dankmemes | Test Drive Meme #40

Entry tags:

!test drive

Test Drive Meme #40

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 24th, and apps are open February 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: SLURP SLURP
[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.

What's that on the ceiling? Who's that skittering along the wall? Why, it's none other than the the Licker, from the Resident Evil series.

The licker crawls around on walls and ceilings and can easily avoid all attacks with their creepy crawly acrobatics. Watch out for those tongues, though- they can whip you with them and catch you off balance. They love waiting in dark corners to jump at you and slash you with their oversized claws, as seen here. Luckily, their brains are exposed and they're quite blind- move quietly and avoid their notice, or attack them in their weak spot to get away safely. Be careful though, they tend to travel in packs...]

T R A N Q U I L I T Y

SCENARIO TWO: CABIN IN THE WOODS
[It's nice outside. There's a heat to the air that permeates through the muggy interior of the cabin, but at night, it's cool enough that you can relax and see all the stars in the sky. The hot tub is a nice contrast to the chilly night air and the possibilities are practically limitless!

So cook something up on the grill, go hunting, or just relax and definitely don't get murdered, because you do happen to have a bit of an odd cabin mate. Why are the two of you sharing this cabin? Well, that's up for you to decide, but whether you're close friends who decided to take a vacation together or random strangers stuck together by circumstances, you're here for awhile so you might as well take the time to relax and get to know one another up here in these mountains!]

R A G E

SCENARIO THREE: MONSTER HOUSE
[It seems like you've just misplaced a few items at first- but after awhile, it becomes apparent that the items are misplacing themselves. Weird, right?

Maybe not that weird, because soon afterward, items of all shames and sizes start to move around, now well within sight. Their intent is clearly to annoy or even harm you, depending on how dangerous the item is... maybe a deathly pair of pants, to a set of keys that keeps running away from you, to a house consumed with the desire to- well, consume you.

Be careful of everything, be suspicious of items that may be trying to lure you in with their stillness, and have fun! This event is based on Hadriel's It's Aliiiive! event this month.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ She fumbles the catch slightly, surprised both by the chocolate and by the question. Chocolate is less rare of a commodity at Corbulo, but it's still rare enough not to throw around, and definitely not to share. Unless you've got someone in particular to share it with.

She peels the wrapper back and bites into it, savoring the tastes for just long enough not to be rude before she swallows. ]

Yes, sir. [ She hesitates, but only for a moment. ] That's what those things are called? The one that came with me, you said it was a Zealot.

You don't have to call me sir.

[ Despite some lessons, Ephemera still can't cook for shit. He grabs a can of soup and starts getting that ready. Something hot and loaded with protein to warm the kid up. That's good, right? He hasn't fucked up soup yet. ]

Yeah. Army's called the Covenant. Couple different groups pulled together. Turns out aliens are real. The one you saw, they're the Sangheili. Zealots are their front line officers.

[ He shrugs. Turns the heat up on the soup. He'll have to find Silva a coat and some decent boots before too long. It'd be better to kit her up in full armor, but the gods aren't that generous. So he'll make do. Probably send her over to Washington, he's supposedly good with cadets. ]

There's a war. Goes on for a while, then we get a truce. With me so far?

[ She stays silent, head spinning. The Covenant. Aliens. Sangheili Zealots. Hadriel. She can barely get a grip on it all.

(She thinks she can get a grip on it all, but the truth is she can't. She can barely think through the haze of confusion and fading adrenaline, through the worry about her squad and the fact that somehow she took a wrong step and ended up somewhere caught in the dead of winter.)

She takes another bite of the chocolate, half because she wants to and half because it's something to do other than stand and stare.

Finally: ]

I'm sorry, I don't think I am.

[ Well, fuck. Ephemera tips his head back and sighs. He wants a cigarette, badly. He's not good at this sort of thing, explaining shit to people. Give him a combat situation and he can navigate out of it just fine, but spelling out the history of a thing never came easily to him. Probably why he flunked that class in high school. ]

Okay. I'm not good at explaining shit. Got my head knocked around, so I miss things sometimes.

[ Which doesn't tell her anything helpful, either. Get it together. ]

Right now? You're in Hadriel. A whole lotta people got pulled in here from different places, like you and that Zealot. I'm pretty sure we come from the same universe, or whatever, but - I'm guessing I'm from a different time. Where I'm from, war's been over a while. Seems like it just started for you.

[ Ephemera rubs a hand over his good eye with a groan. ]

Look. I'm not good at this shit. But you should eat something. You wanna ask me questions, I'll answer as best I can.

[ No, nope, that definitely does not help anything make more sense. She's just going to latch on to the part of the instructions she can understand: eat. She can do that.

She makes her way over to Ephemera, eating the chocolate as she does, switching which hand holds the candy so she can lick the melted bits off her fingertips. It's not dignified, but it's chocolate, and she's starting to get ravenously hungry.

Chyler stops a short but respectful distance from the stove. ]

I should say thank you, first. For helping me.

