Test Drive Meme #34

[hadrielmods]

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: OOZES GEOMETRICALLY
[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.

The only warning you may get is the squish slick sound of movement before a gelatinous cube is upon you. Leaving gross trails behind them and with their see-through bodies filled with the bones of those that they've dissolved in their jelly, these cubes have no real vulnerability other than their limited movement.

Gelatinous cubes are exactly what it says on the tin, giant translucent cubes of jelly whose main attack tactic seems to be cornering people in small hallways and just sort of absorbing them into its mass. They then digest all meat and flesh and leave only floating bones and various metals their victim may have been wearing stashed inside of their jiggling forms.

Maybe it's time to apologize for the last time you brought a jelly mold to a potluck.]

A L L

SCENARIO TWO: MY LOYAL SERVANTS
[Thanks for your service to the gods! In order to power each of them up, it's up to you to pick a deity you like most (or dislike least, as it were) and simply say their name in order to be influenced by them and encouraged to inspire their emotion in others!

What, you don't want to play? Too bad, accidental name calling works just as well, even if you didn't mean to incite them- you'll feel their presence pulling their chosen emotion out in you anyway. Hope you picked a good one!

This is a mini version of our In Need Of A Boat event this month.]

C O N F U S I O N

SCENARIO THREE: I MISS GPS
[Sure, you might be a little confused at being here at first, but that generally goes away within a few days. This time... well, this time, that feeling of befuddlement isn't quite going away. Roads that you take seem to disappear behind you when you turn around, your right turns are left turns on the map you're following, and you're pretty sure that everyone except for you put their shirt on backwards this morning.

Is everyone high? What they're saying makes absolutely no sense to you. You can't find your way out of a paper bag, let alone back to where you've been staying lately. Is that a dog or is it an eldritch horror coming up to lick at your calves?

During this prompt, everything will feel off and it can be very difficult to get your bearings at all. That's Confusion for you!]

Comments

i.

[uptightness]

[It's become a ritual to go down to the Colosseum to see if there are any familiar faces, or over to it now that it's on a different island, although it's not a fool-proof plan. She hadn't met Texas on arrival, nor had she met Alpha, although it has worked in some cases, allowing her to run across people that she knows. It's been more quite recently, with the time she showed up being the busiest, but it doesn't stop her from religiously attending, just in case.

She's a little later today, having been caught up on their own island, but she does make it. The armor is still shed, left back in her room, although she does still feel naked without out. It's not that she doesn't trust Wash's program, but to date there's been nothing too difficult at the Colossuem. They tend to range from minor annoyances to major ones, but she still thinks those odd homicidal nurses on her own appearance here had been one of the more bothersome ones.

It's a worn pair of slacks, capable of allowing movement, with a blue t-shirt thrown on, and knives tucked away in her boots. Her gun sits at her back, although it is more of a last minute in case of emergency precaution than anything else. Her hair is swept back in a pony tail with those familiar bangs still sweeping over half her face, partially hiding her green eyes. It's that alertness in her steps, that awareness that keeps her glancing side to side, scoping out the island. It's one of these sweeps that draws her eyes back.

He would be hard to miss on a bad day. Always has been. The sheer size of him alone brings the eye over, and add to that the sheer whiteness of his armour that stands out in the sparse landscape. She is drawn back in time, to a snowy landscape and a fight, to searing pain and falling... That breath is sucked in, green eyes intent, sharp, watchful. She notes, as how can she not, the blood that splatters and speckles his suit. It doesn’t make it any clearer about where and when, because here, those are things you need to think about. Is the blood from whatever is going on in there, or is it from home? He’d know her, one way or the other, but how he knows her... That's the question.]

[bloodbathing]

[ At first, Maine doesn't notice her. He's preoccupied with scanning his surroundings, and the hair that would ordinarily draw his eye is just one more dot of red on his visor. He should clean the blood off, as soon as he gets a chance. But, since that will involve removing his helmet, he ignores it as best he can for the moment.

This may be a painkiller-induced dream, but he's not about to shed part of his armor unless he has to. Not in an unfamiliar environment. Not after getting shot in the fucking throat.

