annexedmeme | Test Drive Meme #1

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!test drive meme

Test Drive Meme #1

Test Drive Info

⇝ Test Drive Memes usually take place in a virtual reality simulation occurring in characters' minds that tests them for 'fitness' before they enter the setting officially. However, for the first TDM, it will be set in the real world and centered around the arrival of the first crop of extra-universal "recruits."
⇝ Test Drive Meme threads may be considered game canon so long as all parties agree to it.
⇝ Test Drive Meme threads do count for Activity Check.

Welcome to the Broken World.

You can't even remember how you got here.

All you know is that one moment you were in a world you were used to, comfortable in. It might have been a regular day or the most important day of your life, in the middle of a meal or brushing your teeth or the battle to save the world or the moment of your death. Whoever took you didn't seem to care what you were doing when you were taken, and now that you're here, they still don't seem to care.

You wake up after what seems like the blink of an eye, nauseous and dizzy but otherwise unscathed, possessions taken away, barefoot and dressed only in a set of plain grey clothing, like the most bland uniform ever imagined, in an empty room with empty walls and one single door with a small barred window and a single number printed just above it. The door is locked and cannot be broken by any means, you can feel your connection with any superhuman powers you had severed, leaving them just out of reach - you can feel them there, tingling at your fingertips or in the back of your brain, but you just can't get to them. There is no one to greet you or explain what's happening. You start to lose track of time, the only sound the distant ticking of what sounds like a massive clock.

Just when things seem hopeless, when you feel like you're about to go mad, there's the sound of a commotion outside your door. The sounds of a battle, or perhaps an infiltration gone just slightly wrong. Either way, when the door opens, there is a figure there with a hand outstretched.

"Welcome to the Broken World. Come on, we'll explain everything just as soon as we get you and the others out of here."

i. The Rescue

The moment of peace and freedom doesn't last for long.

Even while you're still disoriented from everything that's happened in the past few hours, the person who's just freed you pushes a gun into your hands. If you're familiar with guns, it's simple enough to use, with a recognizable safety and trigger, a magazine of bullets attached to the bottom. If you're not familiar with guns, well...the person who just rescued you will give you a minute-long introduction to it. Press this button, click this hammer back, pull the trigger to shoot. Nothing fancy, but enough that you won't hurt yourself or anyone else you're not supposed to be hurting. Probably.

After being handed the gun, the person rescuing you looks at you not unkindly and gestures for you to follow, leads you through a maze of concrete corridors to the entrance of the building. There, you'll find something of a small warzone, a battle in progress though almost completed, in the parking and courtyard area between several small, squat concrete buildings. There, huddled in the safety of the building's entryway, the person who just rescued you will point across the courtyard toward an encroaching patch of jungle and quickly explain the situation - you've been brought to this place by the Sylphid, long-standing enemies who will "eat your soul" and replace you if they catch you, and the person rescuing you is part of a resistance army intending to overthrow them. You're to make your way across the courtyard and into the jungle, where you'll find someone named Brycen, a blue-skinned man who will get you out of here even as the battle rages on.

The courtyard is mainly open, with a few benches and trees that can be used as cover, and there is a small group of Sylphid - the enemy, the people who took you and are now shooting at you, but who look like average everyday people - who are taking potshots at whoever crosses the courtyard even as they engage with the rebels. You'll be provided with suppressive fire from those same rebels while you cross the courtyard, but other than that, you're on your own unless you want to take the run with whoever else just got rescued.

ii. Race Through The Jungle

Once you make your way across the courtyard and into the jungle, you'll find Brycen waiting for you about a 10 minute walk in. The moment he sees you, he gestures you over and leads you a few feet further into the underbrush where there are a few All-Terain Vehicles parked in a small clearing. Shooting you a little grin, Brycen spreads his arms to present the vehicles, then heads over to the closest one. What follows is a quick explanation of how to use the ATV, a small hovercraft that can seat two. Brycen points out another ATV that is driven by a member of the resistance, and tells you that this person will guide you to the Witches Camp, where you'll be living from now on. But it's on you to pilot the ATV from here to there.

Well, you and your new friend.

