memepatheias | TEST DRIVE: June

Entry tags:

*test drive

TEST DRIVE: June

— TEST DRIVE: JUNE —

Welcome to

empatheias' test drive meme. This test drive is to help interested players test their characters in the game's environment. We've included a few prompts that incorporate specific elements of the game, though you'll find all of them have a lot of leeway for players to get as creative as necessary. Before diving in, here are a few things we'd like to remind everyone about the game in general:

Date reminders. Reserves open 25 May and Applications (Canon | OC) open a week later on June 1st. Reminder: Our application cycle only lasts four days.
OC Reminder! Just a quick reminder that original characters are allowed. Those interested can also use the test drive. OCs do not need to be reserved.
Emotions are key! Empatheias' premise focuses on how anyone's emotions can affect their environment, be it big or small. While not every emotion will cause a reaction, significant ones definitely will. How much effect a character will have will ultimately be up to you, the player. Also, while we're giving a lot of leeway for the test drive, keep in mind that there will be some limits in the actual game.
Everyone has an amulet. All characters have a unique amulet that is specialized for them. It will contain all of their emotion drops and it serves as the network device. Remember, communication is telepathic. Otherwise, it works basically the same.
Assume the character is already in the game. Because "OMG WHERE AM I IS THIS REAL LIFE" threads aren't going to be very helpful in this test drive! Plus, those are going to happen in-game, anyway. So to make things easier, just assume that they've been around at least a week or so. Still learning the ropes, but not a complete "first day" experience.
First or third person allowed. Your threads can be in either first or third, but we'd advise being flexible about it. Remember, these threads can also be used in your application for samples! Reminder: We only require one sample and it can be done in either format. We have also made a change to our sample requirements, so look over the Applications page!
Transfer to in-game. If accepted, you can assume threads made on the Test Drive happen in-game if the scenario can reasonably fit. For new characters, these threads do not count for activity check. However, these can be supplementary threads for players already in-game.
For your threads, put the Character Name and the Canon in the subject line to help readily identify them. You're also welcome to use more than one prompt for respondents to choose from. If you have any questions or want to brush up on the game information, refer to the Game Information entry. Otherwise, tag around and have fun!

Now with that out of the way, here are some prompts you guys can work from!

PROMPTS

• Prompt A: How about giving the emotions a try?

• Prompt B: Refer to the Task Board and choose a task your character may be interested in taking up. For this prompt, you could have your character ask for help, already be in the middle of the job, or react to it in some way. Perhaps they were an unfortunate victim or want to create a job countering an existing one. You could even have a prompt making a job request. Creating jobs for the purpose of the test drive is absolutely doable.

• Prompt C: How about giving the amulets a go? Start a telepathic conversation and see how it works. Remember, the amulets are sending out the owner's thoughts so might want to be careful about how the stream of consciousness goes...

• Prompt D: Empatheias seems to love festivals! Every festival is always filled with so many people - whichever city might be celebrating it. However, the next coming days has Verens filled with people from all over the world. The Nightingale, as most people know her, is a travelling Fortune Teller who has decided to pass through Verens for a few nights. As such, she's set up a booth. She will tell the fortune of whomever wants it for only 10 Sylvs.

Apart from being able to see one's future, The Nightingale also sells various wares that would improve one's luck, one's love life, one's career, and the like. Buying a blue adamantium bracelet is said to triple one's bank account, while buying a red feather hat would give its wearer more opportunities to meet new people. Just about every item for every possible effect can be found in The Nightingale's Shop, and everything is limited edition! Perhaps one may want to try purchasing an item and see what happens.

• Prompt E: Rumours are going around about how The Nightingale’s fortunes and her charms are effective. Verens is abuzz with stories such as that man who stumbled upon some spare Sylvs while wearing one of The Nightingale’s pendants, or a shopkeeper whose profits shot up threefold in a week after she paid the fortune teller a visit. Everyone’s horoscopes as told by The Nightingale, even those as specific as, “You will accidentally run into a wall in the next five minutes” or “You will be unable to control a particularly odious fart while you are walking with a good friend”, are coming true. A strange phenomenon, to be sure, but those who are perceptive and diligent enough may notice that a person’s emotional state might just have something to do with how fortunes come true. Persons dominated by negative emotions receive negative fortunes, and so on.

