TEST DRIVE MEME #4

[inthenightmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME #4

Hello and welcome to the In the Night test drive meme for September! Thanks for your interest in our game! Reserves open on September 20, and applications open on September 22.

While you're here...

• Take a look at our rules and faq pages to familiarize yourself with the game.
  
• Note that we have a reserve cap of 20, and a (current) application cap of 13 apps this month for new players, as the game has a player cap of 60. An accurate count of current players will always be available on the taken page.
  
• TDM threads can become game canon if both players wish. If the situation isn't something that could happen in-game, you're free to chalk it up to some strange hallucination, a shared dream, or other mysterious circumstance.
  
• Note that this is not limited to new characters threading with characters already in-game. If current players wish to thread out the TDM prompts as canon events, they are welcome to do so. They are welcome to make posts in the main comms for TDM events as well. Please note, however, that actual plot clues or happenings will not occur in TDM prompts.
  
• If you plan to apply, please keep in mind that we do require at least one sample thread on the application to be from our TDM (though it doesn't need to be the current TDM).
  
• You're welcome to use the provided prompts or come up with something on your own, but we do ask that all threads take place in our game's setting.

Thank you again, and we hope you'll choose to join us!

log prompts

GATHER YE ROSEBUDS WHILE YE MAY

With a cloud of mourning having weighed heavy on Beacon over the last month, the Lighthouse Keeper has decided to try and rally the community with a game: a selfie scavenger hunt! With the promise of (secret) prizes for those who play along, she's provided a list of 25 different items to track down and take a picture with. And, of course, all submissions will be public for others to view and comment upon. A town forum, Instagram-style. How fun! Feel like teaming up? Finding a companion to go searching with could make the task go by faster, as there's nothing saying that you can't both submit the same pictures so long as you take them together. And what's a proper game without company?

This prompt is a mini version of this month's Gather Up event.

IT'S RAININ' SIDEWAYS

Overall, the weather has been mild lately. Since Autumn hit, the standard has been overcast darkness blotting the stars and little wind. The rumble of thunder sounds just before the downpour begins, as if a switch has been flipped up in the clouds. If you're in the Invincible, the houses in the village, or any of the other solid establishments, it isn't anything to worry about, really. Mostly, it just means hunkering down until the storm passes. However...it seems that someone opted to build themselves a structure in the square that's proven not to be able to withstand these harsher elements. Whether you're the unfortunate sap in the tent or you're merely a bystander, one way or another, you notice its roof cave in, the beams placed to support it buckling inward and trapping the inhabitant inside. It's not enough to crush someone, but it'll surely be difficult to gather oneself as the wind and the rain bears down without mercy. Call for help and maybe someone will hear you, or be the good Samaritan that runs to their aid.

network prompts

I CAN'T *PBBT* UNDERSTAND *PBBT* YOUR ACCENT

Something's wrong. The things that you type and the things that you speak are transforming themselves upon being posted to the network. Or maybe that's not quite accurate, because everything in your posts are certainly your own words...it's just that indiscernible static has descended upon the page and crept into your audio, blocking out pieces of your statements--just enough to change the overall meaning of what you were originally saying. Efforts to clarify don't seem to be improving the situation, and it's hard to say if there's any way of fixing this. Maybe it's a comfort that the problem isn't isolated on your end; after all, that effectively takes the issue out of your hands to solve. Or maybe it's just the opposite. Maybe knowing that the network is experiencing widespread failures, however mild, fills you with a sense of dread and unease. One thing's clear, at least: you'll need a bit of luck to get your point across for the time being.

THE TITLE EQUIVALENT FOR WHEN YOUR GRANDMA COMMENTS ON YOUR UNRELATED FB STATUS AS IF SHE'S WRITING YOU A PERSONAL LETTER

Sometime in the recent past you had a problem. Maybe it was a dire emergency advertised to the community at large, maybe you became overwhelmed with stress and needed the ear of a close friend, or maybe it was just something embarrassing you were sharing in confidence. Unfortunately, regardless of what the message was, it looks like it disappeared the moment you hit send, as if it had been eaten by the network itself. It's been long enough now that you've brushed it off; you've been able to solve your problem one way or another and moved on. That's when it appears, unprompted, on the network for all to see, regardless of how private it was meant to be. Well, now you might have a bit of explaining to do.

QUICKNAV
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Comments

[pearlstrings]

[Bruce's lantern is very dim, but it isn't invisible entirely. He has to use his body to disguise it, to reach for the heavy cloth he's been hiding it beneath- and that's a process in and of itself. The footsteps are a little further off, in the square and nearer to the buildings. That's good. There are other people there- visible as lights bobbing back and forth through the night. Some voices carry, discussions about the scavenger hunt and some keep on going towards their destination. One of them doesn't move at all, paused in place.

