dankmemes | test drive meme #21

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!test drive

test drive meme #21

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 June 24th, and apps are open July 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: A LITTLE FRENZIED
[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.

Do you hear something weird? Some kind of strange, constant humming? Hopefully by now you know enough to know that it's probably not nothing, and maybe you should run. If you don't, well- the Door has brought in some Winter Lanterns, from the Bloodborne video game.

Winter Lanterns are rather hideous creatures that hum constantly and glow orange when they detect someone's presence. They can grab you with their tentacles and take a nice bite out of you, which is super fun, or they can mess you up just by looking at you too long. Yep, hanging out in the gaze of a Winter Lantern for too long will end with you being afflicted by Frenzy - blood shooting out all over the place. Not great for the health, really, so maybe don't get into a staring contest. Maybe just run.]

S O R R O W / L O V E

SCENARIO TWO: HAUNTED
[You thought you might never see them again, but now they're here. That person you loved - that person you miss terribly. Except that you seem to be the only person who can see them, and you also seem to be getting steadily weaker.

So that's what it comes down to, then. This ghost that's haunting you will take your life so it can live, even if it doesn't mean to. Do you have the ability to stop them? You'll have to kill them to do it, and you love them so much. Now's the time to make your choice - but be careful. They're strong enough to be visible now, and one of your friends or even a passing stranger might have something to say about your decision.

This is a mini version of our Ghosts That You Know event this month!]

T R A N Q U I L I T Y

SCENARIO THREE: SLEEPING SICKNESS
[For some reason you can't quite put your finger on, you're tired. Like really tired. Like slurring your words, stumbling over your own feet, nodding off if you stop for a second tired. You can't seem to get enough rest no matter what you try - because it's always a light sleep. The slightest sound or movement will wake you up, leaving you just as tired and irritable as before.

What are you going to do? Try to find a quiet place to nap? Good luck. It seems like a lot of other people have the same idea as you - it might be hard to find a truly empty place. Or maybe you just can't take it anymore, and you're going to lay down and take a nap right in the middle of the street. Or maybe you actually feel fine, but everyone around you is falling asleep - and they glare at you when you make the slightest sound.

Maybe you should wake them up? Sleeping in the middle of the street isn't exactly safe. But then, maybe you just want to join them and argue over who gets the most comfortable bit of road.]

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( Her parents died a long time ago, and her first time around in this city taught her too much to trust the first flickers of her dad's presence. So Kate ignores him, bites her tongue and goes about her day with most of her energy disappearing too quickly - poured into trying to block out the sounds of his voice and being drained because she can't bring herself to do what needs to be done. It took too long to leave deaths behind, and in the three years which passed between her times here, she's finally gotten used to simply being in the clinic, working to help people. The strength, or whatever it might have been, to fulfil the tasks that claw at her heart has all but evaporated from her blood.

She looks over from her tunnelled journey down the streets towards the Spires as Christine calls out, shakes off the exhaustion that has her stepping slower than usual and darts over. )

-- You're not real, are you?

( It's the same story as the lanky, curly haired man behind her, the one whose face is a sad twist of a smile. Pride at his daughter's response undercut by the bitter knowledge of what has to come for them both to survive.

Kat, you're going to have to- )

Hey- ( She ignores her dad's voice again, ducks under Brennan's arm and wraps one around her waist. ) C'mon, find you somewhere to sit.

( Her gut tells her that what appears to be her dad is right, but it's been years since she had to. She didn't even turn up with a weapon on her when this place pulled her back in. )

[There's a moment where Christine looks relieved to see someone coming over to help, and then she's stunned into stillness.]

No, she's not, [says Brennan as she lets Kate lead her away. They arrived in this place on the same day, and they've spoken at the clinic before. Kate is not a stranger. She may be nothing more than an elaborate construct of her comatose brain, but she isn't one of the ones who would fight or hurt her without provocation.] My mother died years... years ago.

[She had identified the remains. They'd found her killer. Worked out the story.

It is so good to have her here, though.

"Kate, please help her. She's dying because I'm here."]

She's beautiful, isn't she. This ring used to be hers. [The ring on her right ring finger, the only one she wears every day.] I think she means... if I don't wake up, I will lose my family.

( Working is easy. Her body reacts to doing before anything else. Before she tries to argue (and it's pointless, she knows it's pointless, she's had this conversation with Brennan before and it fizzled out - talking it out right now is a waste of breath she can't spare when her own limbs are heavy and numb and her mind feels like soup) or agree to Christine's conditions. There's a knife strapped to her side since she got here, picked up from the armory in a decision that came from knowing this place all too well. It's not her favourite weapon, but in Hadriel, you need something to save you when the shit, inevitably, goes down.

(A few days ago, her dad caught sight of it and winced. Said he wished she and Marc never needed to go through this, that he was sorry it happened. She still doesn't understand why he's sorry, when the only person who could affect that decision was her. She could always have tried harder, and her dad didn't ask to be killed-)

They're both dead, here, growing stronger. Her mind could put the pieces together if she weren't so tired, but it's her dad who has to talk further: Kat, you know why it needs to happen. We're dead. We're killing you because we shouldn't be here. )

Not quite. ( Her voice is a rasp of exhaustion as she wraps her hand around the hilt of the blade and squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. This is Hadriel. It always plays games.

But it doesn't stop her from shaking as she slits their throats. Her dad's first, the energy regain hitting her like a truck, then Christine. This is Hadriel, but she still feels the piercing of her heart like she'd stabbed herself instead of freed them both, still lets the apology stick on her tongue - unsaid but running through her head all the same. Sorry I couldn't do better. )

... Shit.

