TEST DRIVE MEME #5

[sailmods]

1. not subtle revealings

[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! 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. a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling

[the reflections are missing. all of them. in mirrors. in television screens. on the backs of spoons. nothing looks back at you.

then, figures do show up. not your own, like you'd expect. thin, wispy apparitions, people with pleading eyes and hands, reaching out to place their palms against the surface, from their own end. faces familiar and not, beckoning, mouthing words you just can't quite make out. help me, it might be. get me out, perhaps. just until you're close enough, until your skin warms the surface of whatever it is you're peering into. and then, those same hands wrap, all too real, burning-cold against your flesh, and pull, trying to drag you through the surface, making up for their lack of strength with desperation. any flesh unlucky enough to enter the reflection comes back bone-white and cold, all sensation dead, though it will fade within a few hours.

in retrospect, it looks a bit more like they were saying something different. something more like, better you than me. or maybe it's not even words at all. they look a bit more like they're laughing.]

3. complex mementos

[but, hey. sometimes changes are good! like, today, in Playback, there's a brand-new game available for all the children to play! it's an old-fashioned sort of claw machine, the type that's so large, a particularly dedicated kindergartner could wriggle their way inside. the prizes vary, and sit loose: bags of candy, stuffed toys, firearms, painfully early-00s electronics, actually that one just looks like a dead iguana, tiny ship-branded knickknacks... like all the other games in the arcade, the game starts up automatically upon being touched; lack of quarters shouldn't keep you from having fun! pro tip: they are loaded, and they will go off if you suck at claw games and let it fall.]

Comments

[actuallyawolf]

"Hm, okay, okay."

Ylva stands back to look at the door. It's pretty solid. "I can't open it from this side. I might be able to crawl in under it, but I haven't tried that before." No, there will be no explanation of that. "Is the lock stuck? Or do you want me to try to break in and help you?"

[killed]

[ There's little that slips pass Hiyori, who both watches others closely so closely, but if he notices there's no trace of it on his face, though he cants his head curiously at the request. He's heard that these concoctions are common in America, which he thinks must be among the few places where a straw can be used as a handy-dandy holder for one's donuts and cupcakes and cake slices. It's quite the place to visit, really.

It's an odd enough request that he doesn't like it, though he acquiesces readily enough. ]

Of course.

[ Tap, tap... ]

[crushed_pearls]

"No, I think I'm missing some moon logic bullshit. I got - okay. Let's. Let's start by asking an obvious question." A deep, deep, deep fucking breath. "Do people commonly wake up here when they were definitely not here before? And in a related story do they get a note about it? I've got a note, it says I need to attend some kind of muster, let me..."

Silence.

"Oh god damn it, it's the life jacket isn't it."

[actuallyawolf]

"Oh, you really did just arrive, didn't you?"

Ylva takes a deep breath, scowling at the door. "Yes, that's how it works. There's some sort of charm, I think. You put on the lifejacket, it walks you to the meeting with the faceless lady, and then it's done. I think it does that for everyone."

oh man if abyss had phones her camera roll would be filled with mieu 😔

[qliphoths]

No, I didn't. To be honest, I wasn't usually the one on the receiving end of the Colonel's lectures.

[ she was The Responsible One, after all!!
and its not like jade's never been scolded either, himself -- a certain princess grabbing him by the collar comes to mind...

she wonders, briefly, just how much jade has told rita about auldrant and the relationships he's formed there -- about his journey, what they accomplished together.
one day, she'll have to ask the other girl about it. ]

Wh -- what is that outfit ... [ tear can't help but grimace at the video. rita looked adorable in it!! but jade ... ]
It's awful. Do we have to wear these sorts of things a lot? At least it looks easy to move around in...

[ she frowns ]

Wait ... Was this taken on the ship?

[ she can't tell if it's some obscure area on board, or somewhere on land. ]

its ok !!! happens to me all the time B )

[qliphoths]

The concept doesn't exist ... but if that's the case then can we still use our artes here?

[ there's a brief moment where her voice is tainted by worry.
she's tempted to demonstrate, to try and sing a hymn -- but she can still feel the ability to draw fonons to herself,
and can hear them floating through the world if she stops to close her eyes.
fonons were just energy that comprised all matter, in a sense -- so even if the system doesn't exist here,
or at least doesn't exist with the same words, tear has no trouble with it all as long as she can still do... something.

she is definitely not as well-versed in fonology as jade is at any rate, so the casual adaptation isn't a hassle for her to wrap her head around. ]

A.. A buffet? [ how fancy.

well, this was supposed to be a vacation, a luxury cruise ship or somesort. so perhaps tear shouldn't be too surprised to hear there would be so much food. ]

Of course it would be 'amendable'.

