TDM #1

[goneawaymod]

TEST DRIVE #1

So it's your first day at your new job! Welcome to the Jorgmund Family™! It's time to settle into your new workplace on the Piper 90 rig, the coziest place of employment this side of the Livable Zone. A leader in its industry, Jorgmund is excited to have you join them in enthusiastically envisioneering team-driven paradigms.  

The Piper 90 rig's mission is not only an impressive undertaking in terms of impactful customer-oriented deliverables, it's providing a vital backbone to the Livable Zone by creating a safe region for citizens to live, work, and play. Jorgmund's "outside the box" thinking means they understand the importance of wisely investing in their human capital - you! You'll soon find that you'll take pride in this vital work - and the benefits can't be beat.

Rest assured, Jorgmund's multidisciplinary approach to our world's period of recovery means we know how to keep it real when facing this opportunity for restructuring and growth. Jorgmund: Even if most of the world has gone away, we can make a world of difference!

Synergy!

USEFUL LINKS
It is recommended you check out the following links first for info on the rig, rig conditions, game mechanics, and the intro and slideshow your characters would have to endure that takes place chronologically before the Test Drive Meme: 

Welcome/Arrival  | Rig Weather & Hazards | Rig Setting Page | Game Mechanics

SCENARIO #1 - MOVE-IN DAY!

After the bewildering and unpleasant onboarding process, you've finally been unleashed on the rig. (Well. To places you're allowed to go on the rig.) It's time to get acquainted with your new surroundings, process some of All Of That™, and meet your fellow captives - err, coworkers!

a) A BIT OF A MESS
Perhaps you're hungry? The mess hall food isn't amazing, but it does the job. Characters that have higher metabolic needs than your average human might be left feeling a little hungry, though. The worst part is actually the electronic sliding door: a small sign helpfully informs you that if you want inside, you need to smile for the camera! In addition to being patronizing, this may be a problem for characters who refuse to play ball, or characters with sufficiently nonhuman faces the door sensor can't read them. Remember, if then company doesn't see people like you, it's not discriminatory -- it's just indifferent! And that isn't legally actionable!

b) GOING NOWHERE FAST
The rig's elevators are a little off-kilter today. Overhead announcements mention this, but downplay the severity and are easy to miss -- which means you and your threadmate are stuck in here, somewhere between the fifth and sixth floor. You can complain into the emergency intercomm, but it might take from a few minutes up to an hour before the elevator gets rolling again. How do you pass the time?

c) SHOULD'VE TAKEN THAT LEFT TURN
You're really just trying to get somewhere else on the rig, but you've gotten hopelessly lost. Oh well, at least you're not alone! Did you run into your threadmate here? Did you lead them astray? Are they at fault? Even worse, are you somewhere full of AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY signs, mysterious equipment, and a worrying number of security cameras?

d) NEED A HAND?
You've been assigned a room and some relatively spare possessions to put in it. Unfortunately, it seems that the staff assigned to help move in new hires are all busy at the moment. Unless you want to wait around, you're going to need to lug and assemble your new assigned foldable den furniture yourself. Do you team up with another newbie? Do you try it alone and find yourself needing help? Do you come to the rescue of someone else who did that?

e) SPECIAL DELIVERY
Somebody in processing decided to give you two a quick little errand: you're supposed to take a couple boxes of files up to the executive deck. Unfortunately, a skeptical security staffer is giving you a hard time on your way there, on account of your funny-looking face, insufficient ID or sketchy-looking package. How do you deal with this and accomplish your task?

f) BLOW OFF STEAM
You're likely still a bit sore from Jorgmund fitting you with the nanochain, but you were promised a gym and you are going to use that gym, dammit. It looks like you're not alone in deciding to try out the training area. Do you train together? Spar to let some frustration out? Or are you gonna argue about whose turn it is on which piece of equipment and resent your lost solitude? You'll also find you have to contend with the communal showers when you're done.

g) NO REST FOR THE WEARY
It's the middle of the night on the rig. You're displaced from home, it's not very warm, your door doesn't shut because privacy is a "privilege" nobody has earned yet, and occasional mysterious clanging noises ring through the rig. You can't sleep, not yet, and perhaps you're not the only insomniac wandering the crew deck?

SCENARIO #2 - YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO PANIC

Around dawn on the morning of Day Two, something goes wrong. (Wrong-er?) You awake to the sound of alarms, and a voice over the speakers telling you NOT TO PANIC! A Stuff storm has caused a brief and contained leak onto Piper 90. You may encounter strange sights or sounds. Any anomalies should be reported immediately to rig security. Thank you for your cooperation!

