( MEMES ) TEST DRIVE >> 6

[contagio]

THE TEST DRIVE




Like it or not, you've been dragged from your world into the sanctum. It's a pretty nice city, all things considered--sci-fi, high-tech, glamourous.... Except, of course, for the giant dome encircling it, and the threat of glitching, contaminated zombies at your door. Looks like humanity's built itself a fortress that looks suspiciously like a cage, too. Toss in the odd memory blanks and the everpresent logo of Bifrons incorporated and it's enough to make someone paranoid.

The object of this meme is to get people familiar with the world of the Sanctum, and to try to see if their characters would fit in a sci-fi utopia such as this. Here are your options:
1. Intro: Waking Up. Make your intro post, folks. You wake up in a strange place, and get a strange transmission to go with it. There's a pair of glasses connected to some sort of communications network, but otherwise not much else in the room with you. What are you going to do? 

2. Environmental Glitching. You know the story of Noah? No? Now you're living it.  Sealed portions of the districts are overfilling with water, flooding streets, fields, and select city blocks. Do you climb up to get to safety, shut off the water, or find a way to break down the barrier to the next sector over? 

3. Genetic Altering. What it says on the tin. Except...it's not quite gone right, has it? Are you supposed to spit acid when you hiccup?  Are your insides acid resistant? No? Oh dear.  Warped experiments gone wrong, your augmentation has twisted around on you for horrific or hilarious results.

4. Memory Glitch. No one knows your face. You don't exist on the network. In fact...you're not all that certain you are who you think you are anyway. Haven't you always lived here?  

5. Military Training. Everyone's got to start somewhere. You're training the green folks, maybe you're one of the newcomers yourself. Maybe you haven't even touched a gun before in your life. Either way, you'd better start now.

6. Outside the Dome You're out and about without an armed escort, suited up against the atmosphere and dysthropes.  It's supposed to be a green sector in this run down shell of what used to be a suburb, right? Nothing could possibly go wrong

7. Wildcard. Choose your own adventure or create a cocktail from the presented options! The choice is YOURS.

Comments

[havardr]

A corner and a bit of hall away, Kallian's voice drifted out from one of the nurse's stations. There are snippets of conversation that clearly include the words companions, Blight, and blunted where Kallian had felt the need to repeat. It's not that she thought these healers were lying, per se - but to tell her she had to use some strange magic to find her companions was not the answer she'd wanted; she couldn't do magic in the first place.

They assured her that she could use the glasses, no matter her skill, because there was a way to talk at them and have them do what she needed.

Fine. Kallain took her leave, put the glasses on, and exited the room while stating loudly: "Find Alistair for me."

Lo and behold, look who was in the hallway. "Oh! They do work, hm."

[templariffic]

Smallclothes or not, there was a very solid sigh of relief once he spotted her. She in a similar state of undress, however, had him averting his eyes out of decency for her. They were in a strange place, possibly the Fade, and he'd rather not risk giving whatever Demon they'd been trapped by any potential weaknesses. This one could be tragic.

"Maker's Breath it's good to see y-- what-- is... on your face?"

And who had she been talking to? They hadn't supplied her with much information, if her expression was any indication. Though she looked genuinely surprised-- and possibly unexpectedly satisfied and disappointed at once? "Wait a moment-- turn round," because if this creature so much as set a hand upon her, a smiting would soon follow.

[havardr]

"Some kind of magic used to obtain people and information." She looked at him over the edge and satisfied that he wouldn't vanish if she removed them, shoved the lenses into her hair. They felt strange and heavy on her face and she didn't trust them overmuch. "Network?" A shrug. She didn't know that word and there had already been a wealth of them and the ones she did understand, she wasn't too thrilled about.

With a sigh Kallian spun on her heel, showing Alistair the row of metal in her back. "We aren't to touch them. They said they keep us safe from their Blight and can't be removed without killing us or making us even less responsive than the Tranquil." She raised an eyebrow at him over her shoulder before turning back around. "There are healers uniforms in a closet this way, they said. Better than striding around like this."

[templariffic]

Healer's clothes?, he wasn't very keen about wearing healer's clothing, but if their armor was nowhere to be found... it was better than striding around for all and sundry to oggle. His eyes darted from the odd network on her face to down the hall where indicated. Rolling his shoulders, he began that way, protective of his Warden.

Truth be told, the clothing of healers was understandably meager, but this... they wouldn't ward off the elements in the slightest. He picked up what he believed to be a top, scrutinizing it... blue, flimsy, but in solid condition...

"If they called us here you would think they'd keep us with our things intact."

[havardr]

"They blunted my knives." Kallian was the most annoyed by that even as she yanked the top over her head and frowned at it. "It's practically a sleeping tunic." The pants, she found, weren't much better.

But, they were dressed at least. It was one small step in the right direction. "They'd never even heard of a Grey Warden before," she confessed. "Or of Denerim, of Ferelden. We are very far from home, Alistair. I'm not sure how we might return."