[ she can't quite tell if he's teasing her again, for the amount that she tends to eat, or if he's just being polite: but there's a slight colouring to her cheeks from the comment either way. a slight stubbornness to her agreeance.

unlike the princess, tear had never been raised to worry about the more trivial aspects of femininity, like needing to eat less than men or some nonsense like that.
food was just fuel, and she needed quite a bit... like most soldiers do!! right?? jade was the anomaly here. ]

Showing me around would be really helpful... I appreciate it. I'm especially curious to see what's in the infirmary. Do they carry gels, or just general supplies?

[qliphoths]

Hmm ... [ that all makes sense. frankly, as composed and calm as tear tends to be -- this wouldn't be the first time she's wanted to rush in and violently save the day, or have some sort of confrontation. it was a tendency born of her youth, her stubbornness -- but one she'd need to curb, though. apparently. ]

I'm not much of a fiction type of person, myself. [ she smiles, a bit, when he returns to the initial topic. she can't help but perceive it to be a small act of kindness, in a way. ]

... Have you discovered anything significant? Those kinds of investigations can be difficult to conduct by yourself. [ she folds her arms. there's something about the way he worded it... ]

Have many people tried to escape already? I'm curious what's been tried, and why we would all still be here if attempts have been made.

[myagic]

Just a teen with a childish level of fear--not that she'd ever admit it.

"Hm. Too bad." There isn't actually any sympathy in her voice, though. "Guess that means fire won't fix it." Trigger finger is itself an unfamiliar phrase, so she looks at him in mild confusion even as she shrugs. "You have plenty of other fingers; surely you'll survive with a single useless one."

ohh it really would...so many cheagle pics, and some tokunagas too ♥

[myagic]

Hm...really?

[But she doesn't look very old...and Jade seems to lecture basically everyone around her age?! Clearly it has nothing to do with their levels of recklessness or responsibility...of course not...

Oh, well--more importantly, Tear now gets to share this cursed memory of Jade in short shorts, and Rita's all too delighted that the other girl agrees he looks abysmal, even if her glee fades when Tear asks about the location.]

It was--hm, the actual location isn't really... [Hmm...how to explain this...] It was in another dimension or something, separate from the ship. We go to those now and then, and it always forces weird outfits on us...

[Nailed it!!]

[justneedsomehelp]

"What, you talking super powers?" He scoffs a bit, on edge. Mostly, he's wary of this guy. Not sure-- what to do with him or if he can trust them. But maybe it's better if he thinks they're absolutely insane, something to avoid if he's gonna be... prodding around.

"Look, he's--" Sort of a super power. The only one that's ever mattered to Marc in the end. "We used to share a body, kinda."

There. "So if you're looking for kindred spirits... it's probably not us. Whatever we could do, that's a whole other complicated story."

[prince_of_beasts]

Oh, does Dimitri know That Face. (The poet may have caught a flash of it from him a few moments prior.) He opts not to press the issue, and ask the suddenly much more pressing question.

"Don't need to eat?" The poet doesn't look mechanical, though honestly, who knows. Dimitri would have mistaken SecUnit for human if it hadn't clarified otherwise, and it only started eating recently. "Are you a," what was it, "construct? Mechanical?" More importantly, "Do you still feel hunger?"

[screwtapethered]

"Oh, ha, nothing like that." The poet smiles, shakes his head a little awkwardly. "I'm flesh and blood. Like you. I assume. I'm cursed, I guess you could say. Don't need to eat or drink, I don't think I even need to breathe. Don't get any older either. I can't leave, and I'm stuck here." He pauses. "Well, I was stuck somewhere else, now I'm stuck here. But I do feel hunger, it's just not really that much of a problem for me anymore-"

Oh shit. He's going to be Helped now.

[ss_buttcrack]

"I'm not sure I want to know what you mean by 'fire won't fix it.' You know heating up a frostbitten limb too quickly can cause more damage, right?" Hopefully, she'll heed that warning now.

As for the rest... damn that's cold. He's going to get frostbite from her attitude at this rate.

"Excuse me if I'd rather not survive with a single useless one? It's going to be a lot harder to shoot a gun with my middle finger, but thanks for your concern." Should have thrown the spoon harder he thinks to himself.

[myagic]

"Oh. Really?" Yeah, don't leave the medical treatment up to her.

