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]

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?"

[hairrands]

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.

[thecoldshoulder]

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."

[hairrands]

AJ had to laugh aloud at that. Little did Algidus know about how fucking hot she was if he expected her to think the little slivers of ice weren't already long gone. Her already dark jump suit was stained in unfortunate places by her own sweat. A little ice would add nothing substantial. "I don't keep shit for later... you just happened to leave a little extra and I needed cooling down now, and anyways, I can't cram chunks of you anywhere whether or not they stay frozen."

She seemed to realize what she was saying as it came out of her mouth, and so her last few words trailed off like she was already kicking herself. "You know what, never mind!"

[thecoldshoulder]

Algidus had already sputtered at the mere prospect. "Yes, good idea!" he squawked, hooking his fingers tighter into the corpse and beginning to trudge forward. All of the places that her offhand remark was taking his brain was... well, they ranked from unenjoyable to being straight-up flustering, and the alien was tired of feeling his cheekbones turn purple.

"Come on," he growled, hiking the carcass up to get a better grip on it, "I want to see if anything's changed while I was out hunting this creature."

[hairrands]

"Everything and nothing," AJ quipped, taking up the now awkwardly frozen tentacles and hefting them so that none of the corpse dragged across the ground. For a while she said nothing, preferring the awkwardness of silence to the awkwardness of conversation, but eventually she brought up what she felt was a valid point. "You should take a share before we get to camp. You haven't yet."

[thecoldshoulder]

Algidus looked over his shoulder at that. It was a valid point, and it reminded him of just how long it had been since he had a substantial meal; that being said, she didn't need to do any further convincing. Giving a small nod, the alien lowered his portion of the carcass to the ground and hunkered over it, shifting his right arm into a blade to begin slicing off a portion of the meat for himself. To be honest, he could have eaten the whole damn thing on his own, but of all the undesirable traits that had cropped up within him since he was clone, selfishness didn't seem to be among them. Plus, this was their ticket in. Wouldn't make sense to take it all for himself.

So he finished cutting off his share--not even bothering to pull the scales off of it--and held it in his hand, looking to AJ. He'd eat later... something about putting his unique physiology on display didn't feel quite right here. "What about yourself?" he grunted, "This thing's big enough, and I can always go catch more. Or did you 'requisition' some supplies from the camp when we parted ways?"

[hairrands]

"I may have requisitions some spam," AJ quirked a sly grin. "If you don't know what it is, I can't help you, though. Protein in a tin, lots of salt. Probably make your face melt, actually." That was a chuckle at his expense. "Anyways, seafood's fucking gross. I don't want to eat this thing, but I bet there's a lot of people who'd be happy for something that hasn't hit a new landmark in expiration dates..."

Yep, there went that awkward conversational tangent again. AJ, lips pursed, tried to rein herself in. "I mean... I'll... I'll probably try it eventually, if I have to, I guess. Don't want to make too many enemies snitching from their stash... and I mean, trout's good, it comes from a river..."

Nope, she's going to shut up again. Hefting the rigid but thawing tentacles, she waits for Algidus to take the lead again.

[thecoldshoulder]

Algidus made a face. The protein sounded good, but the salt? Definitely not. His species had to be careful about their intake of that. If he was bothered by the rest of the idle conversation she was making he didn't give much sign of it or make any attempts to cut her off. He just hooked his fingers back in under those thick scales as he prepared to heft the carcass once more. "I was going to say, I don't think this technically qualifies as 'sea' food, and besides you haven't even tried it. I bet it tastes a lot better than most of the food to be had around here... not that I would know." Another little shrug. His anatomy simplified a lot of things.