test drive meme # 35

[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 August 25th, and apps are open September 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: GET YOUR RED CAPE READY
[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.

And they sure are big boys. Big and easily angered and ready to run right over you. This time, the Door has brought in Brontos, from the video game Dragon Age.

Brontos are large oxen-like beasts, though more sure-footed due to spending all their time in caves underground. There are domesticated brontos, bred to haul and be ridden and eaten... but these aren't those. These brontos are wild, one and all, and they are skittish and large and perfectly capable of running you over. Maybe just keep your distance.]

SCENARIO TWO: DESERTED
[You're alone. Completely alone, as far as you can tell. Nothing here works - oh, there's food in the stores, sure, but the water's not running, the electricity isn't working. There's not a soul on the streets, where you would normally expect to see at least a few people here and there.

So what will you do? Smash windows and grab food from the stores? (Well, the doors are all unlocked, but hey, who doesn't love smashing windows.) Shout in the streets in hopes someone will hear? Curl into a ball and cry? All valid choices. But then, what will you do when you do find someone, after thinking you were all alone? Someone you like, someone you hate, a complete stranger?

This is a mini version of our Deserted event this month.]

S O R R O W

SCENARIO THREE: ONE MORE CHANCE
[You can't stop thinking about the one who got away. They've been on your mind - well, it feels like forever, but maybe it's only been a few days. A few hours. But you can't stop thinking about them and regretting what could have been.

Maybe it's a failed romance. Maybe a broken friendship. Maybe a family member who walked away - or who you walked away from. Even a business partner who things ended poorly with. Whatever it was, you regret how things went down. If only you had another chance, a chance to fix things!

And then, there they are. The person you've been thinking of. What will you do? Beg forgiveness? Make amends? Run away? Make your decision and take action, because as soon as you do it you might realize it was never that person at all. You might have just poured out your heart and begged forgiveness from a complete stranger.]

Comments

[theweakhavepurpose]

I've always been fighting.

[He sounds defensive again.]

I'm just not strong enough to win.

[oldtonew]

[ Kettara frowns at him. He says one thing, then another that seems to contradict it. How strange. ]

There are many ways to win a battle. Perhaps you are trying the wrong way.,

[theweakhavepurpose]

[He's.. never thought of it that way. But maybe she's right, the reason he's a mess is less because he's weak, and more because he's not resisting effectively.]

Maybe. Maybe I am. I don't know how else to fight. Training didn't prep me for the mental part of battles.

[The trauma, the emotional toil, none of that was ever covered in all his police training. Not that it would have adequately prepared him for a brainwashing cult, but it would have been a start.]

[oldtonew]

The mental part?

[ Kettara blinks, watching him with renewed interest. ]

What do you mean?

[theweakhavepurpose]

The aftermath. How do you deal with seeing your friends die? How do you fight for weeks and then go back to normal? How do you know what's insane while in the heat of a battle?

Why do we expect soldiers to be okay when they come back from battle? Kill people and then go tend their gardens or something. It's not possible.

[oldtonew]

[ Kettara isn't sure she understands. A battle is simple. You fight and you win, or you die. You fight honorably or you don't. Then, in the aftermath, you celebrate the living and mourn the lost. But she listens, nonetheless, and thinks of the old war. The stories she heard about how things had gone strange under the weight of the Blood Rage. How honor had become a secondary concern, if it had been thought of at all. ]

I don't know.

[ It's admitted quietly. ]

You're meant to honor the fallen by living well. But sometimes they don't die well, and there's no way to avenge them.

[ No way to regain that honor for them. Kettara looks away. ]

Not everyone gets a good death. I -- I'm sure my master will teach me what to do, to fix that.

[theweakhavepurpose]

What makes a death good? They're still dead no matter how they died.

[They may have similar views on some things, but Pratt is convinced that honor in death, nobility of purpose, is foolish. Either live, or die. No one will remember how you died in a few years anyway. Back home he's slowly dying after doing something noble, and no one will ever know.]

Maybe it's me. I'm not cut out to be a soldier. I'm barely passable as a Deputy.

[oldtonew]

[ Kettara frowns. Surely humans honor their warriors. Surely they honor a good death. ]

A honorable death means you are worth remembering. That you have become more than yourself. We should all strive to die in glorious battle.

