sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #4

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TEST DRIVE MEME #4

1. you will survive being bested

[you wake up.

it doesn't matter where you were before. going to bed? dying? opening the door to face a great evil? same result. you wake up in a soft bed with starched sheets in a cool, darkened room, sunlight peeking out from behind thick curtains. maybe you're alone; maybe you aren't. maybe you immediately notice the folded paper on the bedside table near your head. if you don't, you better fix that real quick: you won't be able to even open the door before you read it.

the note itself is written in a neat hand on white card stock; there is a stylized logo of a ship with the words SERENA ETERNA printed underneath. the note reads as follows:

Dear Passenger(s),

As your cruise director, it is my great honor to welcome you aboard the Serena Eterna, your destination for fun and adventure! We know you could have chosen any cruise line for your vacation, and we're very grateful you chose ours! On behalf of the Captain, I would like to assure each and every passenger that will we do whatever it takes to fulfill all your needs and desires during your journey with us.

At your earliest possible convenience, please attend the mandatory lifeboat drill by the end of the day. I'm sure everyone is very eager to get started on all the fun and sun, but safety always comes first! You can find your life jacket in your cabin's closet; carry it to your assigned muster station on deck one, where I will take you through the drill. If you can't find me in the crowd, just look for the gal with the winning smile!

See You Real Soon!

Sincerely,
Gal Friday

you walk to deck one. you have no other choice: every time you try to step in a direction some unseen being considers "not towards deck one," you find your legs no longer move, staying stock still, frozen. whether compelled quickly by curiosity, or delayed by pure stubbornness, the result is the same, and you are left milling around with other similarly curious or stubborn people.

you see someone in uniform near the front of the crowd. she seems to be a gal, but is missing the winning smile, along with most of her other features. she seems to see you, though, rushing to your side and placing a lei around your neck with great formality. a voice, cheery but artificial, sees to come from nowhere and everywhere.]

Welcome! We're... I'm very glad to have you aboard!

[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.

after the drill is completed, you are seemingly free to go. or, well, your legs work, now. and maybe that's as good as it's gonna get.]

2. think about how many times I have fallen

[for the most part, no one has given the elevators much thought. they've all done their job reliably and dutifully this entire time, never so much as being blocked off for maintenance.

until today, when the doors close behind you as you enter, and don't open again.

for the most part, that's all that happens. the doors can't be pried open, or broken with force or magic, and though the glass walls remain stubbornly shatterproof, you can look through them and try to get the attention of anyone outside. (Friday, down in the atrium, sees your desperately pounding fists and gives a wave, but does nothing else.) the elevators don't move... except, when they do. going up two or three stories, and then dropping, sometimes as many as five stories at a time, stopping just as suddenly.]

3. it was the easiest thing to do

["physically assaulting people is an easy way to get attention" was probably a very bad lesson for the neglected locations to have learned, but it they did it anyway.

this time, it's the sushi restaurant on the promenade, Mikabo. it turns out, the conveyor belt can go faster than one would assume. much faster, actually, with the apparently ability to stop on a dime. both of these factors have combined to create what is functionally a pitching machine, but for dragon rolls, wads of wasabi paste, and exceedingly sharp steak knives, all of which are being aimed at anyone foolish enough to walk by the doors of the restaurant without coming in.

its aim, at the very least, doesn't seem to be the best. for now. because it very much seems like it's getting better.]

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Ever been so paranoid about one specific thing happening that it totally blinds you to literally everything else? Yeah that's what's happening to Pratt. He's only been here a few days, and he hasn't seen any evidence of the cult, of the bunker or of Jacob. But he's still so convinced that at any moment all of that may appear, the worry that he might turn a corner and...

Be stabbed by a guy with a sword.

Pratt backpedals immediately, looking down at the blood seeping through his Deputy uniform, but he doesn't really react other than that, he doesn't even clamp a hand over the wound to staunch the bleeding.

Instead he looks at this leather clad... biker? A biker brandishing a sword?

"Do you have a sword?" because people from Hope County, Montana have sawblade shooters, shovel launchers and flame throwers. But the last time he'd seen a sword had been some teenagers who got lost in the woods trying to reenact some anime.