[ Okay. At least one part of that seemed to get through. Food's universal. Everybody gets hungry and she went through that chocolate with the speed only somebody coming down from the high of a fight can manage. Ephemera's been there.

He offers her a bowl. There's meat and noodles in the soup. Not fine dining by any standards, but it'll help to get something in her.

He eyes her for a moment. Fuck, she's tiny. ]

Okay. You're welcome.

[ She's quite suddenly salivating. No, it might not be find dining, but she accepts the bowl with care... and finds herself devouring it before she has a chance to say anything else to her rescuer.

She's half-way through before she manages to stop herself and, in lieu of napkins, lick her lips. She swallows, trying not to be embarrassed, and too focused now on the asking questions part to care that she missed a dot of soup on her chin. ]

We never heard about a war. At the Academy. No one brought it up, no one said anything. They were training us to fight Insurrectionists. They... [ She pauses, trying not to sink back into those caves and past them into the smoke and confusion of the attempted evacuation. ] Our commanding officers seemed as lost as the rest of us.

Edited 2019-01-22 23:37 (UTC)

[ Ephemera makes himself a bowl as well. Seems like the thing to do. They eat in silence for a while. Silva goes through the bowl fast, as expected. Sometimes people get really hungry after a fight, a real fight. Sometimes they don't feel anything for hours afterward and then it hits them all at once. Better to eat now. Let the emotions settle a bit. ]

War's declared in 2525, or something. I'm fuzzy on the details, but I don't think the UNSC saw it coming.

[ He motions for her bowl. ]

There's more, if you want.

Edited 2019-01-22 23:56 (UTC)

Please.

[ She's nothing if not polite, handing her bowl over and finally noticing the damp, cooling dot on her chin. She smudges it away with her thumb, studying Ephemera with a mix of reserve and confusion. ]

It's 2526. How-- [ She cuts herself off. War's been over a while, he said. She shakes her head, still trying to fit it all in to a framework that makes sense. ] It's 2526.

[ He fills up her bowl again, then passes it back. Maybe this is the way to do it. Explain one thing at a time. Don't pretend to know more than you does. ]

It's 2557 where I come from.

That doesn't make any sense! [ She's on her feet, almost dumping her soup before she catches herself. She doesn't mean to yell at him, immediately looks horrified, but none of this, none of this fits with anything she's ever been taught or told, anything she's lived through or experienced. ]

Where is Hadriel? In what part of the galaxy?

[ Ephemera just drinks some more soup, watching her. There isn't really a good way to take any of this shit. Hadriel's insane, or it ought to be. It defies all sense of logic. Yet, here they are. ]

It's not part of Sol. Far as anyone can tell, it's in another dimension. People, they get pulled it from all kinds of different places. Sometimes from the same place, but a different time.

[ She sits back down slowly, the anger flowing out of her just as quickly as it came one. She's so tired. That came on fast, too. Chyler stares at the soup for a moment before she goes back to eating.

Another dimension. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, focusing until she can look at him without crying outright. She still looks like she might.

Deep breath. Back to the soup. After a few minutes of silence, while she's staring at the bottom of her freshly emptied bowl: ]

How long do people stay here?

[ Ephemera lets her sit with that for a bit. Keep it simple, he thinks. Stick to what's known. And then let it play out like you would with any other soldier. ]

Depends. Anywhere from a few days to a year. The record's three. But sometimes people get pulled back.

[ He tips his head back, setting his bowl aside. ]

Sometimes people come here after they die back home. I did.

[ She traces a pattern into the soup remnants at the bottom of her bowl, staring into space. After a certain point, a person hears enough impossible things and there's nothing to do but let them wash over her, settle later.

She might be going into a wee little bit of shock. ]

I'll be dead if I go back.

[ She's more than missed the evac window. Her squadmates hopefully left when they couldn't find her. If she goes back now she'll surrounded by no one but the dead. Even if she manages to survive a landscape apparently teeming with alien soldiers, even if she could survive on her own with whatever supplies she found at Corbulo, she would be trapped on a dead planet, alone.

Chyler looks up at Ephemera, her yes the kind of vacant that says she's been through too much too fast to handle. ]

What's it like to die?

Maybe. But you're not dead here.

[ And there's that look in her eyes, that emptiness he's seen before in others. There's only so much the brain can take once the adrenaline wears off. He's probably fucked this up, somehow. Ephemera sighs, rubbing a hand over his good eye. But he doesn't lie, in the end. He always hated it when people lied to him. ]

Everything goes quiet.

[ He'd expected it to hurt, after everything else, but it hadn't. ]

You're crashing hard, kid. Should probably lie down. Couch is that way.

[ A pause. ]

Keep the pistol, if you want.

[ She nods, still obedient to orders even at the end of her wits. She sets the bowl on the little kitchen's counter and makes her way to the couch, shedding her rifle at last next to the couch, in easy reach.

Chyler looks back at him, briefly confused, before she remembers what weapon he's talking about. She nods once, then again. ]

I do. I would like to. Thank you.

Okay.

