test drive meme: january 2020

[modblob]

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

▶ Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

▶ All TDM threads can be considered game canon, and current players are welcome to either top-level on the TDM so prospective players can tag them, or use the prompts for logs or network posts on the communities. All threads on the TDM can be used for Activity Check.

a. nuclear fallout boy.

There is a mid-90s strip mall forming outside of Anchor.

Which is to say that there is now a Hot Topic next to the Blockbuster, and a little canopied sidewalk connecting the two. The difference between them is that the Hot Topic has an airlock entry and is safe from the radiation outside.

It's also not decked out for any Earth holidays, but it is fully stocked. Just not stocked with things that an Earth-based shopper would recognize as their "typical" fare. There are band t-shirts, with extreme fonts and symbols, but said fonts are almost cuneiform and the symbols are references that no one who wasn't living on Mars-15 in 1994 will get. The joke t-shirts are much the same, with cartoon characters, visual puns, memes, and designs that are, well, out of this world. There are bizarre earrings in standing cases, body decorations that might not quite fit a human, temporary tattoos, and random junk that cool fifteen-year-olds would snap up if it existed on Mars. (Use your imaginations, Anchorites.)

One thing you won't find in this store is advanced technology that serves any actual purpose. Sure, there are thumb-sized fart machines and little wall-mounted projectors that can decorate ceilings with preprogrammed holographic scenery (mostly starscapes). But none of it is any more useful than the keychain of that fat hipster cat with butterfly wings and bug eyes hanging from one of the displays. The cash register, which is the most futuristic thing in the place, is smashed to bits. Gotta get those Mars credits somewhere else.

b. looking kinda familiar.

There are little creatures scuttling through Anchor again, though these ones... well, they really are creatures more than they can be called animals. They're little blue-gray blobs of tissue, growing as they roll around until they finally split in two, both pieces then going their own way. Even though they don't have legs, the little blobs are fast, and many of them have no interest in interacting with the people of Anchor, and disappear into the ether never to be seen again.

Some of them, however, will single people out and start following them. The longer that little blob follows, the closer it gets, the more it takes the shape of an animal that represents the follow-ee's innermost soul or personality. The part of themselves that they hide away. As it begins to take shape, the person it follows will start to hear a tiny voice, at first just muffled sounds that could be coming from anywhere, but as the creature's form clarifies, the mumbling turns into actual speech. Clumsy, at first, almost like babytalk, but soon the little creature following its chosen Anchorite will be able to speak with its chosen person in full sentences. No one else can hear the little creature talk - only the one it decided to follow.

Keep the little bugger (or big bugger, if your innermost soul is an elephant or something) around for a week, and it will settle into its chosen shape, bonding to you for as long as you're alive. It can speak, listen, and understand, but you're the only one who can hear its voice. If this whole animal companion stalker situation isn't up your alley, though, and you're not feeling the connection, the little critter will slouch off to its own blobby existence.

c. creatures from the black locked room.

There's been a lot of exploration happening in that flooded area that Joe warned you all about. A lot of rooms opened, a lot of rooms explored and/or destroyed (thanks, Jacob et al. srsly). It's a lot of noise in a somewhat confined space. And something in one of the rooms is stirring...and done with being locked away.

Midday on the 20th of the month, the sounds of metal shrieking as it is twisted out of shape burble up out of the flooded halls. Thumping, rumbling, and eerie hooting noises are all muffled by the water at first.

There's only one at first, sloshing up out of the water and looking perfectly dry. Well... it looks like nothing, actually. A deep blackness that can hypnotize if it's stared at for too long. Long, dark claws that shine with a silvery edge. The vicious teeth in its shapeless head glow a pale blue-green.

Then another comes to the top of the stairs, and another.

They're perplexed at first by the webbing Peter Parker left to block off the hall, but a few experimental pokes with a claw shows that the stuff gives under their talons with only a little bit of effort. The three creatures slice their way free and move as a pack through the lower levels of Anchor, prepared to mob whoever they come across and tear them to shreds.

