tdm 16

[savmods]

test drive meme

Ingress travel can be disorienting, but there’s no need to worry! All side effects are temporary and lessen with each trip. Your body may experience several sensations at once: being pushed forward as if a hand is resting on your back, momentary and startling blindness, a gentle ringing in your head. You may have difficulty discerning whether it is hot or cold, but where you have been prodded is noticeably warmer than the rest of you. Some may suffer from dizziness while others are perfectly fine. You notice that the area you are in is filled with a soft cerulean light and feels slightly humid and dark despite the glow around you. Regardless of your current state, however, the stress of initial Ingress travel forces your body into unconsciousness.

Waking up is another story. Or maybe it isn’t.

You find yourself in a nondescript room; sometimes with others who have found themselves in the same situation, sometimes alone. A medical tech is always present to explain what’s happened before giving you some clothes, a TAB, and a guide that discusses things in further detail. This entire process also consists of a complete work-up of medical history and current health in order to obtain your signature—a specific frequency that will allow them to hone in on exactly where it is you’re from in order to get you back there.You spend your first week on the Ingress Complex while other accommodations and arrangements are made for you.

welcome to thisavrou

---

escoria

⋆ Escoria is classified as Exploration Class (EC), and travel through the Ingress is mostly smooth except for one issue: anyone with powers or abilities will find that the distortion between worlds has temporarily caused problems accessing them. Essentially, it has left all travelers depowered. Another similar issue comes in the form of the location of Escoria’s Ingress—seemingly in the middle of a vast ocean, the Ingress is balanced precariously on a set of buoys connected to a small floating dock. Once on this dock, it is clear there is no getting anywhere without some transportation. Testing the dark waters will find it unbearably cold, though not cold enough to form ice, and far off in the distance, between the mist and ever-constant gray light - where’s the sun? - some might even notice what looks like an island.

⋆ The boat that eventually comes to your rescue isn’t very big, one of a fleet used to transport visitors from the floating Ingress platform. Only a few passengers are allowed on each one--a maximum of six. The boat’s captain is quite insistent that each group remain small, handing out blankets to those who did not come prepared for the chill. It isn’t too much trouble as there are a great many boats and plenty of natives to pilot them. The weather is cool, the skies are dark with rain that might fall, but for now things seem alright. Leaning out on the rail, you might see some shark-like sea creatures breaching the surface to breathe. Of course, you might also see quicksilver figures darting underneath the water from the corner of your eye, which is then followed by a sharp rocking of the boat. Did something nudge the vessel? Maybe you ought to make sure people stay back from the sides in case they fall in...

⋆ Despite the calm appearance of the sky, the worst has happened. A storm hits at just the right time to drive your boat against one of the multitudinous reefs, roughly jarring its passengers, and then, the waves continue to batter the ship against it until it falls to pieces. You get lucky and find a piece of debris to hold onto to keep your head above the water until the storm passes, although it’s some time before even a calm comes. Once it does, you have to deal with the facts: you’re stranded with minimal supplies, all alone except for the other people who were on board with you when the ship went down in the waves. And what’s worse, the water isn’t getting any warmer. What do you do to survive until help, hopefully, arrives? Will you make an attempt to swim to shore or wait for someone to send another boat?

⋆ The few who manage to weather the storm and make it to one of the few islands of Escoria are, indeed, lucky. What lies beneath the surface of those dark waters is much more dangerous and deadly. Distant cousins of Thisavrou’s native Gorgona of Region Four, these nameless creatures are ruthless as they hunt. They slither the shallow surfaces of the reefs spread out across Escoria, waiting for even the slightest ripple of water to alert them to their prey. At first, looking into the water reveals nothing. Then, the closer these things come to the surface, the faster it begins to change and look as if something familiar, something you long for is calling to you. It can be a person, alive or dead, or it could be something intangible like a goal waiting to be fulfilled or an object waiting to be touched. This is how they lure the unsuspecting below the surface, and once they have their claws in you, it’s very difficult to escape. The urge to be with them is impossibly strong regardless of the fact that no one can hold their breath for that long or survive the deep cold of the water for longer than a few minutes.

