sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

1. now it's fun to wake up in a strange chateau

[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! We're so glad to have you!

[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.]

2. messing with my mind was fun at the time

[freshly lei'd, your legs are forced to lead out onto the deck and towards your muster station. the same woman is there, carrying a clipboard. this time, she introduces herself as Gal Friday, the cruise director, before immediately going into the muster drill spiel. it is very boring, and you are not allowed to move, except when you are required to show you know how to put your life vest on. you could try to not do this, but Friday will move to stand in front of you very closely and just. look in your direction until such a time that you decide to do it. and I'm sure your fellow passengers want you to just get on with it, too.

but, once it ends? she reiterates her desire to welcome you aboard. and, then, you're free.

well, free to move about the ship at your own leisure, of course. which is a kind of free, and probably the best one you can hope for. you could try to escape, maybe, if you have the means to; Friday certainly won't be one to stop you. that's what the barrier is for, after all.

but, wouldn't you much rather have fun?

the buffet is full. the pool is open. the casino jingles and chimes.

welcome aboard.]

3. lots of mystery in the history of the devils I knew

[you were never alone.

a few days have passed since you first arrived on the Serena Eterna. perhaps you've made yourself a little routine, and settled in a bit. or maybe you haven't done that at all. either way, you're here, and it looks like somebody is pretty pissed off about it.

it starts small. sometimes nearby plates skid off tables, or a pool chair upends while you're walking next to it. and sometimes that chair is aimed right at your head. objects are moving with quickly increasing frequency, and a wide variety of styles: some are dropped, or pushed, and others and others are tossed, but a few of the items are thrown, with great force and odd accuracy. if Friday is around during the lighter moments, she simply titters and cleans up whatever mess is made. if a pot of soup sails off the buffet line and nearly drenches you in boiling minestrone, she simply walks away.

and then there's the voices. hundreds, maybe thousands, calling out. not all are intelligible English, but you seem to understand them anyway. some sound scared, or angry. some are screams, others whispers. some sound entirely strange, while others are achingly familiar. and they're all saying the same exact thing:

Get Out.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Yuri is annoyingly good at winding her up too, because she only ever seems to realize later that he's changed the subject. The "dead" comment is already forgotten as she huffs at him.]

Who cares how they look? I'm not trusting anything from that--that...

[Aaaand with her attention back on the faceless person, she can't even find the appropriate words to describe her (it?), so instead she tugs the lei off.]

[ Yuri holds out his hand for the lei. Why not have two leis? Now that is a good look. He'll stack as many of them as people will give him, at this point. ]

What, she's just being friendly!

[ He's taking this all too lightly. It's a fun moment of reprieve! Any minute, Ba'ul will appear in the sky and whisk them away. He'll start to freak out when he realizes that they're trapped on the ship. ]

[She gives both his hand and his comment a skeptical look, but drops the lei over his wrist anyway as her voices raises in volume and pitch-]

Have you noticed that she has no face?!

[Ugh, no, no, she doesn't want to think about that.]

Ugh, forget her for a second! You don't remember how we got here, do you?

[Because for her, it's a blank, and she can't stand it.]

[ Yes, second lei. He slips it around his neck, just absolutely decked out in flowers now. His eyes flick back to Gal Friday, who does, in fact, not have a face. It's really freaky, but he's just... going with it, for now. At least their part of the safety briefing is over, and they aren't stuck here anymore. He didn't love that part, it felt a lot like being at a dull briefing with the knights again. ]

Nah, woke up in a cabin. Did Judy sign us up for a vacation or something? [ Not that cruise ships really seem to exist on Terca Lumereis, but there's plenty of stuff he'd never seen before he started his journey with Estelle, like the ocean. Maybe there are cruise ships, he doesn't know. ]

[So it's just as much a mystery for him. She sighs and presses her palm to her forehead.]

Beats me, but that would be pretty weird, even for her.

[She crosses her arms in thought. Now that she can talk to someone she knows, they can brainstorm a bit.]

It seems too weird even for that jerk Alexei, but who else could do something like this?

[ And he's dead, so... ]

Maybe it's like Yormgen? Or that ghost ship. Y'know, lost in time or something?

[ Even though... it seems really modern. Maybe too modern? He doesn't know what all these black boxes are everywhere, what the little device he woke up with is. Some weird kind of magic, probably ]

What's the last thing you remember? [ Here it goes, going in for the big one: is Rita also dead? ]

[And she automatically bristles at being reminded of both of those places (even if it has crossed her mind--and will continue to do so).]

