memesinthenight | TEST DRIVE MEME #9

Entry tags:

!tdm

TEST DRIVE MEME #9

Hello and welcome to the In the Night test drive meme for March! Thanks for your interest in our game! In an effort to streamline our application process and avoid future confusion between incoming and existing players, we will no longer have a reservation period. Applications open on March 22, and will be judged on a first-come, first-served basis.

While you're here...
Take a look at our rules and faq pages to familiarize yourself with the game.
Note that we have a (current) application cap of 15 apps this month for new players, as the game has a player cap of 70. 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 top-leveling is not limited to new characters! If current players wish to post a starter, 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).
If you haven't already, please take a moment to look at our announcement regarding changes to the application cycle, which involves information concerning the 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

DANCING QUEEN (cw corpses)

When the ferry chugs up to the dock, its speakers are crackling with a happy song. What a fun way to bring in all the newcomers! Except... goodness, what's that terrible stench? The ferry docks and lowers its gangway as per usual, but the ship is quiet. No newcomers flock to the deck to disembark, and instead, the faint sound of buzzing flies can be heard over the breeze.

Boarding the ferry quickly reveals the source of the flies: decaying bodies, dozens of them, are littered throughout the ship. Some lie in bunks and could be asleep if it weren't for the rot, and others are strewn throughout the cargo hold and the deck. There are no lanterns among them, and there aren't any signs of fighting or struggle around the ship. Inspecting the bodies (if anyone seriously wants to do that) won't yield any definitive answers in terms of cause of death, but, oh. Though it's difficult to tell at first glance due to the decay, these bodies... They're residents of Beacon.

Maybe you find your friend or yourself or, oh, there's Rastus! And Robin! The gang's all here, albeit disgustingly—and Dancing Queen crackles over the speakers. Welcome, welcome!

—but before the ferry departs again, the corpses start to move. Moving about the ship, someone might first hear a sigh, or a sputter, or a little laugh, and maybe it could be brushed off as a trick of the mind until the bodies stand, hoisting themselves up with whatever limbs they have left, and drag themselves toward the deck. One by one, they slip clumsily over the railing and back into the lake, but not before they drop their disguises and slowly contort back into their usual forest spirit bodies (source).

Ugh. Frickin' spirits.

WELCOME TO OUR GAME: INTO THE DARK

In spite of the strange occurrences starting off the month, there's still work to be done in Beacon. Or perhaps it's precisely due to this that Rastus calls for the attention of anyone who will listen as they pass by his station at the bonfire. All but shoving a torch in your hand, he requests that you place it around one of the many locations that could use a source of light! A lot of new places have been discovered recently, after all.

In the event that you choose to choose to play with this prompt as game canon, please remember to report where you choose to place a torch on the item request page so the setting can be updated accordingly! For incoming players, this can be reported retroactively!

These efforts would be a great service to the community at large; Rastus reminds everyone that while the bonfire is a finite resource, it's still a resource that's meant to be utilized.

network prompts

IF YOU DIE IN THE GAME YOU DIE FOR REAL

Not long after the ferry shows up with, uh, no people and a whole lotta corpses (that turn out to be forest spirits playing a very uncool prank), Robin makes a post to the network!

Oh holy god uhhhh OK so no idea what's going on with the ferry this month, wow. Data from the portal is saying nobody new came through, so... nothing to worry about!!! Probably!! I really don't know anything more than you guys right now but I'm gonna get in touch with Dr. Solis. She'll have a better idea of what's going on than me. I'll get back to you all as soon as we figure out what's up.

In the meantime..........!!! I thought it might be fun to play some games to get our minds off stuff? How about hangman! Here's how to play if you don't know!

She attaches a little set of instructions for any characters not in the know. Fun stuff!

But, uh oh. If you get a letter wrong, you'll notice it's getting just a bit more difficult to breathe... Is the air particularly heavy today? Allergies, maybe? No, the feeling only gets worse as the game continues, each incorrect guess tightening an invisible noose around your neck.

The only way out is through, it seems, as nothing provides any relief save for winning a game. But what happens if you lose...?

(If asked, Robin also has no idea what's up with that. Heck! Maybe it's the lanterns acting up again? In any case, the weird hangman curse will resolve itself within a day or two.)

