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!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He follows her without truly giving the sense of having done so. He's learned to cultivate his actions to look like those of a leader even when he's walking in someone else's footsteps, standing on the shoulders of giants. He hefts his side of the table easily, and arranges himself so he'll be walking backwards. It's the gentlemanly thing to do and once upon a time, he lived that life.]

Is that what you intend? Feeding the wretched orphans among us?

[Hard to say if the thought amuses him or not.]

[Wanda lifts her side of the table as he does, carrying her end evenly with his and without strain. When it seems that they're ready, she begins guiding him back toward the front door, glad that it opens outward.

The subject of orphans is one that's close and personal to Wanda, but she's had more time to become accustomed to the loss of her parents, more than she's had to adjust to the fate of Novi Grad and Pietro.]

One could say that we've all been orphaned, cut off from the worlds we were born to. But yes, that is the basic gist of my plan.

[She's not a woman who typically tries to inspire a sense of community spirit in others, but they're in this together whether they like it or not, and it seems too good an opportunity to ignore.]

Poetic.

[An observation rather than a mockery. In all honesty, he agrees with the sentiment, it's almost alarmingly astute, given their respective situations here. What sway does piracy hold when its shores know nothing of Nassau? He has been asking himself that question. It's as if he's gone into hiding again, for the very first time. Flint emerged from the tatters of his last life. Is he too much that man to discard him and start anew? Difficult to say.

He shifts his hands on the table until he's balancing its weight on the palm of the right, and then he pushes behind him with his left to open the door. He props it open on his shoulder and then one awkward foot as he steps out and down onto the ground, to keep the door from banging against the table and disrupting them.]

I'm sure our fellow castaways will appreciate your efforts.

[Wanda manages a half-shrug at his response, carefully moving the table through the door with Flint, stepping quickly forward to help catch the door before it closes against the table.

It may be poetic, but to her it's merely a sentiment she's familiar with. Loss of the things that birthed and supported her, helped her to grow and flourish.]

If they decide to join me, of course, otherwise I may find myself with leftovers to last me at a week or two. Castaways is perhaps a better way to think of ourselves, however. Do you know if there's a patron saint of castaways, James? Or perhaps one for those who are lost...

[He waits until they've set the table down at its destined location to speak again. He does so idly, with both hands planted flat on the table.]

You'd think, with the ubiquity of the saints that there would be one for castaways. But no, not so far as I'm aware. Davy Jones, perhaps, though he's no patron figure. I've known sailors to be a rather godless lot until storms or shipwrecks are imminent in their future.

[Wanda lifts her end briefly to adjust the angle, but leaves it as it is after, gaze flicking to James after a moment. She gives him a small, amused smile.]

Somehow that doesn't surprise me. I'd think you'd want to ward off Davy Jones rather than pray to him, however.

[With a tilt of her head, she moves back toward the door to grab the second table.]

If there isn't much religion among pirates is there at least celebrations of sort? Holidays or festivals celebrated?

[Still with the notion of piracy. Flint's smile is crooked.]

Some Navy men do a line-crossing ceremony. It's made its way into those of a piratical persuasion, no doubt. There's value seen in having made more than one journey across the equator. Sailing makes a hard man iron, after all.

[Unbidden, he starts the process of fitting out the table. There are tablecloths folded nearby, he selects one and drapes it expertly across the tabletop.]

Nassau is quite colourfully multicultural. I imagine the pirates among them celebrate all manner of things, traditions from the Orient, the dark continent-- the Ottoman Empire. I know plenty who celebrate Christmas, and who fast for Ramadan.

[At once, Wanda wants to put her hands out, to tell James to stop, that he doesn't need to fuss with that when all she asked for was help with moving the tables. But she holds herself back, less inclined to stop the man when he's generously being helpful. So, instead, she reaches forward for the other end of the table cloth and settles one end as he sees to the other.]

What exactly does a line-crossing ceremony? It's not as stiff and formal as it sounds, is it?

[The temptation to ask which he might celebrate is something she resists. For anyone it could be a highly personal question, and for Flint, she can only imagine that he would grow withdrawn once more.]

[He barks a laugh, smoothes the tablecloth down. His rings glint in the light, and he adjusts them until they don't shine quite so boldly.]

