TEST DRIVE MEME 001

[ataraxites]

T E S T   D R I V E   M E M E A R R I V A L You wake up, alone in the dark. There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Through the fog you can see shadows of movement, the muted sound of alarms crying. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're suddenly dropped several feet onto the opposite wall. It takes you several minutes to catch your breath and gather strength in uncooperative limbs; more time still to climb up through the debris to the hole in the outer wall high above. You emerge in bright sunlight, surrounded by an immense jungle. As your vision clears, you realize you stand on the hull of a colossal spaceship, crashed on an alien planet. There's a shout behind you, and as you turn, figures climb over the curve of the ship towards you: your rescue party, weathered and scarred by the efforts necessary for survival. B A S E   C A M P A ramshackle spread of tents and shelters built out of resources salvaged from the ship and gathered from the jungle. Not sleek, not clean, but alive: people coming and going from tent to tent, heading out into the jungle or returning with freshly foraged food. Some are working to build more shelters or improvize working tech out of parts salvaged from the ship; some are cooking; some are just taking shelter from the sun for a while. Whether you find somewhere to help or apply your skills, it's probably a good idea to get to know your neighbors. E X P L O R A T I O N The jungle is dense and green, teeming with life, high calls and cries of strange animals and birds, the low buzz and murmur of insects. There are no paths or notable markings; go too far into the trees and you may not be able to find your way back. Dangers hide in the shadows but there's also food, water - or perhaps you're looking for more, pushing further in a search for answers about this planet you're now living on. Or you can turn your attention to the crashed ship, the huge bulk of it balanced precariously on the edge of a cliff. It creaks and groans in its delicate position, audible from a distant but all the louder should you venture inside. Dark corridors made even more dangerous by the damage to the internal structure, debris and obstacles blocking progress, and any wrong step could cause it to collapse in on you, or send the ship over the cliff. But finding any tech, resources or supplies might just be worth the risk. C H O O S E   Y O U R   O W N . . . Hunt or flee from strange creatures in the jungle, take a try at rock-climbing down the cliff-face, or practise in-game gained abilities. Ataraxion is currently without a network until one is built, but test-driving on a prospective one is also totally fine!

Comments

[thecoldshoulder]

For Algidus' part, he didn't even look after her as she got to her feet and departed; he just waved a hand dismissively, as if he hadn't really been expecting a thank you from her in the first place. He considered leaving as well, but right now he was feeling so hot and miserable that moving really didn't sound all that appealing. He continued to fume, as if just hating his circumstances enough could get them to change.

The sound of the foliage being rustled above him drew his attention immediately. He finally rose to his feet and titled his head up to get a better look, hoping it was some sort of wildlife that he could finally hunt down and torment. AJ was lucky that she called out to him; his hand had tensed as he prepared to lob a jagged ball of hail staight upwards. Instead, when he extended his hand it was simply to grab the vine as she instructed.

"What are you doing," he grumbled, voice sounding weary. Some sort of inane human game? He should've just stalked off when he had the chance.

[hairrands]

"Just..." She paused, busily sawing now. "Trying something out! Heads up!" The vine snapped now, rich, full coils plummeting to the ground with more force as its weight tugged it down.

She shimmied quickly down the tree, squawking indignantly once when she nearly slipped, and then carefully placed her feet on solid ground again. "The vines weren't burning us when you cut them open," AJ reckoned, hefting one end up, poking it it with her bare finger. "If there's anything wet, it's going to be in the plants, like you said. I'm just seeing which ones give us the most without having to drill into the middle of those massive trees."

She plunked her ass down nearby him and began to whittle the vine's fleshy bark away, carefully touching bits of it to her skin, waiting for some kind of burn or sting or itch. "You know what? If nothing else, the fibres in the middle here could be braided together for shit. I bet you anything they'd make a decent rope."

[thecoldshoulder]

"I suppose so," the alien followed along easily enough, watched AJ carve up the vine with a sort of veiled interest. He sidled up next to her before sitting down again, taking a length of the thick vegetation in his ochre-colored hands. The alien looked it over briefly, and then made a face as he imagined jabbing his finger into this to try and suck some hydration out. They really were scraping the bottom of the barrel here, weren't they?

Well. It was about survival, like he had said earlier. Algidus shifted one of his fingers into a long, thick needle and then jabbed it right into that fleshy bark, shifting his finger around as he tested it for similar acidic properties. Nothing to report there which was at least a relief. "Rain on this damn planet can't come too soon," he grumbled. Then his head cocked up as if he'd just had a thought. "...You don't think that will be acidic too, do you? Surely the plant life is all too lush for such a thing?"

