TEST DRIVE MEME #1

[inthenightmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

Hello and welcome to the In the Night test drive meme for June! Thanks for your interest in our game! Reserves open on June 20, and applications open on June 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/application cap of 20 apps per month (this has been waived for the first month!).
  
• 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.
  
• Though threads can become canon, they cannot count toward AC.
  
• 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

YOU'RE DEAD, JIM

You haven't been in Beacon long when you find yourself in Bonfire Square, staring into the flames and thinking about how you ended up here. Maybe it was an accident, a sudden freak thing that you never saw coming until you woke up on the ferry, or maybe it's a miracle you made it as long as you did. Maybe death was a relief. Maybe it was just your time. Whatever the case, you can't help but reflect on your final moments as you linger in the firelight.

But however you died, it's behind you now, and you're here, stuck in this little town with just a few buildings and a smattering of other people. You're going to be here a while, so you may as well get to know your neighbors, but... Would it be cathartic to commiserate about your deaths? Or is your time better spent stocking up at the general store? Then again, you've got plenty of time, so why not catch a drink or two (or three) at the Invincible? Pretend you're unaffected by your death, and, well. Fake it 'til you make it, perhaps.

Point is, you have options. You're dead, you died, and this is your "life" now. Better get used to it.

AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES

Currently, there's only one place to live (technically speaking) in Beacon: the Invincible, a tavern and inn located in Bonfire Square. Luckily, the place has working amenities (minus light), and the forest spirits don't charge anything for your stay. Unfortunately, it seems there may not be enough rooms for everyone. Guess you'll have to get cozy!

Maybe you'll try to pick a roommate from around town or in the bar downstairs, or maybe you'll just walk into the first room you see and choose that way. Want a room all to yourself? Get ready to fend off any potential intruders. And the fun doesn't end there.

The Invincible's rooms aren't all created equal. Some may have had their furniture stolen or become a dumping ground for unwanted pieces, resulting in a single bed, five dressers, and other equally distressing situations. Will someone sleep on the floor? Will you nail two beds together to form bunk beds? Maybe you just want to make this room into something more like home— potentially to your roommate's chagrin. Whatever you decide, this is where you're staying for now, so you might as well get comfortable.

network prompts

HACKER VOICE: I'M IN

In order to use the network, you have to register a username. Er, at least, that's how it's supposed to work. For some reason, new users have recently been able to bypass that requirement, allowing them to post anonymously. Time to troll strangers on the magical internet!

Eventually though, you'll need a username in order to use the tablet's other functions, like the direct messaging system. So hey, why not take advantage of the ability to source opinions, and workshop your potential usernames on the network? Share ideas, get feedback, steal ideas, critique others, and figure out what you want everyone to call you.

TURN ON YOUR LOCATION

When you wake up, you're in the woods. An iron shackle complete with a chain leashes you to a tree, and the only light you have is your lantern. You've never seen this area of the woods before. You certainly didn't go to sleep here.

Hm.

But, all is not lost. You find your phone in your pocket, as well as a scrap of paper covered back to front in cryptic scribbles. Are these clues to your location? They must be. You also spot a key dangling from a branch, though it's hanging from a tree you'll never be able to reach from here. Perhaps someone on the network will be able to lend you a hand...

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Comments

[hardwearing]

[ Gene, buddy, "low planetary orbit" isn't even the tip of the iceberg. In fact, it's just a bit that's broken off and drifted in the current, you have no idea.

At least a lack of further questions means Gene can pace himself with the mind-blowing information. Wash accepts the little tin cup with a surprised blink, like he hadn't been expecting to be offered anything. Like he's disused to hospitality in general. ]

Thanks... Eugene. I'm Washington, my friends call me Wash.

[ Not that he'd call anyone here a friend yet, but only enemies use his full "name" and he figures he's on edge enough already, there's no need to add to it just because they aren't familiar yet. He takes a sip of the coffee and smiles faintly. ]

Six hundred years and the coffee rations still taste the same. Go figure.

[preseance]

( that gets a very slight smile as gene settles back down on his bedroll cross-legged. )

Well, mine call me Gene.

( or genie, but. that's from his family, an' reggie too on top of it. he ain't heard it aloud in a while, an' thinks it might hurt given voice. reggie's been dead since the latter half of '43 but he ain't barely had time to process it. for years now it's always been about the next jump, the next fight, the next time someone hollers medic into the cacophony of shellbursts and bullets an' tracer rounds lightin' up the sky. on furlough there was always a distraction to be found. he worked in hospitals, surgeons in london didn't care what you were doin' with yourself so long as you could help hold a man down and didn't flinch at the sight of blood and bone or the smell of a split-open gut.

lord. he leans forward until his elbows are planted on his thighs, laces his hands together. now ain't the time to think on reggie. )

Looks like the army's upped its engineering ante at least.

