't know them well, it could be something as simple as saying they look nice today, or that their eyes are a lovely shade of green. If you do know them, it'll be more specific. Maybe you're impressed by their work ethic, or you love the sound of their singing voice. Maybe you actually hate them but you really appreciate the way they always remember to put the toilet seat down (because that's the only good thing about them).

Whatever it is, you'll find yourself saying it out loud. Don't worry - nothing too personal will be blurted out, and you can stop yourself if you really want to. But isn't it great to be nice to people for once?]

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[O N E]

Waking up in the dirt is new. Not absurd, but new. Reno grunts as he pushes himself off the floor. He rubs his face and notices his baton nearby, which he reaches out and grabs. He examines his surroundings, brow furrowed in confusion. Just where did he end up?

Unfortunately, he doesn't get to wonder that for very long, as a spark flies past him, and he instinctively jumps to the side as he looks up to find the source. To his surprise, it seems to be a bonfire.

"...With a face?" Definitely weird, but a cocky smirk crosses Reno's lips. Monsters and self-defense mean a fight. "Alright, yo, I'm game!"

Reno will do alot, and playing with fire, literally, is one of them. In fact, he looks pretty pleased with himself as he charges at this bonfire-beast with a yell. However, when one of those sparks land on his coat and it starts to catch fire, he gives a very different yell, and quickly starts to pat the flame out.

"Oh, that's it!"

With a glare, he frustratedly charges at the monster with his baton, swinging through the flames. The only effect this seems to have, is to overheat the baton in his hand.

"HothotHOT! FUCK!" He drops his baton and quickly grips his hand. The glare on his face doesn't fade as he glares back that the fire-beast. However, he seems to have succeeded at pissing it off and it's advancing on him. And that's when Reno's expression changes to one of surprise and alarm.

"Oh, shit."

Quickly, he turns and runs, leaving his baton behind. He'll just have to come back for it later. Right, now, he's trying to escape the monster. If anyone could put that out, he'd greatly appreciat it.

[T W O]

Reno isn't terrified by alot. Really. Startled, infuriated, and intimidated, maybe. But to be genuinely scared, that takes alot. But that doesn't stop him from being caught completely off guard while he's napping on a bench, minding his own business. Hearing an earth-shaking roar and opening his eyes to see some nightmarish, large-fanged beast just inches away from his face definitely warrants a rather ~~terrified~~ surprised yell as he throws himself off the bench. And before he can hit the ground. the beast poofs into a glittery confetti and covers itself all over Reno.

"What the Hell?!?" He's not sure if he's more confused or angry, but he's definitely trying to ignore the way his heart felt like it jumped into his throat and is still pounding a mile a minute there. He tries to dust the confetti off of himself while still flat on his behind on the ground.

"Well, I'm definitely awake, now!" he says in a rather annoyed huff. No going back to sleep after something like that. He glances over at you as you pass by. "Hey, what's a guy gotta do to get a stiff drink around here, yo?"

He's definitely talking to you, make no mistake about that.

[T H R E E]

Alright, after that amount of Chaos, Reno's ready for some R&R. He's determined to do so today. He's avoiding monsters like Hell and you can't make him fight. Good luck bothering this guy if you have any problems at all. Last he checked, he just doesn't care.

He's wandering around the shops, checking out the wares. Seeing if there's anything particularly enjoyable. He picks up a couple of drinks off the shelf that look particularly interesting. And as he's looking around for a way to pay, he might not have noticed you right there as he bumps into your shoulder. Whoops.

As he turns to shoot a brief apology at you, something else comes out instead.

"Wow, man, you're really cool, yo!"

He blinks in surprise. Just where did that come from. Oh, well. It's mostly harmless. Right?

She had her fair share of jumpscares for the day... and just decided to keep wandering around the city allowing Fear to scare her with his cheap jokes if that's what's really needed to keep everyone alive. That being said Rydia is... no longer that jumpy, she expects horrible things to appear midair when the turns corner or monsters appear from the shadows so it's losing effect. It was good as long as it lasted, mh?