Usually the saltiest man among them dresses up as King Neptune, occasionally another poor bugger will play his wife Amphitrite. It's all very festive, great care goes into the costumes. Wigs are ordered from London, clothing stolen from all manner of wives and daughters before the journey. Those that have yet to cross the line are tarred with whatever grotesqueries the ship's hold yields, and then promptly dunked in salt water and shaved.

[She doesn't even try to hold back her own laughter, because the idea of some old sailor dressing up as Neptune and another forced into a dress to play his wife all to tease and torment the young ones through a rite of passage.

Eyes sparkling with mischief, she steps away from the table and heads for the lobby door once more, intending to retrieve the second table.]

That sounds disgusting and entertaining all at once. [Which is to say, she'd like to see it.] Have you ever have the honor of being dunked overboard yourself?

[Oops, it's a personal question that slipped right out.]

[He overtakes her in a matter of steps, for the express purpose of holding the door and with a crooked smile and a raised eyebrow,]

You think any man would dare?

[Yeah he's not going to answer that directly, but it goes without saying he endured such a fate. He was a young man once, and considerably more... diffident.]

Edited 2017-02-27 03:14 (UTC)

[The gesture is appreciated, and Wanda pauses midway through the door to meet his smile and raised eyebrow with one of her own. She reaches toward him to poke his mid-section briefly.]

I think you made a lovely Amphitrite the second time you crossed.

[Wanda sails into the lobby and heads to the second table, already bending to grab her end of it just as she had the time before.]

[He tenses a little as she pokes at him, but he's not had to cultivate the knife's edge wariness one needs just to stay alive in Nassau here. He would never be one to underestimate a woman in a fight - he'd take Anne Bonny at his back before a great many men - but Wanda doesn't strike him as someone who's had considerable CQC experience besides.

He takes the gesture as it was meant, in goodwill, and just shakes his head as he follows her inside.]

I did tell you it was a tradition in His Majesty's Navy, did I not? Does that mean you've given up this notion of piracy?

[Wanda lifts her side of the table, giving him a slight shrug.]

I've given up nothing. I've made no stand on my theory yet. Perhaps I'm just trying to keep you guessing regarding the assumptions I've made about you.

[He's keeping her guessing regarding his actual history, after all. It's only fair. Interestingly, she realizes now that he hasn't asked many personal questions about her. None at all really, except for the one. Even then, he hadn't pried.]

Edited 2017-02-27 03:46 (UTC)

I'm flattered you find me so fascinating as to have both theories and assumptions.

[And again, he hefts the table for transport. This one goes smoother, now that they're more in sync, and they set it down end-to-end with the first without much fuss.]

[Wanda sets her end of the table down, and shrugs.]

Does it surprise you? You don't strike me as the sort of man who isn't aware of the presence he has, even when not inclined to speak much about himself.

[This time she reaches for the table cloth, shakes it out over the second table, excepting he'll catch the other end. It isn't a judgment so much as an observation, and he is by far one of the more intriguing people she's met in this place.]

[He catches the cloth handily, free of any fluttering, and lets it drop gingerly to rest against the tabletop. No, he cannot play at being naive on that count. He has cultivated himself, cut away pieces of who he was so the rest of him could stand bloody and jagged before all judgement. He earned what presence he has. He cannot claim to be anything else but that, a chimera cobbled together from dead remnants of an old life. A captain, a killer, a king.

He strokes his beard, briefly speculative, before he goes to pick up a flower arrangement, trusting she'll direct him to set it somewhere else if he's in error but for now intending to put it atop the table.]

I didn't say it surprised me.

[Everyone has theories about Captain Flint. Most assume he was a Navy man, not untrue. There were those that used to think he was some... thrall to Miranda's witchery, that she directed him thither. Men have called him devil even as he cut their tongues out. No, he is used to being spoken of in dark corners and in back alleys, he learned long ago that ten whispers can mean more than a single shout.]

[It's about as far as she can push things, probably. This is only their second meeting, and still just minutes into it. She tugs at the corners of the tablecloth, watching him move a pot of flowers to the center of the table where it belongs. It's fine where it is, and as if to say as much, she moves the second set of flowers to the other table.

Smoothing her hands down the front of her skirt, she mentally reviews what there is left to do. Food to bring down. More flowers still. Drinks, plates, forks, knives, and spoons, and napkins besides. Wanda casts James a speculative look.]

