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TEST DRIVE MEME #5
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.]
no subject
She probably could've gotten some distance on him and avoided that, but Vance isn't the only one with wisdom dump stat. One of those swats hits, and knocks her off course. Fucking OW!
Deep breaths. Deep breaths. She does not need to get into a fight with this human. They could just talk, right? If he knows she's like, a person and not just a random magical crow?
[ Wisdom save 1, FUCKING LMAO, rip. ]
Actually fuck that. She really, really does. Who needs self-control??
So she's gonna cast Blindness on this dude! LET'S FUCKING GO, HAIRY!
[ That's a constitution save 16, if you'd like to roll and see if he suddenly turns blind for a minute. ]
no subject
Everything goes dark, and although he still keeps swinging his arms around he's got no idea where she is.
If he were a little bit wiser, he'd stop and listen for the sound of flapping, or any sort of movement. Unfortunately, he's not, so he just yells (making it harder on himself to work out where she is) and charges in some random direction.
Which inevitably ends in him smacking up against the claw machine and falling flat on his ass. That hurts, too, and he still can't see a damn thing. "What'd you do to me, you fucking pigeon?" he says, rubbing his eyes with both hands as if that's going to restore his eyesight any quicker.
His ability to identify types of birds is also severely lacking. Maybe if he wouldn't have skipped so much school...
no subject
She could hurt him some more. Could probably kill him, if she wanted to. But it feels kind of pointless.
He doesn't even look like he has any good loot.It's sort of pathetic, watching him flail around, maybe she'll just leave him be..."Pidgeon?!"
He'll hear the voice in his mind, vaguely feminine, and currently a bit shrill with outrage.
His vision will only be gone for a minute, though by the time he can see again, she'll have landed up in the rafters. She will, however, also be invisible. So good luck finding her now. (Ugh, wasting her spell slots on this idiot...)
no subject
"That's what I said. You got a problem?" he says, looking around the room for any signs of movement as his vision clears, "Come on. Hiding's for cowards."
no subject
You know what's annoying? (For him, that is.) Telepathic communication isn't directional at all. The voice is just coming from everywhere and provides no hint as to where she's actually hanging out.
no subject
"Who're you calling idiot, bird brain?" he says, "I wasn't the one playing around in the claw machine."
no subject
She is definitely not in the wrong here. He attacked her!
no subject
Some people would have the good sense to assume that a living bird was not a prize. Vance was not some people, though in his defense, there are some pretty bizarre prizes in there.
If you can fit in there, it is a good way to cheat and get the prize you want, he has to admit. He cranes his neck to look at the jumble of prizes again.
"Get me the gun and I'll call truce."
no subject
"Fat fucking chance," she answers. "Why should I want truce when I know I can kick your ass?"
no subject
That's not entirely a lie, as long as by 'everyone' he means 'all the other teenagers in the suburbs north of Denver'.
no subject
There is definitely a challenge in her voice. As far as she can tell, he's a regular dude who can maybe punch. She is 100% confident she can take him. And like... it's not like she's using her magic on much else over here. Could be fun. She doesn't HAVE to kill him.
Although it can be hard not to, with some of these abilities.no subject
He can, in fact, die again here. If he knew that, he might be more cautious.
no subject
And then, burning some sorcerer power to make her spells fire off quicker, before he has a chance to react properly...
Suddenly, the entire area surrounding him is inky blackness. It's 40 feet across, and bitterly cold, as well as absolutely impossible to see through.
But he can hear something. Whispering. Repulsive horrifying slurping noises. It'll soon become obvious what that sound is coming from. There a tentacles here, violently thrashing around. It'll be hard to make his way through, and even harder to avoid getting hit...
"Get tentacle-fucked, asshole!"
[ So that's 11 cold damage right off the bat. And unless he does nothing but try to make it out of the area, he'll take a further 6 acid damage unless he succeeds on a 16 dexterity save. Vance has decent dexterity, right?? ]
no subject
Now that he's ready for some weird shit, he pays closer attention and manages to dodge the tentacles. Skipping school to fight and play pinball had some advantages after all, and his reflexes are pretty sharp.
...But it's still cold and dark, and the cold hurts him more than any cold he's felt. It reminds him of dying, especially with those horrible noises, and as tough as he tries to be he's scared. Even if he won't admit it.
"Christ, okay, uncle," he says, as if saying uncle is an expression for giving up that transcends universes, "You fucking win."