( a nod to the armour the fella's wearin'. coffee might taste the same, but. that's sure new. )

Provided you're some semblance of American?

( wouldn't surprise him none to learn otherwise. empires rise an' fall just the same. he's spoken to ghosts that mourned the fall of rome, but no institute built by man is meant to live forever. )

[hardwearing]

Every branch has, definitely. But this is Marine armor -- Army is mostly ground defense in my time, they wouldn't wear anything rated for EVA use.

[ To his credit, Wash immediately realizes that Gene wouldn't know that term, and clarifies. ]

That's shorthand for floating around in space, sorry. And is probably as good a lead in as any to how I'm not technically American. Humans have colonized the galaxy and I was born on another planet entirely -- the culture is probably close, but our government is really different in the future. You've established the United Nations by 1945, right? They run the show for most of humanity, as the United Earth Government and the UNSC.

[ It's not that simple, of course, but they're not talking about the messy parts... yet. Wash takes another sip of his coffee, shrugging. ]

No guarantees my universe is the same as yours, though.

[preseance]

( wash gets an acknowledging nod of his head. the clarification is a welcome one, though it's still hard to parse. back in his day, space was thought to have an atmosphere of its own by the common folk, it bein' an airless vacuum ain't been touched on so far as he's known.

he tries to imagine it. a universe where humans have left earth an' landed on other... planets? near distant stars? lordy. he takes a deep breath, chooses to focus on the familiar for now. he can ask reggie about the other stuff later.

(but he can't, can he? reggie ain't here with him. first time in three years they've been separate.) )

Ain't got nothin' but respect for the Marines. My brother's one. An' we don't have any sort of parliament of nations, but I can see where the need might arise after my war's fought an' done.

( my war. he don't really mean for it to be a claimant thing, but. it is, in a way. he an' wade are the only folks here that had their boots on the ground. it doesn't bother him that it's faded to memory for so many others, but it makes him... protective, almost, of what the men and women of his time experienced. )

An' no, no. I know that rightly enough. Seems like there's a lot of things what set these... universes? apart.

[hardwearing]

[ 'My' war, huh? Wash takes note of that, the implications of that statement. He's used that kind of terminology himself, but in a backwards way... he called both the war on Chorus and the war for Hadriel "not our war" but never really felt that the Human-Covenant War was his either. It'd gone on nearly his entire life, he'd fought in it for a decade, but... isn't sure he'd refer to it like Gene just referred to World War II.

He decides not even to go there, for now. It's too complicated, and probably too close to home for both of them. He's been avoiding talking about that kind of thing, so far. ]

Some times the differences are more obvious than others. Or it all sounds exactly the same, until a certain point in history where things went differently. The place I was in before... this... there was a lot of that going on. Took awhile to wrap my head around, honestly.

[preseance]

( it's a lot to wrap his mind around. he's silent a spell, just absorbing the information. tryin' to make some sense of it. he takes the opportunity to spread some chicken pâté on a piece of cracker with the edge of his trench knife. it's clearly a habit more than any manner of threat display — man always has his knife nearby in his day. )

Some other form'a purgatory, or somethin' else than that?

[hardwearing]

[ Wash doesn't react to the knife, though his eyes do follow it. As paranoid as he is, it's impressive that somehow Gene manages to be so nonthreatening in his manner that the space marine is content to just sit there, sipping the drink he was offered. He never drops his guard but it's only up by default, more worried about something attacking from the darkness than the stranger turning on him for a change.

Of course, he himself is still armed to the teeth. He doesn't have much ammo left, but two loaded firearms and a plethora of knives on his person. 600 years later and some things just don't change. ]

Something else. I did think I was dead when I first woke up there, but I was wrong. We were just all pulled there by... [ He hesitates, wondering how to explain this to someone who doesn't know technology or magic. Uhhhhhh. ] This is going to sound even crazier than being from the future, and I don't have much by way of proof. You still want to hear it?

[preseance]

( he gets up from his spot, brings the little tin of pâté over so's he can leave it by wash should he want some for himself. )

It ain't your job to convince me, fella, it's my job to believe. You go on an' tell your story.

