ataraxioff | TEST DRIVE MEME 001

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!test drive meme

TEST DRIVE MEME 001

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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."

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.

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?"

"Nope," AJ replied, just a little triumphant. "But guess who's talking around to join a team?" She dug her branch into the earth and leaned on it until it wobbled like it might snap. "This is going to help. People are looking for resources, and all they've been catching is bugs and ugly-tasting fox-birds. Whatever this shit tastes like, I'm sure it's gonna be better than that and leaves... but you're gonna have to help me drag it into the camp."

She brightened. "You can let me introduce you to the asshole who's ringleading the whole trip, if you don't trust me knowing what to dig around for."

Algidus looked at her again. "I was just thinking about that. About how we're going to have to play along if we want in on any expeditions when they do finally make it to the communications hub," and about how little he wanted to participate with a group of humans, if his grumbling tone was any indication. "At least find the right people to fall in with, so long as there's a use for them. You think the humans here... you think it would be wise to expose myself to so many of them?" His reclusive, mistrustful nature had only worsened ever since he rose from the bowels of the Technician's facility. He didn't seem entirely convinced that the people congregated in that shoddy little camp wouldn't try to do something terrible to him if he gave them the chance.

"Stick with me," AJ promised, "and I'll sort them out. There's only a couple we need to figure out, and we only need to figure out how likely they are to let us work with them... and how to take from them if it's the only option there is. Some of these assholes are clever, and some of them do shit you wouldn't expect from the looks of it. This place... they've only been here a month or so, and it's already pretty organized. That's not human work, all of it."

She cast him a shit-eating grin. "Anyways, I think you'll like the pug-nosed Norwegian lady who's been building things out of ice. So far as I've heard she can do it just like you do, like magic."

Algidus was about to point out that cruelty was not reserved simply to humans, though they certainly had proved themselves to be the worst offenders... but then AJ had dropped that little tidbit and he stopped up short, staring at her. Then he snorted.

"If she can somehow create ice--which I find myself reluctant to believe--I assured you it will not be in the same way that my species does it." He found himself caught up in a strange place between having his curiosity perked and yet being scornful of someone from such a detestable species having powers even remotely similar to his. Even if she could wield ice, she couldn't understand it, couldn't appreciate it like he did... he was all but sure of it.

AJ could only hitch up her jumpsuit and then give him a grin that looked ready to eat shit. "You're not going in without me there. I'm gonna see your face. I remember you hiding out in the fr... I mean, I know you could use somewhere cold, and this place is two steps away from being a swamp. I'm just saying," and now she sermonized, "if you want some relief, at least there's someone in here with us who's not, you know... maybe completely useless."

In fact, by this point she was beginning to realize that a lot of these people were far from completely useless. It stood to reason: these were the survivors of the truly catastrophic crash that the pair of them had completely missed. What did it say that these were the only people alive out of however many it looked like the colossus could support? Since they weren't crying for blood, alien or otherwise...

Well, they might prove useful on a lot of fronts. AJ was going to have to do a lot more watching and probing to find out.

Algidus paused, grudgingly aware that AJ had a point. As much as he might want to write off humans for being weak and useless, if there was someone else that could generate cold... it would be a blessing from the Makers in disguise given the weather. He remained skeptical, though. He'd follow AJ into the camp and see everything for himself...

... That was going to be its own slight problem. The alien narrowed his eyes as he shifted his legs. "So you want to leave now, is what you're telling me."

"Unless you want me to win you friends by feeding them rotten squid-crabs, then yes, that would make a half a fuck-tonne of sense," AJ quipped. She raised her brows. "Your ankle hurt? You need to rest it?" Too bad he had to go naked... boots would have probably helped his cause.

"What? No!" the alien swiveled his head back around to regard her, the startled look to his face matching up with his tone. "That thing couldn't hurt me! It just... put a little crack in the ice, is all. I can walk just fine!" Sort of. He was trying to avoid exacerbating it until he was sure he had a way to reconstitute his skin, which was going to be quite a process given how there didn't seem to be much fresh water just pooling or flowing through the planet.

Either way, now that his precious pride was on the line, the alien was busy unfolding his legs and hoisting himself to his feet.

AJ, watching him carefully, gave him a look of unimpressed amusement. "You really are fucking invincible, aren't you? Look at that, standing on two feet. Shit, I feel like a primitive caveman compared to that level of pure grit and craftsmanship. Better posture, the whole works."

Maybe she was overdoing it, but today was a good day as far as she was concerned. She had boots for fuck's sake, and food, even disgusting rubbery rock-plated food, sounded better than sucking cellulose out of aloe-like leaves. Algidus's purple cheeks were the icing on her cake. "I'll take the tentacles if you take the rock lobster part, alright? We should come back for the plates, they might be useful for someone. Those shoulder guard things that knights wear, that sort of shit. I wouldn't mind some armor, you know?"

