Test Drive

[snowblindmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME

If you'd like to apply to Snowblind and would like to test the waters first or get a sample set up for your application, this meme is for you! We've even provided some prompts for you to use if you want (but feel free to make up your own). Here's how it works. ✭ Reply to this entry with a character you're considering apping into the game. You can include the name of your character and the fandom in your subject line. ✭ Comment around to others on the meme, whether you're in the game already or not. ✭ Now you have a sample ready for your application! ✭ So go reserve and apply when reservations and applications are open. ✭ Seriously, do it. Network Prompts ONE: SPAM IS MEANT FOR A CAN You awoke today to find a private message in your inbox full of glitchy text from an unreadable username. It doesn't seem to be from @ADMIN, and it's doubtful that any of your fellow unfortunate survivalists have the ability to send a bunch of garbage text from a dummy username. Any attempts to contact the sender of the message only yield silence. Perhaps your friends on the network will have a better idea of what's going on. TWO: DING DONG PING PONG You found an app on an SD card that lets you play a game--the app simply refers to it as "game," but those who are familiar with Earth's gaming history will recognize it as Pong. The graphics have been updated, but the mechanics are as simple as ever. Just bounce the ball back and forth and try to hit it past your opponent. This version lets you play with a friend over the network and supports chat simultaneously, so you can video or voice chat while playing with someone! Or you can use text, but that would probably be inconvenient while you're trying to play. Action Prompts THREE: BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE The blizzard has been raging worse than usual for nearly a week now, making travel incredibly dangerous. You and your travelling companion have been stuck in the same house since the weather went out of control, and it's starting to have an effect. While you've not yet succumb to the dangerous fugue that would lead you out into the snow, cabin fever is definitely starting to set in for you...and whoever you're stuck with. As long as you keep telling yourself the eyes on the walls aren't real. You're the only one who can see them, after all. FOUR: A TENT-ATIVE FRIENDSHIP Everything has locked down for the night, and it looks like you're trapped outside. This almost certainly means death, but maybe you don't have to take it lying down. You walk for a while, and--what's that? Through the snow, the light of your tablet faintly illuminates the shape of a tent. It seems someone else is stuck out here, too, but they've been luckier in their searches than you. Time to go see if they'll take pity on you for the night. You probably don't have much longer otherwise...

Comments

Ecks | OC

[ecks]

Network - One
@437 | Voice

[The female voice that comes across the network is flat, expressionless. One might almost suspect it of being robotic apart from the smoothness of the cadence.]

Has anyone else received an encoded message today?

If you have not received an encoded message, I haven't either and you should forget this message. [There. Perfect cover story. She's good at this!]


Action - Four

[She didn't mean to wander so far from shelter so late in the day. She's well aware of what it means to be trapped outside, and logically there's no purpose to her continued motion. She will succumb, and she will die. For all her pragmatism, though, Ecks has never been one to quit trying. There is always a chance that she will find some angle on the puzzle that others have not, and there is nothing to be lost by going on.

Her footsteps quicken when she recognizes the shape ahead of her, until she comes to stand next to the tent, a hand stiff with cold outstretched to scratch at the fabric and announce her presence. Even now there's no expression on her patchwork face, no particular urgency to her toneless voice apart from the way she stutters from the cold.]

Are y-you alive? L-let-t me in.

P-p-please.

action

[rampager]

[Even tucked into the tightest ball he can manage, armored knees drawn up and broad shoulders hunched, the tent is not quite large enough to properly accommodate Vorin. His bulk presses against the fabric of the walls, curved horns pushing up into the canvas ceiling. As to be expected, really, considering it was built for humans and not Beasts. But in these conditions, Vorin will take it, and gladly.

At first, her plea is met with silence. He had heard the crunch of her footsteps from some distance away, muscles coiling into tighter knots with her approach. Too used to being followed, hunted, attacked, the close quarters of the tent putting his wind up even further. But this is not his world, not a place with any sign of other Beasts at all, and while she might be a foe, the opposite might also prove to be true.

Vorin hesitates. His blood snarls for a fight, would welcome an attempt on his life. His better side calls for mercy.

....

Then, the slow yet unmistakable grind of the tent flaps being unzipped.]

Hurry up, then, before you freeze where you stand.

[ecks]

[In that moment of hesitation she stands at the precipice of an ethical quandary. If the person within does not allow her entrance, does that not qualify as committing murder against her? Would that not mean that to attack the tent's owner would be, in a manner of thought, self defense? Would that be justified? She does not want to die.

She's almost glad that she has no weapon and that her fingers are too stiff to wield one if she did. The question will remain hypothetical -- and she is more glad still when he opens the tent and renders it further moot. She doesn't know what he is apart from too big, but she quickly stoops and squirms her way inside, body shaking from the cold. Examination can come later.]

We sh-shouldn't be out here. I shouldn't b-be out here.

[rampager]

You wouldn't make it to a house before exposure set in. These lodgings will have to be enough.

[He watches her flatly, gold eyes squinting in the dying light of approaching nightfall.]

