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riverviewooc2017-05-19 11:04 pm
riverview: may test drive meme
riverview test drive memeWelcome to Riverview's test drive meme! Feel free to dip your toes in on the test drive meme to try out your character in the setting, play out a mission, and get samples for your application at the same time!
● Reserves are currently OPEN.
● Applications open on June 1st.
● Providing all parties are amenable, threads on the test drive meme can count as game canon, as the plot in the prompts presented is game canon.
● TDM threads do not count for Activity Check, but they do count for Activity Bonus Points, so long as all characters involved are accepted into the game.
● Threading on the TDM is intended for prospective new characters, so top-levels should only be posted by players of these characters. Since the events in the TDM are considered game canon, characters currently in the game are free to use the TDM prompts for logs and posts on the regular communities.
Feel free to use the prompts below or create your own scenario. The setting is built to be flexible, so feel free to make things up as you go.
information resources
premise ● arrival ● setting ● ask a question ● calendar ● navigation
Following rumors about a magical healing spring deep in the jungle, a group of intrepid explorers ventured out to verify whether it existed or not. After finding the spring inside an ancient temple overrun with tree roots and flora, they brought samples back and discovered that the spring did, in fact, have healing properties. Just like the rumors said.
Until the authorities decided what to do with this information, no actions were to be taken, nor information revealed to the public at large. Unfortunately, the news leaked and spread to the alternative science communities as well as the top minds at Gramarye Magic Research. With interest piqued, several more unauthorized expeditions set out beyond the fence in search of the spring. And once the information leaked beyond these scientists and scholars? Everyday citizens also launched their own excursions into the jungle, many bringing ailing family members or friends along for the ride.
This month the mission is to deploy teams of skilled citizens into the jungle to rescue some of the less fortunate, unsuccessful parties. Some of these people will be trapped or set upon by monsters, unable to move forward to the spring or back to the safety of the city. Others have simply run out of supplies and need the teams to restock them so they can continue their trek. And some groups have managed to reach the spring and collect their own samples of the spring water, only to find themselves struggling to return to the city before the samples lose efficacy. Feel free to create your own party to rescue, and get a team together to do so!
Normally, living inside the Inhabited City is a pretty safe bet. You can go day to day without running into a monster or risking any kind of danger requiring a fight. Generally, the tall, laser-fenced walls keep out anything particularly dangerous.
The problem with walls? They only go so high.
While usually assault from airborne monsters isn't a problem that's on the map, there's a few weeks during late spring where a swarm of flying monsters not unlike feathery pterodactyls are migrating back to another part of the moon. They're only in the area for a couple of weeks, but during that time, residents can expect occasional attacks by swooping monsters if they should see easy prey. Usually, a good sturdy dark-colored umbrella is enough to keep them from seeing a potential victim or meal, but sometimes the attacks still happen. So the Perimeter Guard sends extra details, calling in all the reserves, to patrol the city and keep an eye out for citizens in distress. There's also a general call for anyone who's experienced at fighting to help protect their fellow citizens. Whether your character is being attacked or protecting someone else, be prepared - these monsters are quick and have very sharp teeth.
Over the past couple of weeks, the portal has seemed really fixated on food. Almost every time the portal changes location, new bundles of food are near the entrance, ripe for the Perimeter Guard Orientation Team to pick up and drag through. As a result, the Orientation Team has set up a free bazaar outside City Hall. The Bazaar lasts from the 20th until the 31st of May, and is completely free, featuring tables and booths laden with food taken from the other side of the portal. Many of these foods will be familiar to characters in the City, whether it's that special brand they're totally addicted to or a plate of grandma's family recipe.
Everything at the Bazaar is totally free, and anyone joining in on the feast is encouraged to share (read: gently not allowed to leave until they do) and to tell stories about the origin of the foods from their own home. It's a multidimensional foodie's paradise!
Prijata is a holiday in Riverview celebrating platonic love - essentially, it's a celebration of friendship, geared at showing appreciation for existing friends and finding new ones. While I won't spoil the rest of the prompts for the introductory mingle, one of the main staples of Prijata is gift giving, and the Government of Riverview gets into the spirit of it by giving small gifts to everyone who's arrived since the last Prijata.
This prompt can be used to give a quick idea of what your character is into so other characters or players can suggest gifts to be given them (or to give them) if they are accepted! More information can be found in the Prijata Pregaming modpost.
Whether your character is posting up a silly word game to distract people from the dangerous mission going on, trying to get hold of a friend, or putting out feelers for people to go out into the fray with, the network is going strong.