The nature of the problem isn't immediately clear, but over the next handful of hours you find yourself embroiled in a bizarre fracas: a Stuff leak has caused numerous inanimate objects on the rig to come to life. Furniture and appliances small and large are roaming the decks. Some of them are docile, but others are aggressive (or just troublesome due to their size). Some examples:

• A rogue photocopier spewing paper and ink
• A mahogany conference table with old clawed feet and a brand new gaping jaw
• A water cooler that scuttles the halls, squirting people with jets in varying temperatures
• Small office supplies like pencils and paperclips that swarm in large numbers
• Dressers and drawers that spit their contents at high velocity
• A room's worth of folding chairs that hunt as a pack
• An emergency fire hose that attempts to ensnare crew members in its coils
• The angriest coffee pot you have ever seen

The objects can be dangerous, but are more strange, troublesome, and determined than deadly. If a foe seems to be incapacitated or "plays dead," even the aggressive conference table or hose will leave them with bruises and move on. Crew members who get in over their heads will be bailed out by security personnel as the incident dies down. Jorgmund staff stresses that the leak has been contained (so no new anomalies will appear), but after the initial surprise it's everyone's job to help hunt down and dispose of the Stuff-altered... stuff. It's gonna be a long morning, and you haven't even been properly briefed yet!

h) GOOD MORNING, PIPER 90
Rise and shine! There are alarms going off, announcements blaring, and people are scrambling around trying to figure out what's going on. You're one of them. Freak out? Spring into action? Team up with someone to shake down a staffer for more details? Run into someone new, perhaps literally?

i) INTERIOR WRECKORATING
You've been ambushed by an animate object that seems to have it in for you, or you've heard the shouts of someone who has and come running to help. What's ruining your morning now, and what are you going to do about it?

j) ON THE RUN
The folding chairs from Presentation Room B operate as a unit, harrying their prey through the halls with much scrambling of legs and flapping of seats. They're after you, at the moment. Can you escape, or perhaps lead them into a trap? Or do you stand your ground?

k) HERE'S THE PLAN
You and your threadmate have found somewhere secure (for now) and are deciding how to deal with a larger enemy. Are you hunting it, or is it hunting you? Are you planning to take it out of commission, or just how to get away from it? Or are you just gonna hide here and lay low until this is over?

l) PROP HUNT
Things are getting back under control, thankfully. Large disturbances have been disposed of, but that leaves the little things like elusive chains of paperclips, a small but vicious stapler, pens and markers that write rude words on walls, and utensils from the mess hall. These anomalies are stealthier, but must still be dealt with, and it's up to you to flush them out.

m) CLEAN UP IN AISLE EVERYTHING
The chaos has passed, and now you've been instructed to clean up a mess. Ink or loose paper from the copier, coffee from the rampaging pot, mopping up after a water cooler, scrubbing marker off a wall, etc. You might get roped into contending with the Yuck Puddle, which is a permanent fixture and not a new development, but someone's always contending with the Yuck Puddle.

OOC DETAILS
➤ Feel free to play around with powers. If your character has powers from canon you want to play around with, go for it. If you'd like to test out possibilities for game powers, also go for it. Feel free to change it up from thread to thread if you need to. This can be handwaved as exposure to Stuff making characters' powers shift a few times before settling.

➤ Potential players may use test drive threads as their log samples. However, at least one post in their thread must fit the requirements for apps, both in length (200 words) and in quality. If you do plan on using a thread as a sample, please make sure the writing throughout your threads is a good example of your writing skills and has some solid examples of the character's voice.

➤ Players can eventually count TDMs towards AC. They can only count towards comment-based AC proofs.

➤ Potential players can opt to keep these threads as game canon when they app in, or start over fresh, based on preference. The Stuff bringing them to the game universe can fog their memories, if players don't want their character to remember TDM threads when introing into the game.

➤ The game is invite-only. Players without invites are allowed to tdm since some of them may know someone in game to ask for one, and since some people enjoy TDMs just for fun in games they don't plan to app into. But an invite is required during the apping process.

➤ The game is at a starting cap at 30 players. Right now the current number of invitees is likely to not exceed the game's 30 slots, but if we go a few over they will still be allowed to app during this first round. Future apps will be rolling apps and will have a wait queue if the cap has been exceeded.

➤ The first game round will be apps only, no reserves. Apps open: Sat 4/11/20. Game start: Fri 4/17/20.

