dankmemes | TEST DRIVE MEME #5

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!test drive

TEST DRIVE MEME #5

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 January 25th, and apps are open February 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: HERE KITTY KITTY
[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 coeurls, from the video game Final Fantasy X for you meet.

These cat-like monsters can use elemental magic to attack, as well as their teeth and claws. When injured, they can cast a spell that will drain energy from their attacker and give it to them - and they are even able to temporarily petrify you. So if you decide to fight, let's hope you can finish them off quick!]

SCENARIO TWO: BURIED ALIVE
[What a wonderful day to find yourself - or a friend, or a stranger - buried six feet under. Covered in thick earth, the sturdy oak walls of the coffin trapping you in darkness, all alone. Not a soul to hear any cries of help.

Either you're in a coffin yourself, trapped, hoping for rescue, or you've got a GPS, a set of coordinates, and a shovel. Will you try to claw your way out of your possible grave, using only your bare hands and pure terror? Or will you be the one digging, hoping that down below is someone you love, waiting for you to unearth them?

Just don't take too long. Their air - your air - could run out at any moment.

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

R A G E

SCENARIO THREE: PET PEEVED
[Everything seems to be going just wrong enough to drive you right up the wall. Maybe your shoes keep coming untied, or you slammed your finger in the door while you were leaving the house. Maybe your friend keeps using the wrong form of 'your/you're' when they text you. Maybe that guy in the shop with you won't get off his damn phone.

Whatever it is, your day has been full of tiny annoyances, enough to leave you on edge and just about ready to explode. They're such little things, nothing that should inspire so much anger, but one after another - well, shouldn't anyone understand why you're mad?

And then someone else comes along, perfectly primed to push your buttons. Maybe they keep pronouncing your name wrong, or they won't stop staring at your scar, or they have hair just the right color to remind you of your last ex. You're already primed for a fight, and they seem just as pissed as you. What will you do?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

one;
(feel free to tag in with another prompt too btw!!)

[who's got two thumbs and a submachine gun that sets stuff on fire????]

Kittens, really? Is that the best you got?! [yep. this chick.]

[after weeks and weeks of enduring the hellish pandoran landscape and the planet's equally hellish wildlife, this is nothing. she's handling the pack of coeurls on her tail with barely a second thought. which is, really, a mistake. there's no sound more ominous than the empty click of her incendiary gun as it runs out of ammo-- and with her frenetic momentum interrupted, there's still two of the beasts left. they slink forward, snarling and teeth bared. big shocker: they're less than pleased about their buds getting torched, and lilith is a meaty little human appetizer.]

Shit. [her eyes don't leave the two coeurls as she carefully walks backwards, slowly (but purposefully) digging through her pack for whatever bullets she's got left. where's that roland dude (or brick, or mordecai, for that matter) when you need him.]

[The thing is, even though Kit is approximately the size of a large elephant? He's still part lion, still walks as quietly as any other cat, and unlike the coeurls, he's jet black from his crest to his talons. In the dark caves, until he gets quite close, the only thing that really gives him away is his bright orange eyes.

He pounces on one of the things, quick as a cat with a mouse. It tries to drain him and he slams back, the ugly raw clash of magics that don't really fit together. He savages it with his talons, not enough to kill, because they're just hungry animals, really, but enough to slow it down badly, a deep gash through one hamstring, then lets it wriggle free, screeching.

He hopes they both have the sense, the plain animal-instinct, to run, even though they didn't faced with her strange loud weaponry. Kit doesn't really like killing things.]

[And run it does. The second coeurl, knowing it's been outmatched, takes off with its tail between its legs; its brother stumbles close behind, trailing blood here and there on the dirt.

Lilith, halfway to pulling a slightly worse for wear revolver out of her pack, blinks. She has no idea what Kit is, but watching one weird thing get the thrashing of its life from a bigger, weirder thing is enough to leave her dumbfounded. She picks her jaw up off the floor in time to blurt out--]

Thanks. [unless, of course, this new creature's going to try to eat her instead. Good thing she found the other gun, at least?]

You're welcome.

[His voice has the timber of bird's, that parrot-squawk texture, but it's much deeper than any parrot. He tilts his head sideways.]

What. Is that?

[He's seen guns, but only single-shot pistols and the occasional revolver. If it's magic, it's no kind he understands.]

[Whatever they are, they're friendly enough to answer. (Not like she's seen weirder, in retrospect: Pandora sure is A Place, after all.) Lilith affords another another couple seconds of gawking before she nods in acknowledgement.]

This? [If Kit's saved her ass, she at least owes him an explanation. She fishes the original weapon out again and holds it up.] Dunno how specific you'd like me ot get, but it's a submachine gun, Hyperion-made. It's an incendiary, too, so every once in a while that effect'll turn on and set things on fire. I mean, sometimes that part's just me. But credit where at least partial credit's due.