[hairrands]

"Fuck us both if it is," AJ snaps distractedly. "Wouldn't put it past them. Outside of that ship was pocked up to hell and back when I was running down the side, but who knows if that was from rain or something else. Fucking space ship, a whole fucking thing! Jesus christ," she grumbled, allowing her mouth to wander as she continued to cut and fiddle with the exposed innards of the vine. "What fucking idiots manage to crash an entire shit heap in the middle of fucking nowhere?!"

[thecoldshoulder]

Algidus bristled, his grip on the segment of vine tightening. "The gravitational pulls of planets can be unpredictable, especially if you do not have solid intel on them!" Realizing that he was letting this all get too personal and not wanting to own up to his mistake, he blinked, then tried to smooth himself out. "Besides, we have no idea how it happened. Maybe those damages were from other craft. Maybe they were shot down onto this planet; we don't know. Anyways, knowing how hard-up you get for this sort of thing, I thought you'd be more excited." The alien only realized the familiarity that had bled into his tone when the words were out of his gills. Blinking again, he kept his gaze locked on the vine in his hands, pulling his shifted finger out and testing another point.

[hairrands]

AJ, about to make some snide comment, is side-lined by his mockery. Already feeling frustrated with the wait it is taking to see if she can cram the damned vine-meat in her mouth for some sort of sustenance, she throws it on the ground and throws the knife after it. At least it sinks satisfyingly deep into the loam of the jungle floor. "Are you fucking kidding me?! I'd be in there right fucking now but unless you're fucking blind with those dayglow squinters of yours, that thing's on the edge of a fucking canyon and it's just ready to fall right in! This place might be a dark green shit-stain on the back of the cosmos' empty asshole, but I'd rather be sweating out than crushed under billions of tonnes of metal and glass and shit!"

She glared at him for evoking that sense of loss, broadcasting for a moment loud and clear the scent and feel of engine grease off of a half-constructed engine, and the feeling of thwarted nostalgia there. She didn't even realize she was doing it, for after a moment of mantling and huffing, she reached for her knife and the vine again, glaring daggers into her work. The only thing that was stinging right now was her frustration; so far the plant seemed more than fine. She dabbed a bit to the tip of her tongue and then made a disgusted face; it was bitter in the way that old, tough plant matter could be, but with a particularly acerbic tang that suggested something... something almost lemony, without the sweet.

[thecoldshoulder]

"Calm down, stop squawking," the alien huffs, never mind the fact that he'd been doing every bit as much of that earlier. "I saw it, and I heard it creaking too... but there were a bunch of beings running all over and throughout that damn thing just a few hours ago. Maybe it will stabilize somewhat; there's a good portion of it still on solid ground, might provide some counterbalance. What I'm trying to say is that you might still get a shot at its innards yet. Patience."

That made him pull a face; he was starting to sound like his damned double. But the fact of the matter is that Algidus very badly wants to take a look around inside for his own reasons. If there was any communications technology at all still intact in the ship, he wants to know about it first so he could extract it for his own purposes.

[hairrands]

AJ glares at him, though this is more an unbroken chain of various kinds of glares, and guesses promptly, "yeah, I'll bet you want in there. I'll bet you'd rather send me in than risk yourself, too. Too bad I don't know more than paleolithic fucking combustion mechanics and electrical currents powered off of oil and coal like a god damned neanderthal, or I'd be a pretty good fucking pawn to you."

[thecoldshoulder]

"Risk myself? That thing goes over the edge while I'm in it and all I have to do is liquidize. You can't crush a puddle," the alien crowed, as usual trying to play off or dismiss any sort of threat. He could likely survive, it's true... but it's still not a danger he wants to flirt with. He's not stupid. "What I'd rather do is send someone in there who knows exactly what they're looking for and how to properly utilize it... then... persuade them to part with their technology and expertise."

[hairrands]

"You want that, you gotta know who knows that shit," AJ agreed. "Which means you want me talking to assholes who like to talk. Fuck."

She laid the vine across her knee and splayed her toes, picking at one of her toenails now with her knife-tip as she thought. "Fuck, alright, I guess I better get my friendly fuck-face on. You think this is going to be easy?! The turd-piles in there know when shit's going down, they all seem like they've been through a million years of what we were... you know, built for. I'll bet none of them is going to make it easy."

For a moment she thought in silence. "What do you want to know about specifically? You want to try for it... you know, the message bullshit?" She couldn't help but think, here we go again.

[thecoldshoulder]

"Now you're using your head," Algidus chuckled, going through the process of shifting his finger a couple of inches more down the vine. He must've been getting some amount of water from it if he was still going at it--if he hadn't thrown it away in a huff by now. When she brings that up with that tone of voice, though, it gives him pause.

"I don't... know," he admitted unhappily, rubbing at the uppermost of his gill arches. "All of the plans that I had crafted... they've hit a hitch with this latest development. Attempting to reach my people is the only thing that still feels viable." But even then, it was suddenly going to take a whole lot more doing, and he knew it.

