sixthiteration | Test Drive 23

It has to take place in the 6I universe.
It cannot be the character's arrival into the game.
Please only test new characters who do not have a version in the game. Our cast list is here.

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Prompts

FULL VIEW - The Observers really do their best to make each villager's wrist device as user-friendly for them as possible, but with all new tech, sometimes there's a learning curve... And sometimes, you just screw up. Like now, when you've accidentally triggered the video option and called someone completely random on the network without realizing it. Yep, you're just going about whatever, totally oblivious. Here's to hoping that your clothes are fully on, and that the person on the other end is nice enough to speak up sooner rather than later.
SHADOW OF A DOUBT - Being the intrepid (or just bored) villager you are, you've gone exploring and found yourself a very interesting (if moderately spooky) cave. What lurks in the dark? Might it be some shadow dust to turn you intangible? Or perhaps a cave wolf with all of its little goblin-monkey friends? Maybe, just maybe, it's both.
ILL AT EASE - 'Tis the season for the common cold, and you've got it. Unfortunately, the village doesn't have a corner drug store, so you're achy, miserable, maybe a little feverish. The good news is a little time in bed should do the trick. That is, if you're not the sort who has to be bullied to take care of yourself anytime you get sick. Either way, maybe you'll be lucky enough to find someone to tuck you in and bring you some chicken soup.
WILDCARD - Choose your own adventure. Maybe play powers roulette.
NETWORK - All characters are fitted with a smart watch-like device on their left wrist, which they can use to send text and video messages to other villagers. Text and/or video are allowed, any length. Display names may be changed by characters on the fly, but anyone can tap to see someone's real full name.

Please list your CHARACTER NAME, CANON & PROMPT NAMES in your SUBJECT LINE.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Catnip," she offers with a chuckle. She's definitely amused rather than upset, and can't seem to help but take this opportunity to sit on the ground nearby and attempt to pet her wayward friend while being utterly ignored.

"Her name's Selina. Mine's Steph."

Steph? Interesting name. Not as interesting as Selina. Selina the pretty kitty with feathers. Like an animal from a children's book. Actually, back home, all animals are pretty much from children's books. She lets loose her grip with the funny power that the machine gave her, expecting the peacat to move away. And yet it's still there, rubbing against her. And Abby smiles fondly at it.

"Abby," she offers, and she'd give her hand but the moment it isn't petting one of the dogs they would surely whine. And that would be rude, right? "I didn't know I was catnip. Sorry. Just sat down."

Selina is pretty interesting. Steph huffs as though offended by the cat's lack of affection.

"Nah, she's always like this. Though not usually with humans. Besides, it looks like you're everything-nip right now. Is that a power, or are your clothes just stuffed with food?"

If he clothes were stuffed with food, she wouldn't be sharing it with animals. Too important to survive, and even now that's not a habit she has gotten out of. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

"Power? Like the vending machine does. There's one to make animals like you. There aren't a lot of animals on my world. I wanted to see a dog. And look, two."

The animals definitely wouldn't be letting her keep it for herself either. But more importantly than that, since the dogs have piled on each other in such a way that they're hardly distinguishable from each other anymore, Steph looks questioning at the newest quadrupedal arrival.

"Uhh, that one's not a dog, actually." She points at the Croc-dog clacking its weird jaws happily as it sniffs around the two of them.

Well the two dogs already lying against her are nice. But that thing? Abby doesn't even flinch away or seem weirded out. Interesting. She reaches out toward the thing.

"That totally looks like the sort of dog people would have in the Undercities. That is SUPER cool!"

Steph raises her eyebrows.

"Yeah? It'd be a weird genetically engineered hybrid in my world."

"I mean, I suppose people could do that too. But it's not like there are a lot of animals on Adaptive. They all died off I think. Except for rats. Rats last pretty well in cities. Cats too. But dogs? Yeah, only really REALLY rich people can have those."