Nice work there, by the way. I'm Lilith.

[It's rather....gizmo-like, he decides, head twisting until it's tilted the other way instead, frowning a little, mostly in the eyes. Griffin frowns are actually quite expressive for creatures with beaks.]

Kit.

[This is almost an afterthought, a beat too late to be polite, voice a bit distant. WIth a great deal more focus and a deep, quiet reluctance, he adds:]

...you haven't heard of a man named Roland Chesny, have you? Pilgrim Parties?

[If he's ended up in that world, somehow - well, he doesn't know exactly how bad that would be, but he suspects the answer is some order of 'extremely.']

‘Sup, Kit.

[”Gizmo” is descriptive enough for a variety of implausible ~~first person shooter~~ future tech that no one especially questions anymore. For her part, Lilith notes Kit’s cant of the head as a positive, albeit puzzled one, then hums thoughtfully—largely to herself.]

A Roland? Yeah. [And damn, does she miss that man more than she thought would be possible. The ghost of a grin creeps onto her lips before spiriting itself away.] Roland Chesny, on the other hand, no. You’ve got me stumped on the pilgrim bit, too.

I doubt I know where we are any better than you do, but if you’re looking for your Roland, I could keep an eye out. I owe you one, Kit. Really.

No. He's supposed to be trapped in a paperweight for the next forty years.

[Kit says this with just a bit of vicious satisfaction.]

But he came from a different world. I thought yours might have been the same one.

[But if she hasn't heard of the Pilgrim Parties - hideous and hideously expensive 'Fantasyland Tours' that turned Kit's whole planet into a deranged, permanently-ravaged immersion amusement park for decades - then probably not.]

And you almost had them, I just speeded things up.

[He adds, magnanimous in victory.]

[that is precisely the moment when two headshots connect, one after the other, and a familiar hah comes from behind her. faint, but still audible, and there's a skinny figure up on the roof who's lowering a rifle from his shoulder.

pause, with his eyebrow raising and then-]

Lilith? That you?

[hair like that isn't on just any woman.]

[she freezes at the first sharp crack of mordecai's rifle, and turns neatly on her heel just in time for the second.

well, well, well. lilith couldn't have held back the grin spreading across her face if she tried.]

About time. [her tense stance loosens. shifting her weight onto one foot, she shoulders the empty gun.] Next time, could you do that maybe 30 seconds faster? 'Preciate it.

Not even a thank you? And here I had my own herd to deal with.

[probably in a few allies over is the neat area where the group was dropped as they stood. slinging the rifle over his shoulder, he makes his way down with ledges and a solid jump to land by her, and reaches into his belt to take something out to toss over to her. SMG ammunition box.]

Of all the faces I might've expected to see in this place, yours was one of them.

[you're a doll, mordy. she watches him descend, then catches the box with one hand.]

Thanks. [on both counts. she looks him up and down, half ensuring he's not some weird hallucination, and half making sure he's uninjured: he's neither, thankfully, so she relaxes.]

Uh huh. Good to see you too. [she glances over her shoulder at the felled cats, and segues right into--] So, what now? These things didn't have anything interesting in 'em. [didnt even drop any cash smh!!!!]

Unless the skins are worth something or you have a way to store the meat, I say leave 'em.

[Pandoran practicality, really. if you couldn't sell it, eat it, or use it to shoot, what was the point?]

Where is this place, anyway? The map's coming up blank. Could just be failing on me, but...

[She shrugs and makes an utterly impassive "I don't know" sound.]

Yeah, I'm not eating those.

[but as for their current location--] Your guess is as good as mine. I haven't seen Brick or Roland around anywhere, either. I've been calling all three of you for a while, actually: no luck so far, except for you showing up.

[she risks a surveying glance of the area.] Maybe it's unmapped?

Wow.

[That is definitely the unmistakable sound of a Maliwan SMG. Rhys generally is not the sort of person to wander toward the gunfire and sounds of burning flesh, but it's been so long since he's last heard gunfire and the sizzle of elementally-fried meat that curiosity ultimately gets the better of him.

Her face is not immediately recognizable, if only because Rhys has only seen it on Wanted posters and a propaganda video here and there, but the tattoos definitely are.

And she's in trouble.

This really, really just goes to show that curiosity is not a trait that Rhys needs to be grooming.

He's not very well equipped to handle any sort of encounter with monsters, regardless of how many Rakk Hives he's brutally murdered with missile arrays (read: one) or skags he's mercilessly slaughtered on the hood of his car (read: also one), but she's got no ammo, and maybe if he helps out then- well, he doesn't know. She won't phaseblast him at the first glance of the Hyperion logo on his vest?]

Uh- hey!

[Wow, this is a bad idea. The coeurls turn their heads toward him, momentarily distracted by the sudden noise.