"Oh well... mh?" She turns, raising her eyebrow and almost waiting for the stranger to turn in Leviathan only knows what before reaizing she's just in front of another person "There's a bar, actually... someone said they have liquors and wine but I don't honestly know where that is." Guess who doesn't drink at all.

Edited 2017-05-21 18:42 (UTC)

[ 001. So the Sacred Flame caster becomes the on fire??? Merle doesn't know what the hell is going on or what the hell that thing even is, even after a half-decent arcana check. Not that there's much he can do about it anyway, magically speaking, and it dawns on him that his right arm is just a wooden prosthetic from the elbow down. Just because it moves like a real arm, it doesn't make it very handy in a situation like this one.

This mostly occurs to him because he makes a bad dodge and has to quickly pat his own fingertips out.

Things aren't going great, all in all. He was in the middle of something. They were down a mannequin and a deity already and now he's down a wizard to boot, with an extra side of "this is not even at all the same building". He has an axe he stole from a dead guy a million episodes ago, which he promptly throws into a fire and loses, a warhammer he hasn't used in a dog's age that he just sorta whiffed with, and a lot of items that aren't viable for anything whatsoever. ]

Since when does killing a regular monster have to be this hard? [ Roll 2 reason with the fire spark monster thing. But just completely crit miss that deal, really just absolutely fail in every capacity to summon charisma. ] Listen, I've already got a lot on my plate right now, so if you could just go ahead and turn to dust--

[ His soul wood arm catches a teeny bit of fire again. Save This Dwarf. Or alternatively, catch him after things settle down. Merle definitely has a lot of questions in mind, and with no idea who exactly he's supposed to ask, he'll be making a few rounds to ask them of anybody who looks like they possibly might have an answer. ]

[ 002. Introductions and settling in aside, this place is the worst still, and that takes some doing to get Merle to decide, because he already did a few rounds in The Game Show Pan Forgot before he ever arrived here.

Suffice it to say, Merle's spooked as all hell, my dudes. There are some things that don't totally get the impact they're looking for, just by process of "seen a lot of shit" elimination, but having stuff pop out to scare you with no warning while you're going about your daily business wears a man down.

It feels like he's done this a million times. Still scary. So what Merle does is get proactive! Who can get scared turning a corner when they're busy jumping out and yelling instead of waiting for some spectral horse crap to do it to them? Nobody, that's who. It's the best idea he's ever had, absolutely. No regrets. No sir.

He hasn't really considered that other people are eventually going to be on the same corners or passing by the same alleyways. Even after that's come to his attention, he'd rather go out and seek than wait and accidentally warhammer something.

That said, he's got a lot of moments where his guard is down or he sort of loses the thread of what he's trying to accomplish. Walker beware, you're... probably gonna kind of scare your friendly neighborhood cleric or something. On the bright side, he'll probably be super chill about it afterwards. ]

[ wildcard. i mean if there's anything else you'd rather get up to shenaniganly-speaking, we can make it happen. all is possible in this wacky world. ]

[Magnus knew checking on the Colosseum in time for the new arrivals would pay off. Call him an optimist, but you cannot keep the Tres Horny Boys apart for long. It's just not right.

Except if he doesn't spring into action now, his dwarf is gonna end up served to him extra crispy. Not that he has to stop and think at all before he comes barrelling in, tackling the floating fireball shieldfirst, trying first and foremost to get it away from Merle so it doesn't light up his whole wood arm.]

Just cast something, Merle! Did you forget how to do magic!?

[Guess who isn't up to speed on missing deities? It's this big guy trying not to get his shoulder singed right here. Magnus is just assuming his general clerical shortcomings have come to a head right when Merle's about to get set on fire. Good thing Magnus has been replacing his arms collection with decidedly less-magic replacements.

'Cause yeah, that sure isn't Railsplitter Magnus is swinging, shield up. Thankfully he's rolling well enough not to get burnt in the process.

