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annexedmeme2022-07-31 04:43 pm
modaccount) wrote in annexedmeme2022-07-31 04:43 pm
Entry tags:
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?
iia.
(One of the worksheets she did, when she was learning to write, had a scarecrow on it. The little line drawing had looked happy. This one does not.)
She shakes her head and tries to open the door, pointing to the passenger's seat as she does. Move over, and let her drive.
my girl!!
"I am perfectly capable of operating a self-locomotor, thank you."
Never mind that he looks like he's one good paper cut away from death. Never mind that he's never sat behind the wheel of a vehicle like this one. Vehicles are vehicles, there is no paper aboard, and, most importantly, he was here first.
no subject
But there aren't words in her hands for 'self-locomotor'. Not yet, anyway.
no subject
"Why? No." Find your own, he's about to say, but there aren't any others. "You can't just— I'm driving."
Is he, though.
no subject
Kimiko nods again to the other seat. And then, remembering the way he'd responded to her as though he'd understood her signs, she adds, You can drive next time.
It's a test she doesn't fully believe she's making. So far, she's comprehended everyone who's spoken to her, but she hasn't tried to respond with more than facial expressions and vague gestures. This is the one time she's tried to say something, and her weary-looking passenger answered like he saw her words, not just the hands that made them. There's no way that could be the case...but she needs to prove as much to herself.
no subject
He could be wrong. This assumption might simply be his own common sense speaking to him.
At last, he sighs—an incredibly aggrieved sound, catching in his throat on departure—and begins to remove himself from the offending position.
"Fine," he's going, but he's not going to hurry. He's moving like he aches, because he does, but that's nothing new. Being shooed out of the driver's seat of something this cool, that is new, and he really doesn't like it. He likes even less that it's a sound decision.
"This is very presumptuous of you."
It's barely a complaint, grumbled on principle as he settles.
no subject
When he calls her presumptuous, she nods, shrugging in a yeah, you caught me kind of way. It's true - she's assuming he doesn't know what the hell he's doing, and she's telling him what to do. But they just broke out of a prison she doesn't remember being put inside. If hearing he's riding shotgun is the worst part of his day, Kimiko's not taking responsibility for his priorities.
Before she puts her foot on the gas, she points at the man's seatbelt - put that on. And then they're off, jolting forward as they chase after the other ATVs.
no subject
—Put what? Where? His elbow quotient momentarily increases as he stiffly twists and raises his arm to find what she's pointing at. After examination—a quick turn over, a shrewd but fleeting look—he dismisses the belt to hang wherever it will, and reaches for the neck of his half-stowed crutch just in time for launch to startle him into clutching it tight.
Were this happening in some other context, he'd brighten immeasurably. Hair flying all around, yellow eyes gleaming—he'd probably laugh for the delight of it. Not here. Situational diversion can only reach so far.
But he's still himself. So, some seconds in, over the alien whine of the engine:
"This thing really goes."
no subject
Kimiko nods, enthusiastic, in response to his comment. One hand reaches out and points at a number on the dashboard - it's a speedometer, or seems to be to her. If the number doesn't correspond to miles or kilometers per hour, she's not overly concerned by that fact. Whatever their speed, it feels fast in this mess of brush and branches.
And then she swerves hard to avoid a tree trunk looming out of the gloom.
no subject
They swerve. The trunk rushes by within an arm's length.
Maybe this should inspire Viktor to reconsider the safety belt thing, but it does not. It knocks him around a little, sure, and he slaps a hand down to grab the first solid shape it touches, and for one crisp slice of a moment his belly lurches terribly, but there's a quaver of nervous pleasure in his voice when he says,
"That... was a little close."
Ha ha, we could have died. (But we didn't, so it's fine.)
"I think I saw a switch for headlamps—" He probably shouldn't be reaching across to mess around while someone else is actively driving in treacherous and unfamiliar conditions, but she's busy. What if another tree comes while she's looking down? Safety first or whatever. "Aha."
no subject
So instead of finding a way to ask the questions she wants, she points to herself, then points to the man beside her, without looking away from the forest before them for more than a moment. Good luck with that, Viktor.
trash can clattering sounds, staggers back in
His attention is likewise on the wilderness ahead, the barely visible path winding out before them, marked more by broken saplings and flattened underbrush than it is packed down by feet. Perhaps animals use sections of it when no hover-vehicles are here to disturb them.
Peripheral movement turns his head. Oh, she's—
"You... what?"
His attention toggles between her and the oncoming trees, as if it's at all necessary for him to keep an eye on driving.
Maybe, "Us? Together?"
no subject
What she wants to ask would take two hands. Or her phone - but no one lets a prisoner keep a communication device. Kimiko's finger jabs in his direction again, and right after they swoop away from another tree trunk, she looks at him with an asking-a-question face.
no subject
Me? can remain a thought. Obviously Me, by way of You. Little flicks of his eyes as he computes, his attention fixed for the moment. It would be great to feel a sudden moment of comprehension, like a circuit activating, a true connection sparking to life... but.
"Viktor?"
Like he's guessing, like she's going to tell him whether or not he's got his own identity straight. It's a little strange to be half-shouting his own name; he hasn't raised his voice in a while.
no subject
It still doesn't solve the problem of introducing herself, but maybe they'll get to their destination soon. Maybe there'll be paper, or someone's phone. She's waited longer to make herself understood.
Until then, she makes another gesture - her wrist flicking in a circle, palm up - as if to say, tell me more. The ATV jerks as she ducks them under a solid-looking bough, then up again away from a bush.
no subject
That circular one, though, that's obvious enough. After his first attempt to answer becomes an undignified sound halfway through the first syllable, he rights himself and tries again:
"I-I'm an engineer. I design machines, and bui-ild them," was that bump really necessary, "with my partner. Uhm, machines imbued with the arcane. Are you certain we're still on the trail? This is dreadful."
Every swerve or bounce results in stiff jerks of reflex that would be made visually perfect if only he were wearing a hat he could clutch tight to his head.
no subject
Every once in a while, there are flashes of light somewhere ahead of them: other vehicles, maybe wherever it is they're going. Kimiko points ahead, in the direction of the last one she saw. As far as she's concerned, they're still on the way to wherever they're supposed to be.