[ It worries Ephemera how readily she just - obeys. Good little soldier. Doesn't have the energy for anything else. She probably thinks he outranks her. Defaulting to the base training in the face of exhaustion and stress. Follow the example of the rank above you, and the one above them. Ephemera remembers doing that when he was a boot, going dead inside and just mirroring his sergeant, the captain. Whatever they said, he did. He let them do the thinking. But he knew them. Trusted them.

Silva doesn't know anything about him.

Ephemera sighs, and retreats briefly into the bedroom he shares with Drake. A moment later he comes out with two thick blankets. ]

C'mon. Take your boots off.

[ She sits down and wrestles one boot off, then the next, and pauses to inspect it. That creature's tongue managed to rip a slit into the material near the top. She pokes a finger through the hole, thinking about the way those creatures splattered when shot, her mind going to the sight of Colonel Mehaffey exploding as she hit the ground.

Chyler realizes, without urgency, that she's been wriggling her fingers through the hole in her boot and staring into space for a good thirty seconds while Ephemera stood by with the blankets.

She sets the boot down. ]

Sorry.

It's okay. You're in shock.

[ It's always worst after someone's first real combat engagement. No matter how much training a person has, no matter how tough they are, the first time always hits like a ton of bricks. Ephemera sets the blankets down next to her. They're warm, at least. She'll probably crash for a couple hours, at least. Maybe longer. ]

Try and get some sleep.

[ She starts to lie down, then remembers she's still wearing her helmet. The wired part of her, the part of her that's still expecting an attack, says to leave it on. Something could come busting through the door to this warm little space, something could come after them while she's out.

Her helmet hits the floor. She looks at it for a moment, surprised. Chyler presses her hands to her face, rubbing her closed eyes with her fingertips before she finally lies down, dragging one of the blankets up over herself.

She's out before she's properly settled under it. ]

[ This month was a rough one for Door monsters, Drake thinks. They weren't just confused about where they were, it seemed like they were attacking for fun, tormenting the newbies and their protectors alike. It's evening by now and he's got a few good lashes from where their sharp tongues hit him, but he heals fast. Had just kept fighting until they were reasonably certain they were all dead or otherwise fled too far into the tundra for it to be safe giving chase. Which is fine by Drake, they'll just keep an eye out if any are still lurking or some back. He needs to get home to see to his wounds -- the longer he was out there the more people advised him to go to the clinic and that's the last thing anybody needs. Ephemera can patch him up, and in a few days he'll be healed.

Luckily for Chyler, he's not the type to slam the door or anything, but he does call out as he leans down to get his boots off. ]

Babe, do we have any sutures left in the first aid.... kit...?

[ He trails off because he's just spotted that there's someone on the couch. A girl -- young, he thinks, or maybe she just looks moreso in sleep, her boots and helmet laid out on the floor beside her. Is she still wearing armor? Something looks a bit lumpy under the blanket, at least. She stirs and Drake doesn't say anything else, hoping he didn't wake her fully. But there's definitely a ?!?! expression on his face for whichever of them spots him first. ]

[ She stirs, registering an unfamiliar voice in her vicinity, a presence in the room, and for a moment she's back on Cygnus being drilled in preparedness by her parents.

The sidearm Ephemera gave her is out of its holster with the safety off before she's sat up all the way, the weapon trained on Drake before she's opened her eyes entirely. She's still sleep-bleary, her finger not on the trigger--never touch the trigger until you're ready to kill--but now at least she sees and recalls her surroundings.

Everything hurts. She's one big bruise, points along her body throbbing where the armor dug in while she slept.

Still. She keeps the weapon steady. She'll put it down when she's ascertained whether or not the stranger is a threat. ]

Who are you?

[ Oh. Shit.... Drake is more upset by the fact he woke her than the gun pointed at him, honestly. He lifts both hands to show he isn't going to reach for his own sidearm, or the axe that hangs from his other hip. When the blanket falls away her armor isn't quite what he expected but it is familiar, and he's pretty sure that gun is Ephemera's, not just the same model. Okay. She's definitely not a squatter or anything, he brought her home (probably because she's from his world) but forgot to tell her someone else lived here, maybe didn't realize she'd be asleep for so long, something like that. No big deal. He can get out of this without getting shot. ]

My name's Drake, I live here too. Ephemera didn't mention me? If he's home he can clear all this up.

[ His expression softens a little when he realizes how long she must've been asleep. What happened to her to wipe her out so badly? ]

You don't have to sleep in your armor here, you know. It's safe enough in the housing most of the time. I had to talk him out of living in his, too, when we first showed up.

Prefer it if you didn't shoot him, kid.

[ Ephemera steps into the room casually, hands at his sides. He's out of armor and dressed in civilian clothes, jeans and a sweatshirt, both flecked with paint. Should've called Drake to give him a heads up, yeah, but it's too late to regret that now. Gotta deal with the situation in front of them. His voice is calm, and there's no tension in his shoulders. Silva - or should he call her Chyler? - is well trained. Strong trigger discipline. She won't shoot unless she's given a reason to. ]

This is Drake. We live together. I should've mentioned that earlier, and I'm sorry. You still hungry? I was gonna put some coffee on.

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