wildermemes | TEST DRIVE ※ 2

Entry tags:

test drive meme

TEST DRIVE ※ 2

TEST DRIVE ※ 2
The spirit of the Green needs defenders but the game of fate it must play makes it so that its plans are like a garden, always in need of careful pruning. Only certain individuals are capable of living a life of adventure -- and even many who are capable may not be the heroes the Wilderlands needs.

The only way for the Green to be sure is by providing a test -- and as far as tests go, this one's a doozy, because the situation is real. There are countless conflicts all over the Wilderlands that are in need of intervention, so the Green tosses you head first into one of them with no warning or explanation. During it, you may perhaps run into others like yourself, thrown in over their heads -- or into others that came to the Wilderlands before you. Either way, your only chance of getting through it is to work together with whatever other unfortunates you find.

Welcome to the wilds, hero. Good luck with that whole 'deadly peril' thing.

MICKEY, YOU HAD ONE JOB!
A powerful Sorcerer left his apprentice in charge of his lair, but the apprentice has made a mess of things. He enchanted a broom and animated it to do some of his chores, like filling a basin with buckets of water. After the broom went out of control and overfilled the basin, he was forced to destroy it, but the shards only turned into more anthropomorphic brooms.

Now, hundreds of brooms are pouring water into the Sorcerer's lair, the Sorcerer's apprentice has run away (and magically locked the door, because he's a coward) and you're stuck in the middle of it all as the brooms keep pouring more and more water down the stairs into the Sorcerers' stronghold.

This room is filled with the requisite wizarding accouterments (like a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling) and most of it is just replaceable magical tchotchkes, but some of the books here are priceless and one of a kind. The Sorcerer is a force for good and his careless apprentice has made it so important ancient books may be destroyed before he returns, ones that could help turn the tide against evil in the Wilderlands.

The Green whispers to you that the brooms must be stopped and the books must be saved. The voices tell you that the magic in them is needed to save lives.

Also, you kinda need to not drown. Because the water's up to your knees and drowning's definitely a thing that might be happening if this keeps carrying on. The door is magically locked and the windows are magically warded so that while water can be poured out through them, people can't travel in or out of them. You're trapped.

Time to start bailing water and working together. Things are starting to look a little damp.

STUFF YOU CAN DO
A. FIGHT A HOUSEHOLD CLEANING IMPLEMENT

The brooms can probably be destroyed permanently! Maybe. Possibly.

It's worth a shot, right? Aside from the destructive magic you might find yourself now possessing (or superpowers or magic weapons...) The Sorcerer seems to have been doing some experimentation with gunpowder, among other things. The lair has firewood, flint and other firemaking supplies. Also axes and other tools.

The brooms can potentially reproduce from the shards if destroyed but if burned to ash or if the pieces are fine enough it may be possible to stop them once and for all. But if you fail, well, you may find your problem multiplying.

B. MESS WITH MAGIC

The Sorcerer has a lot of interesting-looking books on magic. Maybe you can find something useful within one of them that can stop the brooms and help make some of the water disappear?

Or you may just accidentally curse yourself. Good luck with that.

(OOC: All magic within the books can potentially help somewhat but only a little. Otherwise, characters can god any kind of curse effects they like for their character that occur from reading the books or trying to cast magic: legs turning to jelly, their voices turning squeaky, characters shrinking, characters growing in height, etc. etc. Feel free to get creative!)

C. BAIL A BUDDY OUT

Sometimes the best thing to do is push up your sleeves, grab a bucket, and get to work. While you can't climb out the warded windows, the water can be poured out of them and there are plenty of buckets to use to bail water. Grab a new friend and try to form a bucket brigade for a very work-intensive and awkward first introduction.

D. THE FLOOR IS LAVA

Well, not necessarily lava, but as the room starts filling with water, the floating furniture might be the only thing keeping you and the people around you alive. Help the people around you perch on furniture and stay afloat. Save the important books if you can, too, but you may want to make not drowning and preventing others from drowning a priority until the crisis is over.

G. FREESTYLE

The situation is pretty silly, with wild magic, gunpowder, anthropomorphic brooms, and flooding going on. Feel free to make something up! It's a big lair with a lot going on.