( he's an easygoing sort, an' mostly he doesn't believe that a soul's first inclination is to lie. what benefit would it serve? ain't a one, in the here an' now. an' if this is purgatory, lyin' would only further entrench a soul in it. )

[hardwearing]

[ ...okay, then. Settle in, Gene, it's a bit of a doozy. Wash does reach for the tin and holds it up to the light curiously, as he starts storytime. ]

Everyone in Hadriel was pulled in by the Door. It was alien technology, or magic, different people called it different things but it reminded me of teleporters back home... except it wasn't just reaching across time and space in one universe, but different realities too. Some people there called them planes, others said dimensions, the terminology's never going to line up with so many different perspectives but however you want to think of our worlds, the Door could reach all of them. It did pull in a bunch of people who had died, too, like... their essences? And gave them new forms.

[ It's then that he pauses, setting his cup down and drawing one of his throwing knives to try the pate. Why not, he's dead already and it was kind of Gene to offer. ]

If I didn't remember dying so clearly this time, I'd think this was either a mistake or another interdimensional kidnap job. I guess it still could be.

[preseance]

( ain't a thing he remembers of dyin'. he'd been up outta a trench to help malachi, an' he'd just fixed a plasma line. there was a brief, sharp ringin' in his ears and nothin'. could've been anything, really. but they were just outside'a st vith, and the germans'd been shellin' them for days, so that's where his mind goes on the matter. a direct hit would've been about that quick.

he has a hope that malachi got out of it, though. he weren't hurt too bad, just bloody.

it is a lot to take in, as wash expects. and gene is quiet a spell before he shifts. )

Universe is full'a all manner of queerness, huh?

( but wash feels genuine about it. what good would disbelief serve? after all, they're here, ain't they? )

I'm sorry, though, about the dyin'. Ain't an easy thing to bear. Was it in this place? Hadriel?

[hardwearing]

[ That's it? He's just going to accept all that as the truth, even though Wash doesn't have a shred of proof? No questions or skepticism? Sure, they're here now, but Wash was waiting for the silence between them to break with either laughter or disbelief, not the 1945 equivalent of "that's weird but okay."

For a moment he has no idea how to take it, he's so used to people -- even most of his friends when they'd showed up -- rejecting what he tells them. He'd never been an authority on anything, not at home or in Hadriel, so of course there's always been pushback.

Gene has thrown him for quite a loop by just accepting it, though Wash supposes it's possible he's just being overly polite again and doesn't actually believe a word that just came out of his new acquaintance's mouth.

Hard to tell. ]

Yeah, it was another war. My third, it seems like I just can't escape them.

[preseance]

( third. lordy. and wash ain't all that much older than him. he'd always intended that once his was done, he'd lay down arms and put away all wartime things, live out the rest of his days peaceable on a farm somewhere, maybe. he ain't yet cast an eye to his future with any certainty, but he'd thought maybe he'd like to be a veterinarian.

so maybe he can't do that any more, but. he can still help out in his own way bein' here. gene sits back on his bedroll, fingers laced. that he's sympathetic couldn't be a sight more obvious — the furrow to his brow, the line of his jaw. most soldiers ain't about that, an' marines even less so if al's any indication to the rest of 'em, but. it's always in him to offer it up. )

Well. For what it's worth, I hope you can find some semblance o'peace here. Much as anyone can. Sounds like you've had a hard road, fella.

[hardwearing]

[ It's true Wash isn't that much older, but there's something about him that feels old. Maybe it's the sense of exhaustion that hangs around him, the silvery-pink scars and dark smudges beneath his eyes. And when he looks back up at Gene it's with a deep, miserable skepticism in his expression. He's not rejecting the sympathy, since it's genuine, but... peace? Hah. ]

Guess so. But even if I deserved peace, I don't think I'd know what to do with it.

[ He's pretty sure this place will start putting them through the wringer soon enough, anyway. Monsters emerging from the darkness to tear them apart, mind games to get them to turn on each other, or maybe something really creative. Why should death be any different than life, especially when they still have bodies? But for Gene's sake he keeps that to himself, passing the tin back and picking his half-finished coffee up again. ]

You seem pretty peaceful already. Is that new?

[preseance]

Every soul deserves peace. Some are just come to it harder than others.

( trauma begets trauma. it's a cycle of violence he knows from a lotta the boys in his unit — the great war produced a lotta great men, an' yet soon as the doors are closed and the liquor's up in their blood, that greatness falls away. lord, he hopes it won't be the same for his generation. yet, human nature always is the same, inn' it? )

Me? Ah. Well — ( a slight laugh, a tip of his head. ) No, it ain't new. Guess I've just always been like this, one way or another. Ain't a lot in the world that stirs me to fuss.