[theweakhavepurpose]

You only get remembered if you were famous in life. Or rich. Otherwise no one cares.

There's more to life than fighting.

[Well that feels odd to say, like something he would have said before everything went to shit. Like something the old Pratt would say. Weird.]

[oldtonew]

But....that cannot be right. Surely even humans honor their warriors?

[ Kettara cannot understand such a thing. Do humans truly not value honor at all? ]

Of course not. But an honorable death in battle is the best death.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Not really. Well we do in theory, but not in practice. Most of our homeless population are Veterans, a lot of them can't even afford medical care, none of them get what they need once they're not in the military anymore.

[Maybe if they did Jacob wouldn't be a raging psychopath now.]

We consider dying in battle a tragedy. Ideally people should die at home in their beds when they're eighty.

[oldtonew]

[ Kettara takes a step back, eyes narrowed. What he says makes no sense to her at all. ]

I don't understand. How can you bear such shame?

[theweakhavepurpose]

Me? I didn't do it. I voted to give them more funding but people realized it meant higher taxes and lost their shit so it didn't pass.

[oldtonew]

[ He keeps saying words that she doesn't know as if it changes anything. Kettara shakes her head. ]

You do not wish to die in battle and you will not honor your warriors. What do you honor, if not that?

[theweakhavepurpose]

No one should die in battle because we shouldn't even be fighting. Everyone killing each other isn't normal, that's not how it's supposed to be.

I don't know, you talk about honor as if it's a big important concept, I'm not sure it means the same thing to me as it does to you.

[oldtonew]

[ Kettara flattens her ears. ]

I suppose it's not. It's said orcs are born into war.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Do you enjoy fighting? Or is it just expected of you?

I can't imagine liking war.

[oldtonew]

[ Kettara hesitates. No one has ever asked her that. ]

I -- a good fight, is worth fighting.

[ She's quiet for a moment. ]

I don't know if there are good wars, though.

[theweakhavepurpose]

A good fight.

[How does one tell a good fight from a bad one? They're all the same to him. A fight you walk away from is a good fight in his book.]

No, I don't think so either. Especially with things like this.

[He gestures to the gun on the bunk. Something that can mow down an entire city in a few minutes is definitely not the makings of a honorable fight.]

[oldtonew]

Yes. The kind your ancestors can be proud of witnessing.

[ She thinks about her mother, then. What would the great Kashara Bloodthrist think of her only child in this strange new world? Would she be proud? Or would she be ashamed of how far Kettara and the others have come from the old Horde? There's no way of knowing. But one day, Kettara will die and have her answers. She hopes it will be in a good fight. An honorable battle. ]

Then why do you keep it?

[ It's asked with genuine curiosity. ]

[theweakhavepurpose]

Because some day I'll need to defend myself against someone I'm not strong enough to defeat.

[And he's not about to let someone kill him just because he can't beat them honorably.]

Also it reminds me of home a little. Cleaning it gives me something to do.

[He shrugs.]

[oldtonew]

[ Kettara supposes she understands that. If she's cornered and about to fall, she hopes to at least take some of her enemies down with her. ]

You don't seek battles, but you expect them?

[ She huffs. ]

I understand. Routine can be clarifying. Like meditation.

[theweakhavepurpose]

I'm always on alert, just in case. People don't like cops and they always wanna start shit.

[He snickers.]

Yeah something like meditation. I guess Xander is having the last laugh, I should have learned Yoga from him. Er, nevermind, something from back home.

[oldtonew]

Why don't they like you?

[ Kettara supposes this is as good an opportunity to learn about human culture as any. She might as well take advantage of the knowledge offered to her. ]

I can teach you to meditate. [ She tips her head to the side. ] Sometimes it involves sitting very still. Others prefer moving.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Because the point of the police is to enforce laws and keep order. And everyone thinks that rules don't apply to them. People think they're above laws and I'm somehow the bad guy when they get caught breaking them.

[There's far more nuanced reasons to why people don't like cops and he knows it. But that's more detail than he wants to get into today. Especially with someone who claims they've barely even seen humans before. ]

Being in my own head isn't good for me. I start going crazy. So it wouldn't be very relaxing.

[Because he's not the only one in there anymore.]