TEST DRIVE MEME #10

[sailmods]

a. that's where we both belong

[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.]

b. and there's plenty of that down by the sea

[it’s strange to think about, isn’t it? how all those new passengers, the ones grumbling or shouting their way through the forced muster drill, have absolutely no idea what happened just last month. no idea about the labyrinth. no concept of why anyone around them would be a bit more hesitant around shadows.

they’ll learn.

sometimes a shadow is darker than it’s supposed to be. very rarely does anything come of that; just a vague sense that someone is watching you, and little more. sometimes, though, the shadows move. sometimes they grab at your ankles as you walk. sometimes they give you a shove as you go down the stairs. sometimes they pull your hair, or pinch your arm.

sometimes you feel something sharp cut into your lower leg.

that’s not a shadow, though. that’s a fiddler crab. you see the crab, sometimes. the cut isn’t from its claws, which don’t look very intimating; it’s not a very large crab. the cut is from the large kitchen knife crudely taped onto its back. it’s probably fine. it's not chasing you. there isn't evil in its heart. probably.]

c. think I'll go back to the Keys

[one day, in the atrium, two pedestals suddenly appear. on each is a large button: one green, and one blue. pressing the blue button gives you a little treat, popping out of thin air next to you. pressing the green button sends a small electric shock through your body. weird, but, hey, pretty avoidable, right?

except, it seems to be spreading. to every other button on board.

in the elevator. on the soda machine. the arcade. your phone. the bell on Friday’s desk.]

Comments

[guildmastermind]

"Yes, in about fifteen more seconds. Cooldowns, sorry." There's five seconds between when the first spell ends and the second begins.

[moonlesstides]

That's quite alright. A rational reaction, and an interesting immediate answer. It has been awhile since Helena has felt a Hunter; that suggests that this is not one of the Manor's games.

...Perhaps her god? But if this is some grand design by the lord of the lake, Grace can't see the bad joke. Yet, anyway.

She sets a hand on Helena's hat to gently ruffle the poet's hair, relieved that this misunderstanding is past them. She has so many questions to...

To...

Damn it all to the Depths. How is she supposed to ask? Grace floats back, making a huffy sound of frustration, gesturing frantically despite knowing that Helena can't see it.

And I'll be your puckish puppeteer on this delightful little detour

[actuallyawolf]

A new smell is always worth investigating. A new smell in the kitchen -- which, frankly, she thinks of as Max's, even though she knows that's not really accurate -- also interesting. A new smell, hanging out in the kitchen, ominously talking about Max, well.

"You know Max?" Ylva asks from the doorway. "Or. I guess I should ask what Max you mean."

[dissimulates]

I do believe he meant it! He seems ready to get your other hand if you're not careful.

[The crab is definitely his favorite passenger so far. Though Hong Lu looks fun too.]

I haven't found the infirmary yet, but that seems like a good opportunity to learn. I hope you don't mind if I accompany you, Mr...?

[ligero]

"unfortunately for him forever" freudian slip typo lmfao oops

The feeling is mutual: hearing Mycroft, alive and well despite the circumstances, is an immense, immeasurable comfort, like a full breath of the sea breeze in his lungs after days of stale air alone. But they're still out in public, in-- very literally-- unknown waters. He moves his hand away, removing his own very stupid lei as soon as he does; the accursed thing gets stuffed into a pants pocket, hopefully never to be worn again.

Cyrus shakes his head. "Not drugged; not injured. Not anymore than I was previously," he replies, reflexively rubbing at the inside of his left wrist. Though largely recovered from the most recent debacle, he's still somewhat sore. "Unusually well rested, even. And yourself?"

[crushed_pearls]

"You know, I've never asked how he got his fit to be so sharp?" Erin should correct that, that'd be an honestly nice and fascinating conversation. "And I mean, I dunno man. Everyone here is someone's standard of weird. The yellow moon alien with a moon for a head might be your standard of weird. The Victorian doctor definitely hits mine a bit, but he's really cool - Doctor Watson, one of our few and precious medics. I hit the weird button for people from worlds without magic. Shit, one of my friends is from like, a Libertarian empire in space that actually has privacy laws? That's fucking weird."

[dissimulates]

Try is the key word. My feet wouldn't take me anywhere else but here. That was quite rude, if you ask me. Unless you mean this ship in general, and then I was minding my own business, and interfering with it just to kidnap me is also quite rude.

[guildmastermind]

"I met the moon-headed guy, we talked about combat strategy while fighting in a party. I'm pretty sure he'd be an Enchanter if he was in Elder Tale." There's warm laughter in his voice. "We're going to see if we can coordinate together; he said his partner would make a decent offensive tank, and I'm used to working with a Guardian or a Samurai."

[crushed_pearls]

Yes, the instrument. Erin waggles a hand. "On and off for a couple decades now? When this showed up in the mail here I was rusty as hell, but practice, practice practice, y'know? I picked it up as a joke but it's honestly actually pretty sick. Let me hit you with a piece I like, just uh, forgive the dropped notes, they're gonna happen."