[templariffic]

Alistair was in the process of working his head through the collar when he heard about them blunting her knives and scowled appropriately. "I've half the mind to suggest you find something to pick their rooms with and remove all their useful equipment. See how they enjoy it."

The clothing felt entirely too light, his movements might be jaunty at first because he wasn't being weighed down by heavy armor. Taking a proper look around, he settled once more on the strange face jewelry that Kallian had made use of earlier.

"...Do we all get that or...?"

[havardr]

"The locks are strange, infused with magic. I don't know that I can pick them." More things to make her feel uncertain about this new land, surely. Nothing was as she was used to, not even the locks on the doors. "Though the rooms we woke up in were unlocked easily enough. Perhaps it is only the more important things they lock away."

She reached into her hair and pulled the lenses down again, peering through them before handing them off to Alistair. "They were in the room I woke up in, along with various other items I did not find very amusing." Like her blunted knives. "The healers said they were easily obtained in the city proper, if you did not have them. We shouldn't leave our things behind, either way."

[templariffic]

Many things here were unusual, and an unseen force drove everything. There were no lanterns with oil or fire, no light baubles of magic with their respective lyrium glows. Everything here was lighted by something that hummed in the background, louder than silence. He took the offered eyepiece and set it on his face as Kallian had, over his eyes and fitted to rest on his nose. It felt strange, oddly restrictive, and he almost tried to focus on it, but it was too close...

"I didn't have anything with me when I awoke. Just these strange metal pieces stuck to me. I-- I hesitate to say how they're attached, to be honest..." He reached back to try and understand it, but remembered they weren't meant for touching. That sort of thing... he remembered the Chantry telling him many things like that. Were they in some warped version of the Chantry?

"You're certain this isn't the Fade? We've not been taken in by some abomination, have we?"

[havardr]

"They showed me an image, of the body. Bones and muscles and blood. They go through bone, into the parts that control everything through our spine? It was...strange." And upsetting. Exposed bone meant injury, death. To see it demonstrated as a learning tool had made her stomach clench. "They said many strange things, and the part that made it even stranger was that they believed all of it." The healers weren't lying, Kallian could tell, and that had more dangerous implications than the Fade, in her opinion.

"We'll check both our rooms." Without thinking much of it, Kallian reached for his hand. "See if there was anything we missed. The Fade...breathing is like swimming, in the fade. Nothing is as detailed as it should be, the eyes pass over things, books cannot be read...this isn't the same. I don't think we're anywhere near Thedas at all."

[templariffic]

The very thought of someone going in and doing such a thing to his body was a violation like none he'd ever experienced in his life. He'd even experienced the taint, so that spoke a lot. Kallian's touch grounded him, however, and dragged him out of that feeling of violation as he followed her grasp together toward the room she'd awakened in. They were all quite similar in build, nothing earthen or... or brick about this place. All strong metals and odd hollows, laid out too precisely to be built over time.

He didn't like it, it was too precise, and he didn't even have his worry token to distract him. "But how could a Blight extend so... far?" and how could they, two Grey Wardens, be expected to combat such a large threat? Surely, he had felt overwhelmed when thinking to save Ferelden, but this place as well? "Well, I... I suppose since we're here, we have little choice." the floor was cold on his feet, clean and immaculate... did people travel here? "Those creatures we both saw, then? They're human-like, but deformed. A mixture of Darkspawn and something else I don't know what. Did you see it too?"

[havardr]

"We aren't the only ones. Network allows us to speak with the others who have found themselves here. They said this Blight lives in the air, changing whomever breathes it into one of those..." She struggled to find the word. "They called them dysthropes. I don't know the difference between that and darkspawn, and their explanation involved a lot of language that was foreign to me."

Her room, at least, had an empty pack, enough to gather up the various things scattered around. She could look through them later. After a moment she stopped and glanced at him. "It looks strange on your face. I haven't quite figured out how to turn them on; they said it was easy but."

[templariffic]

"You can breathe the bloody taint?" that stopped him in his tracks, sent shivers down his spine. Normally ingesting the blood, living in an area too close to darkspawn activity and eating off the land would drive people to that sort of madness and transformation... "Maker, that-- that's bad."

He lifted Network off his face, squinting at the slight distortion to his vision he was left with until it righted itself. "They turn on? What, like a control rod or something? Maybe we have to say the proper command?"

[havardr]

"They've closed off the sky somehow. I suppose we'll have to leave the building and see for ourselves."

Kallian made a face and shrugged. "I only know what they told me, which wasn't much and made little sense beyond that. You can tell them to turn on or...look at them in a particular way. I'm not sure why all this magic is necessary."

[templariffic]

"But why would they do that? That doesn't make sense..." She was always so cute when she made her faces, though, and he huffed through his nose, a soft and amused sound. "Look, I suppose we ought to just... go and see it for ourselves."

Make out what they could of the situation, then act as they saw necessary. "I mean, are these Dystrophes... right? Are the Darkspawn? Grey Wardens are qualified to fight many things, but we might have to draw the line there. We've got our own kingdoms to protect."