OOC INFO
✦ This TDM is open to everyone. However, top-levels should be made for potential new characters only. Characters currently in the game should only tag top-levels.

✦ Potential players may use test drive threads as their log samples. However, at least one post in their thread must fit the requirements for apps, both in length (200 words) and in quality. If you do plan on using a thread as a sample, please make sure the writing throughout your threads is a good example of your writing skills and has some solid examples of the character's voice.

✦ Current players can count TDMs towards AC. They can only count towards comment-based AC proofs.

✦ Potential players can opt to keep these threads as game canon when they app in, or start over fresh, based on preference. The magic bringing them to the game universe can fog their memories, if players don't want their character to remember TDM threads when introing into the game.

✦ Apps open: 4/1/18

✦ The game has limited slots. Please keep this in mind! We've had a lot of replurks in the announcement plurk, but the game is meant to be a very small game, with only 25 slots total, and many of these were already filled in the game's beta test round. There may be only around 10 or so open slots when apps open to everyone. The game will have a wait queue if the game hits cap during the app round but please be prepared for potential disappointment if we happen to hit cap you wind up not getting a player slot immediately. It's not personal; we'd love to accommodate everyone but the nature of the kind of campaign we're trying to run wouldn't work with a larger game.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ ...He grimaces, looking back down with discontent written all over him. ]

Eeehhh... This is pretty useless. You can go ahead and make it stop, already.

[ He talks like Shuichi should obviously know how to do that or something.

They don't need a Titanic situation in here, okay. ]

[It's absolutely bullshit and Ouma is definitely taking amusement in this nonsense, but...well, he really didn't laugh. At least there's that. All Shuichi can do right now is cling to the little victories.]

I obviously don't know how to do that.

[Obviously. Give him a break. Shuichi lifts his head wearily, prepared even still to go back to hunting through the book for some kind of solution, but belatedly remembers as he lifts his hand that he's completely soaked. Water drips off his fingers and he frowns, trying vainly to wipe them dry on the armchair's upholstery, but it makes for a pretty shitty towel. He probably shouldn't try touching the pages like this.

But hey, luckily there's someone completely dry right here. Shuichi gives Ouma a dry look.]

Why don't you look for something?

Ugh... So you're gonna make me freeze and fix your mess? That's so mean...

[ His life is so hard right now, even though he stops sounding dejected almost as soon as he flips the book back around in his lap to search the pages more thoroughly.

This is so out of his league... For all of his messing around, he's silent for a minute as he concentrates on the book, brow furrowing. Some of these pages look sketchier than others, with less cute pictures of snowflakes. Ouma's not exactly an expert in other languages, but he knows a few things -- enough that some of these look like they're packing a warning with their recipes. Hm. ]

Hey, hey-- Just to check... You still feel like, super ordinary and stuff, right? All of your fingers accounted for?! Without any extras, either.

["Super ordinary," wow. Just go ahead and lowkey drag him, Ouma.]

H-huh?

[Why would you make him worry about that? For a moment Shuichi looks intensely nervous, glancing down at his fingers as if to check that there really haven't been any sudden additions or subtractions. It's only after that initial panic that he forces himself to calm down. If anything weird like that happened he would definitely feel it, right? Right?]

Y-you're just messing with me. Come on, this is serious...

[ At least it wasn't a nasty highkey drag. ✨Friendship fragment obtained.✨

Ouma does look a little more amused again when Shuichi legitimately takes the time to check his damn fingers, grinning as he rests his elbow on the book. ]

I'm totally not! But phew, that's a relief... It'd be waaay too gross to have to watch you cut off an extra finger or something.

[ He moves to flip over a large portion of pages altogether, skipping a whole section in the book. ]

...So yeah, I don't think these spells are safe for me at all!

[Shuichi grimaces a little at that description, but otherwise he just sighs exasperatedly. Yep. This is definitely the real Ouma, no weird magic shenanigans going on here. Just the person you'd want to be stuck in a flooding room with.]

But they're safe for me?

[More Ouma bullshitting, obviously. But jeeze, you make him want to try again with the magic shit less and less. Drowning is sounding like a more viable option with every passing second.]

Well, duh! You just used one, didn't you? And you're still in tiptop shape!

[ That's 100% how it works. ]

But I'm kinda getting seasick, so you should be my motor right now instead. See those stairs all the way over there?

