riverviewooc | riverview: test drive meme

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meme: test drive

riverview: test drive meme

riverview test drive meme

Welcome to Riverview's first 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 March 1st.
● All threads on the test drive meme can count as game canon once the game is up and running.
● TDM threads do not count for Activity Check, but they do count for Activity Bonus Points.

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 ● navigation

prompt i: batten down the hatches

If the sky has seemed a little more yellow-green than usual for the past couple of days, there's a reason for that. Meteorologists have been warning of a particularly nasty storm blowing in from the direction of the Delta in the Southwestern part of the Abandoned City.

The Quarantine is about to be hit by a nasty typhoon, and there's a lot to be done. Whether you're helping sandbag the banks of the river, which is bound to be swollen by the storm and flooding, weatherproofing your building, or just huddling indoors for warmth and helping reassure your friends, family, or partner that everything will be okay, it's time to take action!

prompt ii: monster madness

There's been a lot of talk around the Quarantine about the various predators and monsters outside the fence, and how they've been getting steadily more active, crowding the fences, trying to leap over them, seemingly driven by some kind of mania. There have even been increasing instances of predators that normally mind their own business attacking the fences wholesale, slamming into it over and over as if they're trying to find a weakness.

The good news? The fences have been holding. So far.

The bad news? They won't be holding for much longer.

The Perimeter Guard is in a bad way, and it's all hands on deck. They've also sent out a few of the Perimeter Guard Cadets to post up flyers around the city asking for temporary help in fighting off the beasts. So pick up whatever weapon you're best with, hop onto a truck transport, and head on over to the fences to help drive off the monsters and keep the Quarantine safe.

prompt iii: hold your lover close

With a storm rolling in that's going to keep everyone indoors, that might cause power outages, and is just frankly pretty scary, a lot of the clubs, restaurants, and hotels are doing special events to keep everyone's brains occupied and flooded with endorphins.

There are flyers around the city advertising various couples activities: speed dating, dance classes, overnight pool parties, and all-expenses-paid lovers' nights in.

The catch? The great deals only count if you're a twosome. So if you don't have someone to love, hit up speed dating in the indoor courtyard of Riverview's largest mall, or grab the first person you see and take the opportunity.

prompt iv: solution

After a day or two of storm activity, things are definitely not getting better: the rain is torrential, the monsters are attacking with increased energy and decreased rest times, and the distractions are starting to wear thin. Power outages happen off and on, a very rare situation in Riverview Quarantine.

The government has put out an all-points-bulletin imploring anyone with an exploratory spirit to help.

From what government science techs can tell, the storm isn't natural - after all, even the meteorologists were saying that the pressure systems seemed extremely strange. They've managed to narrow the cause to an area in the delta where the storm seems to be originating from, and are broadcasting the general location so anyone with the guts can head out into the storm and try to find the source of it.

Any characters who decide to penetrate the jungle in search of the source will find a device in the shape of a pyramid, with glowing blue edges about a day's walk into the Abandoned City. The pyramid is a malfunctioning weather control device that is causing wild pressure fluctuations and causing the storm as well as making the animals in the jungle aggressive and erratic. Characters can destroy or deactivate the device to end the storm.

This mission can be threaded out however you would like, in groups however large you would like, and more than one team can accomplish the goal.

prompt v: wildcard/network

Whether you're looking for help with a mission or just want to get to know your fellow new arrivals, your character can make a post to the network.

Or you can choose your own adventure and do something else in the setting!

navigation

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[ Clark requested to clear out underground shelters when the sky changed colour, but the city officials seem to think this will be enough. There's no reason not to trust their word, and so he's been everywhere possible: helping along the river, and digging faster than ordinary people can.

This is the last place left. He catches the shovel, nodding politely to Flint. ]

All right. Where do we dig?

Interesting... I've met carpenters before, they tend to be pleasant people.

[Simple, but pleasant. Most of them are peasants from the lower end of Thornwell.]

I'm a housewife back in my world, but I suppose I'll have to fall back on some other skill. [She thinks for a moment before looking back at him.] Do you think anyone here would have a use for communing with the dead?

[He hefts a second shovel, and points out three key locations.]

Here, there and there. We need ditches to divert the flow of water as it rises.

[And so he bends to his work, digging the shovel into the ground with a foot upon its step. He's already drenched, and has stripped his coat off as it makes no difference and adds no protection from the elements. It only impedes his movement.]

Who said anything about girlfriends?

[Sam comes up behind Steve, taking pity on the poor guy, and slings an arm around his shoulder, pushing the other guy's arm off and smiling brightly at both of them as he takes the flyers from Steve's hands.]

Come on, honey, let's go take a look at some of these and see if we can't find something to do together.