[Taako is not the kind of dude who gets wrecked by jumpscares. He is good enough with reflex and magic to not get freaked out, obviously.

This is logically why, when Merle jumps around a corner and screams, he gets a face-full of umbrella and a momentary mouthful of words.]

What the fuck was that, this is already ridiculous, did you have to--

[... Wait. Small. Wood arm.

Holy shit.]

Wait, Merle? Holy shit. When did you get here?

[one]

Legolas was not used to finding himself anywhere not Middle Earth. And most especially unprepared, as he pulled himself to his feet and looked around, eyes drawn to the fire of the creatures brought with him.

He started to reach for his bow only to stop just as quickly. Arrows wouldn't do anything to a creature based in fire, they'd been useless against the Balrog- these were no Balrog's though. And yet he didn't want to risk his supply of arrows or his bow. And with his sword, it could grow too hot depending on how much heat they put out.

It's a risk he had to take though. At least until he could find a source of water. If nothing else, it would keep any burns he suffered to a minimum. So he drew it and gave it a few swings before also pulling his white knife out.

[two]

His first instinct when something leapt out at him in unfamiliar territory is to immediately draw his knife. It was less fear that drew him to act so much as having been startled. Especially after spending a year on a mission to save his world and fighting off Sauron's army as they went.

And when it disappeared? There was a few choice Sindarin swears spewed from the princelings lips. It kept happening though and while that should be enough to eventually train him not to draw his weapon, it actually wasn't. He grew up in Mirkwood and frights like this were always actually dangerous.

He at least had the reflexes to stop short if it's someone approaching him rather than some strange beast.

[three]

He wasn't truly familiar with many people yet but he was friendly, he always had been, so he didn't go out of his way to avoid anyone when he finally realized what was going on. In fact, he might actually have started bumping into people purposefully, just lightly enough to cause the impulse and brighten up someones day.

He could just compliment anyone he met but that might run the risk of him missing someone. And Legolas didn't want that.

Oops, maybe he bumped your shoulder just then-

"You look wonderful today."

[ two ]

"Aaah!"

Leslie Knope wouldn't describe herself as "easily startled." But then, she wouldn't necessarily not describe herself that way, either. Especially today. Today breakfast had been waffles with extra-extra whipped cream from JJ's, followed by a coffee that had approximately twenty parts cream and sugar to one part coffee. And then a Nutriyums bar from Sweetums, as a mid-morning snack. Which, as Ann loves to remind her, are made entirely out of corn syrup. But they taste so good!

The point is, she's a little on edge.

She jumps when the...whatever it was appears, and then frowns, peering suspiciously at the cloud of bright blue smoke left behind. Stepping closer, Leslie looks down to see the floor dusted with glitter as the smoke dissipates.

"Okay, Tom, I know this is you." Squaring her shoulders and doing her best to dismiss the memory of the dark, ominous shape that had disappeared around the corner, she marches forward to investigate. "And this is not the time or place to test your new business idea! We have a campaign to run!"

[ three ]

It's a perfectly normal day. No monsters, no weird shapes. It's definitely going to be a great day.

And Leslie feels great. Every time she meets someone, she smiles and compliments them. Even if she's never met them before! Especially if she's never met them before. After all, most of these people had never had the pleasure of receiving a genuine Leslie Knope compliment before. There's no time like the present to make up for lost time!

And if she ends up complimenting a complete stranger's body in a slightly inappropriate way, or making wild speculations on what other wonderful qualities they might possess based on zero empirical evidence, well...there's actually nothing strange or unusual about that at all, really. This is Leslie. It's kind of what she does.

[ Pro: Magnus is dumb and fleshy again and remembers him. And that's a huge relief in its own right, technically, not that he's about to admit it.

Con: Magnus is dumb and fleshy again and attacking a fire monster with a regular old axe, fully under the impression that Merle can toss up a Create Water or something. Or god forbid... heal him if he almost dies???? Potentially? He doesn't do standard cleric shit on a good day, this is a recipe for disaster.

