memesinthenight | TEST DRIVE MEME #5

Entry tags:

!tdm

TEST DRIVE MEME #5

Hello and welcome to the In the Night test drive meme for October! Thanks for your interest in our game! Reserves open on October 20, and applications open on October 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 10 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

MAMMA MIA

The town is quiet, the forest spirits behave business-as-usual, Rastus doesn't know what's up. Whatever's going on, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

And you will, though the hallucinations are subtle at first: objects moving when they shouldn't, people's proportions looking just a bit off, voices in an empty room, and so on. Is it just your mind playing tricks in the darkness? Might be! As the days go on, the hallucinations are harder to ignore, no matter how much you may wish to wave them off as flukes. What's wrong with everyone's faces? When did all the howling start? Who do you hold onto when the world drops out from under you? And those hands...

While you might know it can't be real, it certainly feels real. But at least it can't last forever... Right?

This prompt is a mini version of the game's Bury a Friend event.

GIMME! GIMME! GIMME!

Although the month is already well underway, residents of Beacon will notice a brand new shipment being delivered to the general store—only this one comes via the forest, as a small legion of spirits quickly drop off crates of boxes at its doorstep before scampering back into the woods. Hopefully nobody is riding too hard on hoping for further rations or supplies, because opening them up quickly squashes any notions of a full month's restock. Instead, it looks like each crate is bursting with costumes! Coming in all shapes and sizes to fit anyone of any age or decree, there’s plenty to choose from. Something scary? Magical? Clever? Or maybe even a bit on the sultry side? Dig deep enough, and you’re sure to find something to suit your tastes, props, accessories, wigs and all!

If nothing else, surely you can find an alternate use for a bit of spare fabric in your size, but what's the harm of having a bit of fun? But, oh, be careful if you're playing dress-up while the hallucinations from the event are in play... These costumes might just have a funny effect on you. 🤔!

network prompts

S.O.S.

The morning is interrupted by an alert. The text, which helpfully converts itself to automated speech when opened, reaches every inbox across Beacon, refusing to disappear until acknowledged. The problem? The username it comes from is glitched and unreadable, and all attempts at responding directly appear fruitless. The message is simple, three words:

SOS. SEND HELP.
There's nothing that seems to be able to be done about it, but with the earnestness in which it appears, maybe it would be wise to discuss it with the other residents. Isn’t there something you can do, even to track down the source? Maybe that will help you better put it from your mind.

TAKE A CHANCE ON ME

The longer you stay in Beacon, the clearer it is that you’re here for the long haul. And, on that note, the clearer it is that this place is going to need a lot of work to meet your standards. Obviously there isn’t much that can be done about certain things, like the state of lighting, or some of your potentially missing powers, but there are a lot of things that would certainly improve your personal quality of life. And for that matter, maybe some of your ideas would be agreeable to others, as well.

Whether you’re here to call for the establishment of a club, a new business, or even some kind of monthly therapy circle, the best way to get your message across is to turn to the Network and give your pitch. Whatever skills you may be lacking in the organization of this project, there’s undoubtedly someone out there who can provide. What are you waiting for? No time like the present to start collecting signatures!

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Some of the words are unfamiliar, but Kettara can parse out most of the meaning. He transports cargo. That makes him some sort of merchant, she guesses, or perhaps the man other merchants hire to move their goods.

It probably explains why he died. Merchants live dangerous lives in her world. Too much territory is contested or unprotected.

She's quiet for a long moment, just staring at him.

"I'm a shaman. We maintain balance between the elemental spirits."

She decides on the truth, doubting he'll understand. But there's a chance. She's never met a human who could contact the spirits or even cared to try, but their king often trades with other races, many of whom boast powerful and wise shaman among their leaders.

While the specific word is rare, the idea is quite ordinary. Bodhi isn't a very good Jedhan, but he was still born in the city of a thousand faiths, and there are plenty of interpretations of the Force that use concepts like spirits, even if they're not entirely mainstream. Balance, though. His proper religious education may have ended when he was five, but balance is a concept he knows well. He classifies shaman as basically a monk, probably and nods like he understands and tries to think of a delicate way to ask his follow-up question.

"Does that... is that something you can do here?" He's as far as you can get from an expert, but if everybody is supposed to be dead, that must mean something different than it did in the world they came from.

Kettara flattens her ears, fighting the urge to look away. The question smarts, though she knows it wasn't intended to wound.

"The power they lent me remains," she says after a while. "But I cannot call upon them and they will not answer my prayers."

That hurts more than anything, the thought that she might have displeased the spirits so thoroughly that they would leave her alone in the afterlife. She was meant to walk the path with her ancestors, with her mother and all those who came before her, but she's alone in Beacon. Alone and surrounded by humans, and the spirits are either unable or unwilling to grant her enough wisdom to see the point of it all.

"I can fight," she adds, somewhat defensively. "And I can heal. Are you injured?"

Because she can fix that. She can be useful.

He probably should have anticipated that it'd be a tough subject. The chances of an easy, pat answer were very low, after all. When he's honestly curious (rather than just being polite) he can stumble a bit ahead of himself. A bit ashamed for making things awkward, he shakes his head too quickly. "N-no, fine, I mean, there really, um, there shouldn't be enough left of me to scrape off what's left of the ship, logistically, actually, so, uh, whatever put us back together on the way did a good job..." Way to make things not weird, Bodhi.