( his lot ain't to trouble himself, an' he rarely does. there are so many things in the world what could break a man wide open, but. he takes things as they come. the good — of which he's had plenty — an' the bad — of which he's had his share. but death is just a step along the way, an' his convictions hold fast there. )

[hardwearing]

[ It's a kind sentiment, but Wash isn't sure he agrees -- at least not for himself. Other people can deserve peace but he needs to hold himself accountable for the shit he's done awhile longer, especially if he's here alone. Kyna always told him he should cut himself some slack, but... with no one to call him out and nothing to work towards? Wash doesn't particularly trust himself. He doesn't know who or what he'd become in the long run if he let certain things go.

He doesn't argue, just lets the corner of his mouth quirk up at Gene's response to the question. ]

Must be nice. I tend to get pretty fussed. Most people I knew did, too, except maybe... [ He trails off there, then shakes his head. He doesn't want to talk about his dead friends if they aren't even here. ] Is it nice?

[preseance]

Well, I ain't got an ulcer yet.

( it's the tiniest little flash of humour, there an' gone. it ain't a trait of his what shows its head often, more around like-minded men. that wash is from hundreds of years in his future ain't a point of contention for him. he may have a hard time fathomin' a thing like a space ship, or an orbit, or folks bein' dropped outta said orbit to the ground below, but time? oh, gene understands the passage of time. )

Though there's always time, I reckon.

[hardwearing]

[ Congratulations, Gene, you've gotten the first genuine smile out of Wash. ]

That's definitely something. I'd keep avoiding one if I were you, I don't think this place stocks antacids.

[ He tilts his head, then, peering into Gene's makeshift tent. ]

Unless you have a stash of your own, you seem to have come in with way more useful gear than I did.

[preseance]

( bandages and dressings ain't the only balm in a war. knowin' when a fella has to come back from the front. knowin' how to bring them back from the edge of shell-shock. even somethin' as simple and honest as gettin' a smile. that's all part and parcel of bein' a medic. wash ain't one of his boys by any stretch, but there ain't a soul alive what's served on his side or one like it he wouldn't feel that nurturin' towards. wash's smile, then, gets one outta him just the same. )

Well, I found the tarp.

( his tone's a bit dry. touched on with good humour. 'scavenged' is maybe a better word. )

I guess the rest, just got used to carryin' around. No Tums to speak of, sadly.

( he was a bit of a packrat besides. never know what you might need an' when you're twenty miles back from the nearest aid station, an' havin' that one thing could mean the difference between life an' death... hell, he used to pull boot laces off mangled pairs of boots just to have somethin' extra as a tourniquet. ain't no mother of invention like need, an' war drives it hard an' hurtin'. )

Can't say how it'd stack up against the twenty-seventh century, though, lordy. You fellas still smoke?

[hardwearing]

[ Wash nods his understanding -- you never know what might end up useful, and if Gene wasn't often directly in the combat himself he'd be able to packrat a bit more. It's certainly very generous of him to share what he's got, Wash really only has his armor and weapons on him and is kind of anxious about that already. Back in Hadriel one of the first things he'd done was build a stockpile, just in case. Food, ammo, spare clothes, all things he's less than confident Beacon can provide. Gene's question just adds one more item to that list. ]

I couldn't really say, either, you'd probably need a historian to talk about how medicine's developed. But sure, people still smoke. Giving up vices goes against human nature, I guess.

[preseance]

Ah, it's all right. Ain't nothin' I'd expect a layman to know. Glad to hear about the smokin', though. I'd hate to give it up.

( he says it as he's tapping out a cigarette from its little ration carton. they ain't his preferred brand, but they'll do just as well. he lights it from the glow of his old-fashioned lantern, takes a drag and then holds it out on offer. )

Fella told me we cured polio and have a vaccine for TB, an' that's. ( he sucks his teeth in a little indrawn breath. ) Quite the damn thing. Bet you've gone a lot further than that, huh?

[hardwearing]

[ It's definitely far less common in Wash's time -- he hasn't had one since high school and doesn't like it as a habit for his own soldiers because of how it effects performance, but odds are it won't hurt Gene now. He watches the other man light up, shaking his head politely when he offers to share. ]

Thanks, but you should probably try to stretch those out if you don't want to go into withdrawal. I didn't see any in the shop.