[hairrands]

"You still want to try it after this mega-ship bucket of bolts got knocked out of the sky by something?" she asked, voice raising a pitch to show her uncertainty in the matter. "What happens if you manage it, and they send someone, and that someone gets knocked out of the sky, too? You willing to risk some other miserable ice-hole on this gamble?"

[thecoldshoulder]

"Even though my species is mighty, they have earned their place in the galaxy! Our ships are fast and mighty! Nothing can stop them," Algidus scoffed, but it was out of habit. As much as he hated to admit it, AJ had a point. He couldn't just blindly call his people in and involve them in this without solid intel...

"We move ahead with the plan," he resolved, "We need to move quickly to secure whatever technology might aid us before anyone else in this place. When we have it safely in our possession so that no one else can tamper with it, then we wait. We gather information. And we find out if anything here is capable of posing a risk to them... and proceed accordingly." Now he actually gave AJ an approving look; for a human, she was proving to have a remarkably good head on her shoulders.

((Man I hope we can handwave or link to this thread for the game proper. XD))

[hairrands]

AJ wasn't sure how she felt about Algidus' sudden and fervent use of the plural here; he was making it sound like they were going to go on a questioning spree together, when she knew full well that this was all likely to be falling on her shoulders. They could only truly question one or two people in any way that required the both of them before they were caught and before worse could happen. She thought of the scarred woman who'd confronted her in her first few hours, and just how lightly the police dog was likely to go on loners who dragged people out into the jungle and sent them back with bruises and missing parts.

Grumbling, setting her knife on her knee to balance there dangerously, she looked at Algidus, face to face if she was able to. "This is going to take some time. You know how hard it is to earn a fucker's trust? ...I'm new here and they'll smell it off me like I'm made of shit, because to them I pretty much am." AJ didn't flinch, but her brows were furrowed and she was angry all over again. "What you're needing is for me to go in there and schmooze and make everyone put his eyes on me like they have to tell me what I need to know, and I don't work like that." She didn't want to add that her double often did because that ought to be taken for granted. It was one of those things that AJ had thought was exceptionally stupid, that she felt intense second-hand embarrassment about. The risks...

She realized she was balking. The only other option she had right now was to keep monkeying around in trees like a primitive little beast. Squaring her shoulders and glaring out over the river, she said, "I'll do it, providing you keep me in food and drink and bail me out if something goes completely sideways."

((If not I am sure they will cross paths again~))

[thecoldshoulder]

"How you conduct your business is no concern of mine," Algidus waved a hand, seeming truly uninterested in all of the clarifications AJ was laying out. "You do what suits you best, just so long as it gets results. To your later stipulations: of course I will step in if someone decides to give you trouble. So long as our goals align you are my ally, and I do not take kindly to anyone that might seek to impede or harm my allies."

He's less thrilled about being held accountable for providing for AJ, so he chooses not to comment on it for now... but it seems likely that despite being disgruntled about the proposition, he'll play along. The human is currently his best bet at gathering more information about this place and the ship on the canyon's edge; it wouldn't do to let that dry up.

((Oh, quite possibly. You never know, these two don't quite seem like they'll stick~))

[hairrands]

AJ was less than pleased with his reaction, even with his assertion to defend her interests. She knew full well that were her demands any more specific and divergent from his wishes than simple survival, he wouldn't likely deign to help. It put her to thinking that she was going to be doing a lot more work in this particular alliance than Algidus was... she might have to think up some homework on the side for him, even if it had nothing to do with actual requirements that might develop.

Weighing the risks of crying wolf versus testing his willingness to give her an even trade, AJ decided that she would wait on it. But she rose to her feet now, wiping her blade on her filthy coveralls and slipping it back into her belt. "In that case, I'm getting to work," she growled. "I'll be back here tomorrow, this time. I'll tell you everything I know so far."

((I dunno, he's made of ice and it's super humid out. She might stick a little.))

[thecoldshoulder]

Algidus watched the human rise to her feet, dropping the vine he'd been toying with and standing as well. "I approve of your diligence, AJ. I will be here... with food and drink in tow." It still chafed him a little to have to play along, but he knew that if he didn't offer enough that was worthwhile she would have little reason to keep assisting him. No one did anything for free-- no one smart, anyways. "Good hunting... and stay safe. We still don't know what horrors this planet might hold."

((The moment she gives him a tongue-lashing, she'll be stuck for good!))

[hairrands]

"I'd wish you luck," AJ shot back, already heading back towards the camp, "but somehow, I don't think you'll need it." With that, she'd disappeared back into the underbrush, away from the mocking rush of the river and the unprecedented ally that she'd made.

