sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #9

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TEST DRIVE MEME #9

1. tidal waves out on the sea

[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 aboard! I'm so happy you could join us!

[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. I don't know where I'm-a gonna go

[something new has been set up at Friday’s desk. there’s a sign, but it’s not advertising the next excursion, or anything familiar like that. instead, it says, in big, bold letters, SUGGESTIONS AND COMPLAINTS, with a large downward-facing arrow below it, pointing at what looks to be an empty tissue box with the word “COMPLAINTS” hastily etched onto it. there is a pile of small slips of paper and some pens next to it, and Friday cheerfully informs you that you can submit anything you like, no consequences! and it’s weird that she has to specify, but, also, she really does, doesn’t she?

and there aren’t any consequences! the Captain doesn’t come out of nowhere and dome you instantly for the slight. Friday doesn’t give you the cold shoulder or a rude remark. now, an unidentifiable voice does start reciting your complaint or suggestion, with your name attached, over the loudspeaker at full volume every 20 minutes or so. but, that’s debatable as a consequence. probably. maybe. not actually.]

3. pretty soon we learn to fly

[this was one of the suggestions. apparently. that’s what Friday will say if anyone asks her about it. and they probably will. because surely there has to be some sort of reason why the floor in windjammer is, currently, lava.

like. actual molten magma-type lava, flowing in sluggish rivers around the tables and booths, the sections of the buffet. so, maybe you decide to go eat at one of the many other fine dining establishments aboard today, or at least until the floor decides to stop being lava. or, maybe you decide that those dinosaur chicken nuggets are worth the risk of life and limb. and thus, you climb, clamber, jump, leap - a perilous and terrifying journey, knowing you are only one false step away from an agonizing death.

until you fall in. and then you realize that, no, this is not actually lava at all, for all it looks exactly like it. it’s actually barely room temperature, and strangely watery. you taste sweetened tomato paste. it’s not death, but maybe that would have been a little bit better.

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Wayne would eat macaroni and cheese out of a coffee mug, let's be real. He is 100% behind this kind of culinary stupidity.

"Axe, guitar," he replies easily, though at the mention of magic he lifts a hand, making a Gesture of his own. "Closest I have to magic's the prescribed Gestures. They don't do much without intent though." The air in front of him warps and changes, seemingly becoming clay, though as he'd said, he has no target that could be affected by it, and so it simply disappears again without effect.

These two are going to be gastronomic calamities.

"Wait... an axe and a guitar? Or an axe that is a guitar? Because that would be so fucking cool. Some Brutal Legend shit right there." He's a bit more used to the kind of magic Rita and Skulduggery have where it's just instant fireballs or walls of air or making fountains in the desert. So seeing tilt-shifted blobs of clay appear out of the air and then fading into nothing is new and super weird. "Oh sweet. What would it do if you like... launched it?"

"That would be so righteous," he replies to the idea of an axe that is also a guitar. "I just got one of each, though. Not the best axe I've ever had but it works."

His smile quirks a little bit, head tipping back. "I have...bubbles, space shurikens, detonations... That other one was just a protection thing. Like, wrapping you in a barrier kinda thing. Usually it's either stuff to keep my crew alive, or something to blow up other stuff. I can kinda melt someone's skin off, but that takes a lot of Will."

"It would be fucking awesome. But maybe you'll get one? Sometimes random ass things show up here and Friday just kinda guesses who would like them. I seem to get all the cult shit and anything that would fit in my childhood white trash trailer. So maybe a sick ass guitar axe will show up and she'll go: Oh yeah this dude will love it!"

Which also uh.. reminds him, "I'm Deputy Pratt by the way. I kinda forget to introduce myself all the time cuz I'm from a small ass town where everyone knows everyone. Also, don't melt anyones skin off that's... extremely gross."

"If I can get a TV from home I bet other people could learn the Gestures," he muses, though he wonders if that train of thought would be such a good thing. Well, Pratt at least seems disinterested in melting anyone so maybe nobody else will want to either...

"Wayne," he replies easily, hands dipping into his pockets. Handshakes aren't exactly a thing where he's from. "I've never lived in a small town, but I had like, one neighbor and a vegetable garden. Really quiet you know?"

