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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Drake isn't the only one in motion. Liv still has no idea really where she is, or why any of them are there, but it doesn't matter - these are types of monsters much more malevolent than her own personal brand of inhuman. She's already helped one person fight one off, so when she hears the man's scream she figures what's one more?

Liv cuts Drake off, lunging at the creature with an old, rusted pipe- the best makeshift weapon she could manage. "Stay back," she shouts breathlessly at him, "these things are dangerous!"

It's safe to say she hasn't really seen him yet, too single-mindedly focused on the creature.

A woman darts in front of him and she has a weapon, so Drake's inclined to let her take the first shot at the monster while he gets the man on the ground away... but it's hard not to notice that it's Liv. She's facing away from him, blocking his path, but the hair's the giveaway, really, he'd know that color and style anywhere.

"Liv?!" No, shit, he shouldn't distract her right now. "Go for the glowing parts!" That's where you always aim in video games, why not here?

"--Drake?" Good job not distracting her, boy. She whips around to look at him when she hears his voice, suddenly and desperately needing visual confirmation that he is actually who he sounds like he is. "You're here??"

She's too close to the monster, though, and one of the tentacles slams hard into her arm, wrapping around the wrist holding the pipe.

"Oh no, I don't think so, buddy-"

"I'm here," he tells her, as he darts forward and takes the pipe from her trapped hand. Hopefully attacking the glowies is the way to go, because that's what he's doing, trying to get the creature to go after him and release Liv's arm. He hasn't played baseball since little league but he winds up and takes an epic swing at it, hearing the monster's flesh crunch and goosh under the pipe. Eugh. Gross.

She wrinkles her nose at the sound, but Drake seems to have the right idea: he hits the creature and the tentacle wrapped around her wrist goes limp and slides off. Liv hesitates there, briefly unwilling to let Drake out of her sight, but common sense wins out in the end. While he deals with the creature, she ushers the man it had been attacking away, crouching with him in the relative safety of an alleyway and giving him a quick check for threatening injury.

It doesn't actually take many hits before the monster is a crumpled heap, though Drake has no way of knowing whether it's dead or not. And he seems to be bleeding out his nose, ears, and eyes..... just a little. Nothing to worry about, probably. He drops the pipe and stumbles in the direction Liv went, probably looking a bit wild as he wipes blood from his face and calls out for her.

"Liv? Liv!"

"Here- I'm over here." She finishes checking the man over, and he promises to get to safety as he takes off down one of the back alleys. Liv ducks back out onto the street, face somehow paler than usual as she moves to flag Drake down, and then-

"Oh my god, you're bleeding- come here, sit down-"

It occurs to her that this has to be a nightmare. There's no way it can be anything but, right?

"Liv. I'm okay... it's so good to see you." He does come over and sit down, though, just reaches for her once he's settled. "I didn't think you'd be here. I mean I just woke up and... where are we, anyway? Do you know?"

If it's a nightmare, would he be stroking her hair? Because he totally is.

Stroking her hair while bleeding from the face? Possibly. Liv reaches up to catch his hand, swallowing down a sudden and fierce feeling of protectiveness.

"No idea. I've been trying to figure it out, but - we're definitely not in Kansas anymore." She glances in the direction the monster had been in, then looks back to him. "I've been looking for you, I swear. I haven't stopped looking."

Drake's fingers curl around hers warmly, and he smiles despite the insanity and violence of their current situation. It seems like a lot of his situations wind up in insanity and violence... this kinda takes the cake, though. It really is so good to be with her. He'd marched off down the hallway so certain that was it, he'd never see her or anyone else again.

"I knew you would be. I was being held in some kind of lab. They're experimenting on us like Ravi's rats."

Her stomach seizes uncomfortably at the information, and she tries not to let anger bubble too close to the surface here.

"You're out now," she says, her throat thick, "and we'll get the others out, too. They're not going to get away with this, Drake."

"Hopefully not by bringing them here," Drake says lightly, glancing up at the ruined city around them. Then, with regret, because Liv is right in front of him and he knows full well what he'd be going back to, "We have to figure out a way out of here. I traded one prison for another, it seems like, and there are people who need me back at the first one."

"We'll get them out," Liv reaffirmed, slightly relieved now that she'd made sure that he wasn't still bleeding out of his eyes. She reached up, catching the side of Drake's face. "Come on. Let's find someplace- I don't know about 'safe,' but 'safer than here.' We can talk."

When she says it, he believes it, and finds himself leaning into her touch for the reassurance. Truth is, he's been terrified since waking up in the lab but needed to hold it together for the others. Waking up here with tentacle monsters everywhere wasn't any less scary, really, but Liv was here and they could face things together. It makes him feel better even though the situation is the stuff of nightmares.