Hey--come on, you know that wasn't possible!

[At least the question is easy enough to answer.]

I was just about to go and meet you at the city gate--oh yeah, as you probably noticed, I did get something figured out for Estelle's formula, so she'll be okay.

[As long as she stays in Zaphias. Rita glances around.]

...I hope she didn't end up here too... You haven't seen her, have you?

It happened. [ Come on, Rita. Isn't science believing what happens in front of your own eyes?

Yuri looks around too, but it's all strangers on this boat. He hasn't seen Flynn yet, and it's a weird mix of being glad their friends aren't stuck here, and a little weirded out that it's just them ]

Nah, no pink hair. I knew you'd do it. [ No one's as committed to making sure Estelle is okay, not even Estelle. It's cute, really, the two of them together. ] Puts kind of a wrench in our plans, being here. We'll have to get off at the next stop.

[What if it was. A mass hallucination. What then, Yuri??]

There's no way I would've given up on her.

[Still, Rita's--figuratively and literally--in the same boat. As long as the others aren't stuck here, they'd better get going to Zaude on their own, but why isn't there anyone else here they recognize?]

But ugh, seriously--I'm not gonna relax until I blast that jerk for everything he did, so why the hell do we end up here instead?!

[And who knows how long they've been here--it's still morning, but what if it's not the same morning?]

[ Use science to prove it then, Rita!

Dein Nomos dangles from Yuri's wrist, and his fist clenches around the leather strap, brows furrowing. Alexei did get blasted. Blasted, crushed, beaten to a pulp by Brave Vesperia. All of it. He's not quite sure why he doesn't want to say, except that she doesn't know, and she doesn't have to know. Except... he can say part of it, can't he? ]

He gets his. This is gonna sound weird, but hear me out. I've already been to Zaude. We won, we beat Alexei, and Jaeger, come to think of it. We got him back.

[ Only... Alexei also released the Adaphagos, but, well. She doesn't really need to know that part, either. That would just make her more upset ]

[She'll do all the research on it!! ...Eventually.

Rita stares at Yuri like he's grown an extra head.]

...Um, yeah, it does sound weird, because we haven't!

[It does bother her--Yuri isn't the type to tell a stupid joke like this. Rita knows that. But she still can't reconcile what he's saying with what she remembers.]

--How's your heart rate? Are you dizzy or tired? I've never heard of aersickness causing hallucinations, but that was way more than the usual level of aer yesterday, and it could still be affecting you...

[--So she tries to explore the other possibilities instead, her mouth running about as fast as her brain as it all comes out in a rush.]

Hey, hey, Rita, slow down! I'm fine, [ he's not ] I said it was gonna sound weird. I met up with you and Estelle and everyone in Zaphias, and we headed out to Zaude, what, yesterday? Damn. [ It feels like way longer than that. He sighs and looks away from her ]

Found Alexei on the top of that thing, the Shrine of Zaude. Fought him, then the blastia, he messed something up with it, and it crushed him.

I dunno why you don't remember it. You were there.

I don't know why you do remember it!

[It is weird, enough that she's too distracted to go on a rant about Alexei messing up the blastia, but she stops rambling at a mile a minute for now, brows furrowed as she tries to think. She mutters out loud as she does so, partly to herself and partly to Yuri.]

It doesn't make sense...but...we don't remember how we got here, so...obviously something's affected us...

[She doesn't like it, but she can reluctantly follow that idea to its logical conclusion.]

...So whatever the cause was...it made me forget even more than a day?

[She's annoyed, and just...unhappy with that idea for various reasons. But it would make more sense than anything else so far, though she'd still prefer to gather more data first.]

[ Because... maybe she's dead too, and for some reason forgot the whole thing. Maybe that's better for her. She doesn't have to remember how it all shook out.

Except he really hopes she isn't dead. If she's dead, that probably means more of Brave Vesperia is, too. It means that even if they defeated Alexei, he failed. He failed to protect Estelle once, he didn't want to let it happen a second time. What could have happened? They won. Did Sodia go on a rampage? Why would she take out her grudge against Yuri on everyone else? On Estelle, even, a princess? Even Flynn? No, no, she wouldn't have, he doesn't think. She's loyal to Flynn, loyal enough to take out Yuri, the threat.