"We've got tv's. And there's DVD players in some of the bars, but they don't get any channels or anything. Which fucking sucks cuz I'm pretty sure we're gonna miss the superbowl. Fuck we might have already cuz I dunno what day it is. Ugh. That sucks." He's not even going to question learning magic through the tv, he just assumes it'll be Yan Can Cook but for magic. That makes sense.

Excellent because Pratt has a three foot personal space bubble that will have him freaking out if anyone gets too close. "That.. sounds pretty small though. Only one neighbor? That's awesome. I have a ton of neighbors. Apartment you know, though I almost had enough saved to move the fuck into a house. And then everything went to shit and now I not only still have neighbors, I have a roommate too. Major downgrade, even if other shit in this place rocks."

He doesn't know what a Super Bowl is but if it's something Pratt was looking forward to, that's a shame all on its own. "I wonder if you can ask someone about that. I saw a suggestion box on my way here," he points out, though he'd also seen someone abusing it by making it tell people that they just lost The Game.

"I miss my house. I haven't been back in so long I bet my garden died." He'd have to re-cultivate his whole vegetable patch, he's sure. "Somsnosa lived in a little place in the city, she had gripes with infestations of ambulant skulls. As long as you weren't dealing with that kind of stuff that's rad." He's never expressly had roommates, unless you count bunking down with his crew when they were traveling.

"Huh, is it by Friday? I didn't see that. I try to not bug her because she's sorta mad at me for attempting necromancy, but I swear it was for a good cause. I was trying to rip the soul of the guy who possessed my best friend out of the ship and put him into a cursed horse toy that I dug up on the beach." Not just a good cause but something that makes total sense and Pratt has no idea how insane that sounds.

"Aw damn, that sucks. On the other hand one plant might have taken over, like four acres of strawberries now. Guess you can hope for that since you'll probably never find out." He's the worst at meeting new people and dropping info about not being able to go home, because he legitimately forgets people wanna do that since he's dead and has nothing to go back to. "We have a walking skeleton, is that the same thing?"

That sure is a lot of words that Pratt is saying to him, and some completely sober nodding going on from Wayne because honestly, it's not the strangest thing he's ever heard in his life. The only things he ever questions are Where and How as determined by the amount of detail he's given at any given time.

At least the brighter side of neglecting his garden is legitimately an interesting idea. Maybe there'll be vines all over and he'll have enough to supply himself and his one neighbor for a bit in the event that he makes it home... At least until he parses that Pratt was saying that he might not. That's uh. Less than comforting.

"Uh...maybe? Hers were deadly to the touch."

"Oh. Different then. Well.. maybe. I've never actually touched the skeleton, though I did try to whack his skull off with a shovel, but he did some magic whoosh thing and it didn't connect." There's an accompanying hand gesture imitating the wall of air that Skulduggery used to shove Pratt away and survive a potential shovelling.

"I stand by that though, there was a fucking walking skeleton! What was I supposed to do??" He asks of the guy with the moon head made of clay.

"Skeleton with self-preservation instincts," Wayne concludes, arms crossing and head nodding as if this discussion makes absolute sense. "If you don't know what's up with it being ready's good. Hell I almost snapped on my best friend when we met because they were out in the middle of all the 'xylem'd folks." You just never know!

Finally someone agrees with him other than Skulduggery himself!

"Yeah, it's good people can take care of themselves. Well most of them can I think. Otherwise it would suck having to protect people when shit goes down. Which it doesn't that often but when it does it's absolute balls. I'm trying to remember that I'm dead which makes me automatically retired so I don't have to do Deputy shit anymore but well.."

He gestures down at himself where he is most definitely wearing a Deputy uniform. Has his name on it and everything.

"Definitely get that, man. I wanna actually retire, this whole thing is exhausting." Maybe it would happen one day. Maybe this was what he was getting instead of retirement? He doesn't know, but he could think of a bunch of things he'd rather be doing than being stuck on a cruise liner out at sea surrounded by people that he didn't know.

"Maybe it'll get easier the longer you're not there anymore? I'unno."

"Nine months on this ship already." He frowns, then brightens, "But the good news is, it doesn't get that bad that often. Really it's been terrible uh... twice? There was October and I don't even wanna talk about it. Then in December a few people died but... everyone comes back so I think people made a bigger deal out of it than it needed to be. Not like death is permanent or anything.."