"Sure, joke. I'd like to see how you would hold up if that thing got its tentacle around your leg. Maybe if you were too busy sniveling in pain over broken bones then you wouldn't be able to nag like your species seems to have such a penchant for." Algidus stared down at his ankle as he tested putting weight on it. He really didn't want to exacerbate the crack to the point where he was leaving chunks of his ankle in his wake... but he didn't have a whole lot of choice, here. Hopefully it would hold up.

He stepped over to the corpse with just the slightest of limps, clearly caught between wanting to be careful and yet not wanting to seem bothered by it. At least it wasn't in his nature to complain about things like this. Grabbing the dead beast by its face, he hoisted it up without much effort at all.

"Let's get a move on."

"No, wait," she said, prompting him to hold before he'd managed to hoist the beast up, effort required or not. "Just hold on, broody, I have an idea." If AJ was a nagger, Algidus was certainly a sniper and a whiner. She had been meaning to do this for a while, but now seemed like a better time, or at least a more useful time, than not.

She pulled her proper blade from her belt and turned it on herself, slicing a ragged sleeve off of the jump suit until she could pull it loose by the seams. That done, pit-stain and all, she clomped over to the ice alien and wrapped it around his ankle. It was a bigger crack up close, now that she was staring right at it. She decided she wasn't going to joke about it anymore.

Standing back, she came around his front again and folded her arms over her chest. "We'll take breaks. You'll be fine."

"What are you doing," the alien grumbled, watching her tear at her own clothing with her knife--and when she crossed over to him to begin wrapping the fabric around his ankle, he sucked in a small breath and bristled. The meat-filled corpse was forgotten for now. If AJ had thought the purple on his cheekbones had been amusing before, the color had only become more visible now as she pulled away and he realized what she had done for him; it was clear he had no idea how to respond to someone being nice to him.

"Yes, because a little scrap of cloth will clearly fix the problem," he warbled--also apparently having no idea how to express gratitude. His gaze was appreciative, though, and he gave a little nod to the human to hopefully back that up.

"It's my magic fix all sleeve," AJ quipped. "Landed on my shoulder and shattered it into a million pieces and this little puppy put it back together again." She could see that flush, even against his dark skin. She decided it was a good look on him, and though she didn't admit it the reasoning was not just a little bit hooked in to the chaotic jumble of old feelings dredged up by her undifferentiated self.

Anyways, if she could tear chunks out of Algidus' clone, she could do her best to heal this one back up. She had to make amends somehow.

"Anyways, I'll see if anyone can make ankle covers out of those plates. I wouldn't mind having something to watch my back, but it seems like you're having trouble looking down on yourself." By this point, she was happy to start hefting and carrying as needed.

"It only happened because I wasn't expecting it!" he chirruped, finding his voice to be a pitch higher than he was expecting. Clearing his throat, he went on, "You can make an ankle cover for yourself, it'd be a good idea if we ever... hunted these things together. Me, I have my own armor. Now that I know what to expect from them, things will be different."

Watching AJ begin bundling up the offending tentacles in his arms, he leaned back down to pick up the corpse of the riverbeast like he'd originally intended. Then he was following close behind her, finding a hard time believing that he was willing walking back towards a den of humans.

"And you're gonna know exactly what happens at any given time." AJ snorted, but for once, not in mean spirits. "Because every squid-lobster's gonna get you exactly the same. How do you know this thing isn't smart, or wasn't smart. How do you know you haven't gone and pissed off its wife or kid or something and now they're plotting watery revenge from down under the acid rocks?"

Somehow, the idea of causing a chain reaction of bitter vitriol sounded satisfying to her, though mostly it was because it was so far fetched. AJ had stifled her urges to fuck with people hard after she'd picked up the Biomatrix; it had warned her not to meddle, though subtly, because she had not subtlety. It had turned out that that suggestion had been to her own near-abouts destruction... But here, she had only herself to thank or to blame for not stirring the shit. People were on edge, and it would be so easy... but she was going to be good. Not just because she'd been warned by a little scarred up bear of a woman (who was intimidating by her own rights, no doubt) but because Algidus would be hurt through her meddling.

...A lot about that didn't sit right with her. She liked to believe it was because they shared a very specific background, and that was all. "Once you start with this one you're gonna be having to up your game if they learn how to hurl those acid rocks, you know?"

"Please, it's an animal," Algidus snorted, waving a hand, "But just to humor you, even if they are intelligent, and did plan on getting revenge, they're helpless on land... and I don't plan on going swimming in the acid-river. They couldn't do a damn thing to me."