Comments

[wheyoftheadept]

((right it wont let me edit the original so here is the edited new timeline post))

"Well, not me alone. Me and my crew, and some people we picked up along the way." She is shaking a little with relief; she saw in his face that he understands, as it were, the situation. "Like I said, those in the know are just - resigned to it. Maybe they're right, they're all a lot older than me. But there has to be a solve, something - "

At some point in her lecture, she'd stopped walking. Now she leans against the wall, crushing the butt of her cigarette under one heel, and lights up another.

"We call them horrors, or just the enemy. Mostly just 'the enemy.' I dunno how it works for you, but for us - if we name them, it gives them a foothold, right? Like we're saying they're supposed to be there, we've made them part of our world, in a super literal way. So 'the enemy' is about as specific as anyone likes to get."

She gestures a little with her cigarette, the smoke trailing in random patterns. "What threw me is, like, for us, being a magic user doesn't present like, a special risk? Maybe it makes it easier for some of them to find you and turn you, but - heck, if you aren't awakened, they can just, you know, wake up the magic already in you if that's what you want. They don't need you to be able to use magic to get you. So if the bastards have a foothold, everyone's equally at risk. There's no safety in just not using magic, because the magic that's letting them in is the rising mana levels of reality itself, and even if no one ever slung a spell ever again they'd still be here and operating."

She shrugs.

"Presents a real problem, I tell you."

[greatlyexaggerated]

Its effects sounds like something akin to the Shadowlight, without the need for mysterious aeon-old artifacts to induce it. Cain's twitchy at the slightly fanciful imagery of a hand of corruption plucking souls like strings and engendering sorcery out of nowhere.

He stops with her, his hands clasped casually behind his back. It's a little more formal than he usually would stand, but talk of the Ruinous Powers is putting tension in his back, and he knows without even trying that putting his hands in these coverall pockets will give a wildly undignified look.

"It's a bloody hard struggle to keep the Great Enemy at bay," Cain agrees, trying to put her more at ease. "But I've found that a decent laspistol and an armed squad with plenty of faith does the trick as well as anything. Normally they can't penetrate the material world unless they slither their way in through a psyker channeling the warp, or promise some luckless toadies an easy path to power at the simple cost of their eternal soul."

Cain continues on, a little breezily.

"Of course, those sorts always get more than they bargained for. But they'd have to be frakking idiots in the first place, anyway."

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday nods. "Yeah - god, this whole thing started for me because one of those fraggin' deal-makers. When I find that bitch I'm gonna give her such a kicking." She huffs out smoke.

"It's, uh. Nice to meet someone who understands." Even if remembering is making her gut hurt, there's still so much relief in talking about it - to someone who gets it, and isn't impressed or horrified, because, it seems, he's been there. The words are just kind of pouring out; she hadn't realized until this moment how much she'd needed to say it all out loud, and maybe some of it shows on her face.

After all, it's only been three months.

"And for bonus points, our kind can mark you. Leave a little astral tag that makes it so they can get inside you, use you - change you. Without you even knowing or consenting. If they're weak it's pretty easy to counter and fight off, but a mark from a named enemy, or one that isn't caught in time - "

She cuts herself off, suddenly cognizant of having gone too far. Her fingers clench around her cigarette, almost-but-not-quite breaking the filter.

"...it's bad," she finishes lamely, shoving the memory of the black pulsing veins in Caim's skin far, far down the memory hole. "You gotta spend a lot of time checking on each other, watching each other's backs."

[greatlyexaggerated]

Cain definitely snorts at Saturday's first remark. But he otherwise listens with an air of understanding sympathy and perfect commiseration. He knows when somebody needs to let something out, and he's hardly about to stop her. She looks rather young and ill-equipped to be facing against these threats, one she seems to have unwittingly stumbled into by chance.

He doesn't see a little bit of himself in that at all. Absolutely not.

He doesn't talk about it either. He'll complain about Nurgle stench with the troopers and make fun of Khornate bezerker tactics all day, but it's different - not to mention dangerous - to discuss its personal touch.

"Certainly. It's a..." Terrifying, Cain wants to say, but he settles on another word. "...troubling situation when it calls to you by name, and you realise that they've been watching this entire time..." He instinctively makes the sign of the aquila with his hand, to ward off the cold chill of dread that squeezes his heart. Surely some kind of invisible, corrupting mark on him couldn't still be the case, not with Emeli banished so conclusively. "Believe me, I understand. I understand all too well. Never seems quite fair, does it?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"That's just it. It's not me they've been after." She laughs a little hollowly. "My best friend, Maggie - she's special. She's - well - it's hard to explain, but she's something powerful and new, and that means she's got something everyone wants. Including them. And they keep coming for her - "

She breathes carefully, tipping it all down back into the depths of her soul, where it belongs.

