sail_ooc | 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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Back before his life went to shit, it'd surely be closer to startled than terrorized, but in his head, there's a background noise of how his boyfriends and roommate would've reacted had he actually been murdered now.

"I, uh, sure." César nods and starts to move towards them. "They're this way. Although I wouldn't put it past this place to do something like make them into slides while you're walking on them at some point."

Ylva grabs onto his arm in a friendly way for a brief moment, and follows along behind him. As she walks, she is looking at everything around her. With the trauma of the elevator behind her she's already eager to explore. And now she's not alone, and that's always better.

"I can climb a slide, though. A slide is way better than a little box." She sighs a bit. "I did think the idea of the... elevator, you said? I did think it was really neat."

César doesn't jump as she touches him, just a bit... confused, to be honest. She seems to have forgotten the earlier incident entirely. Like it was normal for her to have such strength.

Like Rex, to be honest. ... funny, she was in the form of a dinosaur.

"They're used in all tall buildings where I'm from. Especially when there's double digit floors. Most are in elevator shafts, so they're not nearly as impressive to use as these. No view." César's heartrate is slowing down, but he's still cautious for now.

"I could see some particularly fancy wizards making something like that, if they had a tall enough tower. I guess if you're going to have that many floors in your home you almost need it. Or you fly."

Ylva shakes her head, as though this were the most nonsensical thing she's ever heard. Houses. Walls. Nice to visit but never to live in.

"Do you mean, most of them you can't see out of?" She squints thoughtfully. "That... doesn't sound very nice."

"They would. But in this case, it's all technology. Or.. a magical representation of it." Because it's not actually technology at all.

He nods. "Some people get motion sickness and it's more expensive to keep it all open."

Ylva's acting rather pleasant. She, she really has forgotten what happened already, hasn't she? Good god.

"Forgotten" and "doesn't think is a big deal" are two very different things, César.

"I think I like it better being able to see out," Ylva says. "Being in a little box, feeling it move, not seeing what's going on? Ugh." She shudders, dramatically. "What do you mean, magical representation? Something's magic or it's not. Well. Usually. I guess there can be some grey area sometimes."

Yes, but Rex totally would've forgotten. He's unfortunately thinking through that lens like a MORON.

"It'd be better for you, but there's a number of people that would get physically ill or become terrified, and elevators are a terrible place for that." César shrugs. "It's probably magic, not technology. But a manufactured reality to look what would be normal for a boat like this."

She thinks about this for a moment. "You're saying it's magic meant to not look like magic," she clarifies. The idea is... hard for her to wrap her mind around, mostly just because she can't see the point. "But at the same time, we're here through magic, because this is obviously some sort of planar travel, so there's no point in hiding the magic that's here, right?"

Ylva pauses to look at a bit of decorative wood, wrinkling her nose at it. "I don't know what's normal in a place like this," she reminds him.

"The only reason to hide the magic is that he wants to approximate as close to the real thing as possible." César figures she must be from sort of fantasy world. "If you're not familiar with this sort of ship... it's very accurate otherwise. He can't create anything new, so he has to steal it from someplace else."

It's a bit of a risk to say it aloud where the Captain can hear it, but come on, it's obvious.

Ylva looks at him very hard for a moment.

"There are ships like this where you're from, then? This is a real thing that it's trying to be, and that thing isn't magic, but they're using magic to make it look like that?" She snorts, very unladylike. "César, that is stupid."

César doesn't care about what is and isn't ladylike, at least, shrugging with a ghost of a smile on his face. "Some people like cruise ships. They generally have most of the accommodations he'd want his passengers to have. There's not much he'd have to come up with himself."

Ylva wrinkles her nose. "This is all the annoying things about being in an inn, you know. Too many walls. No fresh air. At least the baths and the food is nice, but I'd rather stay in the woods. I know some people like this sort of thing, but I get tired of it sort of quickly."

César nods. "Well, it's like a cruise ship. Cruise ships still exist in worlds that have seas and skies full of life. We get fresh air. The food is food. Items continue to exist on our person and in our rooms. But everything else... is devoid of the life it should have. There's microscopic life that's supposed to be all around us, and it's simply not here."

He wonders if the Captain is a germaphobe. Maybe that's why there's no microscopic life, here? No, not likely. But a hypothesis not to be completely discarded. That, or his powers are limited, or he's lazy. To be fair, César would only add microscopic life because he's a completionist and a perfectionist....

"I don't know a lot about the ocean," Ylva says, cautiously, "but... there should be seabirds. I know there should be birds. There should be fish in the sea. There isn't. I looked. Doesn't even smell like they're anywhere nearby. That's... that's weird. That's not how it should be."

She might not have really ever even seen the sea properly before she came here, but she does know certain things about ecosystems.

"Everything's missing. Nothing is as it should be when it comes to living things." César agrees. "Disturbing."

There's no other way to describe it, really. Even if it sombers up the mood.

Edited (I don't need a period — wait this isn't discord) 2022-08-07 22:32 (UTC)

TEST DRIVE MEME #4

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