TEST DRIVE 006

[returnjourney]

RETURN JOURNEY: TEST DRIVE 006

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 ports 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.

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The Peregrine

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. Dorm Life

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. 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.

5. 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.

6. Wildcard

If it's in our game pages, you can use it as a prompt! The sky's the limit.

Comments

Maedhros | the silmarillion | inmate

[holdshisown]

1. Waking up

[Maedhros wakes with a violent start and his hand instinctively reaches out, searching for the sword he usualy keeps at his side only to find it gripping empty air. Panicked and shaking he tries to center his confused thoughts.

Dying. He can remember dying. The silmaril burning in his hand, the flames of the chasm reaching up with greedy tounges and his spirit trying to reduce him to ash from the inside out.

And with the memories comes the awareness that he is not alone here. He turns to greet his captor or fellow prisoner with an enraged snarl.]

2. Pairing

[Maedhros chafes under this new confinement and he follows his warden in a sullen silence, doing his best to see if an angry enough glare can realy bore a hole in someones back.]

If you think for even a moment that I will let this stand you are deluding yourself.

3. Wildcard

[Feel free to interact with this grumpy elf however you please.]

Pairings!

[underscene]

( Cyro stands--fascinated--in the observatory. Incredible the vastness of the world, the universe, when his own knowledge of life was so confined. It's beautiful, but his appreciation is cut short by a voice. Unfortunately, the stare does no such desired effect.

He turns--Maedhros is tall. Even Cyro, who stood above six feet, had to crane his neck upward just a touch. It didn't trouble him, though. Shoulders squared but relaxed and gloved hands falling folded in front of his body. ) Would you prefer to remain deceased?

[holdshisown]

[Maedhros scowls at what he persumes is supposed to be his new captor, he doesn't trust this place or the people here. He will not submit to captivity, not again and certainly not to this man.

This man disturbs Maedhros. His glowing eyes and strange sounding voice puts him in mind of some of the things he faced in Angband.]

Perhaps I would. I have been a prisoner before and I have no wish to repeat the experience.

[underscene]

( He listens, and considers a few things in the space of silence. A nod was what slowly came. He, too, knew prison. Born to it. Their entire society was as such. Compliant in its own confinement while horror lurked behind the pristine walls; and much of it, at one time, had been him. It's not impossible to change. ) Understandable. ( A beat. ) Did you wake here, or were you approached with a choice?

[holdshisown]

[He just glares harder at that. Distrust evident on his face.] Choice? No one aproached me with anything, least of all a choice. My choice was death and it was taken from me.

[underscene]

I did not know the circumstances of your arrival. ( He clarifies. ) As far as I understand, some people are ushered here after death and others chose so of their own will. I disagree with the former, but here we are.

You can distrust me, dislike me, loath this entire situation. I'd blame you for none of it, but those things will not help you return home or bring you peace.

[holdshisown]

And why exactly should I trust what you say? For all I know you could have brought me here. [For all he knew the last few centuries was all in his head and he was still locked up in Angband.] I do distrust you, dislike you and loath this entire sorry charade more than you can fathom.

[underscene]

A good question. ( He nods--slight. Cyro was under no assumption that people, particularly under the circumstances they were, would readily trust him or anyone else. This was a far cry from his home where a surgeon's word was near law to the listener. ) Should I defer to you--what would help you trust me more? ( Key word: more. Not point blank. More. A process. )

[holdshisown]

[That throws him off a little.] I...don't know. [Trust did not come easy to him, especialy not with people he'd never met before.] I don't trust people much anymore.

[underscene]

Join me? ( It comes after a considerate amount of silence. His hand unfolds to his side where Cyro stood, looking out into the space beyond. )

[holdshisown]

[He spends a long time simply staring with a blank expression across his face.] Very well. [Maedhros walks over, carefully making sure to stand where he could keep a wary eye on the other man.]