Alternately, an offer for a free app is popping up on new arrivals' devices - Friendr is a friend-finder and/or dating app. If characters choose to install it, they will fill out a short bio and parameters for what they're looking for, upload a snap of themselves, and then proceed to browse for matches. This is a typical swipe-left-or-right type app.
Many thanks to
mistojen for coding this especially for Riverview!Choose your own adventure and do something else in the setting!
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...
Yeah, those were topics of conversation to be had well down the road. Were they to make it that far.
For the here and the now, Will simply appreciated that the man didn't press him for small talk conversation. He followed, moving silently through the forest but taking note of the points where Bucky took a more circuitous route. Experience told Will that the man was avoiding something and his suspicion tipped towards monsters but he didn't have enough evidence to draw a clean conclusion.
Instead, he made mental note of it and put his focus on remaining a silent shadow, up to the point when Bucky stopped.
As the man spoke, Will stepped up beside him and looked up into the trees. ]
Is this where you come for recon?
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Sometimes.
[He shrugs.]
It has a good vantage point, but I don't come here all that often.
[He wouldn't take a stranger to any of his regularly used spots.]
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Which does make it odd that Will was perfectly okay with following Bucky in the first place, and was even now looking up the tree with a pensive expression. After all, the man could have lead him out here to leave him as bait.
The thought of monsters and bait makes his lips twitch, before Will looked back towards the man standing beside him. ]
And what about being on the ground, with the monsters. What can you learn from that vantage point?
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[He's not going to make any secret of his combat abilities, there's really no need to. If he had intended to harm Will then he would have done it long before getting him all the way out here.]
Can you climb trees?
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[ Will muttered in a tone that suggested he may have more experience with the blurring of those lines than one would expect of a mild mannered FBI instructor.
As the words left his mouth, he was walking around the tree, staring up through it's branches and plotting the most efficient course upwards. Bucky's question briefly re-directed his attention to the man and he nodded. ]
So long as neither of us start singing Monty Python riffs.
[ There may have been a deliberateness in his hesitation, however. Waiting to see if Bucky would go first. Though he was smaller and certainly less physically capable in the combat sense, Will wasn't above positioning himself so that no one was at his unguarded back. ]
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He hasn't heard of Monty Python, but that's not surprising. He assumes they're a band if there are songs that need to be sung, but not what they have to do with climbing trees. And he's definitely not going up first.]
Go on, then.
[It's half a challenge, will he go up first and expose his back?]
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There were more immediate concerns.
Perhaps not a concern, the situation wasn't to the point that Will felt concerned by it, but he also wasn't about to go up that tree first. There were enough bits and pieces of evidence to support his gut reaction to Bucky as another predator. Though the man had done nothing to warrant suspicion, Will was keenly aware of the imbalance -in Barnes's favor- between their circumstances.
He turned slightly and walked towards the tree, angling himself so that he kept Bucky in his forward vision. Will stepped up to the tree and set his hand on the trunk, drumming his fingers on the wood before he stepped back with a tight smile that was perhaps more grimace. ]
Maybe next time. But it's good to know this is here. Thanks.
[ He glanced back to mark the trail they had just passed along, before turning, orienting himself and then nodding in the direction of the Abandoned city. ]
What's in this direction?
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Bucky isn't an idiot when it comes to sizing up a possible opponent, for all his failings when it comes to social encounters, and it's pretty obvious that Will isn't going to climb the tree because of not wanting to put his back to Bucky. So he'll follow him to a remote location, but that's one step too far, that's interesting to know.
He doesn't force the issue, he has no reason to, letting the subject get changed without comment.]
Abandoned buildings, ruins.
[He sleeps out there at least half the time, even as dangerous as it is.]
There's not much to see there, just rubble.
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And a fall from a tree was more 'accidental'; easier to explain than a direct attack. Not that it escaped Will that Bucky could always 'feed' him to a monster so perhaps this current excessive caution was bolting the door after the horse had bolted. However, he was keeping his feet on the ground, where he maintained options. ]
In my orientation run down, I heard there are teams that deliberately go out there. What are they looking for, besides 'rubble'?
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[That's not exactly true. While he might not have been a member of one of those expeditions yet, mostly because he doesn't trust other people or himself enough to be part of an organised group, he has still watched and listened. He'd rather not tip his hand fully, though, as far as knowledge is concerned.]
I've been out there a few times, never found anything worth looking at. I can show you, if that's what you want?
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Not that the man has given him any reason to expect that he knew more than he was saying. Assuming so would be a pure gut leap, rather than anything supported by actual evidence, so Will carefully shut down his assumption in favor of working with what he could actually detail.
Glancing around, he tilted his head at Bucky. ]
Understanding that 'safe' is a relative term, given our location, would it be wise to go now?
