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

"Master Ebalon" | Elsword

[selenokinesis]

I.

[A faceless woman is not among the oddest things Ebalon has seen in his exponentially long lifespan, so do forgive him if he doesn't react with much horror at the sight of Friday. If people around him are gasping or crying or otherwise expressing abject shock, he's the odd man out, standing there politely with a slight, soft smile on his delicate features. He hardly even reacts when the lei is placed around his neck other than to quizzically run his fingers over the rooster feathers, briefly wondering what kind of fashion statement this is supposed to be before seeming to move on.

...the compulsion that brought him here was a touch annoying, though, he'll admit that much.

Unfortunately, Ebalon can't quite find it in himself to care much about the surroundings. There's work to be done, yes, but by his measure he can simply do it here. Whatever spacetime anomaly that brought him here can be researched and picked apart piece by piece until he has either a workable solution to exiting, or more knowledge than he entered with; at which point, the latter of which should give him enough information to loop back around to workable solution. If he's baffled about the situation at all (and he is — as evidenced by approximately one (1) half-second where his brow creases and he frowns just after Friday bumbles off to go lei someone else), he's doing a damn good job of hiding it.

He doesn't speak, but rather makes unflinching eye contact with you as soon as Friday loops the rooster feather lei around your neck, offering a thin smile as polite formality. If you're concerned about the situation, that's your problem, clearly.]

II.

[When the back-to-back compulsion spells finally end, Ebalon only looks mildly more cross than he was when they began initially — though, if you look in his direction, he's swift to correct his frown into something far more amicable. It wouldn't do to get mad over such a minor spell anyhow, would it?

He'll make his way to the library on deck 3 first in search of answers of any kind, though he finds on the walk there that his magic seems to be working fine. A little supernatural movement in the shadows here, a tiny ball of moonlight in his hand there... everything seems to be in order by Ebalon's measure. If you catch him playing with magic at some point between his journey and the library proper, he'll offer you a smile, like he knows you've been looking. It's all smiles with this man, clearly.

In the library itself, however, he seems perturbed. There's not a single non-fiction book here, and that makes his research rather frustrating. Supposed research, anyway. In most cases, anything would help, except for the fact that colourful children's books and novella for teenagers don't offer much except life advice.

Ebalon doesn't care for life advice.

He'll stay in the library for several hours regardless of that fact, pouring over books in case there's something hidden within the pages. There's a precarious stack of YA novels building next to his right elbow that threatens to topple at any moment, but he's hardly paying it any mind. From where he's seated at the table, facing away from you, he says aloud in a quiet voice,]

I personally wouldn't bother with that section, unless you fancy books for older children.

[...it's like he has eyes in the back of his head. He hasn't looked up from his current choice novel.]

III.

[Today, Ebalon thinks he might as well be living in his shield magic for how much flying objects have caused him to toss them up. By Henir, this is almost more annoying than anything else he's ever dealt with in his life. Almost.

It's fine, he thinks to himself; he'll just gently delete the existence of whoever or whatever has been hurling things in his direction while he's trying to exist in this spacetime anomaly. It'll be quick, no one will know, and he'll be able to get on with his list of things to do.

From where he's seated near the buffet table picking at lunch, a spoon comes flying out of nowhere and thunks uselessly off of a translucent, white-glowing magic shield. Unfortunately, that spoon happens to come at him from an angle awfully close to where you're standing, which means—]

Ah, do you have a moment? I just want to talk.

[—that he thinks you're the cause of the hellishly annoying day he's been having. The hostility in his voice, while not obvious, is certainly present.]

wildcard
[Feel free to toss anything at me or poke me at wolfchan to discuss!]

ii.

[rumorradio]

How disappointing.

( not that sakura doesn't like fiction- it's enjoyable. but it's not what she was looking for. she holds up the book she'd pried from a shelf- it looks like some sort of moby dick ripoff, actually. ... she'd rather read the original in that case. sighing, she puts it back on the shelf. )

I suppose atlases and star maps would be too easy.