Close the flaps behind you.

[His tone is blunt, but not harsh. A blanket is tossed her way a moment later. Thin, the cloth just on this side of rough, yet serviceable. It's far too small for him to use and he has his armor, besides.]

[ecks]

[She struggles with the zipper, but obeys as hastily as she can. It is a simple command and a sensible one, and she takes comfort in that. It is a relief not to face ethical complications at the same time as survival concerns.]

I d-didn't listen. Didn't go in when I was told. If I die tonight it will be because I didn't do what I was told. [It makes something inside her ache to say it, but it's true. She wraps herself in the blanket as best she can, settling on the floor just far enough away not to touch him. She's still shaking. The cold didn't used to make her shake.]

Why are you here?

[rampager]

You won't die.

[Firmly said to hide the probably, hopefully that lingers like a traitorous stain on the edge of his thoughts. The idea of waking up to her frozen corpse beside him makes his stomach coil into knots and crooks his knuckles into angry almost-fists. He's seen enough death just from coming out the other end of fight after fight after fight.]

I misjudged the light. The passage of time in this place is odd.

[It feels like a stupid mistake. The error of a careless novice. His father had taught him better.

(His father had been a good Beast, once.)

Vorin clenches his jaw and glances away. Searches for a different thread of conversation rather than sinking into the silence of bad thoughts and worse memories.]

Have you eaten?

[ecks]

[He seems very sure. It would nice to be so sure of something. She gives a little nod; the wilderness was never her strength and she knows little of how to judge the light.]

I have eaten b-before now. I do eat.

[It's a strange question. Haven't most people eaten at some point in their lives?]

[rampager]

[If she thinks his question strange, he finds her answer to be just the same.]

I mean, have you eaten recently. Rations and the like.

[ecks]

Recently?

[That's a more sensible question. A subjective term, but she's confident enough in her interpretation to give a shake of her head.]

I have not.

[She's shaking less now. She hopes that is a good sign.]

@veil | voice

[veiledreference]

[Really? Lady's a consummate liar, herself, and this is just... painfully bad. Still, she'll play along just to tease.]

Ah, me! We've neither of us received encoded messages today. How dreary. How else should we spend our time? Counting numbers? What an interesting name you choose, my child.

@437 | voice

[ecks]

[Good, @veil doesn't seem to suspect her ruse. If the message was sent only to Ecks, that must mean it's meant to be a secret.]

Can numbers be counted when they're the means by which other things are counted? I think that would quickly reach a meaningless level of abstraction. Would that still be counting, or would it only be recitation?

Maybe we could count kinds of numbers. I think I might enjoy that. Not my number, though. I don't want to count that number. It was chosen for me.

[veiledreference]

[Oh, she's much too cute.]

The kinds? The kinds! How many kinds of numbers are there? Big numbers and small numbers. Half numbers and whole numbers. Negative and positive.

Good and evil.

So many numbers, but why shouldn't we count your number? Numbers that are chosen are a kind of number, hmm?

[ecks]

Rational numbers and irrational ones. Is infinity a number? If zero is a number, I think infinity must be. But which one's the evil one?

[She falls silent for a few seconds, troubled by the thought of any number being evil. She likes this idea a little less now.]

If we counted my number, we'd have to decide what kind of a number it is.

[veiledreference]

What is evil, child? It is a mind unfettered by limits, one who knows nothing of where something should end. A thing without end. Infinity.

But you are not infinite, I think. [There's a clear smirk in her voice.] Far too many limits, fears, yes?

What does your number mean to you?

[ecks]

Limits...rules. I have rules. It's good to have them.

My number...it's the four hundred thirty-seventh number. That means there were four hundred thirty six before it, and after it comes a four hundred thirty-eighth...and a four hundred thirty-ninth...and a four hundred fortieth...and a four hundred forty-first....

[Her voice gives no indication that she intends to stop counting.]

[veiledreference]

[Lady will stop her. Because by all the magic of Elance does she not have the patience for that.]

That tells me what your number is. It tells me nothing of what it means to you. What are you four hundred thirty-seventh of? Your sisters? Your race? Your master's servants?

[ecks]

Subjects.

I don't want to talk about my number anymore.

one; @totheark; text

[0thingsonmymind]

what mess age didyou rece ive?

@437 | text

[ecks]

I didn't know the name. Don't know how to decode it yet. What message did you receive?

permatext

[0thingsonmymind]

idid not
let me seethe
code

[ecks]

[Her reply is delayed this time as she processes this information. She did not intend to share her secret message with anyone who had not also received one, and she was so careful to tell anyone who hadn't received a message that she had no such thing.]


I did not receive a message. Or code.

[0thingsonmymind]

*He's just very good at ferreting out information.*

youdid
you said you did

iam good with
code
show me
may be ican tell
you
whatit
s a y s

[ecks]

I said I did if you did.

What if it's not meant for you?

[0thingsonmymind]

itdoes not mat ter who itwas
meant
for

[ecks]

I thought that it did. Because it was encoded, like a secret.