Test Drive Meme #8

[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 April 24th, and apps are open May 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: DEAD FLESH BUFFET
[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 lurking in the shadows, waiting for the perfect chance to swarm around you and chow down. This time, the Door has brought in a group of rotfiends, from the video game The Witcher.

These unpleasant-looking creatures are necrophages, meaning they feed on the flesh of the dead, and if that flesh is in short supply they are happy to add to it. Normally found in groups, they are fast and difficult to corner. What's more, when on the verge of death, they have an annoying tendency to explode into a flammable cloud of poisonous toxins. You left your torch at home, right?]

R A G E
SCENARIO TWO: MMM WHATCHA SAY
[There you were, just walking along the street, minding your own business like a good underground hell-city citizen, when all of a sudden you saw someone. It was like love at first sight - if by 'love' you mean 'deep burning hatred'. You've never wanted to kill someone so much, and why? Well, you're not really sure, but there's probably a reason! You'll just have to figure it out. Or not. Who needs a reason for murder, anyway?

Or maybe you're the one someone else has targeted. Maybe you know they're after you and you're desperately trying to watch your back. Why do they hate you? You don't even know them. Or maybe you do, maybe they're your best friend. Either way, this is a super awkward situation, and someone might end up dead. Hopefully not you!

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


H O P E

SCENARIO THREE: SCRATCH OFF
[This morning, you received a scratch ticket in the mail (who knew Hadriel even had mail?), addressed to you. The instructions are clear enough - scratch off three matching icons, and you win a prize! Sure, okay. But here's the grand prize: a one-way ticket home.

Unfortunately, try as you might, you aren't gonna win that one, but keep hoping! And hey, just think of all the other GREAT PRIZES you could win: an inflatable duck, a plastic ring to give your sweetheart, an empty can of Red Bull, a cell phone charm shaped like a strange green creature with a boner.

So what if you didn't win that ticket home? You got something almost as good: a shitty prize! Thanks, Hope!]

Comments

EDI | Mass Effect Trilogy

[mobilityassistance]

Hope

[The card itself is innocuous enough, but it's the intent behind it that's curious. Organics' fascination with gambling is simple enough to understand (a controlled risk with promises of a chance of a returned investment leading to the activation of reward behaviors in the brain), but EDI is decidedly not organic, even if her synthetic silvery platform was designed to look that way.

Furthermore, why would she have been abducted and dropped here and then immediately given a chance to return to where she came from? Even given that the odds of her actually being released were astronomical, it's still another one of those illogical behaviors that she can admire, and yet not fully comprehend.

And yet, she still can't quite decide what to do with it. Throwing it away would solve the problem immediately, but... Even she can't deny that it's a little bit fascinating to see what she might get. How close they'd let her feel to getting home before telling her she was never going to leave in the first place.

If it's a mind game, she isn't much a target for those.]

How... intriguing.

[outwards]

The will not detonate upon being set aflame.

[Guess who distrusted those things enough to do exactly that without even try to scratch anything.]

From what I have seen of others who chanced their luck, all that will happen is the appearance of items with little value or use, but of no endangering potential, either.

[mobilityassistance]

Then there is hardly a purpose to receiving one. [Why give out pointless things like this? There has to be a reason. She takes another look at the card, turning it over a few times, but ultimately, there isn't a clue.]

I fail to see the purpose.

[outwards]

Perhaps to test our curiosity and at a later time take advantage of the knowledge gained through it.

[She shrugs.]

Or perhaps those items will gain relevance at a later time, though I dare say that I know not how that would come to be.

[mobilityassistance]

["Curious" is a good word for it, albeit with a decidedly organic feeling in the word. She does almost want to scratch it off just to see what happens. It's almost a joke, really, and the implications are fascinating.]

Curiosity is unfortunately simple to manipulate in organics.

[outwards]

Organics?

[Her expression betrays nothing but confusion and the faint impression that the word was an insult. Since she doesn't feel herself as a part of the group that was just described, she does however not feel insulted even if it is one.]

[mobilityassistance]

Yes. All those lifeforms not created by another species as machines.

[It isn't an insult--not really--simply a designation. It's more the inherent inefficiencies in organic species that she finds baffling.]

[outwards]

So you would count yourself among those who were created as machines?

["Machine" doesn't translate properly for her - the word that comes across is one that she cannot connect anything with but a stale taste of death and darkness. But this person has shown no sign of corruption to her so far, so though she does not drop her guard, she does not raise it further at the news, either.]

[mobilityassistance]

Yes. I was built and programmed by a human for the purpose of assisting in the control of a stealth frigate.

[outwards]

Your maker was of a seafaring people?

[She holds little love for the ocean herself, because it left the strongest impression on her as a hostile, terrible power that would swallow up many, among them some who were very close to her heart. But though the powers of the water have been terrible, they also protect her people now, and for all she knows they have never given in to corruption. It makes this being more trustworthy.]

[mobilityassistance]

No. The Normandy is a space-faring vessel, capable of faster than light travel and stealth operations. [Never mind that, judging on their interactions so far, the woman is not likely to understand what that entails or even means.]

[outwards]

[ooc: cry, why is she from a way too early pull point to know her own canon's light carrying space faring ships for what they are...]

["Space" translates as "beyond the stars" for her when it crosses languages.]

Why would one wish to go beyond the stars? There is nothing to be found there.

[mobilityassistance]

In our galaxy alone there are millions of other planets. Several of which are capable of supporting intelligent life. [Not to mention they were allied with most of the other races, even if some were more disagreeable than others. At least there's peace, for the most part.]

[outwards]

[...There is nothing coming through for galaxy and planet. She simply has no concepts for those, nor does her native language.]

And those can be found beyond the stars of your world?

[mobilityassistance]

They are among them. Planets orbit most stars.

[outwards]

...I think it would have been mentioned to us if Varda had applied such things to the stars. And it would be visible as well, lest they are smaller than an Elf.

[mobilityassistance]

They are quite some distance away. Several light years at the least, making them unviewable with the naked eye. And necessitating faster than light travel to reach.

[outwards]

They are no further away from Middle-earth than the ends of the world.

[mobilityassistance]

I am not familiar with Middle Earth.

[ingenii]

Looking to take a chance?

( She'd received one of the cards herself, and though Miranda had not immediately dismissed it she hadn't scratched it either. Being kidnapped just to have the option of being returned home? She didn't think that that prize was actually on the table, but maybe something could come from it - though how good would it be? )

[mobilityassistance]

I do not believe the risk is worth the potential "reward." [Really, is there anything worth it that could possibly come from a chance so glibly offered? Suspicion is almost the default state of being and at the moment she can't really believe that their mysterious captors would offer anything safe to them.]

Hello, Miranda.

[ingenii]

EDI.

( Though she'd seen EDI since the download getting used to this new body was still something. She wasn't just something in the Normandy now, not that Miranda could really put a descriptor to her )

I haven't found out what we're losing yet. Maybe it'll be your lucky day.

( They could always hope, right? Even if the odds of it were extremely low )

[mobilityassistance]

[It was an adjustment for everyone, really. Although she could understand why, it's still an inefficiency in organics that she can't quite grasp at the same time. A remote platform, after all, isn't her entire consciousness, if it could even be called that for an AI. Still she can't exactly blame Miranda--she hadn't been on the Normandy at the time.]

I hardly believe that any "gift" from our captors would lead to any positive result.

[ingenii]

It might not. They won’t give us freedom.

( Not so easily. No one ever won the top prize )

Knowing what they would do would help us figure them out – get our own escape.

[mobilityassistance]

Perhaps. Yet I fail to see how any relevant information would be worth the equivalent risk.