[selenokinesis]

[Atlases and star maps... interesting. It's not quite what he was looking for, but the principles of the stars can certainly be tangentially related to moon magic, which might prove somewhat useful. But he knows from experience — control over the stars is more closely related to the category of the Sun El, which... well.

It isn't his thing.]

Star maps... if I could make a guess, are you trying to triangulate exactly where we are in the world based on constellations?

[He's still not looking up.

He flips a page.]

[rumorradio]

Yes, among other things- I also wanted to see if the star maps would match what I know of my home's sky or not.

( if they're 'home' at all, and if the star maps would reflect that. she doubts it more and more by the second- especially as she's never seen his style of garb before, even in the far shore. with a soft sigh. sakura slides the book back in place and crosses her arms, thinking. what else could she try... )

I suppose we should be grateful that whatever saw fit to bring us here is deigning to leave us with entertainment, at least.

[selenokinesis]

[Now he bothers to look up.]

I can say with confidence that this world is nothing like my own, given what's available to us here — it would be interesting if you could find out if this anomaly is centered within your own. Triangulating our position would be most beneficial to formulating a plan for escape...

[He trails off. If this is supposed to be a "test", it almost makes sense that the dimension chosen would be unfamiliar to Ebalon. Still, he hasn't sensed a single trace of Henir on-board... it really makes him wonder.]

The entertainment is nice, I suppose. I do wish nonfiction books were available.

[rumorradio]

Perhaps what we consider nonfiction is fiction to another. Although in the end, I doubt it will matter. If there's nothing like navigational references, there's likely little else of true use.

( a rather blithe way of saying 'maybe you're fake to someone', honestly, but sakura has always been... like that. )

Of course, considering we're supposed to be "on vacation", something that would aid in an escape would be out of reach, wouldn't it.

iii

[mewchan]

I don't talk to strange adults, woof!

[ A strangely dressed boy slowly lowers a large cat shaped cushion he'd been using to block the flying cutlery to peer over at "Ebalon". ]

Even if I trusted you mister, you sound mad, meow! I don't think I wannya!

[selenokinesis]

[Why is this small child barking at him? —and now meowing, are children always this way?

Whose kid is this?]

Are you playing pranks on your elders, boy?

[He leans down to pick up the spoon that had uselessly clattered off of his shield seconds earlier, spinning the neck of it between his thumb and forefinger like it's a rather curious artifact of some kind and not, you know, a fucking spoon.]

[mewchan]

[ ur worst fucking nyaightmare, Ebalon.

Gin kind of wishes he did throw this spoon, with the way Ebalon glares at him but he didn't. It's ghost, obviously, which any worthless adult should clearly be able to figure out. It's not Gin's fault if you aren't as smart as him!]

You aren't that much older then me, meow. But I didn't do it! I only play funny pranks, woof.

[selenokinesis]

[That is absolutely true that Ebalon isn't much older — appearance-wise he looks somewhere between eighteen and twenty-one, nebulously in the realm of "just became an adult and now the authority's gone to his head". The way he talks, too, carries some sort of superiority in it, which is probably obvious to someone perceptive.]

I see.

[He sets the spoon down, looking Gin up and down... "Where are your parents" is what he wants to ask, but he refrains from doing so only because he gains a modicum of self-control at the last minute.]

I apologise, then, for the accusation. Ah — on your left.

[It's the calmest "hey you're about to be hit by a flying plate" known to man. Ebalon does nothing but that, continuing to pick at his food as he observes the results.]

[mewchan]

You don't sound like you mean it, woof! I don't want any half hearted apology, meow!

[ Supremely annoying, yeah! Gin's met big kids like you before, you make fun of his outfit and how he talks. He hates guys like this! You're lucky he's mature beyond his years. ]

Huh..?