Still, the way he's going on about one little finger makes her sigh in annoyance. "Are you always such a baby? It's just a finger! Even when you do need your gun, you can fire it with your other hand. Oh, unless you've died by then... Then it'll be back to normal."

[skaikru]

( she maybe... squints a little. trying to deduce if that's an i'm fine because i'll magically heal or walk this off with the power of a main character or an i'm fine and will continue being fine until i drop dead in a hallway thirty minutes later reassurance. far too guilty of the latter herself, but growing more familiar with the former. but yeah, no, bandaids had been her thought, too.

...at least. field surgery at worse. no way to know without seeing under those bandages, if he'll let her. )

I can find you a couple. Follow me.

( follow me, she says, then proceeds to walk directly next to him because you just don't turn your back on life jacket wielding maybe-assassins. gal friday had once said everyone here comes from scary places, and clarke's since learned there's a lot of range that scary can encapsulate. just no way of knowing who's who and what they're capable of on first meeting, but it'd be detrimental to let that caution stop them from helping one another.

clarke'll lead him off the deck, back into the cooler, air conditioned stretch of the lobby, and in the general direction of the glass elevator. and at some point between punching the down button and the ding of their lift arrival, strikes up further conversation.

casually. as casually as she does, which still means there's an air of intensity behind her eyes, like every answer is going to be carefully catalogued and compared later. (it might be.) )

What's your name?

[prince_of_beasts]

You're damn right he's going to be Helped. Dimitri cracks a threadbare smile. "My condolences. I have some experience with curses, though none, I think, as severe as yours."

At least, Dimitri is reasonably sure he can die. It's not as if it's ever happened. The thought is alarming, and he crams it into the back of his skull with everything else he doesn't think about.

His expression turns stern. "Then you should eat something, regardless. There's no cost to the meals here, and it doesn't run out. There's no need to suffer hunger when there's food freely available." Pot, meet disregulated-eating-habits kettle. But Dimitri catches the poet's wrist -- the man hadn't seemed to mind being touched earlier -- and pulls him along, forging towards Windjammer with steely determination. "This way."

[hellonspectacles]

[with a small laugh] Oh goodness no, even I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to tackle a project of this scope all alone. Thankfully, I am not the only person on this ship with both the interest in discovering more about our situation, and the skill to do so. If you’d like, I can introduce you to a few of them.

We’ve learned quite an impressive amount, actually. The Captain is impossibly old and desperate for power. That seems to be why he has brought us here, but I’m still not sure how, precisely, we are meant to facilitate his ambitions. We’re not the only group of passengers he has tried this on, though; there were those who came before us, and their time on the Serena Eterna did not end peacefully, to say the least.

[qliphoths]

I'd like that. [ gaining connections was a useful thing, especially when it came to gathering intelligence --
but for the connections to be so well-versed on the situation at hand is nothing short of marvelous to her.

he was making it remarkably easy to catch up on things. ]

I'm Tear, by the way. I apologize... I don't think I introduced myself earlier.

[ the smile slips from her face when he goes on, elaborating a bit further about the captain.
of course it was this kind of bizarre hostage situation. why wouldn't it be? this was just her luck. ]

This ... isn't the first time I've had to deal with someone bent on gaining power.
But what happened to the previous passengers? And how did you find out about them?
I can't imagine they left a note or anything like that...

[ if he chooses to ask, she'll tell him a bit about the situation with her brother. ]

[qliphoths]

I'm not sure what's more disturbing: knowing that we'll be going to different dimensions from time to time,
or knowing I might have to see the Colonel in more outfits like that one ...

[ she doesn't mean to roast jade specifically, of course: in reality, she wouldn't want to see any man over the age of like, 20 in short shorts, really. ]

Do we have to keep the outfits, or can we throw them away?

[ aka: please tell her he won't rotate those into his daily wear, thank you ]

[screwtapethered]

The man follows, keeping perfect pace, making no audible protest, and yet still, he manages to communicate being dragged kicking and screaming into being Helped. But then, as he registers what Dimitri's said-

"Free meals, huh? And they never run out?" And you would never expect that this much spite could fit into those benign words, this much anger and frustration. He knows this, somehow. Or knows something like it. And he continues, and that voice- "The sweetest smell's in the serpent's mouth / We come like pigs to the feeding trough / Then we're swallowed down inside it-" -reverberates in Dimitri's head, like the resentment of all his time here is being pulled back out of his memory with every word.

"So what's the catch? The food is free- / But we are not, it's plain to see / If suffering's what this place needs / Then how do we provide it?"