See, there are half as many ATVs as there are people, and each one does seat two. Brycen gestures at the nearest extra-universal arrival and tells both of you to hop on. Now, you're both bound for the Witches Camp together, for better or worse. It's a long walk, so don't piss off your pilot!

Or overturn the ATV or crash it, because the path from the clearing to the Witches Camp is rough, without many trails or paths that have been carved out of the underbrush, something the revolutionaries have done to avoid being tracked back to their home. The ride will be bumpy, hover-vehicle or not, with a lot of swerving to avoid obstacles and dodging to avoid branches. Hopefully, you won't have a run-in with any of the local jungle wildlife, which can range from small, relatively harmless animals to lizards the size of small dinosaurs and wild cats.

It's a wild ride, but eventually you make it to the Witches Camp, a sprawling maze of low-to-the-ground buildings and markets interspersed with jungle for cover, and the rebel leading you keeps doing so until you pull up in front of Central Command. This building is one of the nicer ones in the area, and houses the Witch herself as well as the seat of the revolution. This is where all of the rebel plans are made and where new arrivals are put up.

iii. Welcome Home

Once you enter Central Command, you'll find that they've prepared space for you. First, you'll be led to the residential area of the large building and given the keycard to your new apartment, a small furnished studio apartment with a main living/sleeping area, a desk, kitchenette, bathroom with shower stall, and a walk-in closet for storage. Once you've been oriented to your new apartment, you'll be taken to pick your network device from an array of devices ranging from ultra-modern tablets that can fold into the shape of a phone to an equivalent of regular modern-day cell phones to magical tablets or books that can be interacted with by characters unfamiliar with technology. They'll also offer to alter your own phone or device to access the network, if you prefer that.

After that, you will be guided to one of the big board rooms in the Central Command, where you'll find a large spread of food on the table, ready to be dug into - all the staff at Central Command have brought food from home to share with the new arrivals. You'll also find notebooks and pens to take notes, because this is the official orientation, and you'll come out of it having learned pretty much everything about the rebellion, the Sylphid, how the rebellion originated and most importantly, how you got here and how you can go home.

This is where the rebels point out that helping them is helping yourself, because the only way to send you home is to commandeer the device that brought you here in the first place, and the only way to do that is to overthrow the Sylphid overlords.

After this presentation, no matter how accepting or skeptical you are, you'll be given a small stipend and set free to explore the city, linger around and chat over the potluck leftovers, go back to your apartment, make a network entry to meet other people, or whatever else you'd like to do. Want some new clothes? They can direct you to the markets. Looking to start learning magic? They can direct you to the Mage's Sector where you can find a teacher. Looking to dance your cares away in the wake of this terrible upheaval? They can direct you to a club in The Electric Heart that sells cocktails that'll erase all your pain for the evening.

Go wild. The Witches Camp is your new home. What will you make of it?

iv. Network

Once you've settled into your apartment in the evening, you're free to browse the internet and intranet on your new network device. Care to make an entry and meet the others in your same situation?

NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Layla's one of the last ones through, ushered into the board room - and isn't that a disorienting transition, from cell to jungle to town hall meeting in a matter of hours? - only moments ahead of the start of the presentation. While most of her attention is on the speaker, she spares some of it to scan the room, taking stock of both the physical space and the people who fill it, and it's in the course of this that she spots - that is definitely Steven, pen-tapping and nibbling his way through the presentation, and she loses the next few words in a wash of relief strong enough to make her breath catch.

Maybe she should feel a little bad for that, but it's steadying, knowing that there's at least one person she can trust at her back in this mess. (Two, technically, but given they share a body, her mental accounting leans conservative.)

Despite a moment's temptation, she stays where she is, taking notes in crisp shorthand. It's only once the presentation's over and the meeting's begun to disperse that she slips up beside him, linking her arm through his and leaning in to murmur, "You'd think caging a rogue goddess would earn us a couple months of relaxation at least."

Steven absolutely did not notice Layla. The angle was all wrong, and he was doing his best to pay attention, really he was, all of this is very fascinating and informative and probably very useful, it's just he's had a very long day and he's antsy.