Yeah. Really bad idea.]

Over here... [His tone starts out loud, trying to get their attention, and slowly tapers off as he realizes just how awful this idea is. Rhys is not a hero. He does not have a saving people thing. And really, considering how badly Handsome Jack wants this chick dead, he probably should have just let the cat things eat her.]

-uh, you can kill them now, please.

[Rhys, on the other hand, only registers to her as a weedy, obnoxiously-dressed idiot yelling across the way. But she raises her head at his voice right along with the coeurls (it’d probably be a funny sight if the whole dying thing weren’t an issue) and the situation immediately clicks into place: this guy has bought her at least another eight seconds. Ten if he doesn't die. ~~Maybe eleven if the coeurls go for the robo-bits first.~~

Lilith doesn't miss a beat. As the big cats' strides pick up pace, she rifles through every pocket she's got, growing increasingly frantic, until--] Ha!

[Lucky break. Lilith pulls the pin out of the very last grenade she's got on her, hurls it at the closer of the two monsters, and phases with a flash of blinding light into seeming nonexistence.]

Here they come! [...is what she shouts at Rhys a moment later, but he's forgiven if he can't hear it over Lilith's flash-bang of a return from her phasewalk. He might feel a prickle of static electricity: she's reappeared far enough away that it won't really hurt him, though she's still got to be close enough to get them both the hell out of there. These things are pretty fast, and one's got a bomb stuck in its fur now.]

Hey, hero! [Still running, she hooks him by the elbow and keeps right on going.] Hit the dirt!

[It's only when she's virtually tackling him that she acknowledges the Hyperion logo on Rhys' chest. But she doesn't know all that much more about Hyperion than anybody else on the planet, except maybe their guns are pretty good when she can get 'em. She's just one of four off-world thrillseekers hunting down a Vault, after all, right?

Boy, is this going to be a fun conversation when it comes up. If it comes up.

The explosion's deafening, and the force of the blast knocks Lilith head over heels.]

[Rhys isn't quite sure what's going on. The bandit- er, Lilith- throws a grenade and everything seems to go bright with purple explosives and loud, crackly sounds. It doesn't quite stop, and he's really not sure whether or not the grenade has actually gone off yet- but then, Lilith just walks out of the freaking air and hooks an arm around him.

So he's on the ground. Hitting the dirt, as it were. His head slams a little unpleasantly against the rock and he blinks out the daze from his eyes.

'Oh, who is this hotshot?'

And now there's that. But there's the grenade, and Rhys tries to blink the light from his eyes, while Jack merely lifts a hand to cover his face in the wake of it, not physically blown back at all, while both of the actual human beings wind up sprawled akimbo while chunks of coeurl meat fly through the air.

Gross.

Rhys slowly sits up, pressing his robotic hand against his forehead as he tries to clear the daze. He glances over toward Lilith, curious to see the state she's in. Like... she did just save his life, but it only really needed saving because he saved her life first. So it's kind of okay if she dies here? Maybe.

'Is that- ? Ohho man, you've got to be kidding me. Are you serious right now? Is that Lilith?']

...are you okay?

[He's going to ignore Jack for now. Probably for the best, all things considered.]

[She's facedown and motionless, soooo... Lilith's not looking too hot at the moment. Eventually she groans: half-pain, half-annoyance.]

Define 'okay'.

[Lilith props herself up on her elbows, then straightens up to a sitting position. She dusts most of the rubble off herself with a huff (and also kicks a sizable hunk of coeurl by her foot away, jfc it is so hard to get blood out of clothes much less organ goop? terrible).]

Well, I'm in one piece, soooo... s'all good, I guess. [She turns her head to face Rhys and nods, grinning wryly.] Hey, thanks for getting their attention.

[glancing down at his vest again, she adds,] Are you some kind of Hyperion suit or something? I didn't think they sent you anywhere, like, ever-- much less anyplace like this. You've got some serious balls doing that without a weapon. Or a serious lack of brains. [she shrugs and rubs a sore spot on her shoulder.] One or the other.

[Well, she makes a noise. That's good, right? Rhys nods wordlessly at the thanks, though her words only really serve to confuse him further. He's pretty happy about the whole, you know, not being shot or phaseblasted or anything on sight, but he also isn't sure why.

And, of course, Jack is still going on about the fact that it's Lilith at all, along with a few general lines of dialogue on how much he wants to kill her, how Rhys has to kill her, and it's- well, it's scary, because Lilith is a freaking siren and a vault hunter and the leader of the most organized gang of criminals on the entire planet- but it's also a little annoying. That Jack is yelling at him, not the fact that Lilith is talking to him.

He thinks. It's hard to listen to two people at once.]

Not right now, [he mutters, rubbing at the back of his head, before turning his attention up toward her.]

