Test Drive 20 (August & September)

[sixthiteration]

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Test Drive

→ Holds and applications are always open. Holds are required for all applications.

→ Choose one of the scenarios below or make up your own. Feel free to try multiple scenarios.

→ Write LOGS or TEXT prompts, or both.

→ THERE ARE ONLY THREE RULES FOR THE TDM:

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

→ TDM threads cannot be used to meet AC, but if the character is accepted into the game and both players agree, you may keep the CR.

→ Character want ads are here.

Prompts

Happy anniversary, villagers! Buckle up!

1. HEAT WAVE - Poor you. All you were trying to do was get yourself a little something to eat from the kitchen at the inn. Maybe you cooked it up yourself (The inn does, after all, have an electric stove — FANCY!), or maybe you just grabbed some leftovers. By accident or on purpose, you ended up with way more RED SALT in there than you maybe should have, and this is no ordinary seasoning. Whether you like things eye-wateringly spicy or not, it's August, you're sweating buckets, and it's only getting worse.


2. SKUNK DRUNK - Isn't that just the way? You're out and about, minding your own business, and you get sprayed by a BROWN SKUNK. The good news? It doesn't stink like a normal skunk. The also possibly good news, depending on who you ask? You're now in for about 5 hours of being very, very friendly. (Just remember to keep the test drive PG!)


3. BRAIN CANDY - Whether you made it to the anniversary party or not, you've gotten your hands on a piece of leftover candy from the big bash. Careful, though, these treats are more than meets the eye: Whatever COLOR it was, you've now taken on the associated personality traits. (Not the power, just the traits.) At least it only lasts 10 minutes.


4. WILDCARD - Choose your own adventure. Maybe play powers roulette.

Texts

All characters are fitted with a smart watch-like device on their left wrist, which they can use to send text messages to other villagers.

- Texts may only be 140 characters long
- No video or voice, text only
- 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 in your SUBJECT LINE.

Comments

[nifties]

John rolls his eyes, but seems to take the man's attitude in stride. It's a common reaction to Constantine even if Cael doesn't yet have a reason for his apparent bias against him. Maybe his reputation proceeds him even in alternate realities?

"Yes, actually. But I won't bore you with the minutiae." He re-dusts the sleeve Cael just did like the other man missed a spot.

[cannily]

"A man who admits he's boring to roll around with, how refreshing." If unhelpful, but--all of this is so beyond the veil he isn't sure where to start. What to get help with. What he can afford to even ask. If the man's red garb indicates anything of how or where he died, he might not know anything about the fire. He certainly doesn't seem put off by the blue on Cael's wrist.

Well, Vermidis isn't known for cunning. Even if he is from the same place, he might think Cael some kind of instructor from the other district.

"Bore me a little," he encourages, plying a slow dull note from the lyre, in lieu of a real whine. "I hardly know where to start, with this place."

[nifties]

Something akin to mischief flashes in his eyes as he shakes his head in protest. "Oh, I assure you, rolling around with me isn't a sport you'd soon forget." But he's gotten used to people not wanting to hear about his mystical exploits. He knows it loses some of its effects when he doesn't even have his magic here. A sly smile curves his lips as Cael goes on. Fine, he'll waste his time again. Not much else to do with it here, is there? "The veil is much thicker than it should be between this place and the natural world, for one thing. Even without access to my magics I should be able to pierce it briefly, but it seems something is keeping it artificially closed and us cloistered here. For a sinister purpose, no doubt."

[cannily]

Mention of magic doesn't pique Cael's interest so much as prick him with relief. A little pressure escaping through the hole. Finally, someone who could fall out of the sky and call it what it is.

"Sport is really the only reason to do it," he says, diverting down that trickle of conversation; they're on a roof, everything leads in the same direction eventually. "I'll have to decide how your head would look, stuffed and mounted on my wall." Mischief for mischief, the bow gone up the strings, now flowing down in a more graceful and musical line. Cael plays them back to the topic at hand in a soft, sawing motion, as if they sat on the rocks of the sea and were watching a storm approach.

They might be; or this might just be the limitations one faces, on this side of things. "Wouldn't the veil between life and death be thicker than most? At least from this side."

[nifties]

He looks amused and put-upon all at once for the dig, but doesn't bother arguing the other man's point. That was usually the only reason he slept around, and he's much more interested in how everyone here can help him in a much more tangible way than getting him off. Even he can prioritize on occasion.

"If you think you're up to the challenge, I welcome you to try." An easy quip back, that could easily apply to flirting or murder since they both seemed amicable to discussing both, at least in jest. "You might have to get in line, though." And that does work for both subjects as well so again, he doesn't clarify.

But when Cael goes on about life and death, John can't hold back a riotous chuckle. He's got that part wrong and couldn't be wronger. Constantine shakes his head, planting his hands on his hips now that he's finally caught his breath.

"This isn't Hell, squire. Much more fire and brimstone, for one thing. No. This is most likely a pocket dimension, dreamt up by some balmy wizard millennia ago and abandoned. Or maybe he's still running the gig, I imagine we'll find out soon enough."

[cannily]

Gentling his hand, the sound of the lyre grows softer and softer; it's more a thing to do than earnest pursuit of music. It certainly hasn't lent any power to his words, but perhaps that isn't a fault of this place at all. He had asked, year after year, for the magic of the Koronokto to make them feel his pain. This was the first year that wish had become quite so literal, and in its fulfillment, perhaps the bardic gift would always be gone.