Because cats were smart enough to get indoors. But dogs? Damn, you had to spend so much money on gear for dogs to keep them save, transport them, prevent them from dying from plague clouds. If she saw someone with a dog, they were immediately targeted for stealing.

Steph makes a face. She's had run-ins with city rats before. Given they were highly unusual run-ins, the thought still isn't very pleasant.

"Well that sucks. There's plenty of animals here, even if a lot of them are super weird." She pulls gently on one of Selina's feather as illustration. The cat turns with the utmost calm and chomps down on the hand.

"Yeah, I called you weird. Deal with it!" She lets go of the feather though, and Selina lets go of her hand as if nothing happened.

"She's not weird, she's beautiful," Abby corrects as she smiles at the feline. She's never seen anything like this before. But that doesn't mean anything at all, does it?

"Are any of the things here really that weird? They all look normal. Well, I guess the one without the fur is a bit sad, but only because it can't be comfy when it gets cold. How does it stay warm?"

These are the questions that matter in her books. Also, where the electronics are.

"She's a menace is what she is," Steph notes fondly as she reaches over to smooth down the feather she had tugged at.

"Half are the kinds of animals you'd find back home, half are mashups like that guy." She waves in the direction of the croc dog again.

"I think it's a reptile thing. They don't need to stay as warm as we do."

"They're all strange to me," Abby admits with a soft smiles. She keeps scratching the crocdog's head. What a lovely creature. How hard would it be to make a helmet for one? "On my world, living things don't survive very easily. I've never seen trees or grass outside of a park-dome. It's... It's beautiful. There's so much green. I about flipped when I was pulled out of the fountain."

This world was like... well, a low-tech paradise. Food to be had and shared, shelter easily gained, extra food, and there are both plants and animals. Yeah, it's amazing. This place is actually heaven. Abigail might be one of the few people who actually likes this place. It's safe!

She even leans in toward Steph, like she's about to share a secret.

"I stood outside in the rain yesterday."

"I bet." She remembers her first several weeks, adjusting to life among greenery instead of in the city. It had been hard to appreciate much of anything back then, but she appreciated the quiet and the smell of clean air.

"Acid rain back home, I'm guessing? I'm used to exhaust fumes, but it was always nice after it rained and everything smelled so fresh."

"Acid rain would be so much easier, right?"

She makes a very brief noise and the dogs framing her move away enough for Abigail to lay back in the grass. And she frowns up at the sky as the dogs settle near her again.

"Plague clouds. We lived our lives in helmets to filter out all of the toxins. Breathe in even a little and you will die. Get the chemicals on your skin and you have serious bad rashes and sometimes chemical burns if you're unlucky about what specifically is in it."

The peacock cat, of course, will not tolerate big clumsy dogs around her and instead goes to Steph for further petting. Abigail may be intriguing, but she has her priorities.

"Plague clouds? What does that mean, exactly?" It makes it sound like a pathogen more than a caustic chemical.

Oh wow, how did you even explain those to someone who was used to animals and grass? Abby frowns as she looks up at the sky. Then she gestures to it with a huge encompassing spread of her hands.

"Imagine the sky overcast with clouds. Except instead of those weird white and gray ones you have here, they're all sorts of colors. Pinks and purples and blues and greens. What colors they are depends on what chemicals are in them. They roll up, there is never just a few, there it's always a whole storm of them. Towering things that scratch the sky. They roll over the world in storms, flashing with lightning. Sometimes they rain, sometimes they snow. But always they come with this massive wind storms. And the clouds. They're from the sky to the ground, like a fog became a storm."

It's a nightmare to even think of them, and Abby shudders, her hands flopping down to find soft animals around her to pet and stroke. They're... they're a lot easier to consider than plague clouds.

"Now, imagine all those colors are from gaseous chemicals. They eat you from the inside out. I've had a friend use the world 'caustic'. They kill you. If you breathe them in, even for a second, you will die a horrible death. Our world constantly tries to kill us."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Test Drive 23

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