[underscene]

( And he'll not invade the space that's set between them. Instead, Cyro turns his attention to the view outside. The color that dances in the darkness. ) Have you seen such a thing before?

[holdshisown]

[Maedhros is not terribly inclined to take his eyes of the other, but he does cast a cursory glance out the window from time to time.] No. I don't believe I have.

waking up

[dog_eat_dog]

[His captor is trying to drive. Split attention isn't great when anyone's driving, but most of all with this particular driver: when she turns to look at him over her shoulder, the Avro drifts sideways in the opposite direction. Very fortunate that they're in space and not going off the edge of a highway.

She orders him:]

Hey! Don't freak out.

[Easy advice to follow, right?]

Re: waking up

[holdshisown]

[The only awnser she'll get is an enraged snarl. This is not where he was expecting to be and the unceartainty of the situation puts him on edge. The last thing he remembers is throwing himself into a chasm of fire, fully expecting to have his spirit thrown into the everlasting darkness he had sworn himself to. Whatever this was, it was not that.

Taking orders from strangers have never been something he'd been terribly inclined to do.]

Or what!?

[He'd never taken the easy way in life.]

[dog_eat_dog]

[Firm:]

Or it gets ugly for both of us.

[She’s not very good at parking. Last time she got cocky entering the loading bay, she clipped the doorframe. The airlock seal had been compromised. Huge pain in the ass for everyone.

A smidge nicer, but no less firm:]

Sit. Do you know where you are?

[holdshisown]

[The awnsering smile is a vicious thing.]

As long as I can drag my captor down to damnation with me, I'm happy to let it get ugly.

[He'll keep a wary eye at you, but he won't acctualy try to get violent until he's got a better read on the situation. He will however remain standing, using his great height to his advantage in case his captor decides to attack.]

No. Where have you brought me?

[dog_eat_dog]

[And if it gets ugly, Tess doesn’t want to be in the driver’s seat. She rolls her eyes and hits the autopilot button so she can stand up and face him. She’s hardly a petite woman, but she has the look of someone chronically underfed, and the tenancy to match. Being physically outclassed doesn’t stop her from posturing like she’s okay with ugly.]

You’re being brought in by the Admiralty. They run prison ships. Guess you fucked up pretty bad back there.

[holdshisown]

[The way he shifts his stance in anticipation gives away that he is no stranger to combat. But he won't make the first move, he's content to observe for now.]

And by what authority do they presume to judge me? [Fucked up pretty bad may be something of an understatement.] I will awnser to the people I've wronged, not whoever these Admiralty may be.

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess’s hands stay at her side, but there’s a pistol holstered on her hip.]

Well, seeing as you’re just going to deal with being under their control, it doesn’t really matter who gave them authority, does it? You want to fix things back home, you gotta earn a chance to go back first.

[holdshisown]

[There's very little sanity in the way he laughs at her.]

Oh? I do, do I? Perhaps it matters more than you think? And who said I wanted to fix anything, it is over and done with now. There is nothing that can ever make it better, certainly not anything comming from me.

[dog_eat_dog]

[She rolls her eyes.]

First you wanna answer to people you wronged, now you wanna posture about how you’re too cool for it. Alright. Just sit down and don’t fuck anything up until we land.

[She turns her back on him to return to her seat.]

[holdshisown]

I was in the process of awnsering for my wrongs when I was brought here. And I'm doing everyone a favour by not trying to make anything right. To evil ends shall all things turn that they begin well, that is the curse I carry with me. Anything I try to do will likely just make things worse for everyone involved.

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess keeps walking, though she is listening.]

Is this "curse" some sort of prophesy shit or do you just have a real dramatic flair about the bullshit you've pulled?

[holdshisown]

[Fire flashes in his eyes for a moment, until he takes a deep breath and manages to calm his rage.]

It is a doom more than a prophesy, Mandos is the doomsman of the valar after all and it was he that laid this one upon us as we left Valinor. And having seen the truth of it over the years, I have no more wish to inflict it's effect on anyone else.