(Merle also makes a mental note that Magnus looks young and has all of his stupid fingers again, and boy is he gonna set aside a lot of time to be jealous about that later.) ]

You probably can't pick up on this, but I'm not exactly bathing in a pool of Pan's holy light!

[ There's no right time to have a "god's either dead or especially not digging me" conversation. ]

[ Aha. Kinda took the fun right out of this exercise to jump a corner and only find Taako. Not that it's not good to know he hasn't been suffocated beneath a melty floor, or something. Definitive proof and all that. Merle immediately becomes more ornery. After he dared to potentially maybe worry about this little shit and everything.

This is clearly! Taako's fault somehow. He doesn't know exactly how. But he would like for it to be because it would make things simpler, so he'll ignore anything he's legitimately learned and forgotten to make it that way. ]

I should be asking you that question! I get sucked into a hallway with a wizard- that's you- and okay, standard trap. Then I turn up next to a fire monster while you're apparently all the way out here the whole time!

[Oh great, just because Taako wasn't the welcome wagon now it's his fault. Uuuuugh. He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, at least removing the umbrella from Merle's sphere for the time being.]

Okay, pause, because one, what part of 'Taako's good out here?' didn't stick like, a year ago? And two, that was a month ago, Merle. Time's all fucked up. Mag and I have been looking for you. Jeez.

[Okay so mostly Magnus but also him!!! A little. At least once.]

[one]

[When attacked by what appears to be a head engulfed in flames, there isn't really a lot of time to stand around trying to decide what to do. Luckily, Akechi isn't a stranger to having to think on his feet.

So, the facts: some kind of fire monster is attacking him. He does not seem to have any weapons, or in fact anything at all on his person. He doesn't know where he is, except that there seems to be a stone roof overhead. Since he doesn't know where he is, he doesn't know where safety might be. Therefore neither fighting or running is a great option, but standing around and letting himself get lit on fire is also, frankly, a terrible one.

In a split-second decision, Akechi chooses to run. He doesn't at all know where he's going, though, and dashing through unfamiliar streets is overall not the best plan. He's rather frustrated, really, but still manages to appear mostly calm as he swings around a corner and skids to a stop in front of someone.

Out of breath and a touch alarmed, he glances behind him quickly before speaking.]

Do you have a weapon? Or perhaps a bucket of water?

[three]

[Akechi still has little-to-no idea of where he is. It's not a Palace - or maybe it is? At this point, anything is possible. The best thing to do - the most obvious solution - is to find someone who does and wring every bit of information out of them as he can.

Politely, of course.

Then hopefully he can find out how to get back, since he really doesn't think there's much here for him except, apparently, flaming monsters. And those are not particularly appealing. So he reaches out to tap someone's arm and get their attention, preparing a friendly Excuse me, where are we?

Instead, what comes out is:]

Excuse me. I just wanted to say you have very lovely eyes.

[Well, that's weird. But not untrue, so he may as well roll with it.]

[Well, Merle's right. Magnus can't exactly burn a nonexistant spell slot on Detect Magic. He's bone dry. He looks back in confusion at Merle, losing sight of the flame creature for a second, just in time to get slightly set on fire in the side of the head.

Half of one eyebrow and a bunch of hair gets all burnt up straightaway, and Magnus yelps and swipes at it with the shield.]

Alright! New plan then!! And stop me if this sounds dumb, but -- let's get the fuck out of here!

[He disengages 'cause he can just do that, trying to push the thing away from him with the shield, and turns and runs directly at Merle, scooping him up in his shield arm and trying to get them both away from the monster as fast as possible.]

fire at your fingertips!

[From one small, dark, cramped space to another. From the crimson-tinted, rocky walls of Hephaestus, full of the oil slick scent of gasoline and rusting metal, to someplace not nearly as hot. Not to start with.

Not up until something behind him flares to life with a burst of orange and red. Jack staggers back with a muted cry, his left arm igniting in a ripple of shifting heat waves. Scrambling, fumbling, to rearrange the plasmids at his disposal to something that will affect the creature appropriately. The creature, the thing that can't possibly be a splicer, because it's not saying a word, far from the loud, angry buzz of a splicer's rambling, vocalized mania.