What's an anime.

Izzy isn't worried for a second as his blade sinks through flesh and cloth. He drives it right on in before pulling back to put distance between them in the immediate, and give him enough time to think and prepare for the response of his opponent.

The man has on some kind of mysterious uniform and seems entirely blasé about the whole (hole) situation, which is the confirmation Izzy needs to decide that, even with a face, this man is part of the ship's ghostly crew and therefore an enemy.

Yes, he does have a sword.

No, he does not want to natter with phantoms.

Pratt doesn't make the move to engage and so Izzy does it for him, tightening the grip on his weapon before lunging in with a snarl for a second go.

Well that answers the question for him, it had been rhetorical anyway, but he'd hoped for some sort of an answer. None is forthcoming, but hey, more sword is!

Pratt may not be reacting to that first wound but it definitely hurts, and he would like to avoid a second source of aeration for his abdomen that he has to stitch up later. He dodges to the side, twisting to avoid the point of the blade. He almost gets hit anyway because he's used to fighting with guns and knives not swords and isn't great at judging that distance.

Speaking of knives, he has one now, pulled from his belt and clearly a steak knife from the buffet. It's not the greatest, but he is holding it like he knows how to use it and is deadly serious in his stance as he backs off.

"I don't want to do this. I've been here two days and haven't had to kill anyone and I don't want to kill anyone. I really don't." His stare is unblinking, focused not on Izzy's eyes, but on perceived weak points, picking out where he could stab to cause the man to bleed out. "But I will. I will cull the herd if you make me."

He finally makes eye contact, and if Izzy has ever seen anyone on the verge of insanity this will be a familiar look, "Please don't make me."

The air shifts like a breath of cold before the first spark of a flint.

This man Izzy has stabbed arms himself, and between the pleading and the look in his eye, it's something like being put into a cage with a wild animal.

He knows this look very well. Half crazed and on the brink. One little puff of smoke could break him.

And this man hasn't done anything to warrant death by Izzy's hand when he's clearly in the same position. So now there's an opportunity, here. And if it can put someone beholden to him, then mercy is the right choice. For that reason and that reason alone he lowers his blade.

"Easy. I believe we've had a misunderstanding." Voice quiet but stressed, kept down as not to alert anyone. This is a stealth operation after all.

"Thought you was one of those faceless ghost crew."

He waits a few seconds after Izzy lowers the sword before he follows suit, far too paranoid to be trusting that this isn't a trap and he's about to be skewered again. Taking a few steps back so he's out of lunging distance, he holds the knife at his side, but doesn't tuck it back into his belt. Not yet.

"The.. The ghosts?" He blinks. The confusion seems to have knocked him back into being this side of lucid. He shakes his head, "You don't see them. They're invisible."

You know, like ghosts.

Almost as an afterthought he clenches his fist and pushes it against the wound in his stomach, finally seeming to acknowledge that injury. "Ghosts don't bleed."

"I can see that now, yeah," a bit glib as annoyance runs through him in parallel with his next steps.

He gives the man a once over. It's not a bad stop to be stabbed if you're going to be run through. Actually quite a poor aim on is part. Nothing vital was hit at all there on the far side. Probably. He has very little understanding of internal physiology.

Is there a doctor I can take you to, any sane person would ask.

"I'm looking for someone," he say instead. "His name is Edward. Long hair, goes by Blackbeard. Have you seen him? Hangs about with a dandy fop called Stede Bonnet."

"I've only been here a day, the only other person I've seen is Sharky and he's probably by the pool somewhere." Pratt pulls his hand away and flicks the blood onto the floor away from both of them. He'll have to stitch that up and clean it later. At least he has a shower, though he hasn't actually realized that he doesn't have a needle or thread. Maybe he'll steal a stapler from the atrium desk.

Either way that's a problem for future Pratt, who is just going to walk around bleeding internally for a while because he's sorta used to that.

"The ghosts restock the food and stuff, they don't really interact with people. Or they haven't that I've seen. Which.. I guess I wouldn't because they're invisible."

