Winter Test Drive Meme

[trpmods]

WINTER TEST DRIVE MEME
Application FAQ | Taken Characters | Reserves | Application

Welcome to the Current Test Drive for The Revival Project!

This game is a spin-off from the closed The Drift Fleet game. For more information about the game, including more details on the setting, please check out the FAQ here or the premise here.

A thread on the TDM will be required for all applications. Please view the FAQ for information about how this works. Any questions about the game please direct to the comment section of the FAQ as well.

If you are a Drift Fleet alumni bringing your character from the game, please label your character as 'DFAU' on your top level. Also, keep in mind you have complete flexibility on how your character comes here. They could be taken before endgame, after endgame, two years after, one year before, etc. It's up to you! If you want to completely restart your character, they're not considered DFAU anymore and won't need the label.

So go! Explore Agra 10! And, as always, HAVE FUN!

Thread ideas:

Winter in Temba and Sh'Ka

Winter has arrived on Agra 10 and with it its cold temperatures, sharp winds and, you guessed it, snow. It starts slow and gentle in Temba, but even such gentle snowfall tends to build up and over the course of a few days of constant snowfall, the city has been covered with a white, roughly knee-deep blanket - Unless someone actually remembered to keep some of the paths clear.

And it still keeps snowing. The cold is also causing some of the Shadowpaws to be drawn to the inhabited buildings of Temba in search for shelter. The further away from the library one is, the more likely it gets that they may share one's living space and bless anyone else living there with nightmares. The area around the library remains free of the shadowpaws thanks to the mothcats residing there.

Over in Sh'Ka, a similar picture has been painted. But being situated within all these tall trees paints a somewhat different picture. A more icy one. All the by now leaf-free trees are covered in a thick layer of ice, as are Sh'Ka's stone-carved buildings. The wind here is harsher than it is in Temba, which has been comparably wind-free.

Please try not to slip and hurt yourself while marveling at either city.

Explore the city Temba!

Here's a map of Temba and a bit more description of some of the buildings here.

Most of the buildings are run down and have clearly been abandoned for years; fortunately, the water treatment center appears to be working, but power is intermittent and unreliable. What used to be stores or places to live in lies in ruins, but there may still be something to scavenge among the rubble. Do you want to risk a swim in the flooded area that has turned into a deep lake that has yet to be fully explored; or does it draw you to some of the more prominent and partially restored buildings, such as the hotel, the hospital or the amphitheater.

If you are lucky, you might even stumble over The Deep End, the bar located on one of the mid-levels of the tower residences in one of the residence towers. Unfortunately no bright neon signs can lead you there, but it does exist.

Visit the spaceships!

That's right, there are currently several small spaceships sitting in the hangar. Not all of them may be around when you check out the building, as one of the pilots may be using one of them to fly over to Sh'Ka. But there should still enough of them around for you to inspect and maybe wonder about. However, only one of them will open its doors for you. Do you dare to step inside? Check out the protein paste or maybe even meet one of your crew mates?

The two currently crewless ships are open for anyone to step inside and have a look around, maybe even use for a nap.

Try the network!

Upon arrival, your character will have on their person a small, handheld communications device. Maybe they know exactly how to use a computer, smartphone, or tablet, and immediately blast out a text or video trying to figure out what's going on. Or maybe they're not so tech-savvy after all, and everyone is about to get a lovely shot right up your character's left nostril.

There be storms...

These power-altering storms keep ravaging parts of the planet every once in a while. No one truly knows where they come from or what to do about them yet, but one of them appears to be approaching. You have the option to find shelter in one of the buildings to wait for it to pass. Unless, of course, you rather feel drawn to investigate.

Should you step inside the storm, or even get lost in it, it will show ghosts of people you know and those you don't. It drains you of any super-human abilities and tries its best to keep you from getting to its origin. Are you going to try anyways? Or are you going to chase the whispers of people from your past? Maybe you will simply find yourself calling for help or stumble across another lost soul in need of assistance.

More information can be found here.

Wildcard!