There's a problem when it comes to straight-up fighting these things, though: when physically attacked, they simply bounce back, when pieces are hacked off with a blade, each piece becomes a new, identical monster. The only way to beat them is with energy and other alternate fighting styles - magic, lasers, energy projectiles, etc.

Some people might be lucky enough not to run into them. Good luck to the rest.

d. the network.

Need to get hold of someone, call for help, ask the city at large a question? Need to ask a friend to back you up to take out the toothy voids? Maybe you need to hold your sat phone up to whatever crazy thing you're seeing and send out a recording to double-check if your eyes are deceiving you and what you're looking at is real?

Whatever the reason, the network is going strong, so feel free to include a post to it in your top-levels.

Navigation.

Comments

ANGEL THE SIREN | BORDERLANDS | ( crau, ryslig )

[circumspector]

i. does this make my hooves look big (closed to Jacob)

Jacob always put up with her very stupid requests or ideas. He didn't even tease her much more than she teased him about it - which is why when she found the store, he's the one she sent a message to.

With a pretty obvious bait: a picture of a cute hat that she found there.

For her part, though, hats don't serve much of a purpose when you have two feet of horns to contend with. But she did have a chance of lots of cute clothes that she picks in the haphazard way she picks anything.

Which he is immediately dragged along for. Holding up a skirt at him.

"Here, what do you think of this?" It's a barely-nothing bit of a skirt, too many belts and fringed with lace. Predictably something she would pick for herself. Not least of all that it should stay on her hips with a tail in the way.

ii. with friends like these.

The blob can't seem to settle, she waits, as she watches others takes form, and it's not that she doesn't bond with her own, of course she does, bundling it up in her arms, lowering her head to kiss the top of its head. Wrapping it up in with her and the other Reindire.

But it can't stay defined. At times it seems like it might become a cat, at times a bird, at times something bigger or smaller. In as much as she has no definition of herself, she settles only as what she doesn't want. An act of self-determination that only knows the shape she refuses to be.

So maybe it isn't a surprise that it settles on a bird, it is nothing beautiful, a creature that should not be that seems stuck together and too much. Something like a rakk of Pandora, something like a phoenix, as big as an eagle with huge hanging tail feathers and dark eyes that watch everything. A beak that could snap bones if it wanted. Pure white that shimmers.

But as Angel learns to hold it, talk to it, not questioning that it speaks to her because after all, she exists as a monster with horns and a tail. So why wouldn't it talk? They are most especially kind with each other. Her head lent to let it groom her hair, as she in turn runs claws through its feathers. Settled amongst her reindire, they talk. Even if the conversations might be strange, well, Angel managed to help give Krieg of all people instructions, so it's nothing really to her.

"No, there is nothing to worry about. We'll be free here." a pause, listening, and then - "of course we can. I don't see why you can't make a nest out of clothes and bones if you want."

iii. we're only as good as the mistakes we make

For all she is strong, able to kick in walls, she is still completely without any real experience being able to fight, and a terrifying, overwhelming rage inside of her bones that lashes out at her as it does others, it makes her mind go overwhelmingly numb with it. Not process that even when she lashes out, she's not doing anything to hurt it.

It is hurting her though. A great deal.

Eventually, it lands a proper blow, even with her speed, sending her flying, banging hard into a wall, hard into the floor as she drops with that density, but now - as little as a rag doll. She is after all, not very tall. Even though she is heavy enough to leave a dint in the wall when she thrown.

But it’s enough to snap a clear thought in her head. She has to run. Get herself out of there. So she starts to scramble away, as it chases her. Half on her hands and knees, half on her hooves, heading for a door that she slams open to throw herself down another corridor. Panting weakly, blood on her lips, bruised down one side of her body as she shuts another door behind her. Bruised and battered. Coughing up a lung and a mouthful of blood.

No. No more trying to claw that thing. She came from Pandora, she knew better. Regular attacks won’t work? Then fire it was.