• Prompt F: Some of these fortunes sound just a little bit too good, don’t they? And the frequency with which they come true is suspicious on its own. How could the Nightingale be so precise and accurate in all things? Well, as it turns out...she’s not so precise. Or, at least, not in actuality. Her fortunes and charms are, in fact, powerful spells that fool those under their influence to believe they are coming true, when they are, in fact, not. Once she begins to pack up to leave town and head to her next destination, charms will begin to break, bank accounts will fall back to their normal numbers, and newly-found sweethearts will find their eyes unclouded. Will you stand for this trickery?

If confronted, the Nightingale will reveal her true form as a powerful demon witch. She will not hesitate to attack those who provoke her, and her offensive spells are powerful enough to turn friends against one another. Avoid her magical blasts and aim for the talisman she carries! Once the talisman is broken, the Nightingale will disappear in a puff of smoke...but at least she seems to leave behind all the sylvs she collected while in town. Maybe your fortunes aren’t so bad after all...

• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include seeds and/or spoons.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Goddammit.

He did not want to deal with this right now, didn't want to deal with it today, and damn well would have severed the connection that very instant if the other side wasn't so determined to keep it planted there.]

Unlike you, I have something I need to do today that doesn't involve the consideration of throwing myself off the edge of an island. [Snarled, practically. Easier to cling to that old anger than anything else. He should get Ana—] And on second thought, perhaps you should.

[Shaking Jack loose from his current hold was as easy as shaking off a fighting dog when they had a grip on a kill. It wasn't happening without everyone involved getting bloodied.

He was snarling though, full on growling when Reyes shifted approaches when it was clear the other man had been caught and saw no reason to deny.]

Where are you? We have a score to settle, and there's no way I'm jumping anywhere that doesn't involve pitching out off the edge first. [His anger was only magnifying because he had no mission because Talon wasn't here. He had Reyes, and that was going to be his mark.]

You wouldn't have any idea if I told you.

[He had the advantage of knowing the city and the areas surrounding it on this large island on his side, but at the very least he was leaving the farmhouse in case 76 somehow managed something.

After nearly three years, he knew damn well how to get around quickly.]

Unfortunately I'm not foolish enough to want a death here.

Thankfully for me, I'm not afraid to ask for directions.

[He also was persistent, and he would do whatever it took for find Reaper now that he knew the other man was here. Suddenly leaving this place wasn't quite as important to him as it had been before this conversation.

Soldier: 76 was at a disadvantage for the terrain, but he could learn quickly. He planned on it.]

We don't always get what we want. I'm still festering from that bullet you put in me. [Anger might have loosened his lips more than he otherwise would let it. As it was, his state of injury shouldn't matter. He could and would fight.]

The forests outside of the city, only clue I'll give you.

[Away from people and the danger of collateral damage.

There was a reason that Reaper took so much of his practices in to the woods, and even no there was a trail of black frost trailing after him, curling plant life into something sharp and dead.

Better that he had already taken that out of his home.]

Lucky you it was your back and not your head, but it doesn't take much to provoke you these days. Let alone get you out of the way.

I don't take your clues.

[As much as he wanted Reaper to just show up and let them have it out, he also wasn't stupid enough to know that Reyes was going to lie to him, throw him of the scent. No, it was actually up to him to hunt the other man down, set a trap and maybe - just maybe - be patient enough to let it work. If they couldn't leave... that meant he had time, opportunity and motivation.

Someone like Reyes was likely easily identified. He had to learn who was safe to ask, follow some leads. It had worked once, it would have to work again.]

You shot me in the back because you're a dramatic piece of shit and wanted to have a moment to gasbag about your victory.

I'm in the woods you dumb fuck. Better?

[Again, the growl was there along with irritation and something else hidden behind all of that. The eye-roll audible in amongst the growl of his

voice...? No, there was something else there.

The growl and rasp was gone and instead sounded so much smoother, but no less irritated and angry. Like he used to sound before whatever the hell had happened to his voice.]

You're an idiot, you know that? A fucking idiot.

What's your longitude and latitude, cabrón?

[Jack was throwing in some old Spanish bad words that Reyes had once taught him when they had nothing better to do. It was so much better to insult someone in another language; he had grown to appreciate had poor English was at insulting people.

If he wasn't so angry about the whole situation, he might have taken more note in the change of voice, how it was different from what he recalled hearing only a few days ago. He growled at the returned words, but he didn't find them actually insulting.]

Is that all you've got? Sounds like you've dried up. Pathetic.

You wouldn't know those either, bolillo.

[Have a mental map instead, so very detailed that it couldn't be bullshit, marked path to where Reaper was, even if he wasn't visibly there in that bit of information shared.