So someone's hand landing on his arm makes him jump a little, but then he hears her and it's her. "Layla?" he exclaims, head swiveling around in surprise. Maybe some relief of his own, even.

And Marc is suddenly crowding up behind his eyes, though he doesn't take over, not yet. Steven counts that as a blessing. "Oh my days, Layla, you're here too? Are you okay?" He pulls away from her arm to turn to face her, taking her shoulders in his hands like he had the last time her appearance gave him a shock. He is not being very subtle, but then, who expects Steven Grant to be subtle?

Her expression softens slightly, and she smiles, small but genuine, because what he lacks in subtlety, he makes up for in earnestness.

"I'm fine, Steven," she says, and reaches up to give one of his hands a little squeeze as though to underscore the reassurance - see, fine, in one piece. "Still trying to make sense of things, but fine. How about you?"

She looks him over as she asks, quick and assessing, old habit formed by the knowledge that adrenaline can mask a multitude of ills - and while they've been still long enough for any adrenaline surge to have long since ebbed, this still feels a little bit like hostile territory.

His prison clothes are a little dirty and torn, and he's got a skinned knee from falling down in the escape, but there's no other obvious injuries. "Oh, I'm all right. Tired, obviously, kind of dirty, they couldn't even let us have a shower before throwing us in here, could they? No."

He does let her shoulders go, though, and takes that hand she offered in both of his-- not like Marc would, but like he's just holding it the way he would his own hands, up against his chest. "You have your own place, yeah? Where's it at? We should definitely know where each other are staying, don't you think?"

"Yeah," she says, answer and agreement both. Her fingers flex briefly, at her side and beneath his hands, like some small, instinctive part of her is prepared to grab on if any mass-teleporting aliens get any more clever ideas.

"I have an apartment in the compound here. I'd guess we all do, so they can keep an eye on us until they figure out what we're about."

She gives the number, easily offhand.

"Oh, that one's not too far from ours. Mine." Steven makes a face. Marc doesn't want to let on that there's two of them in this body in public, but he thinks that's probably a lost cause when he's out here. Still, he's going to try. "Come on, let's get out of here, yeah? You can tell me about how you got out of that prison place. Maybe yours was more exciting than mine."

Which is to say, Steven missed large chunks of it, since Marc handled it. Understandably.

She gives him a slightly-sympathetic smile when he pulls a face at the slip. That one, at least, is easy enough to mistake for a very different kind of verbal misstep, for anyone not already aware that Steven isn't alone in his head.

"Lots of running," she says, stepping away towards the door in silent agreement with his suggestion that they go elsewhere. "I've got to get one of those hovercrafts, though."

He comes along readily, switching his grip on her hand to just using one of his, holding it more like a normal person would instead of somebody who just likes clutching things close. "Right? Those were way better than the off-road things they had us drive to get here, weren't they? I wonder if you need a license for them or anything. Though I doubt they'd give me one, anyway. I don't even have a license in London."

"I don't think any of our ID is valid here," Layla replies, then grimaces slightly as she remembers yet again that she has nothing but the prison greys and what charity the locals have offered. "Or would be even if we had it. If you can learn to pilot one, I don't see why they wouldn't license you to use it. They seem to very much want our cooperation."

"Oh, I mostly meant I'm not really very good at driving. Marc mostly did that, right?" Uh. Like they were roommates! Clearly. "Though a hovercraft probably doesn't drive much like a car, I mean it's all floaty and everything. Are we going to your apartment or mine or splitting up?" Because Marc is being very patient. Kind of. Only not really. But he refuses to switch out in public, given the whole... hiding thing.

"We'll go to mine," she says. "It's not far."

Not that any of them are, she suspects. But she knows where hers is for certain, and it will be easier to talk behind closed doors, in a controlled space.

She gives him a little smile, slightly strained around the edges. "Don't think I want to let you out of my sight quite yet. Just to be safe."

There's a clear slump of relief. "Oh, good, because I really don't want to let you out of mine, either. I would have, you know, if you'd wanted! But it would've been kind of upsetting, yeah?" Also Marc really, really wants to hug her.

They compromise by Marc slipping out long enough to shift his grip in her hand and lace their fingers together as they walk, a more familiar way to hold hands, before he's left Steven back in front.

