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returnjourneymemes2022-02-01 02:13 pm
returnjourney) wrote in returnjourneymemes2022-02-01 02:13 pm
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TEST DRIVE 002
RETURN JOURNEY: TEST DRIVE 002
Welcome to the Return Journey's test drive meme! We appreciate your interest. Our TDM features a small sample of events your character might encounter in game, which you're free to embellish or improvise with your own ideas as desired. Don't worry if you haven't read everything yet; while we recommend skimming our FAQ for relevant questions, critical information should be contained or linked within the prompts themselves!
TDM threads can be used as samples for applications. Players can mutually keep threads as game canon after being accepted into the game, though threads featuring non-canon squalls or events may need to be adjusted.
We suggest putting your character's name, canon, and potential role (warden or inmate) as the subject. If you're not sure which role you want to choose, feel free to try your hand at both!
If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask here.
1. Welcome Aboard!
Welcome aboard the SFS Peregrine, a ship in the Admiralty's Transformative and Penal Reparation Fleet. It is presently circling the outer perimeter of the Oos Ring Galaxy.
Wardens have been approached personally by the Navarch with a job offer: Come aboard the SFS Peregrine to assist in the redemption of an inmate, and receive a miracle known as a windfall as payment. Even if you don't ask as many questions as you should, every warden will be treated to a short Warden Orientation video explaining their expected duties and conduct.
Inmates have died and been placed aboard the SFS Peregrine as candidates for reformation. You may have come willingly, offered a choice between death or redemption, or you may have been collected against your will. Inmates are also treated to an Inmate Orientation; you'll find you have less privileges than a warden, but more motivation for...latitude. Violence? Chaos? Bribery? Blackmail? Well, no one said the path to redemption was without a few bumps along the way.
Given staff shortages, some wardens may be asked for a favor. Rather than leaving directly for the Peregrine, you've been asked to pick up an inmate from the limbo between death and redemption. During this mission, wardens will have clearance to enter a snapshot of sorts, where the inmate died (so devoid of other living beings). You either have to talk them into willingly coming along...or bring their unconscious, fresh-from-death not-corpse with you in the Avro provided. Better hope they don't wake up on the way!
Inmates, in this case, you'll be presented with the choice of death or redemption from a warden rather than the Navarch. Or possibly not provided with a choice at all, if death has rendered you unconscious. Good luck when you awaken to find yourself in a small ship, with someone you've never met. Try not to cause any trouble.
2. Pairings
Pairings are a critical aspect of the dynamic between warden and inmate. While interactions between wardens and inmates are not restricted to those in pairings, this relationship is a bit more...inescapable. Inmates test the limits of a warden, whether they take a more typical or unusual approach to matters; likewise, wardens learn what makes an inmate tick (and hopefully cooperate). Chances are, your values will clash.
A pairing of any sort is as varied as the individuals involved in them. And today, courtesy of the Navarch's monthly announcement, you and your sorry partner have been paired. Temporary or permanent, with a warden for an inmate or an inmate for a warden, it's your first day together — out of at least a month, so good luck setting some ground rules and figuring out each other's breaking points.
3. Life on the Peregrine
Hey, inmates! Ever gone to summer camp? Had a sibling? If so, you might see where this is going. If not, welcome to your first experience with shared sleeping arrangements!
The dorms are lined with bunks, though maybe they're better described as pods: futuresque capsules stacked two high, with sleek white paneling and cool blue LED lightning. Each bunk can be closed off with a sliding door privacy and boasts a bladeless fan for temperature control. Bedding is adequate. If such modest conditions do not appeal to you: consider not committing crimes against other people.
And just like with siblings or summer camp, you don't get a say in who your bunkmate is. Maybe you'll luck out and get a light sleeper who doesn't toss and turn in the night. Maybe you won't, and you'll end up with someone who will kill you if you snore. Whoever you get is who you're stuck with until further notice!
Wardens get much more hospitable quarters, but they may want to keep an eye out on the inmate dorms. Just in case an inmate does try to kill their bunkmate.
4. Squalls
Occasionally, the ship passes through squalls, the equivalent of cosmic turbulence that can mess with little things like, say...the fabric of reality. These are shipwide effects, though who they hit is variable. Sometimes you might fall victim; other times you might be the one standing by, exasperated, as you deal with those affected.
(In other words, it's up to player discretion. And feel free to make up your own squalls!)
This time around, the squall comes with an interesting side effect: whenever you lie or someone lies to you, you experience an immediate rush of anger — whether you consciously know someone is lying or not. Think of it as a temporary lie detector, but instead of being hooked up to a machine, you might punch someone in the face.
5. The Peregrine
The Peregrine's layout and protocols have been designed with its intended passengers in mind, who are primarily Earth humanoids and inclined towards certain social and cultural practices. If you're wondering why you are on a ship of Earth humanoids despite not being one yourself, please understand that all ships in the Admiralty have a population capacity. At times it may be necessary to assign other species to a ship of this type, based on availability.
As a warden, you have full run of the ship map. Inmates...less so, but that's nothing a little creativity can't fix, right? Just remember, if a warden catches an inmate somewhere that inmate shouldn't be, it falls on the warden to handle the matter. And if the warden turns a blind eye...well, let's hope neither of you get caught. While it won't result in anything as extreme as a demotion, wardens can expect to get a stern dressing down; inmates, meanwhile, will be reprimanded by the warden who found them.
6. Networking
Now that you've powered on your CommLink for the first time and sat through the short tutorial and appropriate orientation, you're ready to explore the wonders of messaging. Video, audio, or text, the world is your oyster and you surely have opinions on it.
There is no anonymous option and IDs must be some variation of your name. (IC, characters will have to try their luck and see what the communicator will or won't accept when they register; OOC, it's up to players to decide what name to use if the character has multiple names or aliases.)
