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: IT WON'T BE LONG NOW... Well, you made a mistake. You spent too long searching around, or you ran outside near the end of the day for just one more thing, and now you've been locked out. You can search around all you want, but the best shelter you can hope for is pressing against the side of a sealed up building. You do still have your tablet, though. Maybe someone on the network can give you some advice, or at least some comfort while you wait for hypothermia to set in. TWO: CABIN FEVER Maybe you didn't want that mistake of getting caught outside to happen again, but now you've ended up staying too long in one location, and cabin fever has set in. Maybe you're taking to the network to try and ignore the hallucinations. Maybe you want to tell everyone that you've figured out they're all in on your kidnapping. Maybe you ended up wandering off and now you'd really like to know if anyone can check back in the place you were at for your pants. Action Prompts THREE: AN UNEXPECTED MEETING You're going about your business searching what seems like it might be an especially promising house--it's fully intact and there's even a working fireplace with some wood! It looks like someone else has the same idea, though, and you've run into them in the middle of your search. Do you share the potential wealth or try to kick them out? On the other hand, maybe you know who this is, or maybe you're just glad to actually see another person for the first time in ages. FOUR: GOOD MORGUE-NING You've just woken up in a morgue after dying in one unfortunate way or another. You have no idea where you are beyond that, but your tablet is insisting you can't stay here, so you should probably get out of here pretty quickly. Of course, bringing people back from the dead isn't a perfect science, so you're missing something important to you. Maybe you've lost your voice, maybe you can't remember where you're from, maybe you can't remember where you are right now. It looks like someone else is nearby, though. Maybe they can help you out?

Comments

Bard the Bowman | The Hobbit

[pointnshoot]

(Network: One)

[The last house Bard searched had been completely inadequate for sheltering overnight. He'd doubled back, but the going had been precarious--turns out his luck wasn't strong enough to miss that snow-buried ditch twice--and now he was stuck outside after nightfall.

Lovely.

He's hollowed out a cold little cave for himself overnight, but the bitter cold of the air and the fresh falling snow indicate he won't be able to afford sleep this night. He must keep himself distracted, so he turns to the network for company.]

What do you call it when you narrowly escape burning to death only to freeze instead?


(Network: Two)

[Bard's hardly the nomadic sort, so as soon as he found this place--within safe distance of a cache of supplies, the furniture unbroken, the toilet working, and no major holes in the external walls, aka the only four things he really needs--he'd taken claim of it. Unfortunately, the hallucinations are starting to set in, so now it's time to consult the other people possessing these clever little real versions of Seeing Stones.]

Do any among you have experience with spirits? It would seem I am being haunted.


(or something else)

[parasitaster]

[Normally at this point he would roll his eyes and keep flipping on to other communications. Because this query clearly belongs to someone who must be a lunatic. Or is simply trying to mess around as a joke.

But enough time has passed and he's seen enough of the stranger arrivals around here that he's starting to feel...uneasy about the prospect of dismissing everything out of hand.]

...Haunted? What do you mean by that?

[pointnshoot]

[Bard had thought that ghosts, at the very least, would be something known and accepted among all the different people here, but it seems he was wrong about even that. There's just no beating first-hand experience with the bizarre.

Still, any distraction from Smaug's head in the fireplace is a welcome one, so he tries to explain himself.]

There is, uh, someone [no need to mention that someone being a dragon until he knows just what sort of fellow he's dealing with, right?] I was forced to kill in defense of my home. It seems he's decided to start tormenting me instead of moving on to wherever his sort go when they die.

[parasitaster]

[Oh well that is -- so not at all reassuring. You have no idea. Considering Paxton also is responsible for somebody's death back home, and it's definitely someone he never, ever wants to see again.]

I would normally say I never believed in ghosts. But there have been more than few things here that border on the...inexplicable, haven't there?

It's not as if this person is physically there, though, from what it sounds like you're saying. So the explanation could be something else.

