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

[greyerrant]

"I.... kill monsters as well. And physical training is necessary to that end."

He nods approvingly at her working out, shifting his grip on the training blade, looking about ready to stow it away and maybe lift some weights.

[valkywhee]

Nora gets the feeling Loken wouldn't know what to do with a fist bump, so she refrains. His loss!

"Look, if you're here to spar," she nods at his sword, "I don't know what a 'servitor' is, but there are training droids." She hits the stop on the treadmill so the belt slows and the pitch lowers over the course of a few seconds, not that she'd mind being sent flying by an abrupt halt. "C'mere, I'll show you."

Nora hops off the treadmill and trots towards the sparring area, not checking to see if Loken's following, and not shutting up. "On one hand, they kinda suck. On the other hand, no one cares if you wreck 'em, so it balances out, I guess. We had to fight some like them back home when they got hacked, but those ones were trying to kill us. Of course, I don't blame General Ironwood for wanting to keep his people safe, but he just doesn't think things through. Who builds a bunch of centrally controlled fighting robots with lethal weapons and doesn't have a failsafe? Sure, they went down easy, but that's not the point! Okay, here we are."

She and her stream of consciousness stop at the edge of the sparring zone, demarcated by lines on the floor with a control panel against the wall. "Droids are behind the bulkhead, settings are here," she says, tapping the panel. "They won't go outside the lines and if you ring-out 'em they just walk back, assuming they can still walk. Ha!"

[greyerrant]

Loken is silent, but listens attentively to her long explanation of what are clearly abominable intelligences that he is allowed to smash into tiny pieces. His expression sharpens when the word General is said, but he nods and lets her continue. He steps into the sparring zone, taking up a one-handed preparatory stance for blade-work, resembling the two-handed plow guard which is the basic guard of most blade schools, but adapted for the shorter gladius-like practice weapon he has taken up.

He hasn't had a chance to fight since the Saturnine Gate, and while these strange mechanical creations are certainly no castellax robots, or even spindly blade-servitors, they will do to get his blood flowing, and his mind focused in a fighting state. He needs to do something other than brood, and some brief release of his own locked-down kill urge will probably allow him to plan an escape, or even a rebellion more effectively.

"I don't expect them to be walking after I am done with them."

He nods to Nora and says, "Send as many as you like. Maximum lethality."

Though he won't offer the same niceties to the robots, he does salute Nora with a blade flourish before returning to his combat stance, obviously somewhat happier now that he has something he can destroy without consequence.

[valkywhee]

Nora returns the gesture. It's very clearly not something she does often, because that is one sloppy salute. Also, she giggles, which makes her seem about 12.

"There's no 'lethality' setting, but I'll crank the difficulty to max." True to her word, she taps commands into the panel, the recessed droid storage door slides open, and fragile-looking robots troop out, wielding various forms of training melee weapon, or even just bare metal fists. Since she's turned the metaphorical dial to an equally metaphorical 11, they don't wait for Loken to ready himself or give any signal, just charge the moment their sensors detect that they're inside the confines of the ring.

Weight on her back foot and arms folded, Nora settles in to watch, or to bail him out if he's not as good as he seems.

[greyerrant]

Loken wastes no time hurling himself at the robots, though there is a brief initial halt as he pauses, watching how the robot carrying a pole weapon fights. It takes a tentative poke at him, which he promptly parries and counters, stepping and chopping at the neck, sending it reeling back with the robot fountaining sparks which look oddly like arterial spray. He doesn't stop to gloat, immediately shifting engagement to two fisticuff-bots, smashing one with a hilt strike to wrong-foot it a moment before he cuts the legs out from the other. The staggered bot gets no chance to recover as he bodily picks it up and hurls it into several sword-wielding compatriots with a metallic crunch. He follows after the improvised battering ram, leaping feet first into one with a quarterstaff, slamming it to the foot before finishing it with a vicious stomp. It makes a grinding noise before subsiding, and Loken straightens himself in the remaining wreckage as another 3 rush him, swapping the short blade to a two-handed grip for more leverage as he sweeps a cut across his incoming foes, smashing them to the ground, and also consequently shattering the practice weapon.