He moves deliberately and quietly. Bruce slowly rises to his feet, reaching for the cloth tucked into his belt and in the process, his lantern appears as a dull, brief blink in an otherwise empty wood. The cloth comes down over it, bundled carefully around the shape of the owl. His pencil goes behind his ear. It's important to keep his hands free, just in case.]

[saintjames]

[ The truth is, he might not have even noticed if the light had acted in a way that was usual. If Gordon hadn't seen the brief wink of it from his periphery, the sort of fleeting movement that a trained eye can't help being drawn to, he might have just carried on toward the far end of the square. Instead, Jim lowers his lantern enough to be able to squint and cock his head, staring into the darkness.

Something like that could be any manner of things. The gloom is so heavy that Jim isn't sure that, at a distance, he'd be able to tell the difference between a spirit and a person without their lantern lighting the way. He doesn't know how dangerous those things could be, just like he doesn't know what might be out there in the woods— but that brief flicker, it had almost looked like a flame guttering.

And if there's a chance someone could be in danger, it will always outweigh the danger to his own person.

Still, Jim pulls his gun from his holster— just in case— as he advances on the position. When he's close enough that it's possible someone could jump out and tackle him, he raises his voice. ]

Hello? Someone there?

[pearlstrings]

[He'd selected these pieces of fabric carefully, then sewn them together to make a kind of bag that he could slip his lantern in and out for the sake of a quick disappearance. He has to be equally careful once it's hidden away, because there's no guarantee that the urgency of a situation wouldn't get to him- that he wouldn't accidentally put his own flame out.

It's that same urgency that speaks to him now, telling him to run.
Bruce pushes the instinct back, down. Whoever comes looking won't have a precise location, but they will the moment he starts making noise and gives away his position. The dark and the quiet are his best tools.

He wills his breaths to even out and loops the covered lantern around a pair of straps he'd made, that crisscross over his back. The loops and knots are quick, efficient. He'd practiced. And it allows Bruce's attention to travel elsewhere. The footsteps are quiet and subdued, the unmistakable sense that whoever his pursuer is, they're self-aware enough to measure their impact. The gait is a little wide, almost mechanical. Bruce lowers himself to the ground and lets his eyes adjust to the near darkness. The figure and their lantern come close, close enough that Bruce can see something in their hands. A gun.

Bruce lets his weight tip forward. Their arms aren't outstretched enough for a blow to the elbows, to dislodge the stranger's grip and trade the gun between them. Knees first. A knock from behind to make them buckle and then-

Hello? Someone there?
Adrenaline dries up inside him, squeezing his throat like there's a fist around it. Bruce's hands lower. He feels, abruptly, twelve years old again- curled up on a fire escape in a dark alley.]

Jim Gordon?

[saintjames]

[ His gun isn't raised, but instead angled half down toward the ground. Bluffing on the criminals in Gotham was one thing, almost every human being would pause with a gun pointed at them, but if the spirits aren't really alive then would they have the same response? And Jim only has so many bullets. He can't just waste them on something they might not even effect. Nevertheless, the barrel is lifted enough that it starts making it's way down as soon as that voice hits the air.

Gordon would recognize it anywhere.

Something seizes up on his insides, a rush of hot and cold that makes his skin prickle kind of like fear. ]

Bruce?

[ Jim lowers his gun fully, transfers it to one hand and steps forward, peering into the black, trying to piece through the shadows to find the boy in question. ]

[pearlstrings]

[There's no discharge, but Bruce isn't expecting there to be. Jim's fired at him before, when he'd been surprised- but since Gotham's collapse and in the months since they'd been abandoned by outside help, they've all had to stretch their resources. None of the police fire very often; they don't fire at all if they can avoid it. He's counting on that self-same restraint here.

Jim's lantern doesn't provide a wide circle, it's just enough to cast itself around his feet. But Bruce sees the silhouette of the gun lower anyway- a black shape in the black woods. He hears the small crunch of leaves and dirt underfoot as his weight tips forward, as he takes a step and peers into the shadows. At his sides Bruce's fingers begin to loosen from their preparatory curl and he steps forward in kind, bringing himself into Jim's light.

His stomach clenches terribly at the sight.
Bruce doesn't believe this is death, he can't afford that. But that does nothing to soften the blow. After everything, seeing the man doubled over on the floor, beaten bloody in the name of hurting Bruce-

His eyes are wide and dark, as dark as the rest of him- covered from throat to toe. But it doesn't matter. Bruce reaches across the space and raises his arms, hugging him hard; a boyish need for reassurance.]