Wardens have access to a group network filter, something that inmates lack, and can track inmates throughout the ship with their CommLink. Inmates, best avoid getting your device confiscated or monitored.
7. Wildcard
If it's in our game pages, you can use it as a prompt! The sky's the limit.
no subject
Maybe it's in Sea People colors. Calyx doesn't understand all that, just that it's a thing.]
Punishment?
[Oh, so this is like, another Prince fucking with them. What a dumb way to go about it. Now Calyx has to kill them.
Wait, no, the, others? Hang on. Hang on. This is a lot of information for a ladyhimbo to process all at once.]
No, that can't be. Try, um.
[What should they try? Turning it on and off again?
Calyx crosses her arms and goes inwards.
And she's alone.
She lifts her eyes and doesn't respond - just looks profoundly lost.]
no subject
[She's not much more familiar with this caliber of technology than Calyx is, but she's used to suddenly being in a completely different world that looks nothing like she's encountered before. That's pretty much her whole unlife so far. ...Also, of the two of them, she's much more inclined towards "carefully investigating everything around her to see how it works" than the woman who is destruction incarnate upon the forsaken earth.]
[So at least now Locusts has a pre-recorded soundtrack to go along with her impending psychological crisis.]
[On seeing Calyx's expression, Lankhet doesn't say anything- but one fin moves just slightly closer to her, tangibly resting against the back of her legs. Ambiguous enough that it's hard to tell if it's a comforting touch, a grounding reminder, or simply a very large sea slug shifting position in an uncomfortably small hallway and brushing up against her by chance. Carefully deniable, should anyone be accused of any softer feeling.]
[It's the same thing that binds her to Kel, to Meluselah despite the woman's overwhelming loathing of everyone around her, that binds them to her in turn. They aren't exactly friends, aren't exactly dear- really, it's hard to say that they even like each other, some days.]
[But when you wash up on a foreign shore, you cling tight to anyone else stranded in the wreckage with you. The King of Eyes caught them all up and smashed them into the rocks of his endless greed, and after a certain point it doesn't matter how or why they got there.]
[It always comes back to this for the first among the Unearthed, in the end: they are lost together.]
When I try to speak as a bard, nothing answers. Nor can I pull on any Court-gift.
[She's not complaining about Eyes not being there, but... frankly, she's not really daring to think too hard about Eyes at all. The place where he should be is just blank- not as though he's hiding or refusing to respond, but like he simply isn't there.]
[She very carefully does not assume any meaning from that. She doesn't dare.]
I think this place may somehow seal all power not its' own. [There, that's a safer phrasing- sealed, cut off. Nothing to imply... impossible things. Unsafe thoughts.] Does your magic respond, at all?
no subject
SFS.
[It's an implied question, to her officer of naval affairs. Do you know anyone going by SFS? Private or governmental?
She taps cautiously on the glass. The gauntlet leaves a scratch.]
This is ... not personalized. They don't know who you are. No offense, but how could they not? You're the only one of you.
[Confusing, but an advantage. An enemy that doesn't know you can't counter you.
She's not thinking about feeling alone. It's not hard not to think about things. You just do what's in front of you instead. So, they'll cut their way through and go back to Eyes, and that will take care of itself, and then they won't mention that this ever had to happen.]
I couldn't rust through the door. I tried, though. It ended up just opening anyway.
[Prince of Nullification? Prince of, Solitude? Something like that?]
no subject
No such organization is listed in our records.
[And however little Lankhet likes her job as Admiral of the Fleet Eternal, she is meticulous in doing it. She has little choice in the matter- and besides that, it's what buys her what little leeway she has.]
[If anyone in the Unearthed had ever reported about this "Transformative and Penal Reparation Fleet", she would have heard of it.]
The speech seems to imply a multitude of prisoners, potentially- I suspect it is not intended for any one person. It has the sound of something pre-written.
[She nods, an oddly human gesture on an entirely inhuman being. Spend enough time around other cultures and you start to pick up their habits.]
They either do not care know us individually or are working on a scale such that they have no time to personally address each inmate.
Still- they stole us away somehow. Did they mean to take us in particular? Or did they simply cast a very wide net, uncaring what they caught?
no subject
[Calyx cracks her knuckles.]
Maybe they think they're untouchable when our gifts don't work.
no subject
[Granted, she's entirely certain that Calyx could and would kill with nothing but her bare hands, and in fact probably has on multiple occasions. But it still says something that they didn't even try to remove her razor-fingered gauntlets. They could at least provide her a challenge, she needs enrichment.]
Either they overestimate their guards, or undervalue their lives.
[Privately, she's betting on the second one. Fair's fair, it's not like the Unearthed don't use "throw a shitton of disposable zombies at the problem" as a routine tactic.]
no subject
[This is good. We're not thinking about Eyes, we're just moving and killing and life is ok as long as there's stuff to move towards and then kill.]
no subject
[As always, she is conscious of the possibility that he might be watching, no matter what it seems like, and of the consequences if he doesn't like what he sees.]
I know all that runs from you is your lawful prey, my lord- but it would be remiss of me not to point out that, without access to our necromancy, a corpse can answer no questions.
And we have many questions.
[There. A nice, neat justification for why they might choose to leave their next victim alive, without ever once so much as hinting that she might also simply not want to commit murder if she can avoid doing so.]
[...while still giving Calyx plenty of chances to fight someone, albeit nonlethally, because there's only so much she can restrain herself. Not that Lankhet would ever buck the chain of command by tactfully maneuvering her lawful superior, of course.]
The device appears to contain a map. If it can be trusted, striking inward from the loading bay will soon lead us to a populated area.
no subject
[Calyx doesn't.]