PARTICIPATION FOR CLOWNS

All at once, a notice arrives in everyone's inboxes. It appears to be some sort of strange attempt at a bingo card! It would, potentially, be a mystery as to who crafted this and, well, exactly what it's supposed to mean, were it not for the underlying message that accompanies it.

HELLO! HELLO? HELLO HELLO. ALL BRING CARD TO GET GIFT FOR ALL! YES! ONTO BODY LIBRARY GIFT IT GOES! THANK A MUCH!

The real problem here being, of course, that the librarian's apparent game is a bit, well, difficult to understand. Well, it's possible that it won't require any stringent rules. Ultimately, those who bring in a bingo card that has a row of marks in any particular fashion will receive a free gift compliment of the spirit as a way to promote the library. There might be some fabric missing where the shirt has been bitten into, but, hey, nobody's perfect.

QUICKNAV
comms	\|	network • logs • memes • ooc
pages	\|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's valuable to know. He glances over at Soldat, then back to the body before him and stands. "Into the water, then. Someone's got to clean up, might as well start."

A hugely unpleasant task that might be made simpler with some blankets to roll bodies onto and heave them over the side with. There's so much decay he's not sure he wants to be handling a lot of these directly. It would certainly make dragging the corpses up from belowdecks easier too. "Let me see if I can find something to contain them better. Blankets." Sheets, bolts of fabric, whatever. He turns to head toward the boxes of cargo, immediately trips over a leg, and lands face-first on top of - god, he doesn't want to know what. The smell is overpowering and it takes him an extra few seconds to shake it off. Good thing he has this scarf around his face. The fall was... squishy.

Soldat has to actively squash the motion to reach over and grab Rosinante's collar to catch him, since they know Rosinante hates anyone acknowledging let alone helping with the results of his clumsiness, resulting only in a twitch in Rosi's direction and a wince. Yuck. "I can get started with the metal arm. It doesn't feel the same way. Not quite as gross."

"I'd appreciate it."

He'll let Soldat get started, then, while he goes and finds one of the aforementioned objects. It doesn't take too long, though he suffers a bit more stumbling around in corpses before he manages to find what looks to be a shower curtain. That'll do well. Sure, he'll still have to touch some of these bodies to load them onto it, but soon he's got a sort of makeshift stretcher large enough to drag three bodies at a time. Dead weight, but he has the strength for it, and so he begins collecting them so he can unroll the whole mess over the side of the ship.

Except as he goes to do just that, he notices them squirm, and when he pauses to make sure his mind isn't playing tricks on him, he notices the body in the center of the other two has what's left of its chin ducked against its chest and is - chittering? Sort of a high-pitched giggle. "Hey," he says, keeping his eyes on the body. "You hear that too?"

Having already pitched one fake corpse overboard-- Misty's, so they didn't have to look at it-- Soldat says grimly as they grab another by what remains of its clothes, "Yep. Throw it overboard anyway. You'll see."

Strange. It's not exactly a dire warning, so he shrugs and tugs his collection to drop them over the edge. As the blanket unrolls, leaving one end in his hands, the bodies twist and transform midair into surprisingly elegant masked figures. Laughing, two fold into swan dives and splash down into the water while the third turns to wave up at him before it flops backward onto the surface, then kicks its way below.

"... Huh." Goddamnit. Once he's done staring blankly with an utter lack of amusement at where the spirits had hit the waves, he turns his gaze flatly on the rest of the bodies. "Great."

"Yeah." Soldat tosses their own second burden overboard with similar results. A couple of the "dead bodies" actually wriggle a little away from them, like naughty children trying not to get noticed and caught. Soldat gives them an unimpressed look, grabbing another by the back of the neck. "I'm just gonna clear a path from the dock to the hold. Otherwise we're gonna be here all fuckin' day."

"Yeah. I'll help out."

Because seriously there are a hell of a lot of these asshole spirits and if that's all they are, then they're probably not likely to actually contaminate anyone or decay further. They're gross, for sure, but somehow knowing the explanation makes it a little easier to tune them out, though the smell will probably stick to everything. So, great. Going to do a lot of washing after this.

The spirits clearly were watching, because now that the two of them seem pretty straightforward about what they're going to do, some of the bodies get up and slip away, laughing, just on approach. "Makes my day easier," he sighs as he grabs one by an ankle before it can get away from him, then gives it a toss without even bothering with the blanket. The spirit seems to get the message and makes its own way across what remains of the deck and into the water, and he can't help but get the feeling that the sing-song whistle it gives is some kind of insult.