[ss_buttcrack]

Crichton sure does hope she's not planning to be a nurse when she grows up because her bedside manner leaves much to be desired.

"Excuse me? If by back to normal you mean all the other fingers will be dead too?" Lucky her, she gets to break the news to him about the cycle of death and reviving here... if she chooses.

[tempingainteasy]

[April catches that some of their words go over this person's head - but hey! She agrees anyway, and that's on her!]

Alright, let's see...

[April reaches under the desk like they're picking through a stack of photos. Which they could be! But anyway, after some shuffling they pull one up.

It would be far too easy to pick a picture from an upsetting time, just after a battle or during a moment of personal darkness. Rookie moves.

Instead, April picks one from the arcade, this girl falling off a fake motorcycle. It's good and a bit blurry to begin with, like a flash picture actually taken in the 90s or 00s at a party or something, so it's not a lot of effort on their part to add to it.

Not much, there's just a smear between two cabinets in the background that could be a person, and a reflection on a screen that could be a face. Pareidolia does half of the work honestly, turning dark spots in a white glare into sunken cheeks and dark eyes, and guilt will fill in the blanks to make it hauntingly familiar. At least, that's the excuse the skeptics out there would make. The smears of colour from the motion blur angle beautifully to lead the eye from the actual subject of the picture to the maybe-face on the screen. And unlike most development errors, there's something nagging about this one that keeps the eye stuck on it, just a little bit.

All in all, it's a light effort, a small sample. April's still testing the waters here, so to speak, and they've done very little research on their current client.]

See, they put up all the good pictures here, but for every good picture there's two-to-three that didn't turn out right, and that's where the magic happens.

[April places the photo on the counter and slides it across for Clarke to inspect.]

[fonomena]

[(Lifejacket neutralized for now!! At the very least, Shi Qingxuan probably won't need to worry about it again for the foreseeable future....until yet another supernatural storm comes along to try battering the ship to pieces again, or something. Long story, several months ago now, and no sign of similar incidents occurring since, for now--)

Jade's hardly about to fault the man for talking too much in an occasion like this, of course; not exactly as if he himself isn't prone to the occasional long ramble too, when it comes to topics of interest. (Try as Jade might to claim he hates explaining things, he does get occasionally conned into doing it anyway sometimes...) That aside, this is also a topic of considerable interest right now too! Disparate as the magic systems currently represented on this ship happen to be, it's been difficult to find a solid consensus as to what to make of the leis, ever since the discovery of their warded properties came to light...especially with the few finer details they've acquired about them since. Case in point--]

Ah, we do have an idea of who's responsible for their creation...though the how remains more obscure. You're now approximately familiar with Miss Friday--that lady with rather unique facial features, who directed your safety drill with those life jackets earlier, yes? Since she's the one that's been distributing the leis, the man who initially discovered the warding on them decided to ask her about them in confidence...and, it seems, she's the one who makes them. [Here, a slight dip of Jade's head, in acknowledgment of a question he can already anticipate arising:] Despite the fact that she is, indeed, a construct created by the captain. It would seem she wanted to implement these leis in a fashion outside his supervision...and this sort of warding is the result, thus far.

She did mention as well, however, that explaining exactly how the leis work--and exactly how they are meant to be useful in a world-ending crisis--would compromise their effectiveness. I'm aware a talisman like this might not utilize mechanics entirely parallel to what you're familiar with...but does this sound like a plausible reasoning to you? Where an invisible charm like this might be concerned...

[In short, Jade's curious on Shi Qingxuan's own take on how earnest Friday might have actually been, about that particular reason for keeping the details so sparse. Palamedes seemed more inclined to trust her word than not--and Jade is somewhat inclined to agree--but it's still an optimistic sort of bent, and there hasn't been a lot of data on hand to really correlate anything...]

[myagic]

[Rita snorts in solidarity at that bit of Jade roasting, even as she wonders how best to break the news of the real potentially-disturbing parts of those excursions...]

So far, we're free to change into whatever we want...once we're back on the ship.

[So, yes, Jade was in short shorts for that entire week-long camping trip.]

But you've travelled with him before, so you already knows he always dresses like--what was it? Oh yeah, a boring dad.

[Natsuno's words, and Rita's inclined to agree.]

[myagic]

"Oh...you really are new here, aren't you?"

What a pain...but she supposes he should learn sooner rather than later. "I mean if you die, you revive the next day totally whole and healed, no matter how many bits and pieces you were in the day before."