He wishes he knew. He wishes that Rita knew, that he wasn't the holder of more information. He gets a little lost in thought, looking away from her, trying to process all of this. He's dead, Sodia killed him. Alexei is dead. Rita is here, but no one else.

After a moment, he glances back at her ]

Jeez, I'm hungry. Talk about this over some lunch?

[She continues to frown, staring at him while waiting for an answer--but also not certain there is an answer just yet, not with the information they have.]

...How can you think about food at a time like this?

[She sounds skeptical, but it's less at him and more at--everything else. But she shrugs, anyway.]

I suppose you won't be much help if you pass out...though I don't know if I'd trust the food here just yet.

[She can go along with it, though--all they have to do is find somewhere to eat.]

Dunno, I'm hungry.

[ He isn't. He just... doesn't want to actually think or talk about this anymore.

But either way, he starts toward the inside of the ship. There has to be some kind of food here, right? ]

I'll be the test subject. You don't hafta eat til I survive.

[ And, anyway, he's already dead! What's the worst that can happen! ]

I've heard food poisoning can be pretty miserable, you know.

[The irony that Yuri is probably far more aware of that fact than anyone else in their group is currently lost on Rita as she keeps up with him, as she there's something else on her mind.]

I'd expect this from the kid or the old man, but it's pretty unusual for you to be so focused on your stomach.

[Hell, the two of them are usually the last holdouts when everyone else is complaining about their hunger. She fixes Yuri with a look instead of keeping an eye out for a place to eat.]

What can I say, the ocean makes me hungry.

[ Said deadpan. Don't look at him, Rita. He isn't meeting her eyes at all, under the guise of looking for a restaurant or kitchen or something. He really doesn't want to have to voice these thoughts that he's having.

A distraction. He needs a distraction from this line of reasoning. Rita's smart, too smart, he knows that she'll figure him out. Luckily, the ghosts of the ship seem to be on his side, because just as they're walking in the indoor part of the ship when the carpet runner is tugged as it by a very strong person, and Yuri goes, arms-wheeling, stumbling back ]

[Oh she is definitely scrutinizing him even more now and is already opening her mouth with a retort when--

Suddenly everything spins, and before she knows it, she's flat on her ass on the floor--and now very, very distracted.]

Who the HELL did that?!

[She's back on her feet immediately to blast whoever the culprit is, but she doesn't see anyone--they must be around the corner!]

Think you can hide?!

[Aaaand she's off, rounding the corner of the hallway to see...nobody. She keeps glaring at the empty corridor, though.]

[ Well, distraction achieved, at least. Yuri catches his balances, Dein Nomos swinging dangerous next to him (really, that thing needs a sheath), as he watches her disappear. It only takes a moment before he shrugs internally and runs after her.

That was weird. That was really weird. Is someone trying to kill him? Wouldn't be the first time.

He sure hopes that fuckin' Zagi isn't here, too.

He skids around the corner ]

Rita! Wait up.

You didn't see the jerk that did this, did you?

[She's still scowling, hands on her hips, as she turns to Yuri.]

Someone's good at hiding, apparently.

[ He skids to a stop by her, glancing around ]

Didn't see anyone. Weird thing to happen.

[ Super weird. But it did distract her, so... not back ]

Maybe I just tripped.

Even if you were that clumsy, we wouldn't both trip at the same time!

[She looks back to the hall they were just in--and sure enough, the carpet is bunched up where it was yanked forward.]

How did that sneak get away so quickly...?

[There's the sound of muffled footsteps behind them--did he hide somewhere else--so Rita spins around, ready to deck them, but...there's still nobody there.]

...Maybe it came from somewhere else...

[ This certainly is still distracting her, so Yuri decides: what the hell, why not play along? ]

Yeah, I think I heard him. Hey, guy, what the hell was that?

[ He raises his voice a bit, like it'll get whoever this is out of hiding.

...obviously it doesn't ]

Man, I tried.

Edited 2022-02-26 19:45 (UTC)

[And now she does scowl at him, because she's still bothered by how calm he is about the entire damn situation.]

You could try putting some real effort in, you know!

[Not that...her efforts are getting them anywhere so far. There's no answer, no more footsteps...nothing. She can't stand just waiting around for something to happen, so she might just have to put this little hunt on hold for now.]

Hmph...that jerk can't hide forever.

[What were they doing, anyway...?]

it's just really exciting to see surprise castmates!

i was so excited to see Rita! we love to see multiple characters from a 14 year old game

yesss I love that there are still some Vesperias around ♥

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