[ Hopefully Gene has more than that one tiny carton... ]

We're able to treat or cure or vaccinate for most diseases, and how we handle injuries has definitely advanced. Biofoam, healing units, mechanical limb grafts, cloned organs for transplants... I don't know what polio or TB are, but a lot of the health issues people have mentioned to me as common in their time don't really exist in mine. A friend I was training in Hadriel told me he had cancer, and I had to ask someone else to explain what that was.

[preseance]

( it gets a soft huff of laughter outta him. withdrawal. gene's smoked more since steppin' foot on this shore than he has in the whole of the war, near enough. can the dead really feel it? his fingers twitch briefly, some shuttered amusement that makes its way down his nerves like a shiver in the cold. )

I've got a stash that ought to last a good while, but I'll keep that in mind.

( he used to play poker for cartons. his boys always said he was the only person in the whole of the 505th that could bluff them blind. he falls silent, then, as wash carries on about the progression of disease. there is a tension wrought in him that's ages old what eases some at the telling. gene's always possessed a hope for the future. things will get better, folks will be better, the world will be brighter. he doesn't believe that war will end, or disease will cease, or cruelty will quit bein' a staple of the human condition, but. he hopes all the same.

what wash tells him justifies that hope some. maybe it ain't his world. maybe they ain't his people, but he's got a grasp of medicine just fit to comprehend what he's bein' told. mechanical limbs. duplicated organs you can go on an' put in a failing body. a man with what gene sees as the innate goodness wash has not havin' a notion of tb or polio. lord. he closes his eyes, breathes deep in the smoke, lets it out slow.

he knows it can't have come without cost. three wars, wash had said. and that's just party to him, not ones that've happened across the intervening six hundred years. no cancer. won't that be swell. there's a riot of emotion in him, nothin' so obvious as tears though he does lift his hand to thumb across the water line of one eye. soft, )

We are creatures of progress, ain't we? I'm glad to hear we went in a few good directions, so far as all that goes.

[hardwearing]

[ Progress doesn't mean that things are better, not really. They reached the stars, and found as much death as anything else. The world isn't any brighter and wars have only gotten better at causing suffering, both in what people are willing to do to the enemy and their own, to be able to win... because the same brilliance and creativity that allows for progress also allows for previously inconceivable cruelty. It wasn't just the genocidal aliens jacking up the misery toll, either, humans were doing just fine at slaughtering each other with technological advancements before that. With abducting and augmenting children, with torturing and experimenting on their own soldiers, just to have better killing machines. Humanity survives, but it does so at any cost.

Maybe Wash is a cynical old man because he can count the war-free years of his life on one hand. And not everything he's seen can be twisted and justified as for the survival of the human race. Sometimes people just want power and don't care about wiping out entire planets to get it.

He doesn't want to go there with Gene. Let the guy think the future is better because people don't get sick as much, and can be put back together more efficiently when someone tears them apart. But he's got a terrible poker face, and even as he nods in apparent agreement there's something dark in his expression that gives him away. ]

Sure. Lots of advancements, thanks to science and imagination.

[ If he only knew Gene's opinion of him -- that he'd have to argue. Whatever goodness is in him doesn't feel innate, it's something has to work at it every single day. Something he can't let slip, because he's capable of being a real piece of shit. ]

Anything you're curious about?

[preseance]

( he's got a read on darkness. always has. maybe it was learned at his ma's knee, all the things she never spoke on. weren't 'til her dying her boys even knew she'd been in war. an' weren't 'til after her dyin' that he learned the full extent of it. he used to sit with her ghost out in the fields an' she'd speak on things she said she ain't never told another livin' soul. not even his pa. she said that dyin' gave her cause to loose her tongue. an' as the years whiled on an' the war closed in, she looked at him an' said she'd miss him.

at the time he'd thought she meant, on account of her passin' on. now, he wonders if maybe she had some inklin' of this.

either way, it serves. he sees what wash tries not to express, hears what he won't say. an' he doesn't press, because maybe it means more to the man to preserve that bright future for him than it would mean to him to hear the truth of the matter. he lifts one shoulder in a shrug, and forges on.

he ain't naturally curious, neither. content to let most things lie, gene. but. the lure of other places, other worlds, other peoples — maybe that's stronger now he's seen so much of earth. casablanca on through silicy, all those little towns in belgium an' holland an' france. funny how he's seen more of the old world than he ever will of america now.

he gestures a bit with his cigarette. the smoke spirals up to the sky. )

Y'all still know how to play baseball?