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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Whatever small and fragile hope he'd held in his heart that the stone towers might, in fact, be Skill pillars faded into bitter melancholy as they came into view before the prow of the boat. No; of course they weren't. There was no Skill river in this place, no Elderlings to craft them nor coterie to use them. The Fool stood with a hand upon the hull watching them, and set aside his despair for now. There was work to be done.

He disembarks the ship with the rest of the patrol from the city tasked with exploration of the labyrinthine structure, and cautiously brings up the rear as they make their way inside.

Each twisting stone tunnel and unexpected dead end makes for enough of a frustrating experience for him to shelve his fears of ever returning home. Venturing down one corridor on his own, the Fool traces his thin fingers near the green glow of the power lines, marvelling privately over their peculiarity--but stops short at the sound of something sharp scraping across the stone further ahead of him.

All he needs is a bare glimpse of the thing, all rending teeth and deep hollow sockets where eyes ought to be. Eyes wide, he takes several quick, deer-like steps backward, before turning to bolt with startling speed back towards the others. "Wait--" he hisses to the first person ahead of him he sees, "there is something--"

Yes, there's 'something' all right. He has no idea what it is, but it has left an impression.

Edited 2018-01-05 16:43 (UTC)

This sort of mission is exactly the kind of thing that Kid's been doing his whole life, and he'd been among the early volunteers for it. The others in his allotted group seem all relatively well-equipped for their tasks, so it's a surprise when one of them comes careening out of an adjacent corridor at high speed.

"Something?" Kid echoed, glancing past the Fool in the direction he'd come. "What did you find?"

At his age, it is difficult for the Fool to truly look pale from fright, but some of the colour has drained from his face and left him looking drawn, ashen. He shakes his head hurriedly. "I could not tell you," he whispers and casts a lingering look backwards. "I mistook it for dragon bones, though of a sort I've never seen before. Then it moved."

Edited 2018-01-06 16:46 (UTC)

Kid frowned to himself, mouthed dragon bones because that didn't promise good things, and instead turned to look in the direction the Fool had come from, his yellow eyes sharpening and looking strangely luminescent in the dark.

"Whatever it is has no soul," he said after a moment. "But you're right, there is... something."

The Fool makes a soft sound of distress under his breath and looks back towards the way he'd come. "Then it cannot be a dragon," he says, but in that moment he sounds far more like he is attempting to convince himself of something, rather than state a fact outright. The dragons of his world were as beautiful and terrible and brilliant and egotistical as any human mind; the idea of something as powerful as that in this world, yet without a soul or a conscience (peculiar and alien though a dragon's conscience might have been), does not sit well with him.

"There were green power cables along the stone walls of that corridor," he goes on reluctantly, "but I am not eager to follow them into that beast's mouth. We should find the others and leave here, quickly, before it pursues us."

"No," Kid agreed with The Fool's assessment. "Dragons are indeed supposed to have souls. Still, I want a better look at it. The others are that way," he added, nodding in the direction he could sense the rest of the team. "You should let them know immediately."

If nothing else, Klaus was an absolute rock in any kind of crisis. When the Fool hurried over, tone and expression urgent, Klaus gave a short nod. It could be nothing. It could be something.

"Show me," he said, gesturing the Fool to lead the way.

The Fool nods quickly and turns, leading Klaus back the way he'd just come from--but as they approach the bend in the stone tunnel, the Fool's steps staccato to an uncertain stop.

The sound of heavy footfalls, shifting and scraping across the stone, reaches them.

He draws back a fraction, swallows. "I fear I am ill-equipped to aid you," he admits in a whisper, "should it choose to attack us."

Klaus very quickly put himself between the Fool and the source of the noise. It was moving slowly, steadily in their direction, keeping to the shadows now and Klaus poised himself in a defensive stance.

"Stay behind me. Can you spot any more?"

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.

The ...thing knew it had lost the element of surprise, but these were two soft meatbags (albeit one very large meatbag but that just meant more to fill its fathomless gullet). It sprung, claws outstretched.

