dankmemes | Test Drive Meme #22

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!test drive

Test Drive Meme #22

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 July 25th, and apps are open August 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: THE WRONG KIND OF SCARY
[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.

There's an odd shuffling to your right and to your left. Do you know what that is? Maybe not, but at least nobody else does either. You might peek at an eye stalk or a stinger, you might catch a glimpse of something that can maybe pass for fingers... or maybe it just has a mouth on its butt because its creator was feeling particularly sadistic that day. That's right, you're looking at the creatures from Spore, EA's infamous alien creation game with the most awkward alien creator imaginable.

These particular Spore creatures are the carnivorous kind, the kind who seek out and eat other creatures so that they can instantly procreate to pass on their victim's genetic code and make their species even more wild. You might not want to stick around and watch the mating process. I promise it's just as weird as you think.]

T R A N Q U I L I T Y / C O N F U S I O N

SCENARIO TWO: STEPFORD SUNDAY
[You wake up one lovely weekend morning to the sounds of birds chirping outside and sun streaming through your window. What a wonderful day to be perfectly normal and happy in the suburbs! Your family is all around you, like a Norman Rockwell painting, happy to go about their average day in their average life in their average city.

So what if your sister is an archdemon? Or your father is somehow a dragon? It's just the way that things have always been... isn't it?

The perceptive of you may begin to see cracks in the veneer, may begin to wonder why everything seems to be so perfect... and as the truth begins to unfold, it paints a much darker picture than the one you're seeing. Are you sure you don't want to stay, just a little while longer?

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

R A G E / D E L I G H T

SCENARIO THREE: CAKE WARS
[There are plenty of ways in this world to rouse your competitive spirit. Many of them involve athletics- few involve such beautiful edible artistry as this.

That's right, you're in a cake baking competition, and no matter how competitive you normally are, thanks to Rage's influence, you want to win. Competitors can be in teams of two or alone, and they have until morning to bake their cakes to the fullest and bring it to Delight's temple for judging.

So what kind of cake baker are you? Do you revel in your artistry? Do you measure everything and carefully prepare each icing tip? Or do you know that you suck at cooking and decide to use the opportunity to sabotage your opponent's cake instead? Nothing is off limits, and all's fair in cake and war, after all!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, yeah, whatever. Check off flour and chocolate chips, then. Also, eggs. [Three are going in the bowl now. Three seems like a good number of eggs.]

Christ, I know the difference between salt and sugar. Chill. You deal with the sugar if you're so worried about it.

[this has instantly become spite-baking. As such, Law eyes his partner before very slowly and deliberately picking out the correct measuring cup, dragging the container of sugar to him, and measuring out precisely the correct amount called for on his notes and not a grain more.]

Flour. Eggs. Sugar. Chocolate chips...? Whatever. I guess chocolate isn't the worst thing in the world. [there, pouring his perfectly-measured sugar in and then checking it off] Next. Vanilla?

[LISTEN BUDDY. Harlan sees your meticulous measurements and will raise you one haphazard squirt of vanilla.]

Got it. [He peers into the bowl.] Now what? We mix all this shit up?

[RUDE. Huffing yet again, Law consults his notes. Look, he's not the ship's cook, he doesn't know this shit outside of following recipes]

Apparently so. We were supposed to mix the dry ingredients separately, but there's nothing for it now. Might as well just mix it like this.

[here, Harlan. Spatula.] ...so get to it.

[Huff away, my man. Harlan scoffs and pointedly doesn't take the spatula. Don't tell him what to do!!]

You seriously think the order matters? It's all getting mixed up, anyway.

[And not by him, judging by the petulant arm-folding he's got going on.]

I feel like if the order didn't matter, there wouldn't be such specific instructions.

[oh, are we having a spatula stare-down? All right then. Law gives it about thirty seconds and then realizes there's a contest going on here, and not getting the cake in the oven in time would definitely disqualify him. Them. Fine, then.]

Pass it over here, then. What are we supposed to do while it's baking?

[So they're both in agreement that Harlan is team captain. Good. He passes over the bowl. He's also going to ignore the quip about the ordering because... well, shit, Law has a point. Whoops. It's probably fine.]

Fuck with everyone else's cakes, probably.

[literally stops mid-stir to seriously contemplate that option]

Why didn't we think of that in the first place?

[his need to not be a failure at anything is what makes him resume stirring, but a lot more quickly and with less finesse. Fuck it. As long as it goes in a pan in the oven he doesn't care]

If we time it right I can swap our cake out for the one that looks the best.

[what, he's a pirate!]

[Dude. This changes everything. Harlan is immediately on board. He pulls a baking tray out of the cupboard and gets the oven preheating.]