You're welcome to use any previous test drive scenarios or previous game events as a basis for a thread/situation, or simply make up your own! Keep in mind that you're currently stranded on a planet with only basic necessities, but there is enough food and fresh water. Creature comforts, however, seem to be distinctly lacking. Quite unlike a gathering of potentially dangerous creatures to encounter. The setting is yours to explore and have fun with!

 

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✧ Premise ✧ FAQ ✧ Rules ✧ Test Drive ✧ Taken ✧ Reserves ✧ Application ✧
✧ Map ✧ Devices & Network ✧ Data Points ✧ Ships ✧ Flora ✧ Fauna ✧ Supply Requests ✧ Calendar ✧
✧ Activity Check ✧ Player Plot Suggestion ✧ Player Contacts ✧ Player Permission Code ✧ Hiatus ✧ Drop ✧
✧ Navigation ✧

code bases by tricklet

Comments

II

[quark_assassin]

It can never be too soon for Dustin to regret doing something.

In this case, it's installing a cat door into the side door of his shop. This definitely wasn't on the list of places requested by Lark, and he hadn't seen any immediate reason for why Salem might want to come wander around his neck of Temba - or, in fact, why Dustin would want him to come wandering around - but something about imagining a sapient animal stuck outside his door, pawing away at the handle and freezing to death because he didn't hear them, struck an odd chord. He couldn't be complicit in such a hypothetical act.

Also, it would drive him absolutely nuts if Salem decided he wanted to come inside and just sat outside his door, screaming, while he was trying to work. Letting him come and go as he pleases seems like a tolerable compromise.

This is what Dustin assumes is happening when he hears the cat flap clatter in its hinges. He can't check for himself; the scrawny teenager currently has his entire top half scooted underneath what looks to be a partially-deconstructed motor that takes up an entire quarter of the old storefront's main floor. Tools of various types, mechanical and electrical and jury-rigged from scrap, are strewn around his legs and sticking out of his pants pockets. A space heater's coils glow dull red in the nearby corner, and on top of it, benefitting from a metal warming plate, is a cup of hearty stew from the Diner.

He sees the movement of paws from the other side of the motor, but isn't at the right angle to look at them properly - otherwise he might've recognized that these white feet couldn't belong to Salem. It doesn't help that he's never actually spoken to the other cat before, so he doesn't know what he sounds like, either. Even assuming that this is Salem, this doesn't stop him from letting out a deep, long-suffering sigh.

"You couldn't have gone to the Diner?" Dustin groans in exasperation. "This is a workshop. Just because there's food in here doesn't mean it's up for grabs."

[quintet]

"I said I'd pay for it," Quintet replies, with what she feels is a justifiable tartness. Touchy, much? "What's a Diner?"

Although, from context, she can guess that maybe it's similar to a cafeteria? In either case, she's not inclined to graciousness towards this guy. And then he just has to go and say something actually interesting.

Workshop. That was where technology was built; alembics as well as architecture. Now you've got her attention.

"If it's a workshop, what are you working on?"

[quark_assassin]

Something about how she asks what the Diner is cues Dustin in that his assumptions might be incorrect. Salem hasn't been here for too long, but he knows it's been long enough to have discovered the Diner - it's the main place where the people food lives, after all, and one of the locations where Dustin's installed another cat flap.

He pauses, narrowing his eyes at the underside of the motor. Then he quickly rolls himself out on his makeshift mechanic's creeper so he can inspect the cat properly.

This definitely isn't Salem.

"...Who the fuck are you?" Dustin asks with an incredulous squint. Quintet's questions can wait, apparently.

[quintet]

"My name's Quintet," She says, with a steady stare. After a moment she flicks her tail from one side to another, as if to shrug, "Why, were you expecting someone else?"

Granted, the cat-sized doors were a handy thing to have, in a world that seemed to favor people with a higher stature and grasping hands. Not that that could have stopped Quintet, were she so inclined; only, it was convenient.

So maybe there was someone else to expect, not that she'd met any such person, as of yet.

"I'm new."