Her eyebrows go up at that. "Explosives?"

Given that he was a pilot, she supposes it makes sense. Most shaman don't bother with them, but engineers tend to have ties with goblins, who strap explosives to everything. The madness of invention, she's heard it called. Apparently such things are contagious.

Explosives are a simple fact of life and have been since before recorded history, and he misses the idea that he should clarify.

"Grenade in the cockpit," Bodhi says with a shrug, trying to force himself to feel the distance he's faking. It wasn't that upsetting at the time, too fast to hurt, too final to do anything about. He'd pretty much known he was going to die at that point.

Kettara isn't sure what a grenade is, but it sounds messy. Her expression softens somewhat.

"I'm sorry."

That was a bad death. Even humans ought to have the chance to die in combat, against an enemy they can see and strike. It's the orcish way to die in combat, and it was how Kettara met her end. But at least hers was a death of her choosing. Painful, but honorable. No orc can hope for better.

She lifts her chin.

"That is a cowardly way to fight. May your enemy die knowing shame."

This seems like a bad time to explain that that's pretty much how fighting goes where he's from, which he's starting to realize must be very different than where she's from. That he didn't notice before now says a lot about how weird home is.

However, Bodhi hasn't ever been responsible for things exploding himself, so he doesn't feel too dishonest about not clarifying. He's just a coward in completely different ways. "Well, if they haven't managed shame yet they're not going to start now," he says dryly, finally managing not to stammer. For a moment. "If, uh, if it makes you feel better, I don't think much of anyone got out of that fight alive." He doesn't know how it ended, but he knows how it was going.

Kettara gives him a long look, eying him up and down. Most humans seem strange to her, their ways and beliefs too alien to fully grasp. Beacon has provided only two exceptions. Thus far, Bodhi Rook is not among them. "I don't understand."

Perhaps she doesn't need to. Still:

"Humans have strange ideas about war."

He could protest that humans aren't the only ones involved, but given the Imperials are pretty much responsible and they're pretty strictly human-centric, that argument would probably fail. Besides, she's not wrong, even if he's confused as to what provoked her to be right. "Shame just isn't a big motivator on the Empire's side of things. I, uh, wouldn't have much hope they'd feel bad about it."

Clearly his enemy is a terrible one, if they act so brazenly without honor. Kettara feels her shoulders dropping somewhat, tension bleeding away. It's a difficult thing to face such an enemy. She can respect a human who tried. "Then they must be made to."

It seems simple to her, though she does not and likely never will know his world.

"Such enemies will never change until they fall."

He senses he's missing something, but Bodhi grew up in a wrecked war zone and is very cynical about the whole thing. Frankly, the idea of honorable combat is pretty foreign to him. "Well, uh, here's hoping, obviously didn't see that through myself. Hopefully the message got through and, um, that's about all we were aiming for."

Kettara has no context for the conflict beyond what he's already said, but she understands his meaning well enough. Whatever he died for mattered. "I see."

Maybe it was a good death after all.

"I don't think they have shuttles here," she adds, after a moment. "Perhaps you can build one."

She has no idea how such things are built. But it seems sad, to define oneself one way or

"Mmm, maybe..." Yeah, she's definitely from someplace very different. An uncontacted world, maybe? He mostly knows about those from bad holovids, but at least he recognizes that and keeps his mouth shut. He likes the idea that he'd be remotely capable of any such thing. A nice fantasy. He's already had his own thoughts about this. All his usefulness in his adult life came out of flying, aside from a few stopgap tech tricks. "I'm not sure I'm that good a mechanic, but, uh, yeah, maybe." He fiddles with the machinist goggles on his forehead, wondering if he'll ever fly again.

"Why not?"

She knows nothing about engineering other than it is a profession, and a respected one. It also tends to involve getting blown up or set on fire quite a lot, but surely that could be avoided with a modicum of caution.

Rightly or wrongly, Bodhi interprets the question as why are you not a better mechanic, always quite willing to believe the worst in himself and assume everyone else can see it, too. "I only really know enough to keep one moving, and um, less likely to kill me on long runs? Never really, well, I never had a reason to be in a machine shop or testing lab." Engineer. That's the sort of job people much smarter than him get.

"There is nowhere to go now," she points out. The power in control of this place has seen to it that they cannot flee. Several others have ventured into the dark, away from the bonfire, but it hasn't gone well. Kettara hasn't tried it herself just yet. There's too much she doesn't know. "What else are you going to do?"

"Well, that, uh, that's a grim thought." Not a new one, but she does lay it all out so neatly and undeniably. His only useful skills are useful inside a complicated infrastructure built to use them. He doesn't think he's ever even been in a forest, and here they are.

"Is it untrue?"

She's used to harsh realities, harsh living. It makes sense that the afterlife, or whatever is masquerading as it, would be the same.

"It's definitely not untrue." He doesn't actually like the idea of handling feelings with kid gloves. He prefers burying them quicky where they can't do any harm. Probably. "Suppose I'll have to figure out something to do with myself."

Kettara nods slowly. "You will."

Just how things are.

She gives him a long look. Then:

"Do you teach?"

"Not... formally." He's as good at giving tips as anybody, but he doesn't exactly have things like a commanding personality or a gift for organizing information in a helpful fashion.

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TEST DRIVE MEME #5

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