[He gently but pointedly steers Steve away, giving the hapless flyer guy a pointed Look over his shoulder. Asshole. Sam rounds the first corner he sees and drops his arm from around Steve's shoulders.] Man, what was the deal with that guy? He working on commission or something?

[ He works side by side with Flint. There is no small talk. In these conditions there's very little call for it out here, and there's work to be done. Some people manage to multitask. Not Clark. He digs much faster than Flint and more tirelessly. ]

[oh shit, son.

James catches himself before any look of untoward alarm gives away his surprise. It is relegated only to a slight flex of his fingers and a look of absolutely unwavering interest upon her.]

I'm not certain 'simple housewife' and 'communing with the dead' are two things I've before heard in such close conjunction with one another.

[Sam just gives Steve a look because - come on, man, are you seriously going out unarmed against god knows what? What the hell did they teach you in the Army? Steve might be a super-soldier, but some things are just goddamn dumb, in Sam's opinion.

(Sam himself is kitted out in all his gear, which means he's got weapons to spare. He unholsters one sidearm and passes it over to his friend. Don't even try to turn it down, Steve.)]

I'm gonna guess that it's something nasty with too damn many teeth, but if there's one thing I've learned, it's that what you think you're gonna face is never what it ends up being.

What about hot dogs?

[food's gotten a lot better over the decades. there's a lot more variety, things that he couldn't even have imagined back in the 40's. with a phone call, you can even have it delivered to your door.

but some things are classics for a reason.]

Or we could have some of that - what's it called again? The dish that you like.

[because that's specific.]

Sounds awful.

[She doesn't have the good manners to looked ashamed of it, but she mimics his shrug from a moment ago instead. She's a city girl, tried and true, could never be away from the filth and wonder of population. But...eh. Food had to come from somewhere, yeah? So long as he was happy.

With cow shite everywhere. ugh.]

Was helping save the world from a big monster thingy but...well. Sometimes the heroes are monsters too, yeah? Gotta get back. But...

[But it was good to step away from the Inquisitor and their political bullshiting. But that takes too long to explain and- damn. Drunk. She was drunk. And she groans as that knowledge hits her, her head falling forward between her shoulders- too far. She misjudged and her forehead hit the table with a firm bang.]

Maker's salty balls.

[He's mingling. As one ought. It is hardly his inclination to do so - he needs engender no one's good opinion here - but this is a quick, easy way to glean information.

Even if it is fucking ridiculous. Flint - who could be either a hipster or a pirate, by his beard, rings and sharp-featured intensity - raises an eyebrow at the question of dwarves.]

I beg your pardon?

Brought half the water in the city with you, too, looks like.

[Sam glances up from the book he's reading, giving Bucky an unimpressed look.]

You look like a drowned rat, man. [He's already getting up from his seat, fetching both a towel and a blanket. He might sound mildly antagonistic, but it's nothing more than light trolling. Sam tosses the towel at Bucky, holding onto the blanket till he gets himself dry. Or drier, at any rate.]

[Reminds him of Billy. In better days, before the man's good opinion of him was soured by so many things. Few men in his time grow to be that tall or broad, the ones that do are almost always the best fighter on a crew. Not because they are skilled, necessarily, but because they can endure. Outlast a better class of swordsman. Flint watches him, made wary by this, but does not comment.

They finish the job in record time, with Flint having done very little of the work despite his altogether honest contribution, and he watches water seep into the ditch they've built. The muck of it is up nearly to his knees, now.]

We're done here. We should seek shelter for now.

[ He may be tall and broad, but Clark has long been in the habit of being unremarkable, and after they finish digging he's shrinking into himself again and offering nothing more than a nod with a soft: ]

After you.

[ Sam's busy writing his name on a tag and sticking it on, but he glances up at the familiar accented voice, grinning. ]

Couple times. Can't say it's ever worked, though.

[ But that's less because of the speed-dating itself and more because Sam had done it to help out friends. He's never really been looking for much of a relationship before - still isn't, but he figures he might as well have some companionship through the storm, if that's what these people want. It seems strange to him, but what the hell? ]

But there's always a first time for everything.

[Two types of men make that remark. Someone made comfortable in following, and leaders who don't wish to give it away. Flint raises an eyebrow at it, but it's his only reaction as he brushes past the man and - boots squelching uncharitably in the mud - heads for one of the buildings on higher ground. It seems to be a school, by its exterior, and it's been closed down for the storm. Flint, however, doesn't seem to care. It's an empty building near enough to the crisis that he can keep an eye on it, and he's brought provisions enough to outlast it.