Your only chance of escape? Someone who might have noticed that you’d suddenly slipped under without a sound. Or, if by chance, you manage to snap off a piece of the coral in the reefs. It changes with the shape of the holder, and that, if you’re lucky, might be the very weapon that saves you.

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OUT OF CHARACTER INFO

FAQ | LOCATIONS | RESERVES | APPLICATIONS | NAVIGATION

For mature or graphic content, please label.For questions, please direct them to the FAQ or the Feedback page. Any scenarios listed (unless otherwise indicated) can be used as game canon. As always, be kind and have fun!

Comments

[el_paso]

[ The immediate urge to throw out a sarcastic retort rises like bile in the back of his throat, but he swallows it down. And it's a good thing he does, because this guy starts dispensing a rather appealing sort of wisdom.

All right. Logan listens with an appraising look, and repeats, a hint of dry amusement in his low voice, ]

So, alien piss, oil, and human piss. Learned the hard way?

[sketchycharacter]

Yeah. [He grimaces.] It was really hard.

[Beer is beer, he'd thought. Even kinda shitty beer on Earth isn't that awful, just weak, so he hadn't been cautious. Big mistake.]

I guess that's what happens when you have aliens, humans and whatever else living together. I wouldn't know, it was my first time being space kidnapped too.

[el_paso]

You seem to have settled in though.

[ At a guess, anyway. He nods at the journal on the bartop, and the beginnings of a sketch he sees on the open page. ]

Art major?

[sketchycharacter]

[Nate glances down at the journal, then back at new guy.]

Nah, I'm pretty sure you have to graduate high school to have a major. I like drawing, though. [He tilts it slightly toward the other guy's way.] I saw this earlier today. Wanted to get it down on paper before I forgot the details.

[el_paso]

[ He's offered, so Logan looks further--some sort of statue?--before he settles back. It's better than anything he could do anyway, art has never been a strong suit of his. ]

Not bad. And I can't judge- never finished, myself.

[ Actually he never went to high school but hey. Splitting hairs, whatever. He tosses back the rest of his decent-space-scotch. ]

[sketchycharacter]

Eh, some of the most interesting people didn't.

[He's not counting himself in that, but he does like to think he's not boring.]

So. If you know what high school is, I'm guessing you're from Earth. Modern-ish.

[el_paso]

[ A small huff behind his glass. He signals the bartender to bring another. ]

Right in one. So what year did they pluck you from?

I'm loving how chill this thread is compared to all your others

[sketchycharacter]

2011. Grabbed me from a plane heading home from Yemen—at first I wondered if the plane crashed, but I doubt it. This'd make the strangest afterlife ever, nothing like what the nuns told me.

my tender heart can only take so much angst, she says, not gleeful at all

[el_paso]

2011?

[ The afterlife mention makes him consider tossing that second drink back as well, but he just places a hand around it, thumb sliding up the glass. ]

Try 2029.

riiiiiight

[sketchycharacter]

Yikes. My future's a legal adult by then. No spoilers, all right? I like to be surprised.

[Not that it's even guaranteed they're from the same world. He takes another drink.]

Guess that makes me retro. Not that any of that matters here.

[el_paso]

[ Heh. What's there to spoil? His world, his personal sphere had changed, but the world he came from, as a whole? The world doesn't change.

Logan tilts his glass, staring through the swirl of amber, lost in thought and missing the latter half of what this guy's talking about. ]

[sketchycharacter]

[The shift in expression and general demeanor doesn't escape Nate, and he starts to feel a little out of place.]

Uh, I can stare into my beer if you want to be alone, or whatever.

[el_paso]

Sorry.

[ He tears his gaze away, and his thoughts back to the present. ]

It's been a shitty week, [ Logan admits, offering a self-deprecating smile, small and tight under his mustache. ]

I didn't catch your name.

[sketchycharacter]

[Nate nods. It's cool, dude.]

Drake—Nathan Drake. Sorry to hear about the shitty week.

[He's had a few of those, he can empathize.]