"That was unfortunate." He comments, then proceeds to start finishing the fight with fists and boots.

[valkywhee]

Wow, he's good. Nora, who has nothing whatsoever resembling a poker face, starts to grin and bounce on her toes as she watches the extremely one-sided fight. She's seen some of the best Hunstmen of the era in action, and none of them move like him. Well, maybe Oscar when Ozpin's steering, and that says a lot.

Nora outright laughs when the training sword breaks. "Their gear is junk. I can't wait to see you with a real weapon!"

[greyerrant]

"Wars can be won with nothing but a wire, if you know how to use it." He'd know, that's how he strangulated an Eldar Exarch after all, after a pretty extended fight that apparently lasted a week.

He notices her bouncing and says, "You have a lot of energy, don't you?" He chalks that up to her being a juvenile, at least apparently. Loken can't really guage mortal ages well but she's small and pink and has no grey hair or visible scars so he's guessing not old.

[valkywhee]

Okay, maybe, but Nora would still rather have a real weapon. And an army.

"I get that a lot." Now that the show's over, her bouncing changes over to rocking back and forth toe to heel, her grin taking on a sharper edge as she gets an idea. "Lemme get my hammer, I'm way better than those stupid robots."

No, it has not occurred to her that looks like suicide or at least instant humiliation to anyone who doesn't know what abilities a Huntress has.

[greyerrant]

"Are you entirely sure, mamzel?"

He stands up very straight, face shadowed by obvious concern. He has fought unenhanced humans before. The results were not pretty for them, and ranged from fatal to simply humiliating depending on the circumstances.

[valkywhee]

"Heck, yeah!" Nora's already sprinting over to where she stowed Magnhild for her warm-up run, her voice bouncing off walls and columns and back to Loken...meaning she hasn't seen how worried he looks.

When she comes charging back, she's holding something that in no way resembles a hammer. It is quite clearly a grenade launcher--until at no signal even Loken can catch, it unfolds in her hand, transforming into a preposterously large, elaborately engraved warhammer, including an incongruous heart pattern on the face.

"You're not gonna break this one!" Technically, Loken broke his own weapon, not his adversaries', but Nora has never allowed herself to be concerned with technicalities.

[greyerrant]

"That's quite an impressive weapon you have there."

He says, with no condescension. "I don't think.... I have anything worthy of facing it. Well, except this."

He steps away as well, heading to his own locker. And returns with a power sword, and says, "This is Mourn-it-all." It is a cruel-looking longsword, made for the killing of men, inlaid with circuitry. He doesn't activate it for the spar, and says, "This has a sharp edge. If you would prefer I use a practice weapon, I can swap it out."

[valkywhee]

Huh, nice sword. She's gonna have to ask him what its ranged form is after this.

"Thanks, but sharp's no problem." Nora laughs. "No point in turning any more of their junk into scrap."

Speaking of which, she kicks robot bits out of the way as she enters the sparring ring. "This is Magnhild," she says, hefting the hammer. (Not sure how to pronounce that? That's okay, neither is anyone associated with RWBY.)

"Two falls out of three?" Nora proposes, rolling her shoulders and bringing up her Aura, a completely invisible action, but it brings the fierce grin back to her face.

[greyerrant]

Loken nods, saluting her with the blade before taking the orthodox plow stance opening guard.

"When you are ready."

He tries to read her movements, assuming she is too experienced a combatant to telegraph her attacks with her eyes, shifting his weight and feet in response to any significant movement on her part.

[valkywhee]

Editor's Note: For the purposes of meshing incompatible canons, we will be assuming RWBY's well-trained professional combatants have some slight grasp of tactics and don't blatantly telegraph every single strike, neither of which is borne out in any way by the text.

Nora's not much of a tactician and she usually faces dangerous but not-too-bright creatures rather than hardened soldiers, but it doesn't take a sharp military mind to put together that her only advantage lies in Loken not knowing her capabilities...but he's got to realize she has something up her sleeve. Too bad Ruby's not here to hit her with a Lightning Dust round. That would tilt the playing field. She smirks at the thought, not caring what the expression might suggest to Loken.