[pointnshoot]

[This whole place is inexplicable to Bard more often than not, but enough things have been successfully explained to him at this point (and the idea of being stalked by a dragon only he can see until he goes mad is unpleasant enough) that he's willing to entertain possible alternatives.]

He lingers in the fireplace. Whenever I get close enough, he breathes fire in my direction, but the scorch marks vanish if I look elsewhere long enough. Back home, even after I killed him the effects of his lingering malice soured the heart and mind of one who had been by all accounts honorable all his life, so if this isn't truly him someone is providing a very good imitation.

[parasitaster]

Br-breathes fire? [The faltering incredulity there is not for the reason you might think, Bard.] ...Whoever it is that's haunting you, he sounds like someone I would never like to meet.

[Because damn, son, your ghost sounds too much precisely like the one Paxton is hoping to avoid. Right down to the effect he has on other people.]

[pointnshoot]

He made quite a lot of trouble before I shot him through the heart. As that solution doesn't seem to be working a second time, here we are.

[He really doesn't mean to sound like a stone-cold motherfucker--he's a total marshmallow! honest!--but dragons are super serious business.

And then he heaves a big ol' sigh, and he's just a worn-out middle-aged guy again.] This would be so much easier at home.

1

[wittyoneliner]

[Alistair lets out a short, dry laugh -- more of a grunt than a chuckle, really, but still a laugh. It's not that he finds their predicament funny, per se, but sometimes you find yourself in a situation so absurdly, implausibly terrible that you have to laugh.

Or grunt.

Either works.]

Dramatic irony? Or is that something different? I can never seem to remember.

[pointnshoot]

[Gallows humor: the best (only?) defense against the crushing weight of an inevitability that makes no damn sense. It's like they've both been training for this.]

If that's not it, it sounds close enough. All my knowledge lies in shooting or hiding things, so I wouldn't know enough to correct you.

One

[genuinepleasure]

Irony. At least that's what I would call it.

[But at least being someplace really cold is better than being someplace with murderous robots, right?

Right.]

You stuck outside?

[He's pointing out the obvious but he's going to keep the other talking.]

[pointnshoot]

[It's nice that there are people here who know this sort of thing. Even stuck out here with the threat of death looming, he can learn something new.]

I am, and as I neglected to bring reading material, I find myself in dire need of a distraction.

[From the whole freezing thing. Did he mention the freezing thing? It's freezing.]

[genuinepleasure]

[Clint's always happy to lend a realistic view on things.]

I think I can help with that. Maybe I can find a way to get you inside as well. There's got to be some way to do it.

[This isn't the first time he's run into this happening and he doubts it'll be the last.]

I'm Clint, by the way.

[pointnshoot]

And I'm Bard, at your service. [That last part might even be true if he somehow makes it through the night, unlikely as it is.]

I have a bit of shelter from the wind, so if you can't think of anything it's no great hardship.

[genuinepleasure]

Likewise. [He's going to do his best to keep you alive, Bard. He just can't make any promises.]

That doesn't mean the overall cold won't get to you. Do you have any supplies with you at all?

[The archer frowns slightly.]

Near any of the buildings?

[pointnshoot]

Food, water, a few bandages, a blanket--which I am currently using--and one of those little flint and steel... [No, they have the little oil supplies in them to make a proper flame, what are they--] a lighter, but no wood or kindling. I wasn't yet within sight of the building I was aiming for when night fell, so I dug myself a hole in the snow, which is where I am now.

video; one

[kindlings]

[ After having finally figured out the network and the communication device, Ygritte is having a blast trolling whatever poor unfortunate soul she sets her sights on.

Congratulations, Bard, you now have the attentions of an acerbic wildling. She peers at him over the feed in his hollowed-out snow shelter, her lips quirked. Poor sap. ]

I'd say y'missed your chance - dyin' by fire is better than the cold, by far.

[pointnshoot]

[He shall thank his lucky stars for having been blessed with this incredibly valuable input. Any minute now.

The only lighting here is the unnatural bluish-white glow from the screen of his tablet, but even in that Bard looks okay for the time being. Kind of scruffy and maybe a little tired, but those are both pretty normal states for him.