It is. Oh, it is. Soldat hollers after said spirit, accent briefly going Brooklyn, "Fuck you, too, buddy." Then, with one more tossed overboard themselves, they take a moment to wipe the metal hand off on their jeans. "Assholes. Think that's enough. The rest are getting the picture, and there's stuff to unload."

Finally, a smile, even if it's a bit grim. "My thermal imaging scope." If it works, they can take out the spirits in the courthouse with minimal backup. If it doesn't... well, they'll work something out.

Good, because he's eager to see if Pluto came through with his own request. He pauses on his way sorting through cargo though to have a look at the scope. "That thing looks nice. Sure hope it works."

If it does, he'll definitely want one too, and given that they have this one as an example maybe Pluto can sort out a similar model easily enough. "You could probably try it out here. Even if these ones are disguised as long-dead, they might still have body heat."

At that, though, he turns away to lift packages until he finds his, which is far bigger than he expected it to be. He doesn't quite make it as far as even saying words - he just stares, impressed, at the pile of newspapers, then reaches for Pluto's note. Yeah. Yeah, he owes her big for this.

Soldat has a box, too, which they open to flip through. Portal data. Lots of portal data, and in the front a primer on how the portal works. This is not Soldat's area of expertise, but, well, they did ask for it. Gonna have to at least look through it before passing it on to somebody smarter and more educated.

They plop the lid back down on that, then hold up the scope, looking through it at standard rifle-placement length. They turn a little, facing the wall with a cabin and a playing-dead-spirit on the other side. Nothing. Shit. "I don't think it's going to. Damn." It's still pretty cool, though.

The cover of the first newspaper stares out at him, and he's captivated by it. The headline proclaims itself a profile of some group of pirates collectively known as the Worst Generation and there among the faces of those pirates in the artist's rendering is a familiar black-spotted fur hat on the face of one serious young man.

For a moment, he grips the sides of the box containing the papers as he stares in shock and has to remind himself to breathe. In fact, he kind of feels like he needs to sit down, but this isn't really the time or place.

"Sorry, what?" he manages absently after a too-long pause and looks over his shoulder at Soldat.

Soldat can tell when someone is not interested in what they have to say, and gently tucks the scope back into its case to take home in the safety of an inner pocket. "Not important." Or not as important as whatever Rosinante's looking at. "What is that?"

A lot of papers. Newspapers? Not the same kind of paper as newspapers from Brooklyn, the only kind of newspapers they remember anything about. Maybe they're from Rosinante's world. They drift a step closer, ready to step back again if Rosi gets protective like he doesn't want anyone to see.

He'll come back to it later, maybe. If he remembers. He'd probably be interested if he wasn't completely lost in his latest revelation. He's not guarding the papers or hiding them in any way, so Soldat is easily able to look past him and see the one on top.

"I asked Pluto for news. From my world's future," he explains, slowly regaining the ability to speak more than just a squeak of surprise. "And... if she could try to find Law by name in them. My kid."

All grown up. He sits down right there on the deck before his knees decide to buckle out from under him, still plenty tall enough to loom over the box, and his eyes drift to the date in the corner of the paper. July 1522 - Law must be 23, then. He'll deal with all this pirate stuff in a moment. Only one thing matters right now to him, as his eyes grow misty. Law lived.

"I remember." From the memory. The cranky child who studied medicine and who made Rosinante so happy. "Did she find him?" It seems like she must have, even though Soldat can see the name anywhere on the paper, and the picture of a grown man doesn't evoke the face of the young teenager when there was only one viewing to go on.

They look at the huge collection of papers and guess: "Did she find him mentioned a lot?" Because that is a lot of newspapers.

"He's-" Right there, he points, and tries to get a grip on himself, his shock and his happiness. The smile turns broader as he does so. "The hat. And... the same eyes." He doesn't have the white patches from the amber lead in the drawing. Is it a mistake on the part of the artist, or are they gone? He flips the paper up to get at one below, but it doesn't feature Law immediately on the cover. It's going to take some time to go through these.

"I don't exactly know what's in here. I asked her to find more than just him. But not this much, so... I guess she wanted to help!"

Probably got a little carried away once she figured out she could search for a name. Didn't sound like she'd ever tried that before and she probably had fun seeing how often it worked. He'd promised her some info if she came through, but now he's thinking he better do more than just that. Treat her to something good.

