TEST DRIVE MEME #1

[sailmods]

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.]

Comments

[myagic]

[She does touch the spear, just to confirm that it is in fact tangible and not at all transient, because she isn't ready to take him solely at his word just yet. And once again, he just can't stop rubbing in that that she doesn't know about fonons. Some of her irritation starts to return, as she shoots him a glare, but it's overall still outmatched by her curiosity. It seems Jade isn't all talk after all (is she almost disappointed by that fact...yeah...)

The gears in her head were already starting to turn, though, and his question about aer is about where her thoughts were heading, too.]

Hmm...you say they're the building blocks of matter along with atoms... That's distinct from aer, which isn't matter itself--not in its state as aer, anyway.

So, then--you disassembled the spear into its component atoms, and used an arte to reassemble it, is what you're saying?

[It still doesn't explain to her the precise how, largely because--if fonons make up matter--it's quite different from her own aer-based magic.]

1/...3??

[fonomena]

[Terribly sorry, he just couldn't help but get in one more jab...! This is probably the last chance he's getting to lord it over her, after all, considering that an explanation is finally being peeled piecemeal off his person all the same now. Alas, Rita isn't the first to find herself dismayed by the fact that Jade is not, in fact, "all talk" (or "full of it" or "an overrated hack", etcetera)--many before her have come to the same unhappy realization, and there will probably be many more who come to it after her in the future too. Really, he gets this a lot, it's okay. One could consider it half his infuriating charm!]

Along with, yes--they're the requisite resonant component found in all forms of atomic particles, that generate energy in the varying frequencies of their vibration. [To be textbook about it, anyway...honestly, the elaboration is slipping out before Jade can quite stop himself, some kind of buried scholastic-muscle-memory from younger days briefly taking hold. He does manage to stop himself short of diving into outlining the six defined sub-frequencies of fonons (along with, you know, the bonus recently-coined seventh), because he still doesn't actually want to completely explain it all. Really. He doesn't teach...but--] Hm, something that's not matter in itself, though...? Another energy type in the space between? I suppose there have always been theorists at home trying to sniff out a third primary component such as that, but this is the first I'm hearing the concept claimed with such confidence...

[Though Rita makes it sound like it's a given where she's from, much the same way Jade's been doing with fonons up to now. (Shame it's probably too late for her to effectively turn the heckling tables on him about it.) Before he can really start chewing on that thought-tangent, though--]

[fonomena]

[Rita then goes on to...mete out the basics of the spear's storage system, on her very first guess? And for the first time in the entire conversation, Jade's expression is flickering from thoughtful amusement to some surprise.]

yeah 3!!

[fonomena]

[--Only for a moment though! Less than a nanosecond! It's not like he's actually a bit impressed, or anything like that...!! (No, not like she's quite possibly the first person he's ever met aside from Dist to actually wrap her head around the concept quite as readily as this--)]

...Well, yes. --That would be putting it in the most basic terms. You could say I've broken down its fonic components in such a way that they can be easily reassembled, provided the right arte is applied to promote the restructuring. As well as promoting repeat instances going forward, with consistency. [--and, lifting the spear clear of Rita's grasp, it abruptly vanishes with another crackle of light and sound, leaving Jade's hand empty once again.]

[myagic]

[Oh, she's going to have plenty of followup questions about all this, since "resonant components" aren't something that exist in Terca Lumireis that have been proposed before to her knowledge. She does take the (however brief) opportunity to throw some of that condescension right back at him, though, complete with a little scoff.]

Hmph! How can you not know about forces like aer when you seem to have atomic theory all figured out?

[That aside, actually starting to have a bit of begrudging respect for each other's abilities here... Now that he's confirmed her theory is correct, she is pretty fascinated to watch him reverse the process. Still begrudgingly, though! She's not quite letting it go just yet.]

Where do you store all that matter, then? It has to go somewhere while it's been broken down.

[The idea that he's storing it inside his own body is a step beyond what she can imagine right now.

[fonomena]

It really is quite a mystery, isn't it? Why, I'm certain a person as brilliant as I would have stumbled upon something like this "aer" you speak of quite some time ago already...