It was this sort of open dismissal of his opponent's abilities that could get him into trouble, even when it felt warranted... and the clone knew it deep down, even if he didn't like admitting to that. "I'll be careful. Not because I'm worried about 'squid-lobsters' throwing rocks at me, but because... you know how it is, with us. We never have been afforded second chances." He doubted that was going to change here.

AJ bristled and shut the hell up. She didn't know what Algidus had been through before they'd been brought here, but if it was anything like what she had been through, she didn't want to touch the topic with a pole the length of Uranus.

"How much abuse can your microweave handle?" she asked instead, keeping her tone neutral. "That cracked ankle's not a crack in the weave, is it?"

"A fair amount," he replied, though his tone had gone wary. There was a part of him that trusted she wouldn't misuse the information--and not just because he was her ticket to a decent meal here--but he was trying to stuff that down. "It is holding steady despite these temperatures, though if they climb noticeably higher... well. This is what the technology was designed for, I'm sure it will hold up."

AJ noted that the alien had avoided his specific question about the ankle, and so she presumed that he was not willing to divulge the answer, which meant that whether or not Algidus' was slowly melting from around the foot or not, she was going to keep a very close eye on the way he walked. If he turned back and saw her gaze had dropped to parts of his anatomy that were not his face, that would be why.

Eventually she called a break. They were not as far away from the encampment as she would have been comfortable with, but she was not tired from grappling a pile of limp tentacles over her shoulder. She wanted to ensure that Algidus didn't wear himself out. "I'm sweating like a pig," she complained, finding a beaten down path and holding steady on it, refusing to move though she also refused to put the big thing down. "This thing's starting to whiff like seafood, too. Can you do something about it? Make it colder?"

At first he didn't notice the way she was attempting to look over, but once or twice when he peered back to make sure she was keeping pace alright he noticed that her gaze had dropped. When he realized she was scrutinizing his injury it was enough to make him bristle. Unsure how to digest someone being worried for his sake, the alien had assumed she thought he was weak enough to be laid out by a simple crack in his ankle. It only motivated him to trudge on more stubbornly.

Algidus wasn't going to protest the break, though; making headway in this miserable weather was, well... miserable. He simply turned back to the other clone and arched a brow as he lowered his own portion of the carcass to the ground. "Spare me the updates on your strange bodily functions. I'll freeze this through; it should help to preserve it until you humans can do whatever passes for food preparation." Without any further cajoling the alien crouched over the slain squid-lobster, holding his hands out as a bright white glow began to illuminate them. Once frost had begin to fall, he placed them to the carcass and held them there; it took a little bit longer due to the heat, but a frosty coating was beginning to creep over the creature's carapace and exposed flesh.

Algidus held it a little bit longer, until his kill had been properly frozen through. Then he lifted his head to AJ, starting to pull his hands back; the glow of his powers was dissipating again. "Satisfactory?"

AJ had been prepared to give him all sorts of updates on her strange bodily functions just to spite him for his disgust, but there were more important things to deal with, here. She had settled down to breathe for a little bit, but watching him freeze the squid-thing through, she gave an alarmed squawk. "Hey, go easy on it, we're not trying to make it taste like frost burn, alright?!" She scraped at some plating, now a little furry with Algidus' efforts. She tapped at a curled tentacle, now stiff as a board. She wished she'd actually straightened the corpse out before he'd gone and stiffed it. God damn...

But more importantly, AJ realized just how important Algidus' skills were. Before, she'd not really thought through what icing something might mean. With waves of cool coming off of his kill, she felt more respite than she had in days. She mashed her cheek against the corpse, than the other, then her forehead. Scraping more frost crystals from other parts of its shell, she crammed them down her jump-suit and then leapt to her feet, dancing around in a mess of curses and glee. She wasn't going to explain, not when Algidus looked at her like that, but she did settle her hands on her scrawny hips to give him a look of superior aloofness. "Alright, I'm ready to go," she admitted, feeling better than she had even this morning and not wanting to say a damned thing about it.

When Algidus saw the human lunge face-first at the now frozen over kill, he was half afraid she was going to attempt to bite into it right here and now. Instead he witnessed something even more bizarre as she practically rubbed her face all over it... but then again, he could sort of understand that; If he had a bag of ice cubes he would likely be doing the same thing. Next thing he knew she was up on her feet doing some strange sort of frantic dance, which initially earned a startled look, followed by a mildly irritated one.

He was about to ask her what the hell she was doing when she seemed to calm and proposed that they move on. Squinting at her for one more second, the alien decided he didn't care and began standing back up after hooking his fingers and thumbs in under the carapace of his frosty kill. "If you're trying to keep those for later, they're just going to melt, you know," he informed AJ, gesturing to where the ice had disappeared into her clothes--he thought that would be obvious but with the way she was hoarding them with that triumphant look on her face made him think otherwise. "They don't have anything to keep them frozen, not like me."

TEST DRIVE MEME 001

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