Test Drive (December & January)

[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 NETWORK 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

1. SNOW BLIND - It's snowing, a lot, and pristine landscape though it might create, it also brings plenty of problems, especially when you live in an Edwardian-style village with a serious lack of snow shovels. It's currently blizzard conditions and visibility is nil — Maybe you gave in and ducked into the nearest house for temporary shelter, and discover someone else had the same idea (or just lives there, oops). Maybe you're stubborn enough to still be out in it, struggling against the wind and snow. Or maybe you've tromped into the South Village Inn like a human popsicle, and are just hoping you don't lose any fingers before you make it to the fireplace.


2. JUMPED-UP - Winter's here, which means it's the perfect time for an expedition to warmer, southern climes. You've joined a group following the river all the way down to the far southern beach, for fun and for science. On this latest break in your journey, you've spotted a large, jewel-colored feather and picked it up, maybe as a specimen to bring back or just a feather for your cap. Turns out it's an archaeopteryx feather, and you're now, well... let's call it a little gravity-challenged. Not a bad benefit once you figure out how to control it.


3. COLD CALL - The snow has slacked off, leaving behind a winter wonderland. Sure, there's plenty to do, but after being cooped up inside for days, most people won't blame you for a morale-booster — That is, unless your way of starting a snowball fight is to pop up and throw them at unsuspecting passers-by. Making a snow man or snow angels might come with a little less retribution, but you do you.


4. 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, 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 in your SUBJECT LINE.

Comments

Jumped Up

[ombranera]

"...Alistair?" Somehow- Zevran is thoroughly unsurprised. Truly. If there was any member of their merry little band to arrive and find themselves in trouble within short order? His first guess would be Oghren. His second would be Alistair. At the very least he's floating instead of ankle deep in a bear's trap.

It could be worse.

"Give me a moment-" Climbing a tree is quite different from climbing a building- but Zevran makes his way from limb to limb all the same. "How did you manage this, mm? Annoy a witch?"

[nobroth]

"Zevran?"

The surprise of seeing Zev, out of everyone, was nearly enough to have him letting go of the branch. As he struggled to keep hold, he clenched his teeth - the branch he was holding on to was enough to hold his weight, but he was a little unsure if it would hold Zev, too.

Maybe it would. Zev wasn't exactly the world's biggest elf.

"I have no idea. It might have something to do with the feather, I just-- Be careful, I don't want to break my arse, here. Last thing I knew, I was just trying to jump over that fallen branch down there and suddenly-- Oop--"

The branch shifted. Alistair slid. And then he held on more tightly.

[ombranera]

"How many times must I tell you, call me Zev. We are friends, are we not?" Of a sort. In what loose ways Zevran knows to have friends that are not, perhaps, meant to kill him and do not have any desire to own, direct, or fuck him. It is a strange feeling to be sure but- there is some shred of fondness in him for this particular strangeness of Alistair's.

Or perhaps it is fondness for something that is at last familiar. So much of this place is strange to him.

Braced between branch and trunk he pulls a length of rope from his pack, quickly fashioning a slip knot at one end and tossing the loop about Alistair. He floats, yes? So. He may float them both down.

Or they might crash together. Who can say?

"It would be a pity to break your very fine arse, this is true. Hold tight-" A sturdy branch lies between them, he loops the rope about it. "Let go. I will keep you up."

Or down, as it were.

[nobroth]

He was doubtful, but... but he didn't remember doing anything that would make Zev drop him on his face. He thought. He hoped. So he did what Zev asked, carefully, slowly letting go and trusting the rope that was flung around him - and hoping he didn't end up the world's most gingery anchor that would fling a painted elf to the ground.

"I-- Oof, okay, one more arm here... I think we're still friends. Aren't we? It's been a while." And with that, he let go and found himself slowly descending, his somewhat decreased weight taking up slack from the rope in its own sweet time.

Which he stared at, lips pursed and pulled to one side. "Well. If I'd known that would've happened, I wouldn't have wasted so much time dangling from a tree..."

[ombranera]

"Do not tell me you are from further along the timeline than I am- you are, aren't you?" He sighs as he leans back, using the rope and Alistair's weight to hold himself in place as he lowers the suddenly buoyant if not boisterous bastard down to the ground. "Before I woke here? We were in Denerim, enjoying a battle well fought and a victory well earned. Wine, Women, celebratory ravishings, promise of coin and possible future employment with the crown-"

Once Alistair is closer to the ground Zev steps off the branch, lowering himself as well.

"Perhaps you simply needed to want to come down, yes? Magic is a strange thing. An art of will. Probably for the best you had no skill for it."

[nobroth]

"Before I came out of the fountain, I was in the Fade, fighting a really-- really ugly spider--

"Thanks, Zev," he added as he landed, getting his feet under him. The feather wasn't far away. Just a few feet. But even if it was pretty, he knew better. That feather was pretty like Morrigan was pretty. It could stay pretty over there.