A human of her word, at least in this scenario, she wandered back out of the woods following the trail that Algidus had hacked down the previous one, climbing right up on the rock where the scraggly tree was making a game effort of growing. She didn't look much the worse for wear; in fact, when Algidus first spotted her, he'd notice her lacing and rubbing down the leather of a pair of boots she had managed to earn from the growing pile of refuse people were digging out of the ship. It felt good to have a solid sole under her, and perhaps given that that had been the root of one of her main complaints, she seemed a little happier today. She even waved at him when she first spotted him.

((In both senses of the word?? wink wonk))

[thecoldshoulder]

If AJ was seeming in better spirits today, Algidus was about the opposite. The heat and humidity levels had held constant and even the night hadn't brought with it as much cool as he'd been hoping for. He'd found it hard to get a good night's rest, and all of the ambient noise from the nocturnal life of the jungle had only made things worse. He was going to have to find a better place to rest for the night... roughing it out here in the jungle was clearly not cutting it.

When AJ spotted him, she'd see that he was already waiting by the river... and more importantly, that there was some sort of massive carcass laying in the grass by his side. Upon closer inspection the creature seemed to resemble a cephalopod; its tough-looking exoskeleton had been battered away, with shards of the animal's protective layer scattered over the bank. In fact, the creature had clearly put up enough of a fight to draw Algidus' ire, because he'd severed its tentacles and tossed them about too... the whole scene was fairly grisly, though from this distance it would be hard to detect if he'd received any injuries in return. Instead of waving back the alien just tossed his head over his shoulder, apparently too hot and tired to bother getting to his feet just yet.

http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/ab245/amw208/tumblr_mgo6152oRH1r4ocjpo4_250.gif

[hairrands]

AJ stomped her way down to the river-side and looked down at the mess that Algidus had made, hands on her hips, lips pursed in a low whistle of appreciation. "What's this fucking thing?" she asked. It looked disgusting, is what it looked like.

YEP

[thecoldshoulder]

"My end of the bargain," the alien grunted, still not moving, even as the human approached. He's got one leg folded neatly over the other, obscuring one of his ankles from view. "Apparently this species lives in the river; my guess is that thick exoskeleton protects them from the acid somehow. Pah! Still can't compare to my own armor, stupid things." Algidus sneered, happy to boast about still being on top of the food chain. "Anyways, there's a lot of meat underneath that shell. No more leaves for you, unless you've gotten a taste for those now."

Re: YEP

[hairrands]

"Rabbits have a few good survival methods," AJ sniped back, nudging a long, limp tentacle with her boot. "And leaves at least don't look like you're gonna get food poisoning just looking at them funny. How the fuck did you get this thing? Where the fuck did you get this thing?!" She looked out over the disputably calm current of the river, then at Algidus' seated form.

Suddenly she felt a little bit bad that she'd spent the night bedded down in a makeshift hammock out by the edge of the encampment, snoozing like a lamb where no one really wandered by.

[thecoldshoulder]

"I told you, in the river," Algidus' brows lowered in mild irritation at having to repeat himself. "Saw one of them coming close to the banks to eat... whatever lives in the soil. Couldn't go in to get it myself so I had to get it to come after me, so I lobbed a hail to anger it. The thing latched those tentacles around my ankle," which he had not been expecting at all, "It had a surprisingly strong grip, but I outsmarted it, of course. I grabbed it by the tentacle and dragged it from the acid; once it was helpless on the bank I liquidized to escape its hold and battered its exoskeleton open, then put a shatter through its puny brain to end it."

[hairrands]

The story was impressive, and seemed backed up by everything that AJ saw before her. Moreover she knew that the alien was not the kind to lie. Puff himself up, perhaps, or at least she was getting the feeling that he might try for bragging... but this was brag-worthy. "Well, shit, you better be ready to feel like you're getting a fair trade, then, because I have some serious juice for you."

She went hunting for a stick, leaving the poor ice alien in the dark for a minute or two until she could come back and start poking at the river-beast. It was disgusting. Its tentacles made the hair on the back of her neck rise. Mastering her distaste with some serious snark, she said, "there's bad news and there's good news... and the bad news is that some people are already way too busy digging around in the ship for all sorts of shit. Comms, communications shit, I mean, is way up there. Couldn't get my hands on one of the little communicators, but they're passing them around to essential people, and they're aiming to get more."

AJ hitched one hand in the belt loop of her jump suit, continuing to poke along the beast, seeing if it had a beak like other squid she'd heard of. She wanted to gauge Algidus' reactions, so she left him with a pregnant sort of pause for any interjections he might like.

[thecoldshoulder]

When she came back she'd find that he still hadn't moved much. He didn't care for her abrupt departure, but outside of the indignant look he fixed on her as she poked at his kill didn't complain. "Figures they would be crawling all over the ship like insects already..." the ice alien averted his gaze for a moment, running a hand down the curve of his chin. "Damn. Damn, alright. So they haven't reached the main communication hub of the ship yet?"