( They weren't real, so they don't bleed all over her, but somehow she's more tired than she was a minute ago. )

[The way they die is unreal, imposible like they are. No blood, no flesh, no bones. They leave nothing behind after their throats are slashes and they fall, except the memory of Christine smiling as she covers the wound to stave off the flow of nonexistent blood, her gaze locked on her daughter's in a silent goodbye.

None of this is real, but Brennan finds it hurts anyway, more so because she has the strength now to power the emotion. Brain chemistry fires off, seeking to drown out the facts. She clings to rational thought the way she clung to Booth when he saved her from her first time almost becoming a murder victim since they started working together. (She hears the dogs barking, feels the throbbing in her head from where the corrupt agent clobbered her, sees him approach with the gun as he tells her he'll be merciful and make sure she's dead before he makes her flesh appetizing for the starving dogs.)

Before she knows it, the ghosts are gone. Brennan takes a shaky breath.]

Thank you. [Her voice is quiet and breathy, but not uncertain.] You-- you did something that was necessary. She-- she was not really my mother. [Pausing, she looks at Kate.] Who was the man?

( Just another day in Hadriel. Just another day-

That's what she needs to remember, right? This place takes everything that hurts and drags it all to the surface again and again to power the gods that keep running from their hunters. It isn't personal. It's just survival.

But it's so personal, and the rush of energy back hits like a truck, bringing the last few seconds back in vivid, brilliant colour. It's hard to swallow air as it balls into a lump in her throat and the tension in her muscles disappears, leaving Kate to collapse against the nearest surface as the blade in her hand clatters to the floor. It's still another case of not being able to find another solution - giving up and following orders, doing the shit she doesn't want to do because she lacks the ability to do more, be more than a good soldier.

She still hates this place, hates the way the underground feels suffocating and stifling even if she knows she'll go back home someday and everything will be as it was when she left (or will it? Things always change). The prickling of the beings running this place as they twist and tug at emotions, something old and half-forgotten, floods back in and makes her bristle. )

No one.

( It's automatic, a shutdown that snaps out of her as easily as the hurt wraps around her heart. This place brings back too much. Brings back who she was three years ago, pulled in here and all but clawing at the walls to try and get away from the litany of things Hadriel forced her to confront. Her eyes flick to the wall, trying to avoid Brennan's gaze, to stop thinking about the sensation of her hand against the construct's shoulder before she slit his throat.

The silence stretches in a minute that seems more like an hour before Kate swallows the air that chokes her. )

Don't want to talk about it.

( Just another part of her life that Hadriel saw fit to drag to the surface. )

[The man was clearly someone important to her. A relative. Brennan was dying when she saw his face, but she calls up the memory now and sees the resemblance in their faces, in the lines and proportions far too similar for them to be anything but father and daughter.

What a cruel trick.]

I do not know you very well at all. If I did, I would... insist that you talk about it. [Sweets would say that's good, but more importantly, Brennan has seen the good it does.]

I'm sorry for who you were made to see. For having to kill him. You loved him. [She looks down and examines the ring on her right ring finger, the one her mother had meant to give her on her sixteenth birthday until the Keenans's hubters found them and destroyed the life theh'd built as the Brennans.] I would not have been able to kill her. I'm-- I'm aware that's irrational. It wasn't her. But I couldn't have. You are extraordinarily brave, Kate.

( As a child, she'd hear how she had her dad's smile - a wide, face-cracking thing that crinkled warm brown eyes into creases - or how their reactions were the same. Enthusiastic, easy, big. All the things Kate doesn't seem to be any more. She stares harder - if that's possible - at the blank space of wall to her side, hardly blinking as Temperance talks, as the silence continues to wrap between her words, as it sinks into pauses small and long, heavy with the weight of guilt and heartache.

Why does this place always end with killing those who look like your loved ones?

Kate shrugs, eventually, tears her eyes away from the wall and looks at Brennan for the first time since the ghosts disappeared. It isn't bravery. It's just following orders. Remembering the habits of this place, the tendency to bring forward false versions of the people closest to your heart to hurt you somehow. )

Not the first time this place has tried summat like that. ( The first time in this manner, but the gods never seem to repeat things. ) Doesn't get easier, just- ( You get used to it? Is that the right way to put that?

Her breath whistles sharp through her teeth as Kate inhales. ) I know he would've hated me not listening, I guess.

( You're the future, and all of that. Her dad's long dead. )

[Brennan hasn't been here long enough to commisserate about the awful things this city pulls, but she recognizes Kate's ease with the statement. Then again, Kate could be lying and Brennan would take her at face value. Three months off the grid taught her a few things about lies and liars, but she is still herself at her core, lacking social skills and bad at the things Booth and Sweets and Angela are good at.]

I'm sorry for what you have experienced here. It is not something I look forward to.

[She wants to go home. She wants to hold her daughter and be held by Booth. She wants to be in the lab with her team.]

Yet here we are.

( It's easier to omit than to lie. To say you don't want to talk about it than to make something up. And here, where the people are dragged into a war they wanted no part of, information and sharing it is important. Making sure everyone knows what they're dealing with.

There's time for that later, when the rush of emotions isn't exhausting Kate and the images have faded away. Right now-

She doesn't know yet. They should probably move, get away from where it all happened. )

Only people who need to apologise are the gods.

( But even then. She remembers that it's complicated. )

C'mon. Let's get out of here.

[The 'gods'. Brennan scoffs. It feels good to laugh, even if it's a small and bitter sound. Anything to take away the sharp sting of sadness that was seeing her mom only to have her taken away again, not by Kate but by the people using them as a food source.]

Yes. [She sighs sharply, inhales, and stands with her back straight. That was not Christine Brennan, and the "gods" will never take away all Brennan knows about her mom.] I would very much like a drink. I believe the speakeasy is well stocked.

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test drive meme #21

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