He was keeping himself in a tree, the bark curling and blackening a bit but not quite being killed. Tumultuous emotions being held together just that much. Claws curled in to wood, sinking through it deep as smoke rose from there. A smell of smoldering flame.]

You're not worth it.

I see some things never change.

[It was very strange to be given a mental map, used to physical ones at this point. It was likely a trap, but Jack wasn't about to not check it out either. This was an opportunity, and he was well aware that charging in recklessly would likely get him killed. Apparently he revived.

He was already on the move to follow the mental map that had been sent his way.]

And yet, according to you, I'm worth being searched for since Overwatch fell.

I could go with French if you prefer.

[Was easy enough to follow, even if the area was far out of Verens; far enough away that anyone in or just at the edges of town wouldn't hear gunfire. His practice grounds were chosen for the distance, somewhere between where he lived and the city itself with a good amount of distance from both.

He was tired, why the hell was he encouraging this? He'd been through it already, but here he was welcoming this bullshit to him again. He couldn't even use the words to stoke the fire for his own anger.]

You're not worth what you're trying to provoke now, Jack.

Just as I could go with Italian.

[Soldier: 76 moved swiftly, taking whatever shortcut he could find to allow him to escape the city. His anger was palpable, warping the air around him as he moved, urging people to get out of his way as he ran to cover as much ground as possible. He was waiting for the map to disappear so he was committing it to memory.

While this was a trap, he would do his diligence better this time. He would stalk the area, search for Reyes first and then see about taking a longer shot. All the while, his death grip on their telepathic link was as strong as ever.]

What I'm worth to you has stop being meaningful a long time ago.

[The only thing he was keeping held up on his end was the map, eyes closed and using the forced open connection as a way to mentally track movement- how close it was getting. Not difficult, gauging the strength of it.

This entire venture was idiotic on his part.]

I know, long before the explosion ever occurred. I didn't miss that change.

[Keep up the old angers, true or not it was the only thing he could cling to at the moment. He needed it.

He was going to keep his advantage, only dropping the map once he could tell the other had gotten close enough.]

[It irked him that Reyes could hold any claim to his own emotional state years ago when he had been festering on a single-minded war after he had lost everything. How dare he.]

Don't you even throw that in my face! Don't you dare!

[And with the map committed, he slammed down on their link, severing it without even knowing how it was done. Just happened.]

Soldier: 76 moved through the woods carefully and with a practiced ease of someone who had been hunting for most of their life. He avoided making a sound wherever possible as he closed on the distance, and his gaze fell on leaves that looked blackened and rotten. He reached out to touch one, rolling it between his fingers even as he was already moving on.

His back twinged as a reminder that he was going into this with a disadvantage, slow to heal thanks to Reyes' bullets. His pulse rifle was up and at the ready, but while he was angry, he was also scouting the area around where the map had ended. Reyes always liked getting the drop on people where possible, which forced him to look up as often as he was sweeping back and forth.

One foot in front of the other, his mind suddenly closed off as he concentrated every fiber of his being on what he was currently doing. Soldiers didn't have time for emotion sometimes, and this was one of them. He was coming here as a soldier, aware this contest would be likely devastating.

He lifted a finger from his rifle as he circled into the area, activating his tactical visor to search the area for life signs of significance but mostly the big old body that Reyes still had last time he had seen the man.]

You stopped caring long before I did, Jack Morrison.

[He very much dared, and the only reason more din't come was because he was finally free from the connection, eyes open and observing the area from his chosen spot.]

Then once satisfied Reaper was sinking down amongst the shadows once he noticed the disturbance in the area, traveling through them easily as he kept track of 76's movements. Letting him try and find Reaper while he was already there, biding his time as he blended and bled through the natural shadows.

It wouldn't be his form that triggered the search, but a distraction of dark flame exploding from the tree perch Reaper had taken. That little 'gift' left within the tree itself set off as Reaper himself surged out of shadows, claws gripping for an arm as he moved underneath the pulse rifle, aiming to rip it out of 76's grip all so he could instead keep this without weapons.

That and there was a knee going right for the man's gut as he twisted himself.

Soldier: 76 moved carefully, aware that Reaper could be in any one of the shadows. His gaze moved for any that happened to be moving unnaturally in the light breeze the filtered through the trees. His tactical visor picked up the sudden blast of flame, and he automatically turned his attention and fired a helix rocket immediately, which exploded into the churning flames.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose and he twisted as Reaper suddenly came for him, melting like smoke from the shadows. This time he was ready for the other man's tricks, flipping the rifle around as a claw landed on his arm, but he used the rifle like a baseball bat to swing it hard through the area that Reaper was forming up.