It was hardly even a contest - Klaus was clearly at home in a fight, even against unconventional things, and in a blink of an eye a lance formed from his blood and he flung it with the sort of precision that would make olympic javelin throwers sweat. It pierced the creature from head to toe - it was dead before it even hit the ground.

On instinct, the Fool throws up his arms to shield his head and shrinks back from the monster as it lunges, but he hasn't completely obscured the fight--if one could call it that--from view. He watches the blood lance form, watches Klaus hurl it like a spear, and sees the creature hit the ground, blood oozing from both entry and exit wounds.

For a few weighted moments, the Fool remains stock still. Then, slowly lowering his hands, he looks in trepidation to the dead monster, to the one who'd slain it.

"...I suppose I needn't ask whether it's really dead," he begins cautiously.

This has been a difficult few days.

Fitz has been attempting to help, yet the technology is beyond him, and it does not respond to the Skill. He finds some solace in fighting, when he must. There are creatures in here that like the taste of humans (and others - the other species here are quite interesting) and there are only some of them able to protect others. He's far from his peak condition, yet he has trained, and yesterday? He found himself an axe.

It is easier, to manage when he can allow the wolf to lead. When he can live in the moment, of whirling blades and skull-crushing blows.

So he moves swiftly when he notes an alarmed movement in the small group. "I will go," he comforts the person without looking back. "Stay back."

Edited (what is English ) 2018-01-13 11:22 (UTC)

"I will go," a voice says, and the Fool's heart lurches, because no, that cannot be--

"Stay back."

Oh, but since when has what is possible or impossible prevented Fitz from defying destiny's every expectation?

Footsteps on the stone ground, the sound of someone making their swift departure from their group to investigate the danger, and the Fool comes back to himself. He turns quickly and takes fast, deer-like steps after him. "Fitz--!"

He hefts the axe, scenting that strange wild scent that tells him it's another of the unnamed creatures. He has a bite in his shoulder that aches, still, and it was some days ago.

Focused on the battle in front of him, he hears his name. It is not that which distracts him. It is the tone of it.

The familiar voice.

No... no, surely not.

He spins, wildly torn between hope and despair, because if the Fool is here then he is not safe.

"Fool!"

If he knew how Fitz worried over his safety--even now, even after Aslevjal--he'd laugh. What folly! When has he ever sought safety?

Surely not here.

He's stopped short in the corridor, a hand clasped to his chest, and meets Fitz's eyes with such painful, earnest yearning--but then looks abruptly past him, eyes gone wide with horror, and, "Look out!" bursts out of him instead.

The fanged beast has rounded the corner, its maw wide, and has reared up onto its hind legs, preparing to deal Fitz a sharp blow across the shoulders.

The Fool, as far as Fitz is aware, should be at Buckkeep -

He stares back, horrified and delighted. The other half of him, the one with whom he has a chance of understanding what occurs in this place. It's him, it has to be him, everything about him is entirely correct.

Fitz spins reflexively, bringing his axe up to block the claws. They are longer than his head.

There are--inconsistencies. Strange differences. Given time, the Fool will piece them together... time that they will only have if they can survive this encounter.

He flinches when the beast's claws connect with that axe, the full weight of it brought to bear against the lone combatant. Thwarted, it lets out a roar of frustration and yanks its claws back, taking several steps around Fitz as though seeking to come at him from the side instead. Its size makes it a slow, lumbering opponent, but there's brute strength in the tight cords and coils of its muscles.

Strength enough to overpower Chivalry's son, if nothing is done to aid him--

The Fool is no fighter, but what choice does he have but to try? "Give me that," he says suddenly and snatches a staff out of the grasp of someone else in their party, who looks at him in wordless shock. But the Fool is already darting towards the fight again, cloak caught in the air behind him, and skids to a stop to ram the end of the staff into the monster's thigh.

It's not a blow meant to injure. It's meant to distract, long enough for Fitz to get his axe into the soft meat of the creature's neck.

If any of this made the slightest sense, Fitz would be pleased.

Fitz's muscles strain as he holds the axe with both hands above his head, the weight of the claws pushing him down into the earth. It roars, and pulls back. He watches warily as it moves. He has the advantage in speed, but there's so much power there that his job is difficult at best.