Now she just had to get the strength up to get back to her dorm, where she had been keeping her guns.

[nothinglikefather]

He's not entirely sure what this place is- part Aladdin's cave, part pawnbroker, but presented in a way he's never experienced before. The place is dark, lit strangely to highlight wares that any tailor in London would be shamed to sell.

Then again, the little skirt she holds up has got a certain appeal.

"Is it a belt?" He asks, eyebrow raising as he fights to hold back a grin. He knows it isn't, because her usual clothes are shorter than his time period would consider decent. But it makes her happy, and comfortable, even though she seems to have forgone clothes almost entirely since they arrived here. Lucky old Connor.

"They have... are those dresses?" He says, nodding at the wall, and then grabbing one down. It's black, and red, and once more there's no small amount of lace. The style is vaguely familiar to him, but again all of the dresses are far shorter than he's actually used to. But for that, they've got the same appeal as the skirt: almost nothing below the thigh is left to the imagination.

[circumspector]

For that question, she gives him a soft thump with a t-shirt she's holding in one hand, an indignant noise to go with it. "It is not a belt! Just because you wear three layers all the time."

But she stows her T-shirt back on a shelf after she's finished wielding it at him.

"... Yeah, those are dresses?" She follows after him, taking the skirt off the hanger so she could take it to the dressing room with her. "I like the lace. Didn't they have lace a lot where you guys come from?"

[nothinglikefather]

He scoffs gently. "Three? Only in summer."

He knows that they are a sliding scale with Angel at one extreme and him at the other, Charles and Connor somewhere in the middle. But the truth of it is he needs those layers, for one reason and another. He recalls in the City he'd reduced them down to two or three, and with the general lack of resources in this place? He might pick up a few things, while he can. Even if t-shirts still feel like something you should wear as underwear.

He helps get a couple of other dresses down too, looking over them. One of them, with a pocket watch chain stretch across the front, and what seems to be a fake waistcoat, reminds him of the sort of things Evie would put together.

The pang is pushed back.

"If you could afford it. We can't get digital clothes out of a machine, someone has to make that stuff." He's not sure how, exactly, but he knows that you can feed a lot of people for the same money as buying some fancy fabric with holes in.

[circumspector]

"You're lucky I wear clothes in summer." and she firmly sticks her tongue out at him. Three layers of clothes? Yuck. Why would you do that to yourself.

Then again, she insisted she started on layer ahead of him in her fur.

"Make it, like, by hand?" she looks curious mostly. But a little shocked. "That's so much time. Did you have to make all your clothes, or just lace ones?"

[nothinglikefather]

"Am I?" He teases back, and this time he tosses the dress at her. They come from different worlds, and she has very different physiology to him, he supposes.

He shrugs, because while Evie probably knows this sort of thing off the top of her head, he's not a walking encyclopedia. "I think most cloth is made in factories now, but the clothes themselves? They're hand-sewn. All the different bits, put together I mean." Of course, all her clothes were made digitally, he recalls her explaining it. But not back when he's from. It's not sure about these modern garments, which seem so simple but so numerous.

"There are tailors that do that sort of thing. We don't make our own clothes. Well, I don't."

[circumspector]

It's very tempting to bite him, but he's busy, so best not to then. Even if he deserves it for making her go pink in the cheeks for the dozenth time.

"Tailors? But..." she just blinks, mouth open, pausing as she tries to comprehend. "Is that why you wear three layers? Is that why you all dress so fancy all of the time? They must be so valuable."

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob looks at her, stunned.

"I wear three, or four, or five layers because it's bloody cold."

He shakes his head. He's not fancy, not really. Fancier than a lot of people in the Rooks, because his family had money, they had good clothes, ones that were new, not just new to them.

[circumspector]

"Oh...."

She blinks. There is a stupid question, why doesn't he wear a better under layer? But from what he just said...?

[nothinglikefather]

He smiles, trying to ease some of the sharpness from his previous tone. "It's njt the same, back where I come from. Its like... like the City was, but older and colder and poorer."