Oh well, standing there staring at him isn't going to get anything done. Nora springs into the engagement, ready to exchange a strike against her Aura for a landing one on Loken.

[greyerrant]

Loken definitely is not expecting Aura, since she has no visible energy field surrounding her, nor does the slight tingly feeling or smell of ozone that comes with a refractor field or an Iron Halo appear around her. He assumes she is agile enough to deflect the flat swipe of his blade that he uses during her spring, and is momentarily shocked when the weapon bounces off her Aura, leaving him flatfooted and open for a swing, if only for a moment.

[valkywhee]

Aura dampens but doesn't completely absorb the pain of a blow. Nora knows this and goes in expecting the sharp bite of a sword wielded by someone at least as strong as she is. Still, it hurts. She hisses as Loken's blade bounces off her ribs, a blow that would have ended the battle and quite possibly her life without the protection of her Aura.

The ruse did its job, and even if he can get back into a guard position quickly enough, he won't have the leverage he needs to block a hammer strike, especially one wielded by an enthusiastic Nora.

Fortunately, she doesn't hit quite as hard as his peers.

[greyerrant]

Loken is knocked sprawling as his makeshift attempt at a guard comes a moment too late, and he grunts as he hits the floor, air forced from his human lungs, only the multilung keeping him from gasping and reeling, and rises with a wince, saluting her with a blade.

"First fall to you, Mamzel." He is determined there will not be a second.

[valkywhee]

They don't really have any sort of formalities around combat where Nora's from, so Loken will have to forgive her bad manners as she simply hops backwards to get comfortably outside of his reach, looking alarmed.

"What are you made out of?" If she sounds put out, it's because Loken should have taken a little longer than that to bounce back. He's not even winded!

[greyerrant]

"Flesh and bone, same as anyone else. But I've been... genehanced, you might say."

He demonstrates by stepping in, swinging down an overhand chop that turns to a lunging thrust at the moment, trusting that the feint will hopefully get a defensive reaction to wrongfoot her, and trying to smash her down when the blade hits her shielding, whatever that is.

[valkywhee]

Nora starts to laugh at "genehanced," remembers she's in a fight, and promptly falls for Loken's feint. What she doesn't do is fall down, as a set of different reflexes take over in the split second she has between realizing her mistake and getting hit. Dropping Magnhild, she stops Loken's thrust by wrapping both hands around the blade the way someone more sensible than Nora might have grabbed the shaft if he had been armed with a spear. Once again, she hisses with the pain of the injury she ought to be suffering.

This has the unfortunate side effect of pushing her several feet away from where her hammer fell, because she weighs next to nothing and a lunge from Loken comes with a lot of momentum. Man, she should really have had a Gravity Dust return system built in when she got the chance back in Atlas. Nora releases the sword blade and lunges herself, in her case to recover her weapon. At least she's close to the ground.

[greyerrant]

As Nora lunges for her blade, he says, "The fight wasn't just about weapons" Even as he turns halfway, kicking out behind him in a way that is almost a stomp, trying to smash her down to the ground by hitting the back of her knee (so it doesn't go the wrong way and permanently injure her), but hopefully flattening her face first right in front of her hammer.

[valkywhee]

"Aaah!" Nora and dignity don't have more than a nodding acquaintance at the best of times, so plowing face-first into the mat when Loken's foot connects with her leg is neither unfamiliar nor particularly disconcerting for her. Her Aura keeps her from getting an embarrassing friction burn on her forehead, anyway.

So yeah, that's definitely a fall. She's muttering something disgruntled-sounding about how Grimm don't feint.

[greyerrant]

"What's a Grimm?" Loken asks, even as he resets his stance for another engagement.

[valkywhee]

Nora grabs her hammer and rises in a single motion much more graceful than her descent. She might go down, but never once has she stayed down.

"The Creatures of Grimm," she says, returning to her own ready stance, well outside Loken's reach. She hopes. Maybe he can teleport or something. "Those monsters I said I fight. Most of them aren't any smarter than animals."

[greyerrant]

"I see. Well, I can teach you to fight sentients. If that is something you want." He pauses, shifting his footing in response to her own ready stance, and slowly begins circling. "I think it will be something you need, here."