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

Rage.

It's not Fa's way to hate. She's cultivated a strict pacifist tenet that has been tested through what many would consider hell and high water. In fact, the android has never strongly felt rage in her long life. Regret, remorse, fear and pity, yes, but unyielding hatred is a new flavour that freezes her in her tracks. She doesn't know how to sit with it, but rather than outright attack this invader of her psyche, Fa begins to travel at a leisurely pace behind them, tailing them, watching them. They're disgusting, and she doesn't know why, and that in turn frightens her.

The moment that it appears she might be noticed, she tries to duck around a corner, but it's hard to mistake her tall, slightly unreal features and her strangely paradisian white suit as something that is just happening to be wandering along the same path.

Eventually she peeks out, unable to let her pique go despite every method she's employed to calm herself. "What are you?" she asks, doing her best to keep polite despite overpowering revulsion.

Fear.
It might seem strange that there's a woman standing in the middle of the street surrounded by rotfiends, holding perfectly still, casting a very soft glow on the cobblestones from her faintly luminescent holoskin... but then there's the notable difference. She isn't human, and nothing of her is edible, nor does it smell that way. That doesn't mean that Fa hasn't learned not to run, though; her clothing is ragged from a previous attack, especially up the back, revealing plain white plastic moulding that is at odds with what is visible on arms and neck and head.

When she sees another living soul (she doesn't know if these things are alive or not, but they resemble the worst of the Wildlife she's had to exorcise from her old domain) she shakes her head in short, frantic motions. Don't come closer, just lay low, for goodness sake. If she's afraid for anyone, she's afraid for those foolish enough to engage with one of these horrifying creatures for her own stupid sake.

To Rey, it doesn't seem strange at all. It has become rather custom now each month to stumble upon a scene such as this. It was giant bats when she had first arrived. Now it seems that the Door has stepped up its game once again with these ugly creatures.

Fortunately, they're just as susceptible to burning, and Rey just happens to have come prepared. Her armor covers most of her body, with the hood shrouding her head, leaving her face shadowed under it. The light indicators on her armor start to glow; heatwaves gather around her body as she marches down the street. She doesn't stop to question the appearance of the woman that the creatures have gathered around. Instead, the nearest rotfiend simply goes up in flames.

And then another.

Then another...

Until there is just enough left for a direct path between the woman and Rey. That is, if Fa can handle running towards a little heat. The light indicators on her armor dims, and the heatwaves weaken just enough for that to be possible.

When the first rotfiend goes up, it begins to pulse and Fa, raising both arms slowly in horror, only has time to cover her face before it explodes in a pulse of sizzling gore. So go the others, until flaming bits of rotten flesh have left her white suit a Pollockian nightmare of stinking gore and black cinder-marks.

She doesn't know who this soldier is but she is drawing gullet-piercing shrieks from those remaining creatures, who are moving with alarming speed now that they have been disturbed. It's enough that Fa is just about ready to pack it all in and try to run for the hills--this is literally too much heat.

But there's an avenue of escape. "Stop drawing their attention!" she finally gasps, keeping her head down as she finally decides to hurtle towards the stranger. It's enough that the rotfiends have something to latch on to. Their frenzied cries take on vigor and purpose and they chase after Fa, directly into Rey's line of fire.

Though he's been told the streets are dangerous, Carlisle has to go out sometime. People in need don't just appear on his doorstep (well, Rey almost had, but that had surely been a fluke), but more importantly is that the food in his apartment is not some endless supply generated by magic. In the interest of staving off starvation, Carlisle has decided to risk the streets.

And he doesn't even make it to the stores before someone starts tailing him. He tries to keep his mind on the task at hand and move quickly, but when she's still following him after he rounds another corner -- done for no other reason than to try to lose her -- he feels panic setting in. His body prepares to run, falling back on his time-honored tradition of running away from anything he perceives as even a vague threat; his mind hits a defeatist stride in tandem, wracking him with immediate indecision. One half of him says he can't die here, all while the other side insists that this is where he's going to be murdered anyway, so he might as well just prepare -- maybe try to stand up for himself for a change before the end.

He's inwardly arguing with himself when his stalker calls out to him, startling him from his own thoughts. He spins to face her, fumbling in his badger-pelt bag and wishing his mace hadn't been snapped in half by a box monster approximately five minutes after his arrival in the city. "Don't you come near me! I'm, er... I'm armed! Perhaps. Probably! Don't take my word on that!"

Yes, this is the very intimidating Carlisle Longinmouth.

His very indecision is as alarming to Fa as it is to Carlisle. The blonde pulls up in her tracks, unable not to look away for a moment as though she's pulling back from some obscene reek. "I wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole," she attempts to console, even in the depth of her horror. "You can't possibly think you're doing any good like that."

"Doing any good like what?" he questions back, standing his ground -- that might be on account of his feet refusing to move, his legs frozen as apprehension spreads through him like ink in water. "You're the one who's been following me, so you don't get to make judgments!"

Fa leaned back on her heels just a little, surprised by Carlisle's vitriol. It was sending sparks (not literally, thankfully) of anger through her. "I'm sorry, but I believe it has to be said. Everything you're doing is wrong. I've never seen a person as twisted up as you and I'm afraid for the rest of the city."

She might be new, but she at least knew where the entrance was. She pointed back towards the trans-dimensional rent through which the gods introduced their new pawns. "You have to leave."

Test Drive Meme #8

Fa | Space Lesb--uh Android OC

SPACE LESBUN! also i choose fear.

Fear not~

No Space Lesbian sweetness for either of my dudes, so I'm going with RAGE.

>:] Be prepared to be talked into a spiral of self-doubt, since she ain't not direct-violence type

He doesn't need her help to go into a spiral of self-doubt, thank you very much.

Well she IS a helpful sort~!