"Yeah. I'm all for getting farther away from those things." He picks himself back up and takes her hand, leading the way out of the alley and down the street. Everything looks wrecked, not good to hide in, but to their right there are newer-looking spires with lights on. "Maybe there?"

"Yeah. We just have to check it out, make sure that no one's already in it." Liv's winds her fingers into Drake's, giving his hand a squeeze as they begin walking. She's still on exceptionally high alert, worried about whatever might pop around the corner, so she's making a beeline for the perceived relative safety of the less ruined buildings.

"I can't believe you're here," she says finally, trying not to let the relief pierce her voice too much. "There's no way this was an accident."

An accident? No, definitely not. "Or coincidence. Maybe we wound up here the same way... What's the last thing you remember? Maybe it's someone rounding up... people like us."

Liv hesitates, casting a sidelong glance at him. "I went to bed and just woke up here. I don't know how they would've gotten me from my apartment." She takes a measured breath, giving his hand a measured little squeeze, as if to reassure him about the topic she's bringing up now.

"And just so you know - I know about you. Who you work for." Mr. Boss. The police. All of it. "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to pry, but..."

...oh shit.

Drake goes still, stopping in his tracks. He doesn't know what Liv means, exactly, how much she knows. Just Mr Boss? Odds are she knows he's undercover, if she's still holding his hand and glad to see him. "Okay... it's okay. We should keep my cover here, though, in case anyone else shows up."

Then the corner of his mouth twitches up, relieved, although his eyes are apologetic.

"It killed me to keep all that from you."

"I know you couldn't say anything," she says, and rationally she really does know it's true. Regardless-- "I seriously wish you could've said something to me, too. I nearly blew a gasket when I thought you were just on Mr. Boss's payroll."

She's trying to keep it lighthearted, but it's difficult when you're in a strange new place with monsters and no guarantees on where your next meal is going to come from.

"I missed you, by the way. In case that much wasn't clear."

"I wish I could've. But they were already trying to get me to break it off with you. I was doing everything I could to balance things." His grip on her hand tightens, thumb stroking against hers. "You know now, though. And I missed you, too."

And then something occurs to him, and he lifts his free hand to his face and groans.

"Oh, god, my ma. She probably thinks I'm dead."

Liv winces at that, sucking her breath in through her teeth. "Yeah. I, uh - that's how I found out about you being a cop. I stopped by to see her." It seems pointlessly cruel to point out what a rough time Drake's mom was having of it; she was sure he could imagine that all on his own.

"But you're not dead - not in the way she thinks, at least - and that's all that matters. You'll get back to her soon enough." Optimism. Optimism was important. They arrive at one of the buildings and she releases his hand to step to the door, nudging it open and peering inside.

"Yeah... we'll get back." He's just not sure what he's going back to. If he'll wind up back on that exam table in the lab with a needle full of god knows what in his arm.

For now he tries not to think about that, instead stepping in behind Liv and peering over her shoulder. The corridor before them leads to stairs, with doors on either side. Besides the strange architecture, it looks a lot like an apartment building. "Huh. Wanna see if any of these are open?"

A few hours - and one long conversation with someone living in a neighboring unit later - Liv has settled on one of the apartments. Everything that they've been told is unbelievable, of course -- sure, turning into a zombie was one thing, but at least it was medically sound. This whole idea of being whisked away into some strange other world was a little more difficult to wrap her head around.

Regardless, they didn't have the luxury of just burying their heads in the sand. Reality - or this reality, at least - was staring them in the face, so they found what seemed like a suitable apartment building and settled in.

"It could be worse, I guess," Liv says as she settles a little stiffly on the couch, as if she doesn't quite trust it yet. "Think the mortician's office has an opening?"

Drake was still reading Hope's message on the phone that he'd been advised was in his pocket, boggling over the fact that they'd been drawn into what was probably a different universe. It didn't seem possible -- but then he would have said the same thing about zombies before he became one. Open mind. And he's with Liv, so it's not all bad.

"They probably don't have one, if the gods really resurrect people." As she sits down he crosses back to the kitchen, running the water and rinsing the blood off his face. And that's when it occurs to him. He lifts his head, chin dripping water, and looks at her. If no one actually dies...

"What are we going to do about food, Liv?"

Food had been on her mind since the moment she'd woken up somewhere that wasn't home. Nothing was dire, but she was already hungrier than she'd like to be for someone who had no idea where she was going to find her next meal.

"I'll figure something out," she promises him quickly. Yes, Drake is a grown man, and a more than capable one, but she'd been the one to turn him. It was hard to shake the feeling that she was responsible for his wellbeing. "There's no way they would have brought us here if they didn't have some plan to keep us from endangering the entire city."

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