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[He spends a lot of time out there. It's never going to be safe, the whole place outside the main quarantine zone is a disaster waiting to happen, but he can probably keep Will safer than anyone else.
But he'll leave the choice entirely in the other man's hands. He won't be offended if he's just left alone here in the forest.]
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Either way it was only a brief hesitation before Will gave a small nod of his head and also verbal assent to continue. ]
I'd like to see it.
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The route he takes Will in is a little circuitous, skirting around some of the known danger areas, until they reach the outskirts of the abandoned city. Buildings half collapsed, some almost fully in tact, with an air of desolation and stillness to them that seems unnatural.]
You haven't been out here before?
[How long has this guy even been here?]
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It was only once they had come up to the edges of the city that Will walked up beside Bucky, standing outside 'personal space' but otherwise shoulder to shoulder as his eyes moved across the scene before him. For a long breath the question went unanswered as the profiler soaked up his initial impressions of the desolation laid out before him.
When he did speak, his voice was distracted. ]
Just arrived, and cleared what I suppose is the standard initial orientation spiel. Haven't even bothered to stop by my assigned quarters.
[ Straight up the wall and now outside the wall, as you do. ]
Does anyone talk about what happened? Some of this damage looks almost ... surgical.
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It seems Will is one.
Only time will tell if that's because he's empathetic, or if he is equally as reluctant to be around people as Bucky is. But he appreciates it for now, and it means he's not skittish enough to already be looking for an escape from this outing.]
Not that I've heard.
[True, he tends to stalk and eavesdrop rather than converse.]
You might have some luck asking the native perimeter guard, if you trust them to tell you the truth.
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It wasn't wise to ever believe such a thing.
Aside from the fact that Bucky looked as if he could break him in two, if he took it into his mind to do so, Will found himself sliding into a comfortable give and take with the guy. Bucky wasn't pushing conversation at him and Will was more than happy to offer the same courtesy back, furthermore the man moved with obvious competency, which the profiler could appreciate as well.
Glancing over at the suggestion of the guard, Will gave a small nod and telegraphed his intention to start picking his way closer to the city. ]
Sometimes you can pluck the grain of evidence out of the lies. [ He remarked, as a way to invite Bucky along. ] Worthwhile conversations at least. Do we have a good relationship with the natives?
[ Please don't make him define 'we'. ]
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[Bucky is far too cautious to just accept the surface intentions of the people here. There's too much that they don't know, and he's not about to trust so easily as a lot of people seem happy to do here, he is so sure that there's something much more insidious underneath it all.]
Houses are provided, jobs too, and the locals seem happy to talk to anyone that wants to stand and pass the time of day.
[Not that he ever does.
He steps out towards the first of the ruined buildings. There's evidence of a recent campfire near one of them, the place he spent the night only two days prior.]
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Before he could comment, they passed the remains of a campfire, something Will had an intimate knowledge of, both through his job and through his own past times. Pausing briefly, he cocked his head to the side. ]
Do our monsters build small fires?
[ It's not an entirely sarcastic question. So far he's only experienced the flying feathered, dinosaur like monsters. Perhaps there were some monsters who were a little more organized and advanced in the use of tools and tactics? ]
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No, they're mostly just feral, like beasts.
[He hasn't seen any that have the intelligence to build fires, anyway.]
That was mine, I stayed out here a couple of nights ago.
[It's not too dangerous to reveal that. This isn't one of his regular safe spots, and he just won't use it again now.]
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Some people do stay outside the walls then?
[ This was a more genuine question. Will would definitely be hunting for his own space, sooner rather than later. Though it had been years since he'd lived at the Wolf Trap farm house, even his 'family' home had been almost hopelessly remote. ]
Has anyone started to type the monsters?
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[He bypasses the first question, there's not much need to respond since that would mean admitting that he's one of the lone people that's refused any sort of shelter in the main quarantine and is living in various abandoned places like a ghost.]
They seem to come in groups of the same sort, and the bigger ones know to keep away from the walls for the most part.
[Maybe not recently with those flying things, but before that.]
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I would think the bigger ones would be the bold ones.
[ He remarked, finally honing in on a piece of half destroyed building wall, and walking towards it.
Will didn't touch, but his eyes raked along the surface of the exposed structure, studying it for any evidence that might suggest what exactly had brought it down. ]
How many attacks have you survived?
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I haven't been keeping count.
[He skirts around the remains of the campfire and towards one of the more in tact buildings to the left.]
You can get a better lay of the land from the roof of this one. It's not secure, so watch your step.
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[ Will responded with just the one word to cover both of Bucky's statements.
Then, once again, he fell quiet as he moved behind the other man. Part of his silence was just the ease he had with being companionably quiet, and part was genuine concentration on where he put his feet. ]
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