[ Ouma points an index finger in the direction of where a shit ton of brooms are gathered and dumping water from -- the water level isn't too much better and it's definitely crowded with magical brooms, but it's higher ground that's yet to be eliminated. ]

[The flattest look possible.]

You could just swim...

[But he isn't really inclined to try the magic shit again -- even if nothing disastrous had happened, the snow certainly didn't help, and if anything it's just speeding up the flooding if just by a fraction of a second. Hell, maybe they'd avoid anything truly awful only through sheer luck.

So he sighs, slides back a bit more in the water, grips the side of the chair and starts kicking. You're damn lucky this chair is floating, dude, because these noodly detective arms would be completely useless if he was supposed to be moving the armchair normally.]

Do you have an idea?

[ C'mon, Shuichi, you don't want to legwork? That's such a detective thing!! Although not in this sense, generally.

At least Shuichi is (somewhat) reliable though, because Ouma becomes pleased when he resigns himself to it already. ]

The idea is for me to not swim, actually. Aside from keeping these books dry, can't you see I'm also wearing white?! It just won't work!

[ Because that's a legitimate concern.

He's looking down at the spellbook, flipping a page as he seems to be paying it more attention again. ]

If you can do this much, then maaaybe I'll have a Phase 2 for us...

[Knowing what Ouma's underwear looks like, that really is a very legitimate concern.

Shuichi, unfortunately, can't really see what Ouma's up to from his current position, leaning against the side of the armchair to push it forward while he kicks through the water. Progress is slow, but that's more the fault of the choppy waters than him just being super weak. At least the room isn't too big.]

Like what?

[He somehow doubts Ouma will actually grace him with any kind of useful answer, but he asks anyway.]

[ You can't have that esteemed privilege until you max his bond, okay.

Ouma wrinkles his nose for the briefest of seconds -- the real question is what they're trying to accomplish here, but Ouma's not quite sure of that himself. Naturally, he doesn't trust these weird voices out of nowhere, but it's undeniable these books carry usefulness. He wonders how Shuichi feels about their current responsibility via unknown party, and so he looks up from the book with clear mischief in his grin. ]

Someone's pretty stupid, leaving all this gunpowder lying around, right? So what I'm thinking is...we could just blow the place up! Boom!

[ Ouma spreads his hands out a little in demonstration for his sound effect. ]

Then I'll have the only magic books left, so they'll be in safe hands. No witnesses, either! ...Well, except for you. But you'll work for me and keep quiet if you don't feel like dying.

[ This all sounds more like a wild fantasy than a solution, but he's spouting it off, anyway. ]

[It's such an overtly awful "solution" that he doesn't believe Ouma's serious for a second, and he doesn't bother pointing out the lie. He just sighs quietly, leaning his forehead against the chair's upholstery in exasperation.

At least he gets to live in this absurd fantasy. He'll take that as a win for their sort-of-friendship.]

Why don't we just try blocking the door so they can't get in?

[That's a more rational solution than the magic shit anyway. Really, he should have thought of that first, but can you blame him for being a little frazzled? There are magic broomsticks trying to drown them.]

Sounds great! Then we can all just build a campfire and sing kumbaya while we wait out the storm!

[ Said with a bright smile, although it's already clear he agreed to that a little too quickly. ]

...Yeah no thanks, I'm not interested in sealing myself in here at all.

[ It's only a few seconds before he drops the sarcasm. But the idea itself isn't wholly terrible... ]

You should totally flip your thinking, Saihara-chan... Wouldn't it be better if these pesky brooms can't get out instead?

[Look, it's not ideal, but anything that at least slows this flooding helps. "Waiting out the storm" sounds like a pretty legitimate solution if the wizard or whatever in charge is supposed to be back eventually. If they can at least hold out until then, shouldn't he be able to fix this mess?

The chair bumps up against the steps and Shuichi carefully works his way around it to climb the stairs, holding onto the chair so it won't float away.]

We're already sealed in. Wouldn't that just trap them in here with us?

[If the options are "still stuck in here" and "still stuck in here but with a bunch of agitated living broomsticks", he thinks he'd prefer the first option.]