It hisses a fountain of golden sparks in his direction instead, and Jack dives to one side, clumsily, before straightening out of his roll to swing something upward from the heavy pack strapped to his back. Something glinting and metallic, matte black, belching a hot spray of bullets with the sting of cordite and the tin-rattle of spent shell casings.

The machine gun may seem old and out of date, something cobbled together with a drum magazine, battered and renovated and put together with mismatched pieces, but nonetheless perfectly adequate at fending away what appears to be a sentient orb of very angry fire.]

did that statue just move...?

The hours spent combing the sea-floor city of Rapture have refined Jack's senses to a razored point - peculiar, as he would think he should have been, by all counts, long dead before he reached Hephaestus. Yet he adapted to the situation sprawled awkwardly before him remarkably well, just as he adapts to this one now. Even if the crumbling of something overhead, the chittering laugh of a splicer, occasionally prompts a halt, a pause, a tensing of his shoulders.

When something shifts just beyond his periphery, Jack spins around silently, opening the palm of one hand. He's not going to be taken off guard, not again. And hence, there's an almighty hum, and out from the honeycombed sores pocking his forearm like great, ugly sores, springs -

Bees.

Dozens and dozens of bees.

Hope you're not allergic.

i. MOTH TO A FLAME

[God! God!!! Myia had just gotten settled, really settled, things were going good for once in her life -- sure, Emet was weirdly quiet around her lately, and they never really recovered from their fight in the woods -- but, look. She's got a new wardrobe, new haircut, and a new lease on life.

And how is she supposed to strut her stuff in Maahi if she's all the way underground surrounded by!? Flame guys!!?

Myia isn't sure whether to brandish her fishing pole, which managed to make its way here along with her, or her actual dagger at it. But the pole has the advantage of distance to it, so she tries to wave away at the fireball-with-a-face with the end of it, wailing.]

Go! Away! You! Weird! Thing!!! I do not want to talk with you! You are too ugly! Ugly!

[It, being made of fire, and annoyed with getting a fishing rod all up in its business, just spits a spark out at her and she yelps, jumping back and actually getting a lot of air thanks to her wings. They don't seem to keep her airborne for long, though, and she drops to the floor hard on her butt.]

Yeep!

ii. SCARED OF HER OWN SHADOW

[Myia is jumpy at the best of times. So right now? Her little heart is beating faster than it may ever have before. She's shaking, curled in on herself, gripping her golden dagger in its sheath, compound eyes darting left and right.

She keeps getting snuck up on, tricked, bamboozled, what have you, and she's tired of it! The next flash of movement she sees, she pulls her knife on it with a shriek, determined to face her fears head on finally.

Only she is now slashing her knife at a person, not a thing. Whoops?]

iii. NICE SHOELACES

[Myia is not that used to looking on the bright side of things. Generally, whenever she starts to feel at ease, that just makes her all the more paranoid that something awful is going to happen. To her specifically.

So she's alternating between rare moments of peacefulness and being completely on edge as she walks the streets. But she just wants to stock up on some food for now, it'll only take a second, nothing's gonna happen! She'll have a nice day and get more free food in a way only Hadriel could ever provide. It's really a nice place, isn't it? No killing for food, no Harvesters, no nasty plants, no bear traps...

Well, usually no bear traps. She spares a glance at the ground to make sure she doesn't see any.

Okay, yeah, see? We're fine. She sighs and pats her dagger strapped to her shorts reassuringly. Won't need you today, li'l one. But given that she's staring at the ground for traps now, she's no longer really looking where she's going...]

No, Myia is not allergic to bees. You mostly see that in mammals, and she's very proudly chitinous, and the hair on her body is certainly not fur, thank you very much. But she's also never seen a bee as small as all that, so when a ton of them just start flying at her face, she shrieks and starts trying to punch them out of the air. She actually manages to strike a couple, somehow, but she mostly just keeps flailing and eventually curls into a ball on the ground, wailing.