"I wonder if dying here in a specific way makes you not come back," he muses, rolling the idea around in his head in an appraising sort of way. "I don't wanna have it come to that without knowing one way or another though. Dying at home wasn't that bad besides the whole, getting hurt in the first place." He's pretty sure he's never been sucker-punched as bad as the first time he'd fought a Flesh-stache and he does not want to relive that misery.

"Man I dunno. Been trying to figure that shit out since I got here. Is it number of deaths? Dying in a specific way? Is it that we're no good to the Captain anymore? Maybe it's just cuz someone is really homesick and they fade away? No clue. And I've no idea how to figure it out other than straight up asking the Captain. And he'll probably just laugh."

Pratt doesn't wanna push his luck with the Captain. He's probably annoyed him enough already trying to put the soul of a dead asshole in a cursed horse toy.

"Dying back home sucked, cuz it fucking hurt. But the being dead part wasn't anything. So that tracks. When I died here I just woke up back in my bed the next day."

Wayne just nods along as he listens. There's no real way of knowing, and that might be the least comforting thing of all.

"Yeah, when I died I ended up wherever I was hanging out last. Friend's tent in the desert, other friend's couch, places like that. I'll probably end up in my cabin here unless there's somewhere else I spend enough time at."

"Oh like a save point. Sick. I guess this is like that, we have a hub world to get food and rest and equip up... huh. Never thought about it like that."

Where is that fish guy, he has things to discuss with him now.

"Well here's hoping it's not too shitty here for you cuz uh... we seriously need more chill people man. Its.. it's rough right now with everyone all riled up and antsy. Kinda sucks."

"Basically. You gotta get to the transit crystal in the place first before it actually lets you but then you just like, get to the afterlife, crash on the couch, grind whatever you found for a little extra padding, and get back to it. Makes it easy to get back to what you were doing when you mess up." At least, that was the way he'd seen it. It's why he wants to see if there's anything available in this weird little corner of reality where he can find a crystal, or a pool, something he can activate and then if he dies, maybe he can leave.

Pratt spinning it in a positive way is kinda nice. He appreciates the outlook making it seem a little less bleak.

"I don't like getting riled up about stuff anyway. There's always something better to do."

Oh he likes you Wayne. "For realssssssss. Here's hoping more people see it that way cuz, I'm so tired of defending the Captain and this place and people being like: oh no it's literal torture that we have all this food and stuff and can move around. Like they've never been inconvenienced in their whole damn lives."

He huffs.

"There's a pool, it's by the buffet. Like if you need one for uh.. crystals?" He is literally forgetting what Wayne is saying in real time here, but boy is he trying.

"Maybe people have places to go and people to see, that's cool, I do too, but like... Don't harsh someone's vibe, you know?"

He's realizing that some things that they're talking about seem to be evacuating Pratt's head fairly quickly as the conversation meanders, but at least he still makes sense to talk with from moment to moment. He'd take it.

"If they figured out how to put a terrestrial pool on a boat that'd be awesome. Unless you mean just a normal water pool, that's pretty cool too. A soak'd be nice."

"Yeah it's just a pool pool. You know the swimming kind. There's a hot tub too. Wish there was a waterslide." Right that's the thing he forgot to bring up to the Captain last time. He really should write this shit down.

"What's a terrestrial pool?"

"Transit system," he replies simply. "Like the crystals but more permanent."

At least now it seems like he's gonna have a plan: visit the buffet, then somewhere he can find something to change into, then the pool area. Maybe they'd have a shallow enough end that he wouldn't have to actually try to swim. Or a hot tub. A hot tub would be nice.

"So they're like portals? Yeah I don't think we have anything like that here. Someone tried to build a portal and then kinda... exploded when he went through it so maybe don't do that if you actually find one of those things." Though he's not sure if Ebalon blew himself up because the portal didn't work, or because of the ship not allowing portal tech for some reason.

"Anyway, pool is up," He points to the deck above them, "Restaurants and cabins are down."

The idea of exploding upon entering a portal feels like something that he really wants to avoid, so he just wrinkles his nose a little bit. "Yeah I don't wanna go through one until I know what's on the other side but knowing if it's there in the first place is a good first step, y'know?"

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theweakhavepurpose - 2023-02-11 17:12 (UTC) - Expand

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