riverviewooc | 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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Amir wasn't even armed with a laser gun; in her arms was a bow, sharply curved at both ends, which looked like it had been hewn at least partially from animal horn. She had arrived on a different transport, and she looked caught between nervous anticipation and excitement at the prospect of the task ahead.

"Hello!" she called to Derek as the others began to split up into patrols. "You are here to help? Let's go this way!"

'This way' appeared to be in the opposite direction along the fence as most were heading.

The chipper voice feels almost out of place to Derek, but it does grab his attention and he looks over to the source. She's got herself a bow and Derek lifts his eyebrows. He's really only ever seen Argents use bows and arrows, because it takes a lot more skill to make a kill shot, he assumes, with an arrow than a bullet. Bullets, by nature, can do more damage after all, can't they? At least, in his experience, it certainly feels like more damage when it's a bullet instead of an arrow and yes, Derek's been shot with both at some point or another in his life.

He looks a little confused when she appears to want to go in the opposite direction and, at first, he doesn't make to follow her. "...why that way?" he asks. It's a matter-of-fact sort of question. He isn't questioning her decision so much as he's curious to know why she's made it. He's not judging her interest in going a different way, but he wonders if she knows something he doesn't which he should prepare for, is all, and his casual (albeit a little confused) tone means to suggest that.

"There are many that way," Amir said, indicating the way of the crowd. "But it is strange. For an animal, its health is its life. The hawk does not dash herself against the cliff."

She turned her eyes down the length of fence. "Instead, perhaps they circle us... like wolves."

In other words, she didn't think the attacking creatures were blindly smashing themselves against the fence. They were after something, and when wild animals were after something, they were sly and clever, and a distraction or attack from multiple sides was not out of the question. She wanted to scout for other creatures and felt that the current main body of attackers was well-covered. Of course, whether Derek took that meaning from her words was in question.

Dark eyebrows lift with interest. He hasn't been away from home but three weeks and still with seemingly a human or technological crisis on the daily, he's managed to shift his focus to human reactions and instincts rather than animalistic ones. But she's right, and the fact that it didn't actually occur to him is an unpleasant surprise. "...that's a really good point," he concedes and finally moves to follow her.

Derek clears his throat a little when she mentions wolves but, again, she's not necessarily wrong.

"You think they're a distraction," he replies and it isn't a question. He has a very strong feeling that that's what she's trying to say...and it's not a bad suspicion to have. Derek catches up with her and scents the air again, a subtle lift of his chin coupled with a deep intake of air through his nose. Still nothing that stands out as familiar.

"Do you think we should go back to the group and suggest the lot of us split up?"

Amir's expression brightened -- as if someone had shown up at her door with gifts of welcome, rather simply deciding that she had a point and that they were maybe willing to go with her to look for more monsters to beat up. He thought it was a good idea!

And yet at the suggestion of facing the others, it occurred to her that there could be a complication. "Would it be all right? I am not a perimeter guard."

Moreover, many of them were men; they might not enjoy being told how to conduct mens' business. In fact, they might think she was ordering them around! And there was always the possibility she was wrong...

At her question, Derek looks a little thrown off. He's new to all of this. He might be Perimeter Guard but that doesn't mean he knows the ins and outs of everything. He neither knows whether it's all right for her to suggest a split to the others nor whether it's all right for him to split away from the group to go with her. One of them has to give. It's easier to feign ignorance if he's going his own way, because he can just say he thought she was Perimeter Guard and didn't bother asking to confirm.

Derek's that kind of guy: it's a lot easier for him to throw himself under the bus than someone else, even if he really ought to do it the other way around sometimes.

"No idea. All right, let's just...we'll go check it out and take it from there, how's that?" he asks, figured maybe that strikes a compromise they can both live with.

"All right!" A solid relief, putting that question behind her. Amir turned her attention back to the matter at hand, which was proceeding lightfooted along the perimeter of the fence, looking for disturbances in the area that might betray some recent incursion. There were sections of the fence that were dented and damaged, as if something of great weight had struck it. There were marks from laserblasts, too, most likely from the guards.

"You were smelling the air... were you tracking for them?" This possibility did not seem too unusual to Amir. Tracking and hunting were important skills, and in any case animals usually radiated a rather overpowering scent. Maybe Derek was a hunter.

A cry floated out over the distance, hooting and eerie. Though Amir could not see its source, it sounded unnervingly close, falling and then rising in a single liquid arc. Instinctively, she took an arrow from her quiver.

While Amir is noticing the visual disturbances in the area, Derek is listening; smelling. Those are his stronger senses so with her eyes and his nose and ears, he figures that they're bound to find something, if there's anything to find.

Her question doesn't necessarily surprise him. He's learned that not everyone is blind to the fact that there are people who can do superhuman things. It no longer chokes him with panic for someone to notice that he's doing something most "normal" humans wouldn't do. So rather than act surprised and confused when he isn't, Derek just nods. "Sort of, yeah," he agrees. "Mostly, trying to see if I recognize anything off, because if I know what I'm going up against, I can be more effective, but so far, there's nothing familiar." So they're not working with other werewolves, fox spirits, Berserkers, kanima, or any other number of supernatural creatures with which Derek has been in direct contact over the years. That doesn't mean whatever it is isn't supernatural; in fact, it means very little because they could be facing any number of those exact creatures from a different place than where Derek called home for so long. They could be the same thing with a different scent from a different world and he'd never know it.

What he does know is that they're not completely alone in the area even before the louder indication. Derek holds an arm out to indicate that, while he understands the instinct to prepare, he needs her to try to do so quickly and quietly so as not to interrupt his focus. He's listening for much smaller sounds and it's easy for them to be dwarfed by even the smallest ones that are closer to his ear than they are. Heartbeats; there is that. Derek's still trying to discern whether they belong to the soldiers in the other direction or whether they're up ahead but the breeze and the rustling of leaves confuse it a little. He's out of practice.

He gestures with two beckoning fingers for her to move with him as he slows his pace but changes direction just slightly. He isn't going back, but neither is he continuing straight forward. If the heartbeats become louder, then he can rule out the soldiers of the Perimeter Guard as their sources.

riverview: test drive meme

monster madness

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