[quark_assassin]

"No shit," Dustin says, deadpan, though that curious stare doesn't go away; the Communications expertise is doing a weird thing where it's subconsciously translating Quintet's more subtle body language, and an even weirder thing where it's making him want to answer her back the same way. Dustin mentally slaps away the urge to mime a lashing tail with his arm, fortunately for both of them, and instead shakes the confusion out of his head and curls himself into a sit on his rolling bench.

"You haven't met Salem?" he continues, tone a little more level. Aside from barging into his shop through an intentionally unlocked door, Quintet hasn't done anything worth denying her information. "Black domestic shorthair, very loud?"

[quintet]

She considers this question with exactly the amount of dignity it demands, and then puts her ears back. You got a real attitude, guy.

"Not all cats know each other," Quintet tells him, with every sarcastic art in her possession, and then stands to pace several steps closer, "And since it's not exactly my priority to go looking for a boyfriend right now... Look, do you have anything to eat or not? I really am good for it."

[quark_assassin]

Dustin definitely understands, and is used to, getting this sort of response from people. Does it help him moderate his temper any?

Absolutely not. "What could you possibly offer me?" Dustin quips, gaze flattening like Quintet's ears. "A dead mouse on my doorstep? Hairball in my shoes?"

[quintet]

The hairball comment is easily parsed, and her ears would flatten further if they could. The bit about the mouse takes longer; it's an old aphorism, and devoid of any other context she can only interpret it one way.

"How about an attitude adjustment on your racist screed, then?" Her ears are up again, eyes wide and staring, a cat's death-glare, stiff-legged with rage. She takes three steps towards him and withno further preamble, slaps him, open-clawed, piercing right through the fabric covering his leg.

It's quick, quicker than even a cat's strike ought to be; the motion of a Jellyfish's nematocyst sting is faster than neurons, faster than anything else in the animal world. It is also, or very nearly, more painful than anything else. Nematocyst's Bite was a technique that mimicked that; it didn't actually cause injury, didn't even leave a mark, but the agony that came from the prick of a cat's-claw-as-Jellyfish-sting was enormous.

A distraction technique. A punishment technique. Pain facture.

"As if I'd ever kill a mouse. What's wrong with you? You just go around telling honest people to pay for their meals in murder victims like that's a normal way to talk? Are you some kind of idiot!?"

[quark_assassin]

Quintet's diatribe, warranted and punchy as it might be, unfortunately falls of deaf ears - Dustin is too busy screaming to hear it.

He has a hard time even thinking about what caused him this much pain, which is a notable abnormality for him. There was a sort of instinctive pang of fear when he saw the cat perk up and take a step towards him, the kind that he's felt after catching the glowing, alien eye of a Thorntooth after dusk. He remembers moving to stand up on instinct. Then, the too-fast flash of a paw.

It's like someone has attached the leads from a car battery to the meat of his knee and his toe. At some point Dustin ends up on his side, on the floor, curled up and clutching his shin and shuddering, though he's not sure when this happened and for how long he's been there.

"What...the fuck?!" he manages to croak between wracking sobs. "F-fucking hell!"

[quintet]

It's a little over-the-top, even for the nematocysts. Has this guy never been in pain before? He's behaving like... an animal. An injured one.

It's an alarming thought, and Quintet has to take a while to calm herself down. How hard had she hit him? No, no, it wasn't even a weight buffer, it was just the Jellyfish, right? She was sure of it. Absolutely sure. Maybe it's just... that the hit was clean? Too clean? Had he denied any of it? ...C'mon guy, even children have better Denial structures than this.

She looks at him for a long time, waiting quietly for it to subside, and the longer it takes, the less certain she is. Eventually, it starts to feel more awkward than conciliatory.

"You know there's no actual sting in you, right?" She tells him, still caught between a wavering concern and cringing annoyance, "It's a style, guy, you're not actually hurt. Look at your skin."

[quark_assassin]

With nothing to indicate that this is supposed to be just the implication of pain and not an actual injury, Dustin's brain accepts it at face value - right up until Quintet tells him otherwise. He doesn't even want to believe her. Surely this kind of pain can't all be in his head? Scowling at the cat behind a grimace, Dustin drags his hand away from his leg to check his palm, fully expecting to find it covered in blood.

