test drive meme # 39

[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 December 25th, and apps are open January 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: HE MADE HIS LIST
[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.

You were hoping for something seasonally appropriate, right? Well, the Door doesn't know it's December, so this must be a coincidence - because this time, it's brought in the Krampus.

This creature is the opposite of Santa, and if you've been bad (and let's be real, who in Hadriel hasn't), it'll be all too happy to punish. Maybe you'll get lucky and it'll just scare the crap out of you and give you some coal... or maybe it'll decide your punishment needs to be much, much worse. Don't you wish you'd been good this year?]

R A G E

SCENARIO TWO: HADRIELITE VANDAL
[Last night everything was fine. You went to bed happy and content - well, as happy and content as you ever are. But this morning, as you stepped out of your house, something was wrong. Maybe you didn't notice it at first - maybe someone had to point it out to you. But there it was, in big bold letters: someone had painted an insult across the front of your house.

Maybe it's a rude name. Maybe an insulting comment. Maybe just a picture of a dick with an arrow pointing to it that says your name. Whatever it is, someone did it specifically to fuck with you. But who? And why? Maybe you already think you know who, and all you need to do is hunt them down. Or maybe it's time for an investigation. Or... maybe all you want to do is clean it off before someone sees.

Good luck. That paint is already dry.]

C O N F U S I O N

SCENARIO THREE: ALL FLIPPY-FLOPPY
[You didn't realize there was anything wrong, not until you saw that person you've always thought was your best friend. They seem the same as ever, it's just - you really don't understand what you saw in them anymore. They're kind of whiny, they're way less cool than you remember, and that hair? Ew.

It's not just that. You ran into your worst enemy earlier, and maybe... you were wrong about them? It really seems like they have some good points, and that annoying expression they always make actually seems kind of cute now. Maybe it's time to kiss and make up, possibly literally!

This is a mini version of our Your Best Enemy event this month.]

Comments

[standformyself]

No. Ancelstierre is Ancelstierre.

[No differentiation that way.]

[omegalomaniac]

So is there a New Kingdom, or is it just Old to the exclusion of all else?

[They're not really that much clearer on how this world works. That's all right; they're willing to be patient, no matter how piecemeal the explanation has been thus far.]

[standformyself]

I'm not aware of a New Kingdom, and sometimes a name is just a name.

[And sometimes it is not...]

Although those across the wall tend not to believe in magic, and they have these things called trucks and speak in to little boxes like those here.

[omegalomaniac]

That's a curious divide. Sorting people between believers and non-believers. It's not as though magic stops existing at any point, is it?

[Well, is it, actually? They wouldn't know.]

[standformyself]

It's not like people got in a line and decided which side to go to.

[It just naturally progressed that way, at least some of it, when the Charter was created and the Wall made. They share the same physical plane, but that is all.]

The wind blows, so it shifts and changes, but the further south you go, the less magic will work. Until it simply doesn't. But same with their machines. They fail closer to the Wall.

[omegalomaniac]

So you can't have both, can you? One or the other.

[Something about this seems to trouble them, though hell if they'd say why. They scratch at the lower part of their jaw with the rasp of nails over skin and scar tissue.]

Very strange.

[standformyself]

Not that I'm aware of.

[She doesn't know more about even further South, or even further North. She may have been there in the Beginning, but not all of her is still here.]

You can cross over the Wall, but it is guarded on the southern side.

[omegalomaniac]

You people don't mess around. All sorts of rules, aren't there?

[They're the sort of person who automatically looks for ways to subvert strictures for their own ends, though the capacity to do so here is...limited. The city isn't exactly easy to just wheedle one's way out of, evidently.]

[standformyself]

Not my people. They're the people on the other side of the Wall.

[But, the Dog can understand why.]

Not believing in something doesn't make it not exist though.

[omegalomaniac]

Oh, no. I know.

[Another smile. Their teeth are more than a shade yellow - the result of a persistent chain-smoking habit that they've yet to kick.]