Erin takes a deep breath, and starts to play.

[guildmastermind]

"Better to get coordination down before anything goes sideways, honestly. But, uh...what are excursions like, here?"

[crushed_pearls]

"...I think I'm grasping what you're laying down and if I am, he's right, assuming Gil's willing to play ball, but this is when I'm gonna need to vastly disappoint you for a minute." Deep breath.

Nope, deep breath isn't enough, Erin also takes a long series of puffs on her cigar.

"...So the last videogames I have clear memories of are on the Super NES."

[guildmastermind]

[guildmastermind]

[guildmastermind]

"You've been letting me ramble on like a nerd this whole time without asking for an explanation?"

[crushed_pearls]

"I'm good at context clues!" Erin protests. "This is the first time I've absolutely hit a wall of jargon where a lack of clarity might cause like, interpersonal issues!"

And you'll find no ever after here, just the world's worst vampires

[neverleave]

"Like hell you will."

The speaker is a teenage boy wearing a printed Tommy Bahama polo and a massive scowl. The scent of a corpse hit him from the stairs; it's bad enough to have another vampire show up, and for the vampire to threaten Ody? Fuck no.

"That's my friend's pet. Put him down."

[guildmastermind]

"Okay. How in-depth an explanation do you want to have here? And...do you have any basis in fantasy TTRPGs? The class systems are comparable, because we're falling back on the same sorts of tropes."

Local blind woman immune to the fourth wall

[crushed_pearls]

"Uh...I'm gonna say none," Erin admits after a Long Moment. "I've been exposed to Magic: the Gathering sorta? I'd lost my eyes by then so mostly what I could pick up by. You know. Listening to the trash talk."

"...Dare I hope that Castlevania has decent references?"

[guildmastermind]

"Lord of the Rings? You've got elf ears, you have to at least have some familiarity with the Fellowship, right?"

Is that racist? It feels like it might potentially be racist.

the one with the goop

[bubblegumheart]

Chrissy has never really been afraid of the dark. She's also never been particularly afraid of the dark on this ship. Needless to say, she's not even aware of the potential danger she's in until it's too late.

Momentary panic melts away to something else as her vision suddenly clears, and she finds herself looking around in response to that voice in her head. "Excuse me, but... I'm not sure if we want to be Venom." She also has no idea who or what a Venom is, so there's that.

[bloodmunchies]

"Yeah, come on, dude!" Aiden says, trotting up in the form of a rather large and sharp-fanged ocelot. It is very clear that this is a vampiric creature. "It totally isn't the crab's fault that you, like, got in the way of his little knife or whatever."

[crushed_pearls]

"You are so fucking lucky that I love Lord of the Rings. But also we've got at least one half-elf on board and people from worlds that actually have elves and orcs so tread lightly with your references there." Erin leans in now though, all interest, ears twitching. "I'm listening."

[makeapromise]

He's already impressed just to be able to behold a hurdy-gurdy and a hurdy-gurdy player, in real life and in playable condition, paying rapt attention to the notes and trying to land the style (which he can't quite do, so this is so interesting) and just, the entire way the instrument is working. The keys, the wheel, the strings, the friction, the way this is effectively a bow that you don't have to change bowings on...

And then she starts layering with that loop pedal, and he's astonished, and then she starts putting in fucking--electric guitar sounds??????? Okay, so that's what the electrification is for.

There are sparkles in his eyes. There are so many sparkles and stars in his eyes that he might be generating an entire new universe and he didn't even need to breed any frogs to do it.

"How did you do that?"

[guildmastermind]

"So, Gandalf is what you have in mind when you think wizard, but that's not me. My magic is focused on buffing my allies and debuffing my enemies. Gandalf would probably have been a Sorceror in Elder Tale. A tank is someone like Gimli. Frontline fighter, good armor, there to get hit and make it sure others in the party don't get hit. Then you've got strikers, out there with a sword. Assassins, Swashbucklers, some Bards or Samurai. Legolas is a ranged fighter; someone like me can pump up his accuracy and damage, right? And the Fellowship didn't really have a dedicated healer, though Samwise would probably have been a Cleric."

He's trying, he really is.

[astrogator]

[She assumes, in her usual rational way, that there must be a breeze higher up, to catch his scarf that way, even if the air is quite still where she's standing. He's a curiosity, though. He's right, the stars aren't moving, but to determine that she'd had to take some very precise readings over time.

Paintings isn't a bad way to put it, although it's far too gently poetic for the nightmare they're in. It's so very unfair. He doesn't look old enough to be taken on as a Tradeline apprentice, even, and yet he's trapped here to suffer with the rest of them.]

Tayrey. Lieutenant Tayrey of the Tradelines. Peace and prosperity to you. [The routine greeting, although the attendant handshake is missing, given his current seat above her.] I'm an astrogator. My ship travels the stars, and it's my job to set the course and keep the charts. [Among other things, but she won't complicate it.] Are your family spacers?