It isn't, of course. Obviously. What made him think it would be? Like a lightswitch flipped in his brain, the pain vanishes, along with all arguments to support it existing. Dustin blinks the last few tears from his eyes, looking absolutely baffled as he continues to stare at his hand.

"...What?" he repeats. Abruptly he sits up and tests moving his leg, scraping his foot along the floor. It's fine. "How...?"

Realization hits, and along with it inevitable anger, because clearly this whole experience didn't make Dustin learn his lesson. "--You fucked with my head!" he snaps, befuddlement quickly giving way to righteous indignation. "The fuck was that for?!"

[quintet]

"That would be the racist commentary and the accusation of cannibalism," she replies, all sympathy abruptly washed away in a tide of arid sand. She takes one thoughtless step towards him, in emphasis of the emotion, her tail lashing with the annoyance of it— and then another, more deliberate.

He's a lot bigger than her, but she's never been easy to intimidate.

"Y'know, most people would take this for a learning opportunity. You want me to hit you for real, or what, guy? Because I'm hungry, and I'm tired, and I'm not putting up with anybody's shit tonight."

[quark_assassin]

Dustin knows that the pain wasn't real, and part of him suspects that Quintet is bluffing about doing any actual damage (or if she is, the 'actual damage' would be just about as bad as a normal cat could inflict - painful, might get infected, but ultimately not fatal), but he also isn't entirely sure that simply being aware of her tricks would make him immune to them and he's not super eager to tempt a live test to find out. The boy scuttles to his feet, back pressed against the large motor he was working on and looking a bit more pale than usual.

"--Chill, alright? Fuck." Dustin holds one hand out in a feebly placating gesture while the other sweeps into his shaggy hair, eyes flickering as he mentally goes over their conversation so far. The cat racism, yes, he can see that and her anger is warranted there, point taken and internalized.

On the other hand... "Cannibalism?" He squints at her, incredulous. "You mean...the mouse thing?"

[quintet]

"Rodents are people, you ass," Next he'll be claiming she isn't a person, because of their differences. This kind of bigotry is always the same; you start with one thing, and then it's ten other things trailed after, like ducklings, "Personally, I don't eat people. Nobody should eat people!"

Her scribe had been a dormouse, actually. With a pang, Quintet wonders how old CV is doing these days. She would just have to hope that his career hadn't been dented by association with her.

"Oh my god, why is this even a conversation I have to have? You're clearly not a child, you should know better! Haven't they invented manners where you're from, yet?" But she sits, still agitated enough to want a bath, but too wary to take her eyes off him. It's not his fault— or, not entirely. She's had a hard time of it lately. She's cold, and hungry, and lost in a strange place. She's looking at him now and seeing how scruffy he seems, his fear and placating gestures, and— Quintet sighs, and cringes down into a half-crouch; in an ape the gesture would be like pulling her hands down her face.

"Oh my god, I'm turning into my mother."

[quark_assassin]

Dustin opens his mouth to retort with exactly what Quintet is expecting him to say - they aren't, though - before he stops himself. Or rather, Quintet's diatribe cuts him off before he's able to dig a deeper hole to die in, and gives him some much-needed time to think. Her perspective really isn't all that foreign; all it takes is to accept the leap that, where she's from, apparently cats and rodents have cognizance equal to humans. Dustin has accepted weirder things since arriving here. Given that, he has implied at least casual murder, and now it's sounding all a bit harsh, isn't it? Shit.

Mirroring Quintet's own gesture, Dustin takes the hand in his hair and buries his face in it, pinching the crooked bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut. A couple steady breaths pass.

"...I think we've been talking past each other, a little," he admits with a sigh, bringing his hands down to his side and looking very tired. "Non-humanoid sapience is...unexpected. Mice are common prey animals where I'm from, and as far as I'm aware, cats don't have the capacity to consider the consequences of hunting and eating them."