[ That's all Gin gets out before the flying plate clobbers Gin on the side of the head. His hoodie and cape add a bit of padding, but there's still a loud crack as the plate hits. Gin doesn't drop to the floor, but he doubles over with a whine. Ow...ow ow ow... That really hurt, but he's not going to cry in front of jerks! ]

iii

[sweetsong]

[ at lunch, he's enjoying a nice salad. something light, something crisp and fresh. not just a delicate collection of leaves mind you but the kind of salad that certainly has a bit of cheese and some of those nice fakey bacon bits and more than just a handful of croutons. if anything--- the salad is just croutons. tasty.

he lifts his head to look at the person who seems a little upset about something? he hasn't noticed anything out of the sort up to this point (except for everything)... so. ]

Um. Sure! Sorry, was I eating too loudly? [ what else could piss someone off right now? ] Or did I accidentally take your fork, or...

[ there are probably other major offenses but firing a spoon at someone is not on that list right now. ]

[selenokinesis]

[Ebalon concludes within the first few words this boy utters that he is not responsible for throwing the spoon, on account of the fact he seems a bit too oblivious to even have the ability to play dumb.]

Pardon me. I must have accused the wrong person of flinging this at my head. You don't seem like the type to throw objects at complete strangers.

[He picks up the spoon from where it's landed near his foot and sets it down on the table.]

I didn't mean to come across as impolite, so I apologise. Unfortunately, I've been dealing with this for the better half of the day. I suppose you could say I'm a bit on edge for it.

[This, referring to the things being thrown at him in general. Not just spoons. There was a knife at one point.]

[sweetsong]

Oh. [ a pause as he idly pushes a few spinach leaves out of the way. ] Thanks!

[ because that's a compliment. right? the type that robin wants to be is not the kind that might try to take advantage of someone by chucking a spoon in their direction. besides--- it's obvious to him that it would be all for naught even if he tried? that shield seems pretty amazing and whatever magic behind it... well, it's obviously coming from this stranger. ]

Maybe... maybe there's a reason why you're being targeted. Not saying that you did anything wrong! But why else would anyone or anything go after you?

[ as he says this, he watches as a tomato is delivered onto his plate. a full ass tomato. not sliced or anything. why. ]

[selenokinesis]

[It's a compliment insofar as Ebalon doesn't mean it as an insult, anyway. There are undertones of "congrats on not being an irritating little insect" in that statement.

He almost wants to laugh at "maybe there's a reason you're being targeted". Oh yes. There are several reasons, actually, but he offers a saccharine smile instead of drawing attention to it.]

I wonder what it could possibly be?

[Ha ha! Ha.

Ebalon cannot count the number of people on one hand that want his head on a pike. He can name a handful of names, though; everyone else is about as inconsequential in threat level to him as a child is. Actually... he does have to wonder if all of his "old friends" still think Solace is entirely to blame for the El Explosion, or if they've woken up from their almost-permanent slumbers and put two and two together.

The whole-ass tomato ending up on Robin's plate draws him from his idle musings.]

My, I wonder if you are being targeted as well?

[Granted, a whole extra tomato doesn't seem that hostile. Unless Robin is allergic, and then maybe.]

I hope whatever's given you that bothered to wash it first.

[sweetsong]

[ he sounds like he doesn't know why, and that's concerning to robin--- especially when he seems to be in the same boat? these ghostly apparitions, trying to be a little rude no matter where they happen to be, are plain annoying. ]

If I am... I don't think I've done anything wrong.

[ brows furrowed, robin goes over the events of the day thus far. waking up, taking a shower, doing some light stretches and vocal warm ups, and then now he's here. as he raises his hand up to his neck and shoulder, touching a particularly sensitive spot, before bringing it back down. ]

I'm not going to eat this!

[ and he pushes it aside. ]

What... is that thing you've been protecting yourself with?

II

[myagic]

[Unlike Ebalon, Rita's displeasure is very clearly written all over her: from the scowl on her face, her tense posture, and right down to her irritated stride as she stomps around. She has no idea where to go, but she can move as she pleases now (finally!), so it's time to look for whatever information she can find.

