Test Drive Meme #1

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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

Comments

>:) excellent

[songmother]

The banquet was appreciated, and Sarah was entirely of a mind to feast. All this escaping had worked up a surprising appetite, and eating was once again a finer pleasure of living. There was even complimentary alcohol, which was definitely impressive - whatever operation they had going on here clearly was well organized and reasonably funded to afford such luxuries. She downed a shot and stood her ground firmly, assessing her surroundings and the people around her.

And then, there she was. Nicte Batan, in all her wrath and glory.

Of all the jin joints in all the world... Of course, the only familiar face in this bizarre and hostile place would be her former comrade, and until the Camarilla resurfaced, her greatest foe. A face as familiar as the last day they had served together, and the day in which Nicte, mother of Spree, was meant to be executed, ending with her own early retirement instead.

Her expression soured, the frustration and guilt boiling in her throat. And yet, in a way, there was something comforting, at least, knowing someone familiar and as powerful as her old foe also existed here.

Her eyes narrowed, "Yes, rebels against a powerful species that, if I understood correctly, want to hollow our bodies into husks for reproduction and enslave us. It is no comparison."

She had mellowed and become kinder and somewhat less reactive with her death, and come to terms with the consequences of many of her choices, but she was not ready to let a woman who, while admittedly more sympathetic than she would wish to admit aloud, was still a terrorist. Granted, at the moment, that was how their government at home seemed to view all of them.

[cynicte]

Of course she understands the difference but she points it out just to watch the old crone's careful veneer split a little, straight down the middle. That old guilt and anger in the curl of Sarah's mouth gives Nicte a shot of self righteous pleasure, every single time. Talking to Nicte should never be easy, not for Sarah. Not after everything.

"Calm down," she says, as if she weren't the one who started it, "We need to work out how to leave. Have you heard any other sisters?"

Though of course, they'd have no songs either. Nicte presses her back teeth together, clenches hard; pain flares in her jaw. "I don't understand what they've done to us. Why they've done it. If they want us to fight why take our work."

[songmother]

The pain she felt was stronger now, after death, than she felt in extended-by-sacrifice life. Sarah both loved and hated the way she felt things more intensely, and the awareness that came with such feeling. Before Tally Craven and her remarkable sight and loyalty was Nicte Batan - a prodigy inclined by circumstance and the fate of time to go a very opposite direction. Most of this, was of course, her own fault in every way. It would take time for a woman over 320 years old to appropriately absorb and comprehend this, unfortunately for the psyches of all involved.

Calm down, she says. Sarah resisted a derisive snort.

She exhales through her nostrils, displacing these complex, frustrating, and infuriating feelings - for now. This is quickly followed by an authentic sorrow that is tangible from her in every way. "I have heard the song of no other sister nor felt a presence since I woke here. You are...the first, and I did not sense you coming. I cannot -"

It pained her to admit, but what point was there in keeping it to herself?

"-I cannot feel the Mother here."

[cynicte]

"Oh," says Nicte, "Can't you?"

Was she always so caustic? Nicte thinks that this woman in particular pulls it out of her: Sarah Alder, and her black heart. "Now you know how I've felt." Being wiped out of a collective consciousness isn't so nice, is it?

Let her chew on that for a few moments; Nicte is reviewing her notes. She skims her own spindly handwriting, and finds something else she can throw in Alder's face. Pushing frustration onto her comes as naturally as breathing. "And these Sylphid– how do we know they're really our enemy? These people could be tricking us. Lying to us, recruiting for their cause. Surely you of all people recognise the signs."

[songmother]

How could Nicte's words still feel as sharpened daggers to her 'blackened crone's heart'? And how could she herself still be so foolish when it came to her?

While the other woman skims her notes, Sarah clutches her own notebook closer under her arms, poise stiffening, taking the moment to close her eyes, counting her breath. A furious desire to grip the other by the chin and set her straight was more of a feeling than the actable impulse she still possessed not so long ago. Maybe it was the effect of this new planetary alignment, and absence of her native stars - maybe it was the effect of death, rebirth, and developing an identity outside of the army, freed from the shackles of the Salem Accord, and with renewed sense of purpose, that overcame anger and loss as her predominant base of emotion. It could also be the influence of her most recent batches of cadets, who had much to teach her, as one stand-out student from a not-so-distant past had also done. It was probably a blend of all.