But when he turns his head again, he catches sight of her. Recognition hits him like a blow to the gut — or maybe that's just the breath he lets out, broad shoulders sagging slightly as relief sweeps through him.

Carolina.

A second later, he gives his head a little shake. Stupid. Of course she's here. Last thing he remembers is fighting back-to-back with her on that flatbed. Why wouldn't she show up in his dream?

Still, it's good to see her. And, as Maine starts making his way towards her, briefcase on his back and Brute Shot at his side, there's no trace of hostility in his stance.

(He's still too far off to make out the changes in her face. Too far away to see that she's much older than he remembers.) ]

[uptightness]

[It's after that initial moment, where seconds had seemed to draw on for hours, that she really starts to look again. There are pieces that could sway her thinking in either way, but it is a briefcase that does eventually catch her attention. Hard to forget that, given the disaster that the mission had been. Texas had, at the end of the day, gotten it, and they'd been left in the dust, bruised, battered, and in his case, bleeding.

The start of the downward spiral, to say the least, although it he has that case, that should mean that the last thing that he recalls is that mission. Before the AI meant for her had been given to him... She tries to rack her brain, to recall if people here show up with random items that hadn't been on them before coming here. Could it be something from the Colosseum? She wouldn't put it past this place, but no.

Her shoulders drop a little, that tension departing them, although her guard isn't dropped completely (is it ever?) Yet she does start to move toward him, mind racing as fast as her pulse. She may slow down a little as she draws closer, head cocking slightly to the side.

It's been... A long time. At least since she stood in front of him and not some projection from the Temple that had forced her to watch them die all over again. Epsilon is here, so she knows that anything is possible (Alpha and Tex too, but she's had less to do with them) and it's not like she's running off trying to figure out what is happening.]

... just arrived, I take it?

[Because how does she even start?]

[bloodbathing]

[ If Carolina's guard were to drop entirely, it would draw Maine's attention far more quickly than what she keeps up. After all, he's never seen Carolina outside of a time of war. Never seen her attempts to learn how to relax, or the (perhaps dubious) results of those lessons. The tension that remains in her frame is normal, to Maine. It's readiness. Alertness. It's part of why she's number one.

(He hasn't seen her lose that spot. Hasn't seen her ambition turned against her. Hasn't been driven mad by a fragment of an AI embodying that same emotion.)

She slows as they near each other, and Maine does the same — though for an entirely different reason. Carolina's bangs conceal parts of her face, but he could swear that she looks ... different. Same eyes; same hair; same confidence and easy grace in her movements. But the closer they get, the more she looks older.

It's distracting. So much so that he nearly misses the hesitation before she speaks. And that? That's enough to give him pause as well.

When has he ever seen Carolina hesitate in anything?

After a moment of stillness, Maine lifts his shoulders in a slight shrug and nods. It's a strange way to phrase it, sure — but he did just "arrive" in this dream. ]

[uptightness]

[It hasn't been an easy ride, but Carolina doesn't believe she deserves one either. Everything that she had known had crumbled in to ashes and dust. Some had been by her own hand, and others had slipped away when she wasn't even looking. Remaining dead had worked in some aspects, but in other aspects, she knows that she screwed up. She isn't certain where she would be today if she had chosen a different course. Maybe she's be gone like the rest. Survivor's guilt, possibly, when so many others had had their lives flipped upside down and perished.

It is that shock of seeing him. She knows that it is possible, as seen it with Epsilon and even Sharkface, but it is still a surprise. Yet she isn't completely at a loss. No doubt he is confused, and that blood... It's been years for her, since that day, although there are certain things that are still fresh in her mind. York, Wash and her, finding the package, finding Texas The chase, he taking the shot aimed at her...]

Shit.

[And yes, that word slipping past her lips as she glances to the west. She knows where the clinic lays, although she hasn't visited herself. Has had no reason to, surprisingly. Anyone else likely would have been laying on the floor, but he's never been anyone else.]

You're probably wondering what's going on. I'll explain, but we need to get you to the clinic.