Shit, good call. You any good at sleight of hand? I'll distract 'em.

Che, slight of hand? I can do even better.

[for no other reason than to show off, Law flicks his wrist to bring up a Room, and then swaps the spatula in his other hand with the baking tray. Of course he could have gone over there and gotten it the old fashioned way, but he had something to prove]

I can swap it right off the plate if it comes to that.

Oh. [Okay, Harlan is impressed.] Sick. Looks like we're set.

[But Law isn't the only teammate with some neat tricks up his sleeve.] I can make the other cakes taste like shit if we're close enough during judging.

Double sabotage? It could clinch our win.

[as he deftly pours the batter into the cake pan and gets it where it needs to go. After all, it's hard to swap out cakes without having one to start with.]

Times like this, the faster route to the top is preferred.

You took the words right outta my mouth, pal.

[Harlan cranks up the oven temperature since they could give a shit about standards anymore.]

We got this in the bag. [And now he's eating the leftover chocolate chips.] Any idea what the prize is?

No clue. [idly hunting in the cabinets for anything interesting. Any unattended bottles of wine?] I don't even know why I want to win it, I just do.

[which finally strikes him as weird, enough to derail his search and leave him leaning on the counter, arms folded]

I don't even know how to cook. What has gotten into me...?

[Harlan shrugs, popping a handful of chocolate chips into his mouth.] Of course you want to win. Winning is great.

[Which, while true, doesn't explain why he's entered a baking contest either. Baking sucks and is hard.] Cooking is easy. Baking is a whole different ball game.

I'd rather perform brain surgery than bake another cake. [holding out his hand for some chips] But damn it, I want to win. Our plan is the better way.

...of course, we also have to be on the lookout for anyone else trying the same thing.

[Sure, he'll share the chips. They can steal more from another team, anyway.]

It's like, double satisfying to win at something you suck at. [He says this with his mouth full. Manners are for losers, which they are not.]

Doesn't matter if anyone fucks with us until we've got the good cake, and if we time that right, we won't have to defend for very long. Plus we have failsafes. We're set.

[He hops up to sit on the counter. May as well kick back and wait out the timer.]

We could booby trap our station, though. Just in case.

[yes good. A little snack goes well in a kitchen that smells like dessert already]

Hm. Interesting theory. I'll buy it.

[booby traps? His eyes hunt all around the room, realizing he doesn't even know where you store a cake before taking it to be judged. The fridge?]

We've got time until the thing is baked. We could. [glancing back Harlan's way] What were you thinking, as far as ruining the other cakes?

Hm. [He drums his heels against the cabinets under the counter.]

We have options. I'm pretty good at illusion magic, so I can make the others taste however I want. Could trick the other competitors into overcooking shit, too. That sort of thing. Plus I've got an alarm spell. Once we swap out the cakes, I can throw that up to protect it.

Heh. Magic. [don't mind him, he used to even think of powers like his own as magic and sniff at them. He mostly keeps that to himself, though there's a wry look in his eye all the same.] Actually, an alarm sounds pretty useful. Illusions, though...hm. Interesting. Much better than actually trying to slip in and poison the others.

[he would never do that! maybe]

[He doesn't like that tone, but he'll let it slide for now. They're like, 95% on the same page. He doesn't want to ruin it.]

Was that your plan sans magic?

[He's not judging. The thought crossed his mind, too.]

Poison isn't necessary if a dash of pepper or tabasco sauce would do the same trick.

[matter-of-fact about it. Really, no need to go to extremes when a simpler solution is at hand]

My ability can do more than just switch things around, but if I needed to use it to get you close enough to sabotage the others, that's one way. Illusions, provided they can be set off from a distance, would be far easier yet.

[Harlan laughs.] Okay, fair. We should do that anyway. It'll be funny.

[He empties the rest of the bag of chips into his mouth.] I can fuck up one, maybe two cakes from a distance. I don't have enough juice to do that on loop forever though, and my easier spell has a range of like, eh, ten, maybe fifteen feet. That illusion'll last an hour, so maybe I can sneak it in before judging.

[he wags a finger smartly] So it does have limitations. Good to know. If there are more competitors than that, we'll have to employ every trick in the proverbial book.

It's a good start to a plan. If there's anything else you can do without drawing down too much power, now's the time to add it in. [surprisingly, he knows exactly what it's like to drain yourself too much and not be able to use it at a crucial time. All. Too. Well.]

Good call. Hm. [He folds up the empty bag neatly as he runs through his spell list in his head.] I can teleport, but I'm not sure what good that'll do in and of itself. I could also rot someone's cake, though that would take some energy.

[Oh! He has an idea.] I could crank up the temps in everyone else's ovens. I can do that as many times as I want, pretty much.

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