The knee connected, and pain lanced through him, opening the grudgingly healing lacerations on his side from the force. He twisted away, trying to keep his rifle in his grip, not that it mattered. He'd beat Reyes into the grass if he had to.

This was very different from the confrontation in Cairo, because there was nothing but silence from Reaper's end the moment he appeared. No words or even snarling, half tracking the movement of the pulse rifle as he didn't give space. This time he was pushing himself forwards, ignoring the bat of the pulse rifle as he had instead moved right through it as if he weren't solid at all.

There were shadows curling upwards and still going after the pulse rifle itself, streaked with those same red and purple streaked flamed coating them. Wanting to coil around the weapon and jerk it free. Didn't care where it landed.

Reaper's focus was 76 himself, already having his feet under him and aiming a right hook for the old soldier's jaw. Didn't care the mask was still there, was not bothering to hold back, damn well aiming to get rid of the damned thing as soon as possible. More smoke curling from his form than there had ever been, as if he were having trouble keeping himself solid- even if that hit would feel damn well solid should it connect.

It was playing out rather differently, but the means and the end were the same in his mind. His problem was that Reyes was far more... smokey than he recalled and seemed to be all over the place rather than a set target that he could strike at. From his experience, Reaper easily kept a particular form at will, but this was a bit more a struggle.

He ended up losing his grip on his pulse rifle, but he kept track of where it ended up in the woods because he was definitely going to make a go for it when he had more room to maneuver himself.

He rolled back on his heels to avoid to hook, lashing out with a one-two punch combination of his own, one for Reaper's white bone mask and the other for some ribs. He wasn't pulling his punches at all even as he took a step back to allow himself more room so as not to get tangled up with Reaper. Unlike Reyes, he was growling like a threatened dog the whole time.

There was no willingness to give in any sort of room, even if it meant taking a hit or two, pushing forward in silence as his head tilted, aiming to give right back. More smoke and shadow than solid man, not even staggering back at the hit to the mask, no sound made to the ribs; no rush of hair or anything.

Didn't bother trying to dodge fists, diving right back in with his own, aiming for chest and face as he went for a one-two sort of hit. Those tendrils keeping the pulse rifle, sticking it up in some tree so no one could get to it easily. No one could run away with it either if there was somehow more than just them out here at this time. Deal with the pulse rifle later.

What he wanted was right in front of him, and actually seeing him made it that much easier to pull focus. Cling to that anger on top of hurt and everything else that he couldn't fan up just speaking over the amulets. An ungodly sort of hear rising despite the frost quickly starting to flare out from where he was, icing over the ground in something black and frigid. Flares of red in it as frost thickened in to ice.

Soldier: 76 had fought Gabriel Reyes in all of his forms before. When he was fresh from the SEP, when he was Commander of Overwatch, when he was Commander of Blackwatch, and even when he had become Reaper, but none of those experiences had been like this. There was a distinct lack of care for any amount of self-preservation, no ducking or dodging, no taunting. It was eerie, even if he wasn't off-put. The differences made him suspicious rather than curious.

It felt like when he punched, he struck solid person, just as when he took a blow it felt like it was coming from a solid person. They exchanged blows like they did when they were furious at each other, laying into one another with punch and kick after another, but there was the other element of what was going on. Ice.

He suddenly moved to kick Reaper hard to be forced away long enough that 76 could try to turn and take two giant steps necessary for any kind of running leap as he moved for a nearby tree to launch himself up it and then across the distance for his pulse rifle. Leaving himself open for an attack blow, but his hands reached for the weapon all the same.

The ice formed that much more quickly than the frost had, thick and black and so very slick as it covered the forest floor, reaching outwards and even covering a few trees. Twisting them in to something death-like, as if flames were tearing through rather than ice. Made the ground to be solid and slick where it covered.

Reaper slid back on the ice for only a second before is boots dug in and caught traction, shattering beneath his own boots as it chased after 76, to make every move of his iced and slicked to make it that much more difficult.

Yet he didn't stay there, already vanished in to the shadows, ripping himself back in to a solid form to grip the front of 76's jacket and shirt, stopping him just from reaching the pulse rifle and fling him back towards the solid ice of the ground. Not just thrown him, but Reaper moved to bodily slam him down, taking the both of them down as even then there was still no snarl. Only smoke and a freezing sort of cold to his grip, aiming to slam the other man down beneath him in their landing.