That all goes out the window when she spots the flicker of magic--she had paused to decide on a direction, and as he passed by... As a genius, naturally, she recognizes immediately that there's something different about it--like it's not using a blastia, or maybe even aer--]

Wait a minute--that was--

[And without even a greeting, Rita tries to grab for his hands for a closer look.]

[selenokinesis]

[Her grabbing of his hands succeeds; Ebalon makes a surprised sound before the briefest, most fleeting flash of ire flickers in his eyes. All at once, he's back to being polite, albeit still stunned, brows knit.]

Can I... help you?

[Whose child is this? Why is she so... grabby?

The magic that Ebalon is playing with — or rather, testing, just to make sure all is in order here — flickers out shortly after she grabs him. If she can sense lingering traces of magic, though, it's quite literally all over his hands and wrists.]

[myagic]

Hmmm...

[Rita is completely, utterly oblivious to any hint of anger--or even the fact that she's currently clutching a person's hands, really. She doesn't really answer his question, just studies his hands intently, but she isn't able to sense his magic.

Finally, she actually looks at his face, but-]

Hey! Whatever you were doing, do it again!

[-it's just to bark an order at him. She has zero shame when it comes to being bossy.]

[selenokinesis]

[...

Ebalon would rub his temples if he had access to his hands right now. He does not. There are two reasonable courses of action to getting out of this: Pushing a kid off of him, which is moderately fucked-up to do especially because he doesn't want to make any enemies here, or alternatively just giving in and showing her the magic he was testing out.

She strikes him as the scholarly type sort of like himself, so he's quick to let the magic wreathe around his hands again — the right hand swirls with white-coloured ribbons of energy, while the left carries a denser, black-coloured magic that creeps between his fingertips like a snake.]

I was simply testing to see if my magic still worked after arriving here. None of this will hurt you, if that's a concern at all.

[Something about this young lady's energy says that it's absolutely not.]

[myagic]

[It is absolutely not a concern at all, as Rita eagerly leans in so her face is right in front of his hands--she just has to get as close a look as possible.]

I was right... That's not a blastia formula at all... Is it even using aer? Are these both light and dark elements? I've never seen anyone use them at the same time!

[She's mostly thinking out loud at first, but by the end, she's looking up at his face again, expecting some kind of answer.

And still not letting go of his hands.]

II

[learntoread]

[ Ebalon's warning does little to deter Tabia, nor does his uncanny prescience - he looks to be an avid reader, after all, and people like that often have their ways of knowing things they shouldn't.

But no, a book for older children would be fine. More than their contents, what drew Tabia here was the way the writing is bound, and the sheer scale of it. Was there any place in Egypt with this much writing compiled? Probably in Thebes. But why build such a grand library on a boat? ]

I've never seen any library like this before. The creators of this ship must be from a kingdom of great scribes and scholars...

[selenokinesis]

[A kingdom... yes, Ebalon thinks, a library like this is somewhat similar to what's contained within the Elrian Kingdom — what was contained back there, anyway, before it died just as swiftly as it rose to prominence.

He actually bothers to look up, pressing his hand down on the page so that he doesn't lose his place in his quest for knowledge.]

Is such uncommon where you come from?

[With his free hand he gestures, vaguely, to the shelves around them.]

[learntoread]

Oh, very much so! [ She takes a book off the top of the stack, flipping through it curiously. Whatever this language it is that's been imprinted into her mind, the writing system is quite ingenious - like a simpler, more elegant version of Demotic script. Perhaps it could be adapted to be used back home, if she recalls enough details? ]

There are libraries there, of course, but I've never seen this way of binding writings together. Creating even one of these must be a massive undertaking.

[selenokinesis]

Hmm... I am somewhat unfamiliar with book binding. I believe the process entails, from start to finish, using glue to seal the pages together at the ends, and more glue from there to stick them to a cardboard or leather backing, depending...

[Ebalon trains off, unsure both of what goes into properly binding a book and what types of bindings she may be familiar with.]

Huhu, I imagine getting the leather for nicer books is more of an undertaking than the bindings are. May I ask how you typically see books bound?

[Because he's genuinely curious now!]