" - And they come for other people I love. But they never come for me." Except the one time - but Gray wasn't quite fish nor fowl according to the experts, not after thousands of years with nothing but herself to chew on. A mad Power driven sane by isolation.

"I just get to watch." She hadn't meant to say that, so she looks away. Watch, and hold them while they die.. Goddammit, stop thinking about it.

[greatlyexaggerated]

Oh dear. Platitudes won't cut this.

This isn't an unfamiliar sight, Cain being placed in front of someone who is in obvious need of counsel. It's his job to lie to guardsmen to their face and tell them that they're going to be alright after all, and he's very good at it. But there's an entire story behind what she says, and he has no doubt that there had to have been some casualties, very likely close to her. Cain's just lucky enough that he doesn't care about anyone's hide other than his own to sidestep that issue entirely.

And for once today, he actually feels useful when he gathers his thoughts to do a job he's spent a decade practicing. "I don't believe anyone is truly helpless, least of all you. It takes an enormous amount of bravery to face down what you did and not only live to repeat it, but to pick yourself up and look for a way to vanquish it."

He gives her an encouraging look, full of calm sincerity.

"I can't claim to know the breadth of your experiences just yet. But from where I'm standing, it looks to me that Maggie has a very resourceful and determined friend in you."

saturday :handshake: cain lying through your teeth is the most important leadership skill

[wheyoftheadept]

For a moment, Saturday looks her age: all of twenty and a bit, vulnerable and very lost and so desperately needing someone to tell her that she's done enough and she can rest. Then she narrows her eyes, hearing her own words to others coming out of his mouth, aimed at her. Game recognize game - is this what it feels like, then, to have someone beam warm confidence at you out of basically nowhere just when you need the pick-me-up? No wonder it gets people where they live, even when she barely knows them.

She can't decide for a moment if she wants to laugh or burst out crying.

"That's what I tell myself," she settles on saying, because it's a kind thing he's doing. "It's gotten me this far. Sorry. Didn't mean to dump on you."

She takes the final drag of her cigarette to patch the leaks, gather up the memories of insect limbs in wrong configurations, flesh and tech forced into violent marriage; of the things that were people before they were taken, cringing from the open cell door; of the light in Caim's eyes dying and Maggie's blood on the floor. She tips it all down the memory hole and stands on the hatch.

"Thanks," she says, eyes clear and voice steady.

[greatlyexaggerated]

Cain smiles graciously, but his eyes soften. Just a tad.

He attributes his sudden sentimentality to the satisfaction of a job well done, or the effects of the Lho-stick lingering in his system, and emotionally brushes his hands off of the matter. "It's certainly no problem. Like you said so yourself - we've got to look out for each other and watch each other's backs. Isn't that right?"

And feeling a sudden burst of generosity - and no less inspired by his own words - he forges on. "I'm hardly a chaplain, but if you have any concerns, come to me and I'll try my best to help you. Emperor knows that's going to be in short supply around here."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Heh - yeah." She starts walking again, if he's willing to follow. "Especially here. Internal shock collars aside, I don't trust anyone who just picks up whatever the astral spits out like it's a toy. You know why."

They just had a conversation about it, after all.

"And this Stuff they go on about - don't like it, not one bit. I wish Maggie was here, she'd know if it was unique to here or something else coming through. Or be able to find out."

The problem with paranoids is that sometimes they have real enemies, and the problem with godawful extradimensional horrors is that if you assume they're not behind something, they almost certainly are.

"Anyway. I tripped into another goddamned portal," the fourth one, consecutively, not that she's counting. "How'd you end up on the rig?"

[greatlyexaggerated]

They start walking again, to the mess hall sheet cake party. Which they were headed to this whole time. Definitely.

Cain definitely doesn't like the implication that he's some spat-out product of the warp. In fact, he's been trying to avoid thinking about it at all, so thanks for that. The two metal fingers on his hand twitch at the mention of her portal, but he appears to pay it no mind.

"I'm afraid my memory is rather hazy," he admits, slightly embarrassed. "As I'd had an amount of some rather fine amasec. But I believe it was at some point after a spirited celebration of a successful campaign in the defence of Adumbria..."

Preventing a warp storm from happening and dragging an entire Imperial world into the screaming grips of the Warp is a very legitimate cause for drinking heavily. And so he's happy to converse casually with Saturday, discussing lightly their circumstances as they head to the sheet cake party.