The two tables will probably do for now. I have more upstairs but I should probably see how much space I need first. [Meaning he doesn't have to stick around to move more tables.] You're welcome to join me while I gather everything together if you'd like. [Though it's left unsaid that he shouldn't feel obligated.]

[He arches an eyebrow, but doesn't argue in the least with her changing the nature of their conversation. He gives it a moment, and then spreads his hands widely apart.]

Of course. I'm at your disposal.

[Wanda nods, and begins heading inside again. Once again, he opens the door for her, letting her move ahead to hit the button for the elevator. The doors open and Wanda steps in, waits for him to join before taking them up to the third floor where she's currently situated in the communal housing. The quarters aren't particularly suited for someone more private, but she's managing.

Upon reaching the floor, James will no doubt see just how many things she's prepared for the feast. Among the flower wreaths, vases, and spare scattered flowers there are several covered dishes. Most available surfaces are covered in one or the other, or any of the several bottles of alcoholic and non-alcholic drinks. Most of which generously given by local businesses happy to sponsor a community-encouraging event.]

Have a seat. Are you hungry?

[She could probably let him taste a few things while she's gathering everything into, well, something or another to carry it all down.]

[If he's uneasy in the purely mechanical elevator there's nothing in his posture or countenance to suggest it, save perhaps a slight flicker of his eyes to watch the LED read-out of the numbers. He folds his hands in front of him and when the doors slide open he gestures her out first, entirely cognizant at how the system of lifts and pulleys shifts with even the nominal displacement of her weight.

He, too, would prefer more private quarters than this. Years of living aboard the Walrus spoiled him far beyond the days of sharing bunk and berth with his fellow sailors. There is a part of him that longs for the privacy of the Hamilton estate, but was it for the privacy or the company that he yearned?

(The answer is easy enough. He knows it, it needs not be thought distinctly.)

He sits when she gestures, resting both wrists lightly against the edge of the table and his hands laced again upon it.]

I could be persuaded to sample your cuisine.

[Not a man that speaks in absolutes unless he's pushed to it, Flint.]

[Wanda looks over what she's made, the rolls which will keep while other items bake in the oven, the vegetables ready to go in, and a few other dishes, mostly Sokovian in nature. With a moment's consideration she heads for the cabinet for a bowl, then grabs the ladle sitting in a pot of beef stew. The recipe is her mother's, the only one that she remembers learning from her before the shelling. Despite not having many opportunities to make it for herself, she feels as though she's managed it well enough. It tastes almost the same as it did when they ate as a family. All that's missing is her father talking to her mother about some funny thing that happened at work and Pietro nudging Wanda with his foot under the table.

Wanda sets the bowl in front of him with a spoon, but she doesn't ask for his opinion. No doubt if he feels compelled to commit to an opinion on the stew he'll speak up.]

I'm not certain if trying to host this feast on such short notice is more or less ambitious than attempting a career in piracy. It's usually more of a group effort.

[A community effort, which makes sense in light of the theme.]

[The stew smells delicious. Far better fare than anything he's had in-- years, honestly. Miranda's fare was hearty but simple, and she was no talented cook, and the first thing Silver prepared that he ate was also, coincidentally, the last thing. James studies the bowl a moment, and then he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt and picks up the spoon. No doubt table manners haven't metamorphosed too significantly in the intervening years.

He damn near almost chokes on the first mouthful. It isn't that it's hot, or the ingredients unseemly, but the amount of flavour to the concoction is so strong he has to stop himself from spitting it out on reflex. It's overwhelming in many, many more regards than he's accustomed to, and he sets the spoon gingerly back down. Swallows with an effort.]

More ambitious, I should think. May I have a glass of water?

[It occurs to Wanda, having watched James out of the corner of her eye and noticing his reaction to the stew, that if she were a more ruthless person she would deny him water until he answered a few questions for her directly. She almost even says as much as a joke but concern trumps all else and at once she fills a glass with water and sets it before him.]

That terrible?

[Brows knit together, she glances back to the stew sitting on the stove, wondering if she's added too much salt or pepper? Too much paprika? She'll have to taste it for herself before serving it.]

[He takes a very measured sip of the water before setting it back down with a gentle clink upon the tabletop.]

Not the least. It's delicious. But far richer than what I'm accustomed to, I'm afraid it will take some getting used to. I assure you, it's no failing of yours as a cook.

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