"Yeah. I get that." It's for both of them. Steven's relief, and the shift in grip - not a large change, but more casually intimate than Steven's ever really been - that tells her Marc's present and paying attention.

"What do you make of all of this?" she asks, tipping her head slightly to indicate a turn at the next intersection of hallways.

"Well. Kind of overwhelming, innit? Whole new world. Whole new universe, maybe. Scary magic people who want to take over our bodies." He turns where indicated.

Then, because Marc pokes him about it, he adds, "We really don't know much, do we? Just what the people here told us."

"Yeah," she agrees. "And there's no saying how credible they are. Even if they aren't deliberately misleading us, there's no way they're telling us the whole story right out of the gate, and we only have their side of it. Not that I don't strenuously object to the thought of getting turned into a pod person."

She gives him another brief flicker of a smile. "Between that and the claim that our only way home is behind enemy lines, it's one hell of a carrot-and-stick they have here."

"That's what. Well. Somebody else thought, too." He taps his temple a little with his free hand; there might be people in earshot, but not in their eyeline.

And Steven hadn't even gone there, at least not that fast, but then, Marc would probably say that's what he's there for, to be the trusting one. He smiles some, himself, though it's a little more sober than before. "Guess you two think a lot alike."

Layla exhales a quiet huff of laughter. "About some things, yeah. Comes with the territory. But it makes finding someone you can trust all the more precious."

She glances along the hall before adding, "Doesn't change the fact that for now, the options are go along, or take up living in the jungle. And here's where we're more likely to get some answers. The pythons might talk on this planet, but I wouldn't count on it."

"And after just coming from the jungle, I think I'd rather stick to places with roofs and plumbing and such, at least for a little while," Steven agrees with a slightly self-deprecating chuckle. "So I guess we go along with it. And try to learn stuff. Did you hear that apparently we get powers?"

"I did. Planetary alignment. Not sure how I feel about that." Or at least about the possibility that something might stick even after they've found their way home.

She can still feel her connection to Taweret, dull and dormant, like something glimpsed through frosted glass. Why would alignment with an entire world be any less lasting?

"We'll have to find out which planet each of us has, that seems kind of important. I guess we do that out in town after, you know, we get cleaned up. And get new clothes. They said something about giving us money for that," Steven muses. "I mean, I didn't have powers anymore, back home, so I guess this is more of a thing for you than for me."

"Hmm?" Layla blinks at him in puzzlement for a moment, then shakes her head, smiling slightly. "I had powers for a couple of weeks after living thirty years without. Figuring out something new will be weird, but I can deal with it. It's the whole being tied to a cosmic force I don't understand without any choice in the matter that gets my back up."

She pauses a moment steps slowing as she studies the intersecting hallways.

"Next left, third door on the right."

"I mean, that sounds like Khonshu and Taweret, to me," Steven points out. "Sounds like Marc, come to think of it."

(Hey! Oh, it's fine, I'm not mad about it, Marc. But you definitely are tied to me without much choice in the matter, and definitely I don't understand you.)

Marc grumbles something unintelligible at the tease. "Though I guess you had a choice in that one," Steven has to admit out loud, to Layla, turning where directed and stopping in front of the right door.

"One I'd make again," Layla agrees. "Every time."

She fishes out her keycard and taps it against the door to release the lock, with a brief mental note to invest in something more secure if she's actually going to wind up staying here for any real length of time. The door opens onto a small apartment that, if it differs from the one Marc and Steven had been assigned, does so only in orientation.

Steven had been talking about Taweret, but oh, he can see how she went to Marc, since he went all out of order there, didn't he. He can tell Marc is having a feeling about it, and he's definitely running out of patience. So Steven backs off to let Marc surge right back out to the front, now that they're inside her room even a little bit, so he can answer that by pulling her back into a tight hug.

She makes a small sound of surprise as Marc tugs her back, but doesn't resist, turning with the motion so she winds up facing him. She threads one arm around him, returning the embrace, and lets her other hand rest against his chest, warm through the thin and scratchy prison garb.

"Hey," she says, giving him a small smile.

Test Drive Meme #1

III-ish

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