This had never happened before, and while he was daunted, it simply meant that he had to change tactics in order to prevent slipping and sliding around. He could hear the ice cracking, and his boots struggled to find footholds, but he succeeded in flinging himself bodily across the distance.

His fingers strained to grasp the pommel of his rifle, but his momentum abruptly changed when Reaper's claws found his jacket and whipped him towards the ground. He kicked out, but it was too late for him to salvage a wild grab for his weapon. He felt the cold along the skin of his forehead, but it wasn't until he landed down on the ice and felt it crack under his back that he knew this wasn't some kind of illusion.

He inhaled sharply as Reaper slammed him into the cracking ice, leaving a smear of black blood as he twisted and writhed to dislodge Reyes' position on top of him. He swung his fist hard at that face, trying on several quick jabs to push that mask right into Reyes' face.

Unlike 76, Reaper could gain purchase on the ice with ease since it was his own, something he was very much using to his advantage to move. Used it to make himself quicker, skating along almost until he had vanished to snag the other out of the tree. That pulse rifle was going to remain there until they were done here, because he was already going with his want to not bother with his shotguns.

That would drain 76 far too quickly at this point, and he wasn't trying to kill him; the draining of emotional energy was far more dangerous here than the life drain of home. It would make him care less about what was happening and Reaper didn't want that.

The ice crack and split, spiraling in some pattern or other from where the two had hit hard, but Reaper did his damnedest to stay on top. There was no fear of water under the ice, all of this was on solid ground, just the biting cold that emanated from it. Mask splitting and breaking from the hits, a bit of blood trickling from his nose and lips behind it, but it didn't stop him. Eyes narrowed even as part of his face was exposed, not a damn word—

Claws flew to Jack's mask instead, metal claws easily applying pressure where the visor and mask connected and just letting it pop loose, some burst of shadow knocking it aside to slide across the ice before Gabriel wound back to deliver a solid damn punch to an exposed face.

With them being engaged close quarters and that being obvious what Reaper wanted at this point, Soldier: 76 was more than willing to use his fists and feet in order to take a toll on the other man. While the ice was new and definitely not what was expecting, he had been a soldier long enough to adapt within a combat situation.

The ice had been thick enough at the point of impact that cracking through it meant that he was in a broken uneven dome of it. That allowed Reaper to keep the top position as he couldn't easily roll out of it. His body would compensate for the cold. His fist slammed into that mask rather than trying to tear it off. It split and fell away in pieces, and he could look up into the face of someone he had never believed was dead for an instance. It was the first time he had seen any part of Reyes' face since the fall of Overwatch.

He kept pulling his fist back and impacting on that face, drawing blood while the other tried to keep a firm grip on Reaper's coat (not that it logically mattered when the guy could turn to smoke). Yet, his punching hand snapped to try to catch his visor, surprised that the latch had been popped - like Reyes knew what he was doing - but it was swept away from him.

Momentary surprise lit his features before his eyebrows drew down and his own emotions raced back to the surface. He took the first punch right square in the face, knocking his head back on the ice. He released Reaper's coat to try to catch that wrist to prevent another blow while he threw a hook back, aware they were going to exchange blows in such close quarter situations.

Reaper was just as deadly at close quarters was he could be at a distance or just his shotguns, but he didn't want any of that. It was almost as if he needed some solid proof this wasn't some new bullshit thing, that this asshole was really here and not- It wouldn't have been the first time this place had fucked with his head. A voice in his own mind, even if then he was off island for it all.

Things happened even up here, like the time Ana had been turned in to little more than some obsessed zombie of sorts because the damn giant love and hate bird had gotten overly lovey. Who was to say the mountain crab wasn't pulling some shit now? All the more reason to lure 76 to him, if it really was him, and get that damned mask off. Do whatever he could to figure out if he was flesh and blood real and not this place playing tricks.

The mask coming off gave him time to see that face, take advantage of the hesitation to see if there was something wrong or missing. The punch made it damned clear it was solid there too. Not something or someone else entirely lured here.

Gabriel took the hit with only a slight turn of his head, using his thighs to keep a hold of Jack beneath him as it was his other fist that went to take another punch. Didn't care how much his nose or lip was bleeding, how smoke curled from his form. Lips curled back to bare bloodied teeth all the same, even if he remained silent. Something other than anger in those eyes of his, but he wasn't making himself stop. Far more vicious than he would have usually been, knew as soon as he stopped he might not be able to get started again.

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Telepathic link .-> Prose

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