He pauses, and then has an idea. "You know that room? With the illusions? I could show you London. So you could see what I mean, look around it yourself. Once we've found you clothes here so you look the part."

[circumspector]

She beams at that, her eyes going big and wide, "really?"

Because she tried, as much and as often as she could, to understand, to help to talk to them in ways that were more familiar to them. To help them in turn with the things that weren't familiar in terms that actually made sense. Unfortunately, sometimes, she just couldn't quite - grasp it. Misery, she understood. The almost pointless fight, she knew too. But sometimes it felt like something was going over her head.

"Okay. Yes. Definitely. But we have to swap. You show me London," particular, Lon-Don. Trying to say it exactly like he did. "I'll show you Pandora."

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob laughs, because the light in her eyes is bright and happy and full of wonder, full of eagerness and he can't help feel that spreading to him. London was a home, more so that Crawley had been. It was a beautiful ugly mess of a place, full of wonder and horror all at once. He can't wait to show her.

"Alright. But no skin pizza." He only has the vaguest imagining of what Pandora is like, as they've discussed more of the events and technology rather than the landscape. He doubts anything can kill them in an illusion, so Pandora is probably as safe as London.

"You've got a deal. Do you want to finish up here first?"

[circumspector]

"I'll ease you into the bandit insanity before we get to skin pizza."

That much what she can at least do for him. If he wanted to see how bad it could get, she can show him that too - but. Until then. Start him off somewhere a little less intense.

"Well, are any of these clothes kind of similar to London clothes?"

III

[abheirrant]

Never a fighter, Carlisle prefers to hide from potential danger when it comes his way, and as for spooky monsters whose only defining characteristics are their illuminated teeth, their sharp claws, their wild hair, and their utter and unnatural lack of all other visible features, he puts those firmly in the potential danger category. He's taken to shutting himself in his room, in closets, in anywhere with a door, and in this case, that surprisingly seems to deter them, sending the abominations chasing after easier prey rather than bothering to break down the barrier.

It doesn't, however, deter other creatures as one comes busting right into his current hiding spot: one of the corridors near the library. He darts behind a bench, crouching behind it as though it'd protect him -- it doesn't, nor does it hide him very well, especially when he peers over it a few seconds later. In good news, the aforementioned creature is less of a monster than the toothy abominations and more of something else entirely; importantly, a part of that something else is decidedly human. She's hurt, battered and bleeding and bruised from an obvious spat with one of the beasts.

Carlisle's gut instinct tells him to help, no matter how monstrous a person may be; he stifles that feeling as logic and common sense dictate he keep hiding, however futile. Several seconds of internal debate later, and he's peering over the edge of the bench again, his brow tight with worry as his gloved fingers dig into the cushion on the back. This is a bad idea. This is a monumentally bad idea.

But... she's hurt, and he's a healer. He's also a mess and barely the man he once was, but he's still a healer, first and foremost. He has a duty to the living, and his goddess would be disappointed if he chose when to fulfill that duty when it was convenient rather than necessary. He clears his throat, hoping that her injuries will mean she's not aggressive, and peeks over the bench again.

"D- do you need help?"

Re: III

[circumspector]

She's a wreck and there is no mistaking it. Particularly in that ancient imagery of something thought very solid crashing against something harder. Blood trickles from the corner of her lips. Her clothes torn. Barely even to hold herself up and she tries to crawl away to do what he did - hide somewhere until it passed and try to get someone to bring her her guns, or make her way there.

But there he appears and her big eyes are wide, taking him in the sensitivity her eyesight and other senses aside give her.

Then nods, slowly. "Help me, please. I can't - stand right now."

[abheirrant]

Carlisle nods in return, newfound purpose giving him momentary courage. "Right."

He darts from around the bench, stealing a glance toward the door -- whatever was chasing her hasn't found her yet and is hopefully pursuing other prey instead, giving them time to escape. But just in case—

"A moment," he murmurs to her, holding up a hand. He gets to the side of the bench on the far wall and pushes it in front of the door, creating a temporary barricade. It will have to do. With that, he returns to her side, looking her over. The look he gives her is not judgmental or surprised, but more scrutinizing -- he's assessing her.

"I am healer," he explains. "What keeps you from standing?" He's going to assume it has something to do with the bruise down her side, but there may be more she's aware of, and the less he has to find out for himself during the healing process, the better. After all, it's much harder for him to control restorative energies these days, given his undead nature, and he'd rather not have a repeat of what happened with Kieran.

[circumspector]

She pushes back, her legs parting, as she shows him just how bad it is - the bruising, the maybe broken ribs is one thing. But the far more obvious problem shows itself immediately.

The huge scratch marks that have taken down from the bottom of her thigh to mid-calf, scraping skin and tendons away. The blood leaking a torrent from the huge open wound. A visceral mess that leaves her gritting her teeth as she tries not to sob from the pain, give way into the shock of actually seeing it. Certainly, it had hurt, but she had been more focused on running, then looking at it. But not that she could - the smell of her own blood and how it drip, drip, drips onto the floor makes her stomach roll.

"This... this first."

Because she can't put weight on this, to say the least. There are others, scrapes down her arms, a bite on her arm, her shoulder. But none of them were as serious as this.

[abheirrant]

For as skittish as he is regarding monsters, the sight of blood and gore does little to move Carlisle. He nods, his glowing eyes taking it all in: skin and muscles torn, key ligaments impaired; punctures on her arm, likely a bite; minor abrasions here and there. Leg first, then ribs, then the arm if he can control his energies for that long. Get her moving, then worry about everything else. They cannot linger here.

Despite the blood, he doesn't hesitate to kneel beside her, figuring out where to put his gloved hands to quickly and accurately tend to her wounds. He rattles through his little spiel as he does, keeping his voice low: "I will get you walking again, but I must put my hands on you to do so. I will also inform you that the process of magical healing tends to sting, and can be a somewhat unpleasant experience, and as there are still creatures likely lurking about, please do your best to stifle any outward expressions of pain."

Monsters are attracted to screaming, right? Boy, he hopes not.

[circumspector]

The relief is that there is no pain he can put her through she has no already gone through. Whether it was the electric shocks of her collar, the wracking pleasure-pain of the eridium searing her body to a living death, to the fact that to enhance her they had to do test after test of cutting her over and over again from the healing rate of Eridium - to truly and finally dying. Pain? Pain is nothing to her. "I won't scream."

She will do what she does best. She will close her eyes, she will grit her teeth and she will endure the things no one is meant to. "Do it."

[abheirrant]

"Good. Here we go."

He can do this, he reminds himself. Do not push too hard. If he feels himself slipping, he must be willing to let go for the sake of them both. Do not make the same mistake twice, especially in an area where the only living thing from which to draw energy, should he find himself in a bind, is the person he's supposed to be helping. He can do this.

He places his hands along her hips, deciding that's a good, central point between her legs and ribs, making for an easier break should something go wrong -- not that anything will, he chides internally. To those unfamiliar with his particular brand of healing, the feeling of having foreign energies channeled into one's veins is less soothing than one might expect, and more akin to white-hot fire. It sears as it moves through the muscles and tendons, singes as he does a cursory inspection of her injuries; he can sense through the way his energy batters against itself where there are anomalies in her structure.

And this creature certainly has many of those -- not just injuries, but pieces that aren't a part of her original frame, bones that look as though they were altered well after they fully formed. Transfiguration gone wrong? Why would—

No no no, no time for that. Get back to work. He hones in on her leg, the bones starting to snap back together, muscles and ligaments reattaching themselves as though commanded to do so.

"Are you all right thus far?"

He asks less to find out, and more to distract himself just a little from those concerns still looming at the back of his mind.

[circumspector]

To say all right is probably a stretch.

It's searing in a way that is familiar and different. But the reaction is the same, her body drips with the sweat of pain, beading on her brow through the effort of clenching her teeth, in taking long but shallow breathes in a way that is familiar. Because there is a lot for him to learn, if he did, and the further he goes, the less it makes sense. Cybernetics put in at age twelve that weave metal wires like copper nerves between bone and sinew. The growth of bones remade, all magic that is dense as a stone and makes her heavy as earth. The sickly way her body is wasted and whole, wounded and perfectly healthy. Where magic, science and the things beyond the black of the stars have all lived inside such a little frame. Where she has died and come alive and been powerful and weak, over and over again to the point that she has given up even asking what she is, anymore.

What is most telling, perhaps, is not the sound or her scrunched face of concentration. But that she has gouged the ground below her in long claw mark that ribbon off the floor like a carving tool.

"Keep going."

[abheirrant]

Cracking his eyes open to see how his patient is handling the process allows him to see that claw mark on the floor, the metal shredded from it as easily as bark from an old tree. There is a lot about this woman that doesn't make sense, from the lingering magic in her bones to the artificial bits implanted for reasons he can only guess. As much as he wants to question it all, he forces himself to continue.

"Right."

He deems her leg as fully healed, the muscles and skin unblemished, as good as new -- better, if she had any injuries prior to this. With that, his energy recedes from the limb and moves toward her ribs, the fiery sensation going with it. One rib is broken, the bones cracking loudly (and likely painfully) as they realign and mend; another two are bruised, healed at the same time. There's a hairline fracture in another, so he'd better just—

Carlisle's body shakes as a tremor runs through him, his magic nearly escaping him as his undead body struggles to maintain its grasp over energies that counteract his animation; it is reflected in the flow of his channel as it flares, energy slamming through her like a frightened beast trapped in a cage. Though such a sudden burst likely gave his ward a shock (literally and figuratively), at least the influx finished the work on her ribs. Unfortunately, it leaves him relatively drained, and fearing everything will go horribly wrong, he withdraws. The energy retreats from her the way it came, out into his hands -- he pulls them away the moment he feels he can, his arms trembling as he murmurs an apology.

"S- sorry. Sorry sorry, I- I got the leg and your ribs, but- but I shouldn't- shouldn't tend to your arm just yet. It- it's not..."

He trails off. Pointing out how unsafe it is for him to keep doing the one thing he feels is his purpose in life is a unique kind of pain, and one he's still not sure how to handle... even if evidence to the contrary is right before him, evident in her now-missing injuries.

[circumspector]

It isn't at all what Angel thinks when the pain subsides so much and she can open her eyes and see for herself the work he's done. Yes, she's shaking, drenched in the cold sweat from the effort of not screaming in pain. But that wasn't anything she cares about.

What she cares about is how she reaches down and touches her own leg, feeling, not just seeing, how he has repaired the skin - to look up at him in complete amazement.

All the things she has ever seen, done, there was nothing like that.

"Wow," it's a soft utter. Blinking at him in a muted amazement that is more about her exhaustion that is less of a reaction.

But shaking her head to dismiss the rest of his concerns. "The rest, I can take care of, this is enough. Help me up?"

She definitely does not trust her own strength or ability to walk in a straight line, not right now.

[abheirrant]

"Right," he murmurs in return, getting to his own feet. His legs wobble just a little as his energies struggle to right themselves: those aligned with healing counteract the ones that animate him, his limbs stiff and reluctant to move as a result. He offers her a hand automatically, not even considering the danger generally present in his rotting grasp; he still considers himself human at times, despite everything.

"Have you anywhere to go?" he asks. "Somewhere safe?"

[circumspector]

"Connor." It's half gasped out as she tries to get herself together. But at least she doesn't need to worry about his grasp, there was some good things about being a monster, disease didn't touch her, affect her, so far as most of them, magical or otherwise went. "I need to get back to Connor. He's... he's patched me up a lot."

But once she's up, she takes her weight off him, leaning heavily into the wall. "He'll... he'll help."