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

[littlemissfutility]

"Guts?" She looks at him, paying attention to the needle for the first time. Hopefully he doesn't want to put that in her forehead - she's trying to get these out. "Really?"

It's not the most graceful response, but it's kind of horrifying, as names go. Guts. Maybe he's from her world, too, slicing open enough walkers to pick up a nickname.

[seinens]

A long sigh. Back home, that name is considered normal enough, but he did come across a few wise asses who wanted to make a crack about it. "Yeah," he says, "I didn't pick it."

(Why did Shisu call him that? It must have been Shisu, right?)

[littlemissfutility]

"Sorry." And then, after a moment, "I didn't pick 'Beth,' either."

Time to try for that stupid thread again. Once she catches it between the tweezers, she can snip it with a pair of surgical shears - provided neither of them end up going into her eye by accident.

[seinens]

He leans forward, barely half an inch, and opens his good hand. "I can try," he says, "if you can hold still."

[littlemissfutility]

"Nah," she tells him, having given up on looking in favour of walking her fingers toward the stitch she needs. She holds the shears out to him. "Can you cut it?"

It's finally taut enough that it'll probably work okay.

[seinens]

"I'm a lot better at that then sewing." It's a joke, and not a very funny one. He takes the shears in his good hand, holding them with more precision than gentleness. Still, he lets the girl decide how close she wants to get. He's big enough to easily crowd her.

[littlemissfutility]

It's weird how some enormous guy covered in scars feels more familiar - and less threatening - than any number of 'normal' people she's met around here. Beth leans toward him, so her forehead's within reach. "I think we're gonna have to cut every stitch."

What a pain in the ass. But the skin has healed underneath, whether by nature or by virtue of the fact that she was picked up by the Peregrine. There won't be anything left of the hospital except scars and memories.

[seinens]

"And pull it out," he says, making the first careful snip. If he only uses his good hand, he's got enough precision to make it work, though the angle's odd, and his depth perception... well, she's close enough. "They missed, didn't they? You dodged, when you got this."

It's not deep enough for a strike made with intent to kill.

[littlemissfutility]

At first, she's trying to watch his hand, nearly cross-eyed with the effort. Her gaze lowers at the question - she just barely remembers not to shake her head. Guts might be one-eyed, but Beth's not looking to join him.

"I got slapped," she tells him. The surprise of it is still easy to pull up in her memory, of all the blows that turned into bruises - and this one, that cut into her skin. "Pretty lame, I know."

[seinens]

He can tell when someone doesn't want to talk about something. It isn't in his nature to press. Deflecting is a bit difficult-- it takes effort to come up with something to say that doesn't cut from all the wrong angles. "When I was a mercenary," he says, "we'd treat scars like badges of honor."

[littlemissfutility]

"They mean you survived." Until you didn't, anyway - and Beth doesn't want to talk about that. She survived getting smacked around, nearly getting torn to pieces by walkers, everything the scars on her face are about. "Why'd you stop being a mercenary?"

[seinens]

It's been long enough that the answer doesn't make him flinch. If he's truthful-- with himself and this girl-- he stopped being a mercenary long before the eclipse, anyway.

"I got good enough," he says, cutting another stitch, pausing while he pulls it from her skin, "enough that I didn't want to swing my sword for anyone else."

[littlemissfutility]

"You wanted to live for yourself," she offers, her nose wrinkling as the thread slides through her skin. The sensation's weird, even if it doesn't really hurt. "What do you do now?"

[seinens]

"I live for myself," he says, which is a dodge, but he's not sure how he'd explain it otherwise. "What about you?"

[littlemissfutility]

"I...died." She's trying to get used to saying it, living with it. If it's possible to live with being dead. "But before that - that's what I did, too."

[seinens]

It gives him a moment's pause, and a few emotions rise to conflict. She died-- should he be so close? Is he scaring her? Obviously not, though, which means... well, it means the death wasn't as bad as it could have been, and that's a mercy. And how lucky and unlucky, how wonderful and horrible, to wake after death.

After a moment, a few breaths, his one eye staring into nothingness, he resumes his work. Another stitch, cut. "Sorry to hear it," he says. "Hope this can be... a second chance?"

[littlemissfutility]

Maybe he's dead, too. Maybe the thought of a dead warden's upsetting the way a dead inmate isn't. Beth doesn't know - but she can live with silence, so she waits, watching his face. And then, when he doesn't currently have the shears right near her eye, she nods minutely. "Yeah. Maybe."

At least it can't get worse, right?

[seinens]

"I guess it's kinda hard to talk about," he says, trying to make space for her in the conversation. It's gotten easier in the last few months, with Isidro crawling between his ankles and Farnesse making Casca smile, but it's still not his strength. "If I died and came back, I think all I'd do is scream."

(Is that how Casca felt?)

[littlemissfutility]

"It was really fast," she says quietly, her gaze having landed somewhere on his chest and stayed there. It's easier to talk with him than she might have expected - or maybe she just needs to say it to someone. Anyone. "I didn't realize, when the Navarch showed up."

(God, she misses everyone at home.)

[seinens]

Guts, for himself, can never decide if 'fast' is a good way to go. The thought of missing your own death is a haunting thing-- there wouldn't be any time to fix things, to make sure your end didn't spell the end of others. But he can tell the girl is trying to comfort him, which presumably means it's a comfort to her.

"Not a bad way to go," he says, "if there is such a thing."

Another few stitches pulled out. "You're here to help people, right?"

[littlemissfutility]

She shrugs. If there is such a thing is right - any kind of death probably sucks. But at least she never came back. A shot through the head, neat and done, and none of her friends had to stab into her brain.

At least she can be grateful for that. Daryl would've done it, if he'd had to, but it would've hurt him. He would've carried that forever.

"Yeah." Beth glances up at his face, with its own eye and its scars. "Same as you."

[seinens]

He gives her a quizzical look-- he knows what he looks like, a brute, a thug, a mercenary. "How are you so sure?"

[littlemissfutility]

"Inmates aren't allowed in here." Her gaze is steady, under his big hands. "So you gotta be a warden."

[seinens]

He pauses, looks around, and his mouth takes the slight quirk of a smile. "Huh. Guess you're right."

Another stitch, pulled and cut.

"What d'you think of this place?"

[littlemissfutility]

"It's really clean," is the first thing that comes to mind. Were things this clean before the world ended? She's pretty sure they weren't. "It's okay. Do you like it?"