A pause.

"Blackbeard like the pirate?"

The thing to do here would be to take pity on the poor wretch and send him below into the belly of this monstrous ship to see the good Dr. Watson he'd met earlier. Disappointing as it is to find out that this man knows nothing useful, there still may be an opportunity to collect a little back up.

"Blackbeard the pirate," he confirms, but there's no further point in going down this path if he hasn't met anyone. And unless Ed has completely gone off the deep end, which is possible, he's assuming he isn't now going by the ridiculous moniker of Sharky. Time to pivot.

"What's your name, friend?"

"Oh I get it. You're a pirate." Looking over at Izzy again, taking in the leather, the sword, the fuck everyone attitude. "Not a biker or a weird otaku."

Biker with a sword didn't make much sense to begin with, but it's a little hard to think straight when you've just been stabbed. No matter how many times Jacob tried, Pratt just wasn't great at making coherent decisions while bleeding out. Weak. But now he realizes that Izzy is a weird pirate ren-faire LARPer things fall into place a bit better.

"Deputy Pratt." He says as if Deputy is his first name rather than his profession. "Haven't seen anyone else pirate looking."

Please for the love of god explain to him one day what the fuck a LARPer is.

Also a biker. He would rather fancy a motorbike.

"That's a pity, my captain is onboard somewhere," said as he moves in and offers his hand to shake.

"You ought to see someone about that hole. I met a doctor earlier. I could take you to him."

For a price, of course, but he doesn't want money. He doesn't think Deputy has any. What he wants is loyalty.

They can bond over that and the fact that Pratt is someone who can skin a man in under three minutes.

He eyes that hand, because that could be a ploy to pull him closer and run him through again. But there's also the knowledge that he's dead so does it even matter? Though this first skewering does really fucking hurt. Being dead shouldn't be painful, he'd like a refund.

"Doctor would probably be better than my plan of stapling this shut." Gonna test the limits of his last tetanus immunization here. He tucks the knife back in his belt, loosely in case he needs to grab it again, and shakes Izzy's hand. (Please enjoy the fact that Pratt is about the same height as him. Feel average sized Izzy!) He will not say it's nice to meet him, considering the sword and all that. But at least there doesn't seem to be any hard feelings.

"This place is way too big for how few people are here. And there's so much food considering me and Sharky were the only ones in the buffet."

"What a phenomenal waste of supplies," he says and takes his hand back. He came up out of the stairway a while back. It won't be that hard to retrace his steps.

You can fucking bet he took one look at the elevators and went lmao nope.gif.

He's ask if the man knows how many are on the manifest but 1, he doesn't think Deputy knows what a manifest is and 2, he's already said he hasn't met anyone else.

Hope you like stairs because they've got several, several, several flights down.

"They must throw so much away." His gruff voice extremely disapproving. It was a lot of food, and not just shelf stable necessities but prepared dinners, crab legs, pastas, and so many desserts.

Everyone he meets wants to take the stairs! Fortunately, or maybe not depending, he will keep walking without complaint until he literally drops. Amazing what being tortured does for being able to ignore pain and not acknowledge it until it's nearly fatal.

Down the stairs he goes, barely even wobbling.

"This whole place is like that though. There's a clothing store where everything is free. Too bad everything is fucking hideous in it." Hence why he's still wearing his deputy uniform.

Izzy grunts with disgust. If their management of supplies is that bad then he can assume their management of other things is probably just as wasteful. And this is the crew that captured him? Without him ever seeing or hearing it coming? Sure, he's getting on a bit but that is quite frankly disgraceful.

He would be happy to continue downwards in silence, but he's also buzzing with the millions of questions all fighting for presentation. Following a step behind Deputy, there's a small clink with every one they climb down. His sword tapping against the lei he's got looped through the back of his belt, it's heavy center medallion swinging like a pendulum.

It gives him a moment to think as they go, regarding the man he's maimed. More specific questions come to mind. He ought to know who he's dealing with, after all.

"I don't recognize your uniform."

That's a question, right?