I wasn't sent here. I just sort of... showed up here. Like you did, except a couple of months ago.

[Holy shit, she's going to kill him. If she figures it out- 'yeah, kiddo, you don't want her to figure it out, she'll freaking melt your eyeballs'- then he's dead. He's so fucking dead.]

So... uh...

[Dead, dead, dead, dead]

You're... a siren. That's- uh, that's pretty cool.

Not what now?

[Maybe he did get knocked around hard enough to dislodge something important. Sorry Rhys, she was trying to save the rest of your limbs first-- not her fault your head's so big.

The siren stuff is far more important though.] Sure am! Cool is an understatement. You can relax, by the way: I'm not planning on melting your face off.

[Lilith rolls her shoulder, making sure that the soreness isn't a telltale sign of anything getting dislocated, then gets to her feet. The fact that he's been here that long and is still in one piece is honestly surprising to her: he looks like he'd snap in half if she sneezed too hard, especially since he's been he's staring at her like a deer caught in the headlights. (And here she thought people were getting over the siren thing.) She bends lower and extends a hand to him to help Rhys up too.]

The name's Lilith. Who're you, and what's this Hadriel place about?

[Well. She doesn't seem to hate him or be melting him on sight, which is super awesome in Rhys' book, as he's generally a pretty big fan of not being melted. It seems like she doesn't... actually loathe him either, which also works out to his favor, even if he's not sure why. Last he heard, Lilith and her goons were pretty much out to dismantle and murder Jack's entire legacy, which is kind of mean, but also dangerous to scrawny pencil pushers like Rhys.

He looks at her hand for a moment, like she's definitely planning on melting arm off or something the instant they make contact, but she doesn't, which is nice. Rhys lets her help him up, rubbing at a sore spot, before glancing around the city with a frown.]

I'm, uh... Rhys. This place is- a little hard to explain.

[That would be an understatement.]

We're stuck here, through some portal thing that they call the Door. There were some- I dunno, gods, beings, eridians, whatever- here that opened it. They like messing with us because they get power from our emotions. That's about the long and short of it.

[Luckily for Rhys, Lilith's powers don't include telepathy or future sight or anything like that; she tugs him to his feet as casual as casual can be. Right now, all that Hyperion implies to her are particularly well-made guns, if occasionally a little hard to come by. The name Handsome Jack hasn't yet crossed her mind, either-- hell, they haven't even started building Helios yet. As far as she knows, Rhys is a guy from her relative corner of the galaxy who'd helped her to not die, and one good turn deserves another. That's it.

...Don't ever spill the beans, Rhys. Seriously.]

'Sup, Rhys.

She listens intently to his spiel, resting a hand on one hip. When his explanation's finished, she frowns, and answers:]

A "Door", huh? This... isn't the inside of a Vault, is it? I swear, if I have to deal with aliens and not get paid at the end, again, somebody's gonna get a faceful of something caustic. Don't get me started on how screwed up that emotions thing is.

[because no one is more adept at feelings than lilith. obviously.]

[The inside of a Vault- that's a good suggestion actually, and Rhys rubs at his chin thoughtfully, but-

'Don't strain yourself, cupcake. I know what you're thinking, and this isn't a Vault. Also, kill Lilith.']

...I don't think it's a Vault. Not- you know, purple enough. Aren't most Vaults purple?

[He assumes they're purple, anyway. That seems to be the thematic color of Vaults in most of the advertising of them, and since Eridium is also purple then it probably has some merit to it. Ergo, this isn't a Vault. Probably.]

If you want to shoot the gods though, go ahead. They kind of deserve it after some of the stuff they pull.

[Also, Siren vs. Emotion God is something that Rhys could practically arrange, print and sell tickets to. I mean, let's not get ahead of ourselves, but still- it could be one elegant and hands free way to solve his All-Powerful-Enemy-Suddenly-Here debacle.]

Dunno. The Vault was, but it's not like I've got much to compare it to.

[Lilith casts Rhys a curious look. She'd been willing to at least sort of entertain the idea of a second Vault, but "most" Vaults... maybe Hyperion, like Atlas, had more up their collective sleeves than she'd initially guessed. Maybe she'll bring that up to Roland or something when she gets out of here.

Empty speculation aside, though, it's not like Rhys would know too much about any of it directly. Pencil pusher and all. Ah, well.]

I could. [She's tempted. But. shrug.] That sounds too easy, though. As appealing as that sounds, I bet they'd leave us in this dump if I tried it. How bad is it? If it's just monsters, that's no sweat, but you sound like you're talking about more than that.

TEST DRIVE MEME #5

lilith | borderlands

Re: lilith | borderlands

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cries.

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HI RHYSIE.... 1/2

2/2 SORRY THIS TOOK FOREVER

you're fine! AS YOU CAN SEE i'm kind of slow rn >>

so am i no worries :')

<3

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