dankmemes | Test Drive Meme #8

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!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Adam stood, brushed himself off, calmed his nerves mostly through force of will. He wasn't injured, not more than a few scratches, protected by Cabeswater or luck or a combination of the two. But it wouldn't have lasted, he didn't think, so he supposed he'd just been save and should be appropriately grateful.

He was wary, though. He didn't quite ever know what to expect from the Gray Man, knowing what he was and what he'd done. In any case, Adam was nearly always wary on some level, a kind of instinct burned into him. He wouldn't say silent, though, wary or not.

"I'm fine." And then he found his manners, adding a careful "thank you."

More startling than the monster was who it had been attacking. Adam Parrish. While it seemed almost poetic that they'd meet in this cave-like place, it felt wrong. This was a world away from a cave that ran beneath Cabeswater and the Dittley farm. And yet, here he was. Dusty-haired, mysterious Adam Parrish. A boy he'd so recently helped execute a twisted blackmail plan. What was he doing here?

"Next time, I'd suggest running," he said, eyeing the creature on the ground. "They don't exactly fight fair." He knew he should get out of there, get Adam to safety. But he hadn't been there long enough to know where to go or anywhere that was safe.

"They run faster than me."

And of course, Adam hadn't seen the thing coming. He was getting used to monsters, had sort of gotten used to them, but since there were new ones every month or so, it was hard to really know how each of them worked. Which were fast, which slow. Which had strange magical abilities and which just had very sharp teeth. Mostly he tried to get around that by avoiding the caves and the colosseum, both places where monsters tended to appear, but he couldn't always succeed.

"I do appreciate it, though. You must have just gotten here." Since Adam definitely hadn't seen him before. "Do you have somewhere to go?"

"Is it that obvious?" the Gray Man asked with a small twist of a smile. The sort of smile that was more to be polite than out of any actual emotion. Put on like a hat or a watch. An accessory.

Not being noticed was not necessarily an indication that he wasn't there. He'd been in Henrietta long before the boys knew of him. He'd been to Monmouth Manufacturing. He'd watched their preparations for some excursion involving a boat. He'd seen Gansey's books and maps and model of the town.

"I've only been here a few hours. Most of that time's been taken up with these things," he nodded to the creature. "So I don't yet have my bearings." Though what Adam said troubled him, it didn't register in his voice. It sounded awfully permanent. Shouldn't they be looking for a way out?

He recognized that smile. He'd worn it himself plenty of times, enough times that he'd long since lost count. Adam didn't return it, though. It wasn't that he didn't trust the Gray Man - not any more so than he distrusted any other adult male - but rather that there wasn't any reason to. It wouldn't be real, not from either of them, so why bother?

"I can give you the gist of it, if you'd like," Adam offered politely. He owed the Gray Man that much, at least, for helping him. Though Adam hadn't forgotten what he'd done to Niall Lynch, to Ronan, Adam had always been very capable of cool calculation. Better to have the Gray Man on their side, and no reason to keep him in the dark.

"The monsters aren't the worst of it. We're all trapped here. Are you injured at all?" He kept his own tone carefully neutral, but 'carefully neutral' was really what Adam was best at with near-strangers anyway. He wasn't charismatic like Gansey or intimidating like Ronan. Polite, easily overlooked, often underestimated. He didn't think the Gray Man was likely to do that, though.

There had been a time, a long stretch in fact, where the Gray Man didn't care about what he'd done to Niall Lynch. Just one death in five year search for a specific artifact that generated quite a few bodies. But somewhere along the way, that changed. Along with all of the other emotions that were slowly pushing up from his recently regrown heart like wildflowers through cracks in stone, guilt and regret settled in as well. He'd told Ronan he didn't expect to be forgiven, and while that still held true, his indifference was slowly falling away. This was not something he'd ever be able to explain, or define in any way that another person could understand. But if anyone from Henrietta might understand something even close to this, it could be Adam.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that? You were in closer contact with that thing." Focusing on the possibility of injury was easier than the idea of being trapped. He'd so recently escaped just such a situation. Facing monsters and the possibility of death in or near underground caverns was becoming a rather common theme in his life.

"I'm all right. Maybe some bruises. But I have some first aid supplies if you need anything." Adam tapped the strap of the backpack he was carrying. It wasn't safe to wander around with nothing, here, and he tended to bring food and water and basic first aid with him wherever he went. It had come in handy more often than he'd like.

And he would have bruises, from where the creature had slammed him against the ground, but Adam had spent most of his life dealing with bruises. They were nothing he was concerned about anymore. He did get wary, just a little, when the Gray Man turned the question on him - still not entirely used to anyone being concerned about his safety - but he tried not to let it show.

"Blue is here, somewhere. She'd like to see you, I bet." She probably wouldn't be happy, since who would be happy to see someone they cared for show up here? But Adam was pretty certain she'd want to know he was here, at the very least.

Test Drive Meme #8

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