[ Ouma shifts his weight on the chair as Shuichi begins using less and less of it, smiling as Shuichi keeps it in place for him. He shuts the spellbook, tossing it over onto the steps first before beginning to scoop up the other books in his arms. ]

Without us! ...I mean, the rest of these weirdos, sure, but not us. We take over the hallway and lay low.

[ Ouma's not very gentle with these ancient volumes, dropping them flat with a heavy thump onto the steps as well. ]

You're probably thinking the guy who runs this place will fix everything, yeah? But aren't we part of the mess?

[ Grabbing the arm of the chair with one hand, he slowly shifts his weight to his knees -- then to just one knee, positioning a foot against the edge of the chair next. He's talking the whole time he does this, naturally. ]

So I reaaally wanna know...who does the detective trust here?

[ Ouma reaches his hand out expectantly, propositioning Shuichi's help to pull him up onto the stairs safely. He's kind of short, okay. ]

[That's a hell of a question, coming from Ouma of all people. Ouma, who seems to go out of his way to make sure people don't trust him. It feels like a trap. One option means he's completely naive, but the other means he's a complete asshole for ignoring what looks kind of like an olive branch, however barbed it might be.

Ouma reach out to him, and for a moment he just eyes that hand like he's deciding how it might be turned against him. Then he frowns and takes it, tugging Ouma up onto dry ground.

Which isn't to say he's agreeing to that plan, of course. He's just a decent person. One of them has to be.]

We'd still be trapped in the tower until the person in charge comes back. Aren't you just banking on him not caring if we abandoned everyone else?

[It doesn't seem wise to anger an apparently powerful wizard.]

[ Ouma hops onto solid ground with Shuichi's assistance, grinning and dusting his hands off on the front of his pants. ]

Who knoooows? I think it'd be good if we cooperated though, even if you're not my first pick from that other game...

[ Ouma starts collecting his books off the steps, offering Shuichi the spellbook back to carry. ]

So if you wanna try and make friends with the drowning raptor or whatever, I won't stop you! But I think these books are what the head honcho here actually cares about. Not to mention I'm super good at negotiating with these types!

[ He says this, even though he has definitely ripped out a page or two of interest.

But he's also full of it, so. ]

[It probably gives off some pretty mixed messages that Shuichi is staring Ouma down sternly even as he gets him up onto dry group and accepts the offered spellbook. But maybe he's just still doubtful. Would Ouma actually abandon everyone else? If the brooms were stopped on either side of the door it would presumably stop the room from flooding, so maybe this is just walking that tightrope between selfishness and basic decency. But it still sits badly with Shuichi. He can't help thinking that something awful could happen. Someone could drown with just slightly too few people on hand to help everyone. The brooms could become violent or something.

There's a lot bothering him here, but he instead looks away from Ouma to eye the doorway instead, tuning out the steady flow of broomstick passing in and out to examine the entranceway more closely.]

How do you even plan to block the door from the hallway? The doors open into this room.

[ Wow, so mean!! But Ouma's used to this kind of response at least, so he doesn't seem bothered at all by Shuichi's general disapproval.

Although he suddenly perks up at Shuichi's question, sounding more excited. ]

Oh? What's that? Are you considering my plan after all, then?

[ He doubts that's the case so much as it's just Shuichi being a thorough investigator, but like he's going to give up an opportunity to spin him in more mental circles here. ]

[Shuichi sighs, tucking the spellbook under one arm so he can try to take some of the rest of the stack off Ouma. If nothing else, they're getting these books on dry ground. That feels helpful.]

I'm thinking of why it might not work, since that's more likely to convince you than just saying it's wrong.

[It feels like there's no point in trying to lie to Ouma most of the time. He might as well be honest.]

Rude! I said I'd cooperate, didn't I?!

[ Not explicitly of course, plus his history of...lying...helps nothing, but he's going to be mock offended anyway.

He'll pass more of the books off on Shuichi though, giving himself enough of a free hand with which to grab at the back of the chair floating nearby the stairs. He's going to pretty inelegantly start dragging that up out of the water, which probably looks special, but he's got this -- he can drag life-size wax figures across a fucking campus apparently, so he can do this. ]

Which means you should be thinking more about how you're going to make your idea work... But since I'm so nice, I'll help you out.