The daggers her eyes cast towards Nicte, while still striking and obvious, were not as sharp those she had just cast inwardly at herself while gathering her thoughts. And then, the flickering of firm, honest, but unfamiliar hurt overcame what would have, on their homeworld, been a flaming glow of wrath in her eyes.

Would our allies lock us in a prison cell and -
- Oh.
Sigh.

"Nicte..." Inhale. Hold. Exhale. What is your intention? "I do recognize them, and I do not think either of us can survive this alone."

Perhaps the fire in one's heart could be better directed towards a different channel than anger. Perhaps she was broken, and out of options. Or, maybe, she was learning to mean it.

[cynicte]

She's angry. Good, let her deign to come down to Nicte's level for once instead of remaining frost-like and loftily unavailable from the back of her high horse–

Nicte's teeth flash, lip curling, sneer-like. "I think that if we were truly alone, I could survive for a lot longer than you."

But if she wanted to spend her time arguing with Alder she would have kept the Spree a little closer; her gaze darts over her shoulder. For a moment, she watches the mill of the people around the board room. They make a strange group. Quieter now, brow still drawn, she murmurs, "You must be loving this. All these people who don't know you and all your history. Does it feel like a clean slate? Does it feel like more than you deserve?"

[songmother]

Sarah resisted the draw of pure anger - without biddies to hiss at those who disrespected her it was not as effective and here, served little if any point.

Be better than what inspires anger. She inhaled through her narrow nostrils. Sarah no longer had biddies yet could still imagine the voice of those who could distance themselves and direct her. As if such pettiness would serve either of them here. "You are welcome to try, but survival alone is doubtful." Good luck, b***h.

Why must you be so insubordinate, always, Nicte? "Personal feuds have no place here. We are all on equal footing. Any power we gain must be earned, and is dependent on unfamiliar planets." Look, she wasn't a fan either, and a competitor would be more useful than not.

Does her sudden lean towards legitimate humanity confuse? It confuses Sarah as well, but death will do that to you. Just as centuries of pretending to be an emotionless general damaged what would have been a fruitful relationship, it also muddles the ability to say 'I was wrong you were right, but I also have decades longer of dealing with humans than you - forgive me for not jumping at a change to trust hem. We can both see how that worked out.'

For what it's worth, this version of Sarah is ready to set aside all previous legal obligation and wage a war against any and all humans or other who threaten their kind. She had simply, perhaps naively, hoped for better. And yet, here we are.

"Are you aware of an alternative I am not?" To be fair, you have been before. Not that she is ready to congratulate you about this. Ever.

[cynicte]

She answers one of Nicte's questions, albeit indirectly. "You and I will never be on equal footing."

That must be made plain, and Nicte's anger even curdles briefly into real, tangible upset, but she gathers herself again instantly. She plasters another face on, and speaks in a voice low and firm, "I never thought I would see you again." It's a lie, but no matter, because those are Sarah's favourites anyway, "I was better without you, I always have been; I'm not going to start working with you now. I'll earn my power alone."

Got that? And even so she wonders if Alder feels the cavernous space inside of herself where her work should be too, but she is not going to ask. Won't let herself.

She's gone quiet again, her gaze unwavering. "There are always alternatives. I know that you're used to the world wefting around you but if you bothered to look, you would see. You aren't stupid, Sarah. Don't start acting like it now."

[songmother]

I never thought I'd see you again. Poison and honey - arsenic and old lace. She knew nothing she could say would matter - and yet, it was a trap she knew and would always fall into - just in case the end result changed. Pathetic, really. She should have grown out of this by now, after all these years. And yet here she was.

A fair ambition, and yet, Sarah could not help herself - "Did you intend to self-importantly gloat with pride, then? Under these circumstances? Perhaps I was wrong to place such value in your tactical expertise."

Aware she is crossing the line, again, Sarah is both 100% willing to be That B*tch, as well as fully remembering their past, and her near death at the other woman's will - this is perhaps detectable in Sarah's gaze, should Nicte meet it - what it was like to be a puppet on a master's strings, near death - and yet, there is a calm-based confidence that never existed before, in this vulnerably mortal way, at least.

She takes the leap. After all, what is left to lose? "I know you can."

Bullets for eyes replace whatever else she wanted to add. And she certainly had more to say.