So is the visible irritation, but he'd been doing so well in not having cause to experience that one recently. Thanks a lot, Red.]

If you prefer your suffering quick and painful, perhaps. For myself, I'd rather not smell myself burning as I go.

[kindlings]

[ More than welcome, Old Timer.

Ygritte can relate to scruffy and tired - two very common states of being, for her - but this man has a lot more to worry about than his appearance, if he's stuck outside without shelter for the night. A snow-shelter isn't going to keep him warm when the temperature drops below tolerable conditions.

Still, she can banter a bit longer. She does so enjoy rankling the others trapped here like her, in this place. ]

Painful, but 't least it's quick. Y' don't want t' die in the cold - it takes a long, long time for someone t' die that way. [ she cocks her head over the feed, almost playfully. ]

Y' want t'hear how it is to die, where I'm from? [ storytime, to keep his mind temporarily off of it? seems legit. ]

[pointnshoot]

[Some part of Bard knows he's not going to make it through the night: he's heard of neighbors freezing to death on milder nights than what they've had here because they hadn't the firewood to spare. He'd rather not be dwelling on that while his extremities turn to ice, though, so he's going to make an attempt at changing the subject.]

You're a morbid one, aren't you? Do you sit around the campfire with all your friends at home, discussing the merits of all the ways you might die tomorrow?

[kindlings]

Nothin' morbid 'bout it, when it's a way o' life. You're born, y'live, and y'die.

[ all little life lessons aside, she's not completely unfazed by death, and not completely heartless despite the caustic attitude; she just thinks Bard needs to bootstrap up, so to speak.

...after all, he's not the only one out here, as evidenced when she shows him the snowy background of her screen - she, too, is huddled somewhere outdoors for warmth. ]

voice, 2

[croi]

[And it's a really good thing that it's voice because there's a sort of disbelieving choked splutter-laugh-cough that could be the sudden breeze causing a wayward piece of dirt to go down Lancer's throat in such a way that he spontaneously started coughing, or, on the other hand, could just as easily be him choking down the urge to say something like, "Why, yes, yes, I do have experience with spirits and haunting. I was actually pretty much one up until recently (and I'm not sure why I'm not one right now but I'm rolling with it.) I was a spirit, AMA." Except in a more IC way of phrasing things.

He mig- probably will get there at some point but no. No, he's going to start somewhere else. He can handle this. He made his foot in mouth saving throw and is going to proceed-]

I've known a few. Spirits.

[pointnshoot]

[Of course, not being gifted with this intimate knowledge of Lancer's personal history, Bard is far more likely to--and does--assume that this guy's just the sort of person for whom spirits are a story told late at night to bring a chill to the air. He's willing to be wrong, however, and in lieu of actual useful advice, any distraction from Smaug's head spewing insults and fire from the hearth would be welcome.]

On friendly terms, or otherwise?

[croi]

[And that's a perfectly sensible and logical conclusion, so four for you for having logical conclusions and not having skimmed the Ye Olde Middle Earth of wikipedia for cross-dimensional spoilers.]

Some of them tried to kill me. I tried to kill some of them. [Said in the same way one would say, "I had to shank a dwarf for my boss, but work's work and the dwarves tried to shank right back."] I ended up working together with one of the ones I tried to kill, so it depends on what you mean by friendly. But I know spirits well.

[pointnshoot]

[Pah, cross-dimensional spoilers are a wizard's business.

This man sounds like he might actually be telling the truth, but he may also just be a particularly skilled liar--without a face to see, it's hard to tell. If only the notion of killing Smaug again weren't so appealing...]

Have you any advice for a humble bowman, then? [He oh so politely refrains from following that up by wondering aloud whether all this mention of trying means Lancer's methods just weren't up to the task, but there's something too innocent about his voice that suggests he'll start talking shit at the drop of a hat if necessary.]

[croi]

[Heh.] Tried talking to them? [Might be enjoying this a little. This is the most entertaining thing in Snow Shitville McFrostasscrack.]