Cael wets a corner of his mouth, scrapes the tip of his tongue on his teeth. "That's fine; I'm a patient man."

The teetering of his bow over the strings plucked a few last notes to the air, until he has it tucked akimbo. "Forgive me, I know not enough of this Hell to know what it is not." Which makes the man an unlikely denizen of Vermidis, and thus, perhaps likelier to roll across his sheets without dying. "Death releases magic, so far as I've always known. I never imagined it would stay in the grasp of the dead."

[nifties]

He spares a look to the lyre for the first time, narrowing his eyes as the music thins out. "Patience and barding does go hand in glove." John works his jaw. A bard who's never heard of hell, that's a new one. "We aren't dead. This is a third plane, an in-between place."

But it is interesting. The more he comes back to himself the more everything Cael is and does is interesting. He notes the blue communicator for the first time as well, he hasn't met anyone with that color yet, not that he has any idea what they mean.

"What is it that makes you think we are? Never seen an alternate reality before, mate?"

[cannily]

"I suppose I'd be disappointed, if the man with all the answers didn't recognize me for what I am." Interesting as it is, the string drawing taut 'round its peg: if he had no gift, and the man had little access to his magic, how would he sense such a thing?

Most things come down to luck, magic, or knowledge. Cael is down three for three, but this one seems to have something at hand.

"Death is the only way I ever knew, to get to the other side. And any good bard has people who want to send them to it. Is the in-between very familiar to you--"

He leaves the pause to linger, waiting on a name.

[nifties]

"Not all the answers," he corrects. "Just the relevant ones."

This man is thick, he's already frustrated. But it seems his world is nothing like the natural one John was just referencing so he tries to tamp down the urge to get snippy with him. It's hard to argue with the part about people wanting to put magic users in the ground. Now that's something he can identify with, even if in his case it's because he's also a Grade A Douchebag.

"John Constantine. Exorcist, demonologist, and... dabbler in the dark arts. My business cards don't seem to have made it to the beyond with us." Or he'd undoubtedly be handing one over by now. "I've been to a few places like this before, yeah, though- usually it requires the Egyptian Temple technique. For the person to be conscious of trying to enter another realm. This is something different, I'm not convinced our mortal bodies were left behind." And if they weren't, death would be a touchy thing indeed. Then again - maybe dying here and not on Earth is a loophole to escape the true Hell. He can't afford to think that thought all the way through, instead staring at Cael expectantly for his introduction.

[cannily]

"Relevance can be very relative," Cael advises. His curling fingers unconsciously find the strings, occupying themselves. Pluck, pluck, punctuating silence and guiding his own thoughts back in toward the point. As his fingers still, his head turns. "And fleeting."

He raises that hand, offered in form and angle for the gentleman to decide: shake or kiss. Much easier to find what people prefer, before trying to lead an introduction.

"Call me Cael. I suppose in the absence of a card, you'll just have to be memorable." A dig, and only a conversational one: Cael wouldn't haven gotten as far as he had, forgetting names or faces. "From where do you come, John Constantine, that death and demons are so relevant to you?" A strange word, perhaps one he'll confirm coming from the old continent, or further beyond?

[nifties]

His eyes follow Cael's fingers, distracting, but not enough to nudge him off target. The dig earns a tip of his head.

"No one's forgotten me yet, even if they wanted to." He smirks though it's empty, and it quickly drops away at the follow-up. "Most recently? Atlanta.

[cannily]

Atlanta. Cael tries it on his own tongue, just to see how it sounds. More of the southern continent than the north, but unknown to him. One must face the un-knowing with confidence, if only to be seen as the right kind of stupid. Vapid is too easily suspected of being fake.

And if ignorance is real, why not play it up? "I'm afraid I'm not familiar; is it very close to your Hell?"

[nifties]

He narrows his eyes, believing Cael even as his expression swells with suspicion. If this were a being sent specifically to trick him, surely he would be more subtle?

"The membrane between the two is growing thinner as we speak, mate. It wasn't always the case, though, I suppose from an objective standpoint there's a degree of evil in every place; and in every heart." Whether the man is taking him for a ride or not he's in the cab and careening down the road. It's almost like a dare to try and keep up. "So no, Atlanta isn't Hell. Not if I can help it. That's why I'm there. Or anywhere I'm needed." John glances around, is that why he's been called here? Perhaps not by an enemy, but even worse: God himself?

[cannily]

"Is that why you fell from the air just now; sating my need for entertainment?" Cael only follows his gaze out to the trees, the other rooftops, for a moment before looking fully at John.

"Your places between, they're not just between life and death, I take it. There is no Atlanta on our maps, where I am from. Have you a Nevos, a Vorrena?"

Best not to mention Caridis, or even Glasdant, until he knew how the loyalties of this place swayed.

[nifties]

"I fell because they took away my magic and gave me this—" John blips out of existence only to pop back directly behind Cael this time. He's getting better at it each time, thank god. And now that he knows the layout of the roof it's much easier to picture. "I'm still working out the kinks."

it isn't so surprising, that the man claims their maps are different. He wonders if it really is a different world or merely an alternate iteration.

"Those don't ring a bell, mate. I guess that would follow though, wouldn't it?"