Seems like a grim sort of life, is all.

[standformyself]

Life can be what you make it.

[Some people are happier without knowing things, while others seek out knowledge no matter what.]

[omegalomaniac]

Can be. It depends on the cards you're dealt, and how you play them.

[They groan, faintly, leaning back to more or less plant themself on the floor in a sitting position, fetched up against the wall. Speaking of hands they've been dealt, looks like they've exhausted most of their willingness to go traipsing around.]

[As well as their desire to push through the barrier of pain that comes with it.]

[standformyself]

You might not always be what you thought you would be, but it doesn't make you any less.

[Thinking back to her mistress.

She does come to sit beside him, an ear perking toward him.]

Shall I get you something?

[omegalomaniac]

[Racto's smile is skewed and right-handed, one eye dropping shut as they blow out a weary sort of sigh.]

You don't happen to have half a bottle of painkillers or anything like that, do you?

[standformyself]

Unfortunately I left that on my other collar... Shall I attend on the clinic?

[She knows the way. It has a strange smell, one she tends to skirt around.]

[omegalomaniac]

Not something you can treat, so much. Just kind of a condition you get to when you're at my age.

[Their age is...older than they look, for the record. Not that they're the sort to specify. Nor does their age have especially a lot to do with the chronic agony that their body undergoes pretty much all hours of the day.]

Doesn't help, but painkillers take the edge off.

[standformyself]

[It isn't an affliction that the Dog has, although she is both young and old, and doesn't quite recall everything anyway. This form isn't her true one either, although again, she doesn't even know if that is possible, given that she had provided parts of herself for the making of the Charter.]

This place is a nexus of sorts. Perhaps what is not possible where you're from, may be possible here from another source.

[omegalomaniac]

It's a bit of a complex problem. Not really a cure-all kind of thing.

[They're hesitant to get into details. They're hesitant to get into anything that has to do with who they are as a person, and what's been done to them. Why splinter was the term that caught them off guard. Why they're accustomed to the ache that runs down through to the marrow of their very bones.]

[It has more to do with the state of their soul than their body. And they're not precisely eager to go showing that off to just anyone.]

I would be very surprised if anyone could end up doing anything about it, is my point.

[standformyself]

It is up to you, of course.

[Whether that is a path that they may wish to inquire after. Not like the Dog is going to bark them to the network to ask after it. She tends not to do that for the sheer fun of it, but mainly out of necessity.]

There is a bar, and I've heard being drunk can make one forget their troubles for a time.

[omegalomaniac]

Getting drunk. Now that - that I can get behind.

[They don't want to get drunk, exactly, but enough of a buzz to take the edge off of this...yes, that'll be sufficient. They'd prefer that.]

[standformyself]

[Her head swings, ears perking off in a direction.]

The Speakeasy. That is where others go.

[omegalomaniac]

[And they're going to have to get up to get there. Of course. That's not shocking, it's just...well, they huff out a faint little sigh, brace their hands against the ground, and start to slowly, painfully, get back to their feet.]

All right. [The specter of strain behind the words is still there, trembling faintly from the effort necessary to get themself moving again.] Lead the way.

[standformyself]

[The Dog could see if she could find a sled and drag them there. Half debates it. A ride would entail growing much larger than her typical form, although that could perhaps be fun, but up they go before the Dog can even offer any solutions.]

It's a bit of a journey, this way.

[omegalomaniac]

All right.

[It sounds like a good place to wile away the rest of the day, as far as it might take, and let their vices carry them into a more reassuring oblivion. Do dogs drink? Perhaps. This isn't an ordinary dog.]

[Either way, it's a safe bet.]

[standformyself]

[The Dog does drink, even though she doesn't need to drink, but her drinks are of the water variety. She might be very food motivated, yet not so much with beverages of any other kind. Still, she sets off at an ambling pace, choosing a route that is both direct and not too troublesome.]

I've never been in, but I have smelled it.