He heads first through the door and to the small corner of the gymnasium he's sequestered for himself. There's a heater running, and several of the gym's instruments pulled close and tarped over to give it the illusion of being a small room. All the knotwork, of course, is expertly done.]

Hungry?

[He's seen more than his fair share of drunkards, this little misstep does nothing to phase him. Though he does take the opportunity to order her a glass of water with lemon, which he puts in front of her.]

Drink that, when you've a mind.

[It's not really an order. Some people, so inclined, would promptly tell him to go fuck himself. But he just can't bring himself to dislike her, or to leave a drunk girl alone to whatever mercies this place has in store.

He is not a nice man by any stretch. But he is rarely cruel unless called for. Sometimes the heroes are monsters too.]

What manner of 'big monster thingy'?

[His mind jumps first to bullshit (likely) and then to a sailor's stories. He's too rational a man to think that krackens exist, or any other monsters of the deep he's heard tales of, but it's certainly where his mind first strays.]

[She is just going to let her head rest for a moment. Not going for the water, but not throwing it on the floor at the moment. Just turning enough so she's looking at him again, face pressed to the wood of the table, not a single care for appearances. Or the large red mark on her forehead.]

Dunno. Magic shite, yeah? Don't need the full problem when I've got the answer: arrows.

[holy shit she's just the tiniest angriest pirate can he fucking keep her. Flint actually laughs at that.]

A definitive cure to most things that ail oneself. So you're from one of those worlds where 'magic' exists?

[Or she's drunk and imagining some fallible thing as being so. But then again, he's never seen anyone with pointed ears that weren't the result of some very creative scarification, either.]

It's not an uncommon skill where I come from. The Regis clan are proficient necromancers.

[Normally she'd be preening the crow-skull hairpin she's always wearing, but it's been quiet since she ended up in this reality. Apparently, the crow's spirit is stuck back in her old world.]

[She can guess what he meant to say. He's never had a massage before, something that Bryn honestly thinks is a tragedy. Biting back a comment that Earth ought to keep better care of its Champions, she instead lifts her shoulders in a shrug.]

All of those sound like a good start. I'd say for easing in, you could do the cinema. Sounds comfortable. If you want to jump in head first the pool party probably wouldn't be a bad idea?

It depends on how much socializing you want to do, or if the idea of sitting in a dark room not talking to anyone sounds more your speed.

[It's from two ancient Greek words, by which the meaning is taken to be divination by means of dead bodies. Christ, maybe there was another reason everyone was giving this girl a wide berth. Back home, in the year of 1718, he'd simply assume her stark mad. Driven so by any such thing that twists a mind. Yet, here he is in another world. The impossible suddenly seems an unassailable reality. He is too smart, too wary and too fucking old to take it immediately as a lie when he has ample proof simply being in this place it could be otherwise.]

And what does it entail, exactly?

Probably everywhere. They're just..sneaky. Those magic types. Always skulking an' drinking their tea an' 'no, Sera, the wall's aren't for climbing on' and 'go away, Sera, my sense of humor's shoved up my arse.'

[Her head stays down, but her hands come up to act as mocking little puppets as she imitates her version of Solas. Not that James'll known who it is, but when she thinks of magic these days, she thinks of the worst elf she knows.]

But then who do they come runnin' to when the world's ending? Us normal people, that's right. Bah.

[Well that's specific. He leans back in his chair, faintly humoured by her depiction and the fluttering wave of her hands.]

Depends on how you define normal, I'd wager.

Yeah, I know the type. [Yeah those are some....toothy teeth. Someone's got a weird idea of engineering specs. ]

So, you're Russian, huh?

[Hey, he READS. There's all sorts of weird shit about Russian babies and birth farms and stuff. ]

Yeah, well, if you let Stark get too close, you'll probably end up in jail.

[It happened to him!]

Me? [Yeah, that sounded like something's out there and not friendly.] Looking for ants, actually.

[She does notice that he's made a point of putting his back to the wall. Bryn adjusts her own seat to face across from him better, an unspoken gesture to him, to discourage others from interrupting them.

Adam Luke Something, however, is curious.

There's something off about the way he says it, but she can't pinpoint it. They're not names from her world, which means that she can't tell if they're unusual together or not.]

The other Adam? [She raises an eyebrow.] He's nice enough. I might see him again another time, but since this is a speed dating event the point is to meet as many people as possible in a short period of time.

[Which really does make this a favor to him, because while she's sitting here talking with just him, she's missing out on meeting others. Then again, he's a mystery enough in himself that she doesn't mind the extra time to try and pinpoint what his whole withdrawn and unsociable thing is all about.]

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riverview: test drive meme

when you tell a pirate to batten

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it's me, I'm the worst

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ii

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2;

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iii

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