"That's a lot of help she gave, yeah. That's great, Rosinante." His kid's alive, an adult, and looks pretty healthy. Maybe not happy, but that might not be a good example, on a newspaper drawing. "Looks like he's doing pretty good, after all. If he's in all these papers."

Or pretty bad, depending on the kinds of articles. The "Worst Generation" might mean nothing, or might mean a lot. But he looks okay in the picture.

"Yeah! I - I'll have to read these. Maybe there are some from later on, too."

There's something deeply bittersweet about that. He's only been here months, but Pluto's papers may have given him an entire summary of Law's life depending on how many and from how far in the future she was able to retrieve them. He'll see him grow and change and age but only at a distance, all of it compressed into a few hours' reading. And even then, only what's newsworthy. Nothing about the boy himself, about his actual life, his friends, his thoughts. Just what makes the papers.

But he will love every moment he can get. Every little word. So he closes the box back up and stands with it.

Oh, right - "What was that about the scope, though? It didn't work?"

It's still strange to see Rosinante actually get emotional in a way that's not annoyed. Good, but strange. Soldat is making sure they remember this side of him next time they manage to get on his nerves.

They shake their head. "The fake-me is in the cabin on the other side of that wall. Thermal imaging should show heat through the wood if there was any. All that shows up is our lanterns." Not even their actual bodies, even though they clearly seem to admit body heat. Makes one doubt one's own senses, a little bit.

"There's a fake you?" he responds quickly, looking mildly alarmed.

The stuff about not giving off heat is a bummer, but it's in line with what he had guessed when trying to select the rifle that now hangs across his back. Dead things, after all, don't have a way to maintain temperature.

"Yeah, it's got a fake metal arm, so. Pretty sure it's supposed to be me." They give the wall a mildly annoyed look. "It's even the cabin I came in at. Assholes." They pocket the scope box and scoop up their own box of files, and a bag of vegetables while they're at it. "Let's start getting this shit unloaded, yeah?"

"Yeah," he agrees, albeit somewhat reluctantly. He's still looking in the vague direction of that cabin, but then goes to head toward the gangplank. He's got shit to read.

He also still has a few minutes to chat before their paths will diverge and Soldat hasn't actually explained anything yet. "How is there a fake version of you? Is it a spirit?"

"Like the fake Misty and fake Mary up on the deck," Soldat explains, following along, aiming eventually for the general store with the food before dropping the files off at home. "It's a spirit like them. Or whatever they were." Probably spirits. "I just didn't feel the need to haul it out of the cabin. The arm is heavy enough on me." It'd feel twice as heavy on a decomposing corps with their hair and facial structure.

"Oh, one of those." Must be this place getting to his head, for here he was getting paranoid that maybe something else was going on. No, just another goddamned shapeshifting spirit.

"Ho, you're right. Probably more of them anyway." Maybe. Hopefully it's all utterly meaningless, some dumb prank. Or the spirits choosing that strange method as a way to remind them that they're dead too, after the recent aurora. They could work on their communication.

They reach the end of the pier, where wood hits beach cobble, and immediately he slips and falls. It's a good thing the papers are in their box - that keeps them nice and contained, but he smacks his chin pretty hard on the box itself as he goes down, and just barely manages to let go of it in time to cradle his arms around his lantern. "Ugh," he grunts as he shakes it off and quickly gets up to his knees. "Smells better over here at least."

Sometimes Soldat wonders how in the hell Rosinante ever managed on a ship. Or in the military. Or at life. No one they can ever remember knowing has ever fallen down at much as he does. (How has he not broken every bone in his body by now, honestly.)

But they've learned not to mention it, or even to look as Rosinante picks himself up.

"Rather smell dirt than that. Or mud. The snow is going to melt soon." And that's going to be messy until the ground firms up.

"Yeah. Already warmer today," he notes as he stands, frowns in displeasure at the mud on every point of contact he'd had with the ground, then just carries on as he picks his box back up and keeps walking. Trying to brush it off will just smear it. He'll wait, get changed once he's indoors.

For a moment, he looks upward at the stars, again visible. "Sky's clearing more lately, too. Must finally be turning to spring here. How does that work if there's still no sun?" It feels like the days should be getting longer, but of course it hasn't been day in many months.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TEST DRIVE MEME #9

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

nope still this icon, the only possible expression

awww Rosi

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject