archishellago | Test Drive Meme #001

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test drive meme

Test Drive Meme #001

KHU IODUAN; TEST DRIVE MEME #001

I. THE VERDANT SENTRY - Attention, New Recruits!

It's clear that all of the city's law enforcement is handled by the various branches of the Sentry: from Mounted Division handling street patrol, to the Aerial Corps provided airborne support for tactical and rescue operations, to the Nautical Branch undertaking regular sea patrols as the first line of defense along the archipelago's borders. But everyone interested in joining up has to go through their basic training program, and that starts today with a general skills assessment. There's quite a mix of attendees today, spread across nearly every race represented in Aifaran and including other Dreamfolk, but whatever the recruiter is saying is getting lost in the two chatty Igheeri who seem to think they're too good to listen to the standard welcome speech... time to interrupt by signaling the person in charge? Take care of it yourself? Gripe about it to the person in line beside you?

II. KIRIN RODEO - Place Your Bets!

At the end of every month, the Mounted Division of the Sentry holds their skills competition. When they're not on the field, their steeds are often the subject of much admiration from children and more than a few adults. Astride many breeds of kirin, some lithe and fleet, some stockier and stronger, these off-duty officers demonstrate their control and bond over the notoriously strong-willed and intelligent creatures with complicated maneuvers. There's a surprisingly in-depth system for betting on one's favourite to win the various matches, and just about everyone's willing to explain the odds to newcomers. There's only one rule: all proceeds go to funding of the city's charities. (Bragging rights on winning are still yours to keep.) Two bells ring loudly over the crowd - last call for wagers!

III. WE HAVE REGULATIONS ABOUT THIS - Munga on the Loose!

Munga are ill-tempered, rat-sized spiky lizards with a gift for camouflage, and whose venom in their spines and teeth is also highly hallucinogenic. And... they're on the loose. Fortunately, keeping them is highly regulated, and pretty much everyone in Aifaran knows about them, but loose Munga are uncommon enough that the reaction is more likely to be startled flailing at a hint of spines and skittering. Today someone's exotic pet has slipped out of their hands, and it's trailing a harness and lead as it zigzags away, prickling and hissing and going for the ankles. It's given a wide berth, except by those who don't notice until it's too late or those too preoccupied by something else. Hopefully the proper authorities have been notified to catch and return the creature, but maybe someone helpful can keep it from getting too far away?

IV. A SURPRISE WINDFALL - Officer, This Isn't Mine...

There was a loud thud as someone tosses a heavy bag from the window of a dilapidated building. Five seconds later there’s smoke pouring out the windows and your holding what seems to be someone else’s luggage. Opening it, you find carefully wrapped bricks of some very illegal drugs, and someone down the side alley is pointing at you and yelling. A mounted Sentry officer is giving you a rather peculiar look as well while he calls in the fire brigade. And among the people fleeing the building, there are five Kin’nal looking at you, wide-eyed, as it suddenly dawns on them that they messed up. Take your new prize and split before reinforcements arrive? Try to explain the mistake? Take note that the building is still on fire?

V. INTO THE UNKNOWN - Watch Your Back Out There

The sea patrol discovered the new irregularity a few days ago, reporting that it looks like a series of tall and jagged stone towers rising up from the ocean. It's incomplete as these planar-shunted locations often are, as if something massive had taken a bite of some mysterious city and then spat it whole into the seas of Konryu. Having been chosen as part of the exploration team, you've been working your way through the complicated labyrinth of stone tunnels and dead ends, searching for what the Opara engineers had enthusiastically described as a potential new power source. "Trace the green glowing power lines," was their (sort of helpful) instruction. However the lean, dark and toothy thing you've just glimpsed should probably be a more pressing concern... warn others? Take it on yourself? Pray it hasn't spotted you?

VI. WILDCARD - Because You're Not The Boss Of Me

Anything else that doesn't fit the above prompts is welcome, just keep it within the game setting please!

Applications • Reservations • Taken List • Game Navigation

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That's a very good question, and X is sure that if he had the time to answer, he'd have a very good response. But they're cut off by a shout, and then the shout is the only thing occupying X's thoughts.

The door's barred. It looks deliberate, which is an observation X really wishes he didn't have the awareness to make. It also looks heavy, so he takes one end of it and indicates for the other man to take the other; they can push it out of the way, and -- "Argh!" -- damn it, it's hot. X pulls his hands away with a sharp intake of breath. "Can you hear us?" he calls through the door. "Are you in there?"

Thump, thump.

"At least you're not deaf," X murmurs. He grits his teeth and pulls his sleeves over his hands, ready to try pulling the furniture out of the way again. "Ready?"

He brooks no objection to Klaus' defensive stance in front of him--what good would it do anyway? He's no fighter. "I only glimpsed one," he whispers from behind his rescuer's shoulder, looking beyond him to the bend where the monster continues to lumber in their direction. "Do they travel in packs?"

Its fanged muzzle protrudes from around the corner, and the Fool lets out a faint, involuntary sound of fright, before quickly clapping a hand across his mouth.

"Wait!" the Fool exclaims, then coughs again raggedly as the thick smoke irritates his lungs. He squeezes his eyes shut and coughs again; they can't stay here much longer, but--

"The case," he manages to say hoarsely once he's finished, "it's jammed into the latch. Let me try--"

Then he does something very peculiar indeed: he pulls the glove off of his bare hand and reaches it between the place where the book case is jammed against the door, and the door latch itself. The heat is almost intolerable, and the Fool's face doesn't disguise his pain, which makes it all the more bizarre when he places two fingers against the back of the case and strokes them across the wood grain.

Under his touch, the wood smooths, and seems to melt away from the latch in a way that has little to do with heat.

"There," he says raggedly, "let's try now--"

Valdis, desperately trying to mind her own business, tries to pretend that she doesn't hear the woman's command, or care about the issue at hand. She turns to see the woman, who is wearing a very inappropriate dress for this particular occasion. She arches a brow, stepping out of the way. The spiny lizard dashes on by, the lead trailing after it, but Valdis makes no move to stop it.

"Eve." Full names when they're not in the middle of all this. She double checks her own impromptu mask and starts up the stairs after him. By rights she feels she should be leading, but here and now is not the time for a leadership quibble. Possibly this guy has more training than she assumed. "You take the left, I'll take the right, yell if you find anything? Don't go too far."

Their best bet would be a rapid sweep, in and out before the fire could get any worse.

Valdis sighed, the hostility wasn't entirely unexpected, though she wasn't certain what she had done to offend the stranger, perhaps he was sour for another reason.

"They probably don't know."

It definitely startles her but the shove doesn't convince her to move at all. Aside from the force that nudges her off her path slightly--and away from stepping on the tiny critter underfoot--she is otherwise unperturbed. She blinks at the creature in the boy's hand.

"I see. Is it your pet?" Although as she asks that she's skeptical that's correct. The lizard is putting up quite a fuss

Great. Eve had just as many questions as she started with. But at least she wasn't going crazy about the green bit. She sighed, and folded up her own betting card without actually making a contribution. "And here I thought I'd seen everything."

Adaptability proved yet again to be the greater strength. Okay. "I can't even tell if they're supposed to be green. You been here long?"

The dance: amusing. The probably-venomous lizard: less so.

Eve pulled to a halt anyway, eying the new person up with moderate suspicion. "Not mine," she said briskly. "I'm not actually sure whose it is, just that it was running and I'm pretty sure the locals don't want to get bit by... whatever this is."

A grumpy spiny football, maybe.

Not at all, I'm afraid. It's quite cute though, isn't it? [It has a face only a mother could love. And a body with all those spikes but... it's adorable nonetheless! This woman sure is brave to be handling it without batting an eye.]

It seems to have taken a liking to you so perhaps it's yours.

"Would you--" Nope, darkly beautiful woman is going to be completely unhelpful, great. Eve saves her breath and brushes right on by her. She has a mission, and it involves the lizard, not the woman.

She's definitely going to have a piece of her mind for this lady if the lizard manages to get away because of her, though. "Thanks," she calls over her shoulder, entirely sarcastically, and keeps after it.

I can't say it's my first choice, either, yet it's still something of a reprieve. There's no sense looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Hmm... a 'swim suit'? Is that some form of underwater armor? I wouldn't have taken you for being a warrior at your age.

Valdis sighs heavily, then starts after the woman at a leisurely pace, the instincts of a hunter kicking in. The lizard seems to greatly appreciate his chance at freedom, darting around, trying to find a place to hide as bewildered people move out of its way. It's easy to track the woman, who seems to be moving at a fairly brisk pace considering her skirts.

The lizard circles around, charging back in the direction it had come from.

Oh good, it's coming back toward Eve.

Oh, hell, it's coming back toward Eve and it's going to get tangled in the skirts. She skips aside with a sharp hiss, and then flings herself after it. It's close enough that she chances a diving leap for the lead, hoping she won't crush the lizard and its spikes, but she'll take what she can get. It's not that big.

...If it's venomous, someone around her probably has an antitoxin, right?

III: Munga on the Loose

The munga skitters underneath a cabinet where it stops short at the glint of a sharp blade- well, sharp needle. Arietti holds her needle outstretched at the large reptilian creature, five times her size.

"Don't move!" she calls out to it, although her only response is a disinterested blink. It follows her movements as she slowly circles it. She can hear the commotion outside as people panic, asking where the munga went. She spots the harness trailing behind it, and starts to move for it.

She was just a little bit too large compared to its normal prey, which is why it hadn't attacked her yet, but just as Arietti grabs the harness, someone peers under the cabinet, startling the creature.

"Ah!" Arietti calls out as it bolts out from under the cabinet, with Arietti now riding on the harness, clinging on for dear life!

IV: A surprise Windfall

Things don't go quite the same for Arietti as they might for someone who was Bean sized. She cries out as the massive bag smashes into the ground near her, the gust of wind and dirt from the impact enough to send her skitting back several inches. She gets her bearings quickly, looking around to find out where it came from, seeing the flames picking up. She can't help but investigate the strange thing that might have squished her if she'd been even a foot closer.

Getting the zipper open is a bit of a hurdle, but after a few seconds of trying, she manages to get it open a couple inches, enough to slip inside.

She pulls out a cut-down match from her backpack and strikes it, using it as a torch as she explores the cavernous duffel bag. She's completely puzzled by these giant blocks. She isn't given a lot of time to explore, however, before the world is upheaved! Someone has grabbed the duffel bag, and she falls!

The match slips out of her hands and she tumbles off of one block, falling down the side and into a nook of the bag. She cries out again as she sees one of the massive blocks shift, and tumble after her. She puts out her hands in some feeble form of defense, but fortunately it gets wedged between another block and the side of the bag before it crushes her. But now she's stuck!

Valdis' amusment over the woman flinging herself at the toxic lizard's lead doesn't last long. She covers the distance quickly, snatching the lizard itself from the ground, ignoring the spikes. She holds the squirming, angry creature firmly, but without hurting it, as she watches the blond woman.

"You're welcome."

Edited 2018-01-07 00:09 (UTC)

In this case, the nearest person who seems vaguely Dreamperson-ish is a very familiar one. And he's predictably just as baffled by the whole idea, so he's not going to be any help.

"The real question is why bother betting at all. It's not like we'd even get to keep any of the winnings."

[ The picture of the girl that replies is heavily distorted, in a way that's difficult to imagine without like, instagram filters. It's as if she was an extremely tiny person who was very very close to the camera, taxing the lens in a way that it wasn't designed to be used. ]

Do you really think you were kidnapped?

III.