"But you're right. I'd not seen you for... quite a few years."

[ombranera]

Zevran landed light on his feet, silently as ever before shaking the rope back down. Rather than walk to Alistair properly he playfully reels himself in, head cocked to the side, eartips dipped as he squints.

More crows feet than he remembers.

A smattering of blond copper that might be silver scattered throughout his ginger mess of hair. A weariness to his bones that wasn't near so pronounced in their travels together. "What, I do not keep in touch? I do not write, I do not visit? How terribly rude of me."

It didn't fit. That he'd find...something of a family, such as he learned one to be, and abandoned it outright after saving the world? For some it fit. Wynne, Oghren, Sten. But, the witch, the sister, the warden?

[nobroth]

"You went hunting Crows. I was exiled. Makes keeping in touch a little difficult." But he reached out to squeeze Zev's shoulder. "From what I understand, you were around Kirkwall about the same time I was, though, so maybe we just missed each other in passing.

"Of course, I was in the bottom of a bottle at the time, so that's probably why."

It was a little strange to see Zev looking... Okay, to be honest, it was a little strange to see Zev at all. But he looked exactly like he had just before Alistair had been made to leave Denerim. For the longest time, he'd felt betrayed by them all. But no, it was her doing. Not Zev's. Not Leliana's or even Morrigan's. All hers.

Forgive him if his heart was still a little broken.

MULTIPLE CHOICE SHENANIGANS TIME

[ombranera]

"...Nnnno. That was brought up as an option but Jonas took losing his brother quite personally and executed Logain and then married his daughter. Which is quite cold, I must say, but it allowed you to remain with the wardens and him to have the Crown he so wanted." What in the Maker's name...?

"If you left it was to join the new stronghold at Amarathine, I think that was being discussed- or perhaps Jonas was volunteering for that duty himself to give Anora time to...grieve. And adjust to the idea of her new husband." He stops an arms length from Alistair, brow furrowed, rope bound about his arms as he coils it once more. "All I know of my time in Kirkwall is apparently I fuck the brains out of a woman named Hawke. She's here, by the way, marvelous woman, as is a Qunari named Bull that knows Sten. Apparently he is the Arishok now?"

[nobroth]

"...Um."

Well, this was interesting. "I knew about Sten becoming Arishok," he said, "but... who in the world is Jonas? And what about Amaranthine? I... This is some weird Fade stuff, isn't it?" At least that much was easy to be sure about. The Fade. Nothing good came out of it.

--Okay, well, no. Healing magic. That was good.

One good thing came out of the Fade.

[ombranera]

"...Jonas Cousland? Your fellow Warden? The one that helped you stop the blight? Rakishly handsome, heartbreakingly straight, cooler and more calculating than either of us anticipated?" Perhaps he could see Jonas exiling Alistair with the Wardens but- that is not quite how it shook out.

Or.

Was it? He cannot say. "Amaranthine was made into a Warden Stronghold in Ferelden to replenish the ranks."

[nobroth]

"...The Couslands were all exterminated in Highever by that rat bastard crony of Loghain's," Alistair answered, brows drawn down. "But Howe's land became the Wardens'? Well, that might be a good thing. "Sereda is the one who recruited Loghain and said either I go or I get executed. Anora ended up on the throne. Loghain actually did something decent and died for his country."

Suited him, really, going out like the big damn hero, just like how he lived.

Bastard.

[ombranera]

"...Oh. This is one of those-" He waves a hand vaugely. "Time and...dimension things, isn't it? I am from a Thedas where Jonas was your fellow Warden, you from Sereda. Who I shall say, without knowing her, is a terrible woman for exiling you."

The Wardens were literally all Alistair had left. His one job, his one calling. Cutting him from that so young- for what end?

Political gain?

He couldn't comb through the intentions of someone he never met. "So you were not at the final battle."

[nobroth]

"No. No, I wasn't, which is... Well, it would've been nice to see Loghain die, but I'll just have to imagine he went painfully and perhaps with a dragon fang stuck in the place where most people have a heart," he said, with a degree of faux cheer in his voice.

Bitter? Him? Never.

"Instead, I spent some time in the Marches, getting myself into trouble with the Wardens." Possibly self-destructive, but what did he know? He was just a farmboy. "I take it that just happened a day or two ago for you?"

[ombranera]

"Just about, yes." The longer he looks the more signs there are of time passing. The lines in a face he knows to be boyish, a lack of the little flick at the front of his hair. As aggravating and terrible as he'd found it- some small part of Zevran mourns it's loss.

"...it is true, the, that the world continues to need saving. That it was...a stop gap at best, what we've done?" It shouldn't bother him. The world and the fates are cruel, he knows this, assuming otherwise is foolish but-

Something in traveling with the Wardens made him feel like it might be safe to be a fool, just this once.