"No," Fitz snaps, horrified, as the Fool moves forward. But there is no choice before him, no path in which he can tell the Fool what to do and have the Fool simply listen and keep himself safe.

Fitz moves even in his horror, battle reflexes and the wolf shifting his muscles without his conscious thought. The wound in his shoulder twinges as he swings the axe through the air, landing it true just behind the great jaw.

Blood spouts messily, revoltingly. It reeks.

It reeks, and now it is all over the Fool, who lets out an involuntary cry of horror as it spatters across his face and hair. On reflex he drops the staff and staggers backward--a fortunate thing since, in its death throes, the creature crashes to the ground where he'd been standing moments before. Letting out sickening sounds of pain, it twists and writhes on the ground a moment longer, and then grows still.

Panting, struggling to catch his breath, the Fool stares at the beast where it has fallen, frozen to the spot until it becomes clear it isn't getting up again. Then, wordless, he looks to Fitz and stares at him. There are so many things he could say--too many--and yet none of them will come to him now.

It splatters on the Fool, and across Fitz's own shirtfront and sleeve. He grimaces with the nauseating warmth of it, and ducks back at the great crash of the creature onto the ground.

It will perhaps give them enough meat to sustain them for a while. There has been other food provided to them, but meat is meat is meat and should not be wasted.

He steps forward to plant a foot on the creature's shoulder, its eyes glassy in death. He hauls the axe out once more and wipes it on the creature's fur, then turns.

"Fool," he says finally. "Is it really you?"

It's vapid of him. It's obvious. And a part of him cringes in embarrassment even as he almost hopes for the Fool to tease him. To make this feel more normal.

"Fool. Is it really you?"

What an endearingly stupid question. The earnestness of it brings a brilliant smile to the Fool's blood spattered face, and he manages a winded laugh. "It would appear so," he replies almost lightly.

With the danger now past, he's left with too much awareness of the sticky blood that now clings to his skin and hair. Shuddering bodily, he strips off his cloak and ruins it by towelling off his face and hair, near shaking from the need to rid himself of the stuff. Once he's as clean as he can feasibly be, he throws the cloak aside in disgust.

"Oh, Fitz, get us out of this wretched place. I haven't felt so vile since--" Abruptly his voice dies in his throat. He swallows, shakes his head. "Let us leave," he finishes lamely.

Edited 2018-01-14 06:03 (UTC)

Fitz breaks into a wondering smile at last.

He does not know what is happening. He does not know why he last left the Fool at death's door in Buckkeep - his own fault - and yet the Fool is here, relatively hale and hearty.

But the Fool is safe.

He does not know where here is, or how they can go back home.

But the Fool is safe.

"Come," he says, stowing the axe in the strapping between his shoulders. He offers a hand, or an arm, whatever the Fool might need. "There is a place we can wash, and I have a change of clothes and a few small comforts. Take what you will."

As safe as either of them are ever likely to be when fate places them back within close proximity to each other.

The Fool looks from Fitz's face to the arm held open to him; the weight that had been lifted from his shoulders the moment their eyes had met seems to replace itself now that the immediate threat has been dealt with. No, this is all wrong, this could throw the entirety of the future they strove to make real into disarray--this was why he forced himself to leave, why he removed the Skill link between them. It would be far wiser to put whatever distance between them he can manage.

"I have never been wise."

The words, spoken so faintly, are more for himself than for Fitz. He touches the remnants of blood on his own face, then seems to recall the faces of the other adventurers in their party, and comes back to himself. "Yes," he says, though he pointedly avoids taking that offered hand, much though it digs barbs into his heart to do so. "Please, lead us."

...no, the Fool fears him. Fitz sighs. When they have privacy, scant though it will most likely be, he'll speak to the Fool more openly. For now, with others around, he will do what he must.

Fitz nods at the familiar words spoken so softly. He wants to touch the Fool, to confirm for himself that the other will not disappear into smoke, but he'll accept it for now.

It is not far till the small camp that he and the others have set up. He directs them to places for washing, and for food. Firstly, he sits down himself on a ricketty camp chair and begins to clean his axe.

v. into the unknown!

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