Pratt's breathing is weirdly steady for someone who should be gasping in pain. Not that he isn't injured, because this hurts really bad, he's just so used to being in pain and forcing himself to struggle through it that he's practiced at walking around with open wounds.

"I'm a Deputy, in Hope County, Montana. And a helicopter pilot for the search and rescue team." His utility belt around his waist jangles a little as they descend, the rings that should hold keys and handcuffs are empty and without the weight are jingling around.

"I just washed it too, thanks for ruining that." Gonna have to wash it again to get the blood out. Scrub it with Sail Away Oxy Clean or whatever they have.

"Yeah sorry about that," he answers but sounds nonplussed. Bored, almost. He doesn't care about your fucking uniform.

Or maybe that's just how he sounds.

Both probably. With the added bonus that he's trying to figure out what the fuck a Montana is.

"Is that some kind of police officer?"

He just grunts, he can tell that Izzy is real broken up about the state of his clothing. Gonna keep him up at nights.

"Yeah, for the Sherriff's department." A brief pause on one of the landings while he shakes his head to clear it, getting extremely dizzy from blood loss coupled with the downward descent on the stairs.

"You do anything other than being a pirate? Or that a full time gig?"

The fuck is a Sheriff.

He assumes a constable of some kind, from whatever far flung land that accent of Pratt's hails. It rings vaguely of the North American Colonies but he hasn't been there for a while and most people still carry the accent of their mother country.

"You're either in it or you're not," Izzy answers with the same raspy cadence to his voice.

"That's not gonna put us at odd'n all that, is it. I have business to attend to before getting off this pathetic excuse of a ship."

Man this guy sure is dedicated to this LARP. Pratt might be impressed by that if he hadn't been stabbed earlier and was starting to see double.

"A pirates life for you huh?" Where the hell is Sharky to congratulate him on almost making a joke. He deserves a gold star to put right below his deputy badge.

"Put us at.. odds? No? I don't know what you're talking about." Pratt starts down the next flight of stairs, he may even make it all the way down it, even if he's now heavily leaning against the wall as he goes. "Why would you want to leave? There's infinite food. And most of it's pretty good even. Also the coffee is decent. Not great, but decent."

"Because we're being held captive? Useless fuckin' fucker."

He sounds so tired and remains unbothered about the other man's slowing. It makes sense, given how he's, you know, aerated.

But also, like, define captive. Because this is not how captives are treated where he's from. This is, more or less, how minor royalty and aristocrats would have it, running about doing..leisure.

It may very well be that Izzy walks with Pratt until he passes out. Should that happen he will continue the course and retrieve Watson, which he could have done from the beginning but chose this path instead.

"So? I'm dead back home. I'd rather be here with all the food than back there. You can stab me daily if you want to and it's better than where I come from." Speaking of that he wobbles dangerously and leans against the wall, he's definitely going to pass out before he gets to the infirmary.

"No cult. No trials. No eating people we killed. This place is awesome."

Aaaaaaand down he goes. Enjoy your new stairway decor, the deputy green doesn't go with much, but he's a decent accent piece.

Rather dramatic to pass out after giving up that sort of information.

Izzy watches as the last vestiges of strength give in, catching Pratt's arm as he blacks out if only to stop him from smashing his skull open on the railing of back against the stairs.

He glances and yes, actually, there is quite a lot of blood trailing down these steps.

Pratt has done quite well despite his amusing name. And seeing as this was directly his fault and he thinks the may may be useful later, he will do as he said and fetch a doctor.

He will not, however, be there when the man wakes. He has other matters to attend to and frankly he feels he's done enough by not leaving him to die with his guts popping out.

Pratt has, however, set himself apart in Izzy's mind. He has a plan unfolding and he can not do it alone. Now he has a candidate, however unwilling he may be, to assist. If Izzy can play his cards right.

There's a darkness in Pratt that calls to him. Something he has seen in many of the sailors he has served alongside. It's familiar the way a gambit is, a collection of unknowns wrapped in trauma. So it would play out quite well for him, or it could go very, very badly.

He supposes he will give it a few days and then revisit.

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TEST DRIVE MEME #4

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