[Nothing of the sort was said, but Shuichi lets it pass with just a long, searching look at Ouma as he's loaded up with more books. Is this actual cooperation? He can't help but second guess it, but that's Ouma's own fault, of course. Luckily, the situation is a bit too dire for him to overthink it too much. He doesn't think Ouma would actively sabotage an effort to fix this, probably. He's a chaotic little gremlin, but not to the extent of fucking himself over as well. Probably.

Stop trying to make sense of Ouma. That's a task that needs more brainpower than he can spare it right now.

They could try just barricading the door, but it would probably take a lot more than just the armchair to do that. And more troublesome, they'd have to block it all at once to stop the brooms from just barging right back in, and maneuvering that much furniture would take more time than they could probably just hold the doors closed for.

Frowning, he scans the room for some kind of solution. With his arms full of books he can't really help with the armchair, but at least Ouma seems to have that mostly under control. They just need something...

Ah. A thought occuring to him, he turns back to drop the books back onto the armchair, mercifully only after the chair is all the way out onto flat, solid ground.]

Do you think you could get the doors closed with all the brooms on the other side? At least briefly?

[He might have an idea.]

[ Thanks he wasn't using that or anything!!! Ouma looks at Shuichi with a raised brow, but doesn't complain because Shuichi at least waited until he pulled up the chair -- as long as nothing's tumbling back into the water, it's chill.

He drops the few books tucked he had under his own arm on the chair with the ones Shuichi's just dropped, crossing his arms as he regards Shuichi. ]

Pfft, yeah sure, easy. As long as you're reaaally quick about whatever you're gonna do!

[ He can't exactly barricade anything himself because he's a weak bitch, alright. Not that he'll admit as much, because... ]

I've got a deathly allergy to living brooms, so I can't have them touching me or anything... It'll get icky.

[ Ouma uncrosses his arms, shaking one of his wrists in dramatic demonstration of this fact as he looks over toward where the brooms are marching through the hallway and up more stairs. He doesn't bother moving immediately since it'll be a good minute before the window of time where they're all on the other side comes around. ]

[Look, he's a weak bitch too, okay? But he'll just take Ouma's words at face value for once -- the first part, he'll just ignore the obvious nonsense -- so he nods, face serious.]

I'll be fast.

[And he turns and hurriedly...wades back into the water. Bye Ouma.

He has a goal in mind, though, so he doesn't look back. All he can do is trust Ouma can handle things at the door for a moment. The stairs disappear out from under him and he has to start swimming, moving as quickly as he can though the choppy waters for the nearest window. Specifically, the curtain hung alongside it.

The curtain itself is a thick, heavy swath of fabric, but he's not particularly concerned about that right now. He goes instead for the fancy corded rope looped around the middle holding it open. It seems pretty decorative, but it's long and fairly thick and it seems like their best bet at the moment. He undoes the loop wrapped around the curtain, letting the fabric fall loose to drift in the rising water, and hurries to get the rope off its bracket on the wall. Luckily, it's just tied in place there. Thank god for small miracles. The rope comes off after a minute or so of working at it, and he kicks off the wall to hurry back towards the door and Ouma with it.]

[ lmfao what is this bitch doing

Ouma only looks more skeptical as he goes back into the water. Okay. But he'll shrug about it, cupping a hand to his mouth to yell an Encouragement™: ]

Don't slip and drown, Saihara-chan!!

[ Ouma would love to stand there and watch what Shuichi's doing, but he supposes he'll have to give him the benefit of the doubt as the brooms have mostly made their way marching through the hall again. If it's a flop, Ouma just figures that'll be more debate fuel to try something else, so it's whatever.

Casually keeping his distance, Ouma heads over to stand nearby the door, relaxing against the wall slightly as he waits for the right moment. He looks over to find where Shuichi is during this, of course, squinting at what he's doing with the curtain.

...Oh. That might work.

Suddenly grinning over all this as the final broom fucking finally gets out of the way, Ouma jumps at the opportunity to grab at the door handles and start pulling them shut. They're kind of heavy, as the doors are on the bigger side, so he understands why Shuichi had him do this -- he'll have them closed by the time Shuichi gets back. Hopefully the brooms are too stupidly programmed with their task to pay attention to these kinds of variables immediately!! ]

TEST DRIVE ※ 2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)