"They're so small! So small! So small!" she whines to herself. "Why? Whyyyyy?"

There are definitely tears pouring down her face by now, so, congrats, you made an insect girl cry, Jack.

The first thought is - splicer. Has to be. Some kind of genetic mutation, twisting and distorting the human form. It's recognizable as something humanoid, certainly, or it once was. Regardless, the response to the burst of wasplike insects flurrying in the air, scurrying about her in bright streaks of buzzing yellow, wouldn't be out of the ordinary for a splicer, either.

It is for that reason that Jack fishes the pistol out from his pack, loading it with the click and whirring of locking pins and needles.

It's for the best. It never gets easier, but he's grown too accustomed to it, to what he has to do to survive. He has to strike first, or he's the one with the slit throat, splicers siphoning the ADAM from his insides.

He'll be putting her out of her misery, like all the others like her, ranting in their ADAM-fueled delusions.

You can't be good out anywhere when something teleports you in! Nooo, it doesn't hold water, Taako.

[ He crosses his arms. Nobody here relieved to know that their friends aren't dead or whatever it is that nerds like Angus might do. Nah. ]

How do we wind up somewhere where time's messed up again? You were right next to me! It was a couple of hours ago! I think. Give or take a few minutes.

[ BAD THINGS DON'T HAPPEN TO THIS GROUP "SEPARATELY". What even is that noise. ]

Even through Myia's wails, she hears the click of the gun -- and that sound, she's heard it, echoing in the Harvesting Offices' hallways, always followed by that telltale bang -- and all she can think is she does not want to hear that bang, not here, not now.

She doesn't know if she should try to reason with him, but running away now is useless; it's a distance weapon. She's already panicking from the tiny bees, but the tiny pinprick stings are nothing compared to the stinger from a real, full-sized bee, and a lot of them are already dying off from stinging her. Shaking, sniveling, she reaches for her knife for a second. But, no. Instead, she raises both hands, palms flat, above her head. The universal gesture of don't shoot.

"Didn't do anything! I didn't do anything! I promise! I'm promising you!" she cries, eyes squeezed shut. "I won't hurt anyone! Free food, there's free food, no need to hurt anyone! I won't!"

[ Magnus, you disengaging showoff. Merle has never appreciated this tank more than he does in this moment. Oh, some folks might say "what if there are other people in danger" or "never give up, never surrender," but Merle is not a single one of those folks.

Plus Magnus with half of his head on fire just shaved a few years off his life, if he's honest with himself, because that big goobus just got back into the ol' pod-body if he's here now. Protect that head. Stop having it be a little on fire. ]

That might be the best you've ever had! [ Good job buddy. ] Leave it to someone who has a bucket of water and get us the hell outta dodge before you lose a sideburn!

[ He's not even going to complain about getting scooped up, because he rolled a 16 on "agreeing to get the fuck out of here" and Magnus runs faster than he can. It's the legs. ]

[Magnus just runs and never looks back. He is obviously out of his depth, his spellcaster is conveniently not present, and his cleric is apparently now a heretic or something.

Once he reaches the edge of the Colosseum, where the fireballs are few and far in between, he drops Merle as gently as he can without taking much time to do it and collapses onto his knees, panting.]

That was -- [breathe] not the best -- [gasp] time to -- [heave] lose your faith, Merle! [huff]

[They're clear of monsters for now, so Magnus is just gonna lay on his back and contemplate all the ways he imagined this reunion going, and how none of those daydreams prepared him for living fire. That's not even fair.]

I knew it. The Door has it out for me. First everyone sees my hog, now it's trying to serve it up medium well.

I didn't want it to do that either, dipshit!

[They're best friends, don't you know. He takes a steadying breath to try and put together everything that's Happened so far, and then gets back to it.]