[Nice try but he remains unfazed!! Though there's at least a hearty enough sarcastic lilt on the word brilliant that the words are much less sincerely preening and more generally sardonic. Not to mention how that really is a legitimate question; honestly, Jade's all but certain something like aer definitely would have been discovered by now, in his time back home...

Just how far apart are they in origin here, he wonders?

Freed of the spear's weight and general materialized existence, Jade's slipping both hands back in his pockets, properly resuming his idle posture of earlier. There's some begrudging respect happening here for sure...and it might even be mutual, maybe, just a bit. He'd be blatantly lying to say that he isn't actually very curious as to how this supposed aer substance actually works, on Rita's end...she mentions artes, at least, and so he has to assume there's some sort of parallel application applied with aer on her own end of things. By the sound of it, though, the similarities seem to end at about there...hmm. A decided itch to investigate further is starting to develop, but--

Rita's question is followed by a very slight pause, as if an answer might yet be made...but then his shoulders roll in a slight shrug, and Jade shakes his head, smiling.]

Now now, that's a finer sort of detail! I'll confirm that you're correct, in that it's certainly going somewhere when it's broken down--but if I told you where, I daresay I'd be losing quite a lot of my element of surprise! Surely you could take a guess at why I store a weapon in this way, yes?

[It's nothing personal, really--all told, Rita doesn't actually strike him as a potential future danger by any particular stretch right now--but all the same, even despite his own fascination in comparing the differences in their systems of matter...prudence still must take precedent. Training and past experience still reign in any temptation of being too candid; they're still functional prisoners in strange circumstances, after all, and he's not found a single familiar face here yet. This, at least, has less to do with his allergy to explaining things...

Well, though the teaching allergy still has a bit of a hand in it, admittedly. Jade's starting to wonder, vaguely, if he's already given away a bit too much. Really, this might be a bit of a headache down the line! Perhaps he ought to head things off now! (Little does he know it's already far too late, but anyway--)]

In fact, I'd be curious to hear you take a guess or two about the workings of my little storage system in general, at some point. You seem rather versed in these sorts of topics, even if our studies of focus seem to differ quite a bit. --So! I look forward to hearing your theories the next time we meet, hm? [Jade why are you...phrasing this like some kind of homework assignment.....???]

[myagic]

[Sure, she can guess a multitude of reasons why he might not want to explain how he manifests a weapon... But by this point, she already knows he can do it, so she's pretty sure he's already lost whatever element of surprise he's talking about. With that in mind, she gives him yet another scowl of disbelief.]

Do you ever explain anything properly?!

[She won't even teach him about aer if he's gonna be like this! (Can she actually resist rambling about aer and blastia if it comes down to it though...) Also, screw the "next time", she's going to shoot a theory at him right now.]

Obviously it'd have to be incorporated into something you're wearing!

[Because he isn't carrying anything else, so his clothes must be the only option here.]

[fonomena]

[Ah, but suppose anyone ever wants to disable him doing it at some point? One does have to consider all the interlinking parts, for these things--but Rita could be forgiven, for not considering it warranted to think that far ahead.

Either way, he's not going to be persuaded otherwise just by a scowl like that! With an utterly insufferable sort of cheerfulness:] No, I do not! It's an affliction, truly unfortunate. The doctors have told me I'll never really recover from it, and so I just have to be inexplicable to the end of my days now!

[Oh, he's...he's turning? He's leaving???]

Incorrect, by the way! [Added over his shoulder, at least, as he gives Rita a polite wave of departure over it too.] But not a half bad guess. Keep at it; perhaps you might yet narrow it down eventually!

["Next time" is happening now, sorry, he's heading on out! (Rita ought to be glad to be spared having to resist rambling about aer and blastia this time around! It really was a near thing, you know. Doubtless it'll eventually come up in a future conversation, at the rate things have been going even just here...)]

[myagic]

Y-you...

[Not only is that incredulous glare she's giving him only deepening with every word that comes out of his mouth, anger tenses her entire body like a wound spring. That casual dismissal of his just sends her shooting right past her breaking point and ready to explode.]

Where the hell do you think you're going?! I'm not done with you yet!

[She's already starting to chase after him, ready to grab him or fireball him or something, when a chair skids across the floor right in front of her--

And she ends up coming to a dead stop with a yelp, even as Jade makes his escape (this time...)]