Marvelous isn't sure what a Munga is, nor does he especially care, and it's really only by chance that he's involved in this mess at all. Fortunately for whoever might be chasing the thing, it happened close to him as it went skittering down the street, and odd as it may be, there's enough for Marvelous to guess that someone's pet escaped, and it just so happens to be easy enough for him to step on the end of the leash as it slides by.

Significantly less fortunately, he's totally unfamiliar with these things and the fact that they're venomous, and unless someone feels like intervening, he is very likely to find out the hard way, because the critter is not pleased to have just hit the end of its lead.

V.

Marvelous isn't too invested in finding a new power source, but exploring new terrain sounded interesting enough. Up until now, it's been relatively peaceful, but the creature he just spotted not so far away might bode otherwise. He's a good enough fighter that he's not really concerned, but so far it seems like he's the only one who's noticed the presence of a threat at all. He taps the shoulder of the person next to him and gestures in the direction of the creature, quietly alerting them to its presence, and his intentions. His next nod is toward whatever members of this exploring party aren't so likely to be useful in a fight.

"Keep them out of the way."

Edited 2018-01-07 00:36 (UTC)

Eve is treated to a strange sight as she sits watching the Kirin rodeo: that of a tiny tiny person climbing up the back of the seat in front of her.

Arietti can't get a good view of the Kirin races from the floor of the stands, so she's climbing up to get a better vantage point. Outfitted with the spikes on her boots, she's a pretty good climber, not exactly skittering up the side of the wood, but she's up on the edge of the seat not more than a minute later. She pulls herself up onto the back of the stand and takes a moment to catch her breath.

Getting into this bag had been the worst decision Arietti had made in her life. First it was thrown out of a window, then it was picked up and flown through the air. It was a horror roller coaster as she was thrown around, dodging shifting blocks the size of buildings. At least once she'd been crushed against the side of the bag by one. Her entire body was sore, but nothing seemed to be broken.

Finally things calmed down and she managed to get back to the top of the bag. Fortunately, Naesala had left half an inch of opening when he'd sealed the bag up, and that was all she needed to slip out.

"Hey! Do you think you could be a little more gentle?!" She shouted up at the person carrying the bag.

It was, honestly, not aimed at her at all, but she was the one who'd mentioned the kirin wasn't fit to race, so of course she'd be the one to have to hear his sharpened tone of voice.

"If they don't, they shouldn't be keeping them." Frown narrowing as he stared towards the track, wondering if he could find someone to bring attention to the fact that one of their animals was possibly ill and shouldn't race, Rokuta shot a sideways glance up at the woman. "You don't seem eager to tell everyone they shouldn't bet on that one."

It wasn't a question, but he didn't run off right then, instead simply went back to trying to spot someone who looked official enough to bring this information to.

Away from stepping on it or maybe getter scratched by those hallucinogenic spines, not that Rokuta knows of the dangers - probably just as well, since he handles it with firm annoyance. Maybe why it hisses and the tail keeps whipping but it otherwise doesn't attempt to do much of anything.

"Nah," Rokuta says with a shake of his head, standing up and looking around, "spotted it get away down the street. Didn't see who lost it..." Which is far more annoying than catching it for its owner, because now he needs to stand around here until they come find him.

"No accounting for taste, I guess." Cause man, is this one ugly little lizard.

"To be fair, not everyone can see what I do," Valdis replied, not looking at him. Instead, she listened to her surroundings, trying to pick out small details and focus on them.

"I honestly don't care. If they want to waste money, they can. Besides, its not like the animal is going to die over it, it just probably won't win. I could be wrong though, its been awhile since I've worked with Kirin."

Familiar, good. After what was happening before she got here? This might be the happiest Eve has ever been to see Ezekiel Jones. "Charity, Jones," she says amiably, with a pleased smile that's warmer than the rodeo warrants.

It's been a long day. "Just think of what you normally do, and then do the opposite." This is more like teasing. "What are you doing here, then?"

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Test Drive Meme #001

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III

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omg 12 kingdoms <3 | III

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Arietti | The Secret World of Arrietti

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Video

Captain Marvelous | Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger

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:D people who know it

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