Listen. A month ago, I woke up here after going through the floor outside Lucretia's office. Magnus was here from about the same time, except he just appeared. We looked all over for you. Nothing. And now, uh, you're here. The... the thing, the magic that traps people, it doesn't give a shit about time, it just does it's bullshit and you're here. So it just, didn't take you then, because this place couldn't handle tres horny boys at full speed.

[WELL IT DID, THIS TIME, AND IT SUCKED, OKAY]

The protests are familiar - no one wants to die, even splicers with their blood running hot with ADAM - but the actions are not. She's making no move to advance upon him. Even the splicers clever enough to play dead, splayed out in broken-doll cobwebs across puddled floors, never ceased their charge once they had him under their sights.

It isn't much, but it's a hesitation. His left hand curls at his side into a fist, the humming of the bees threading about the sores gaping at his wrists. Those that haven't withered and died or been crushed by their target's thrashing have retreated to the safety of the genetic hive he's made of his hand, scuttling contentedly along the ridges of his skin.

He's had no reason to speak out against anything or anyone down in Rapture - nothing aside from quiet grunts of acknowledgment, or yelps of startled pain. Not when the only other voices are those of friends, those he can trust to help, or those who simply seek to taunt him for his incompetence. But now...?

And so Jack makes what would be, in the ruined remnants of Rapture, a fatal error: he hesitates.

[ The boy seems to handle it well enough. No need to get involved, no reason to step out and reveal himself, as if he'd orchestrated the entire scenario, until Jack has finished dispatching the Doomer.

His skill in combat has never been in question. He'd been made as a weapon, after all, much as the well-dressed man who approaches is loathe to admit it. ]

I see the change in environment hasn't addled your... abilities. Good.

[ Ryan needs him to stay alive, in this place, whether willing or no. The founder of Rapture is remarkably calm for being out of his city for the first time in years, and forcibly so... though, this can't exactly be called "the surface," so it may have more in common with his utopia than he thinks. ]

Without ADAM, though... [ Dark eyes trail down to Jack's smoldering hands, considering. ] You may want to consider more carefully how you ration whatever supplies you have on your person.

Hannah may get an average to above-average number of compliments in her life, but they're always surprising, somehow. Such is the life of someone with self-esteem as low as hers. Today, though, she finds herself giving compliments, compelled by a sort of chipper, bubbly feeling that is entirely foreign and almost definitely the influence of one of the gods. Delight, maybe?

Does it matter?

"Um - " She begins, stopping a stranger on the street, still hesitating with a shy pause in spite of her confidence in the next thing she says: "I... love your hair. I just had to tell you. I've always wanted to be blonde..."

And this woman has such a cute haircut, too! Hannah sighs wistfully, admiring it openly.

"I'm sorry if that's weird," she adds quickly, snapping out of it and laughing lightly, almost nervously.

[There's no mistaking that voice, clean and cold, the very same that hounded and haunted him across crackling short-wave frequencies. The man that tore Atlas's family apart. The man he has to - has to put a stop to, in every way that counts.

Implacable, even here. Jack's gaze darkens, fingers opening with a soft shower of golden sparks, the crackle of an embered left hand a promise in its obvious intention.

Why else would he be here? Talking to him like he's...like there's nothing to be afraid of whatsoever?

After everything he's done, maybe Andrew Ryan simply considers himself beyond fear. For a man bent on insisting that Rapture was a place beyond gods or kings, he certainly took great lengths into ensuring he would come to be established as both.

The advice goes unacknowledged. Jack simply begins to advance, bristling with intention.]

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test drive meme #20

Reno | Final FVII | Will match format

two

merle highchurch | the adventure zone

1!!!!!!!

kicks the FUCKING DOOR IN, 2

Legolas Thranduilion | Lord of the Rings (bookverse)

Leslie Knope | Parks and Recreation

ITS THE MANGO

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Goro Akechi | Persona 5

ITS THE M'EARL

jack "ryan" wynand | bioshock | cw body horror

myia | original character | ota

2

BEE AFRAID

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DONT WORRY SHES AFRAID

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8')

1

three

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