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

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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

[waspling]

Lisbeth paid for her half of the items, and let him pay for his. As they walked out together she glanced up at him (being as he was considerably taller than she), but said nothing. He had gone silent again and she found that she didn't mind. It was nice, being with someone without having to say anything. Besides, she was preoccupied.

She couldn't believe she was breaking all of her own habits to watch some TV and drink some beer (and tea?) with some man. This wasn't back home where she could find out anything she wanted to about someone's whole life. The TAB network hardly offered much in the way of clues about Isaac. He seemed a decent sort, but who really knew? For all her poking and snooping around, the 40-something could turn out to be a complete psycho murderer.

But then there they were. Lisbeth had lead them up to his apartment, and waited for him to let them in. Before she actually stepped through the threshold she suddenly spoke up, her expression intense. "If you try to hurt me, I'll cut off both your hands. Got it?"

[full_of_bad_ideas]

Her sudden voice startled him and he turned to look at her with wide eyes, although the words weren't necessarily offensive, hell he's been in plenty of situations where he had to risk and put some trust with someone he didn't know only for them to come around and try and hurt him. "Fair enough." He nodded before he finished walking into his apartment. He shut the door behind her and hung up his keys on a push pin beside the door. He'd forget them otherwise, and gestured for her to go in further.

Isaac took in a deep breath and followed after her, although a bit cautiously after her warning. He wasn't interested in hurting her, for all he knew she could be yet another figment of his imagination. Thus far she was his nicest visitor, save for Nicole who dared pop up even after the fact.

Nicole, she was his ex-girlfriend. She was where it all began, though he encouraged her descent into madness (unknowingly), the USG Ishimura. She took the job out there on that damned ship and reeled him in for revenge, or he went out of penitence. As if he too deserved the load of madness that was to follow. So, he's been here a few months, but how could he be sure he wasn't dreaming all along? Or dead.

Better not ask her something that would freak her out, something like: are you real? Staring at her was much better, surely. Isaac was still as he stared at the girl. He didn't even know her name, right?

[waspling]

She felt on edge as he closed the door and she watched to see if he locked it. When he didn't, Lisbeth relaxed just slightly. Immediately she looked around the room for potential weapons in case he did try to hurt her after all. Beer bottles. Those keys hanging up. Knives in the kitchen? Pen on a side table. Lamp. Lisbeth took in a slow breath and looked back up to the man and found she was being stared at.

Her brows furrowed slightly and while she tried to remain expressionless, some wariness came to her face which might be mistaken for annoyance. "You don't drink?" she ended up asking, while walking side-ways towards the kitchen she spotted. Once at the counter she set the case of beer down before pulling the new pack of cigarettes out of her jacket pocket and setting those on the counter too. She took the jacket off, tossing it on a nearby chair, and somehow making herself look even tinier than before with just a simple black t-shirt on over a black tank top. "You mind if I smoke in here?"

[full_of_bad_ideas]

Isaac gently shook his head. He blinked down at his kitchen table where a pile of gears, tools, scraps of metal, and a block of something or other was on. He never used the kitchen table for himself. Some nights he got fancier than his package of noodles and takeout with a home cooked meal but still he parked himself in the living room to eat over a show on the tube or the network. "If you like." He didn't mind smoke. His apartment smelled like a grease shop anyhow. There was one project in the kitchen, another in the living room and even a small one in the bathroom. He'd gotten into taking apart some of the machinery here to see how it works and found it comparable to what he'd know of earth.

Some of it was old machinery, some of it new. But he needed to know more, he wanted to know more. Christ, if the whole planet(x2) was a machine like Tau Volantis and it was just sucking them all in for the ride one by one then he'd be fatefully appropriate for such an end.

Didn't matter where he was, the shit followed him to no end. "I .. I get worse when I drink, I .. hm, it's just not good for me." He shrugged and gestured to her. "But .. I mean, I'm not dangerous.. to you."

[waspling]

Lisbeth took that to mean that he was either a mean drunk or a seriously depressed drunk. She frowned slightly, looking over his face carefully and noting when he again tried to reassure her. It was so easy for men, she thought to herself, they didn't understand she was taking about a twenty-five percent chance of either being killed or at the least attacked while alone with him.

Why was she even here?

She huffed and shook her head, stowing the beer on the back counter instead and she started looking through his cupboards. Lisbeth didn't want to drink alone. When she found a kettle, she filled it and set it on the stove to warm up. They could use it for their tea and their noodles.

"Got any eggs?" she asked while sticking the cigarette in her mouth and taking the time to light it up. Lisbeth had no interest at all in cooking but she could handle a poached egg with her ramen.

[full_of_bad_ideas]

Isaac palmed the left side of his cheek and rubbed at his check before he drew his palm down to scratch at his chin. "Yeah," he then went to the fridge to obtain the egg carton from it. "You know.. I went to the chicken farm.. where we get these eggs.. I just.. I guess it was a few weeks ago, it's huge.. all they do is chicken. They told me there's a cow farm too.. haven't been yet. I just.. I guess it's comforting seeing some of what we're use to.. here. Food wise." He said though stared at the carton in his hand before he moved his hand over to the other, "what was your name?" Had he told her his? "I'm Isaac." Hadn't she asked when he'd come from? Right: "2514, the year.. I come from.." He looked then back to the egg cartons. "I haven't seen anyone yet.. that I know.. but I know that there's a few of us from Earth." He licked his lips and glanced to the table. "I worked as an engineer.. so.. I like to do these hobbies around.. keep my mind busy." He drew in a breath. "What did you do?"

[waspling]

It was good, him talking. He had a nice voice and Lisbeth was content to get watch the kettle as its water warmed up. Every ten seconds or so she'd take a drag on the cigarette and every time while she was, her eyes would be on Isaac as she exhaled the plume of smoke. He was very good-looking.

At the mention of the hobbies, she glanced at the electronics which she had noticed upon first arriving. Lisbeth was a fair hand at such things herself but not at the league of a professional engineer from 2514. Just as her eyes went up to Isaac again, the kettle announced itself ready and she took it off the heat. Lisbeth held the cigarette between her lips as she pulled out two bowls and cracked the noodles in each, cracked an egg in each, then poured the water over them.

"Lisbeth," she answered, somewhat quiet in the response. "I worked at a security firm in Sweden." She looked back up at him. "Were you good? At your job?"

[full_of_bad_ideas]

"Oh, very." Isaac said with half a grin. There wasn't much he had to smile about but he could at least be proud and smile about his work. He was brilliant, especially under pressure. He was an expensive disaster as well, though he couldn't and wouldn't take full credit of the Titan; after all it wasn't his demons he had unleashed. Rather it was to do with the religious plague that brought Titan's downfall. All of those people, all of those kids. Isaac shook his head. "Well, I'm just trying to figure it out here.. how the technology is different and what .. forces of power they use. I never believed in magic.. but that's what the popular thought was on things that were science back when we couldn't explain as such." He licked his lips and he gestured to the table. "Toasters, microwaves, it's interesting that they're built with the same concepts as we knew them back home.. I haven't come across one yet that used a material I couldn't explain." He blinked and looked to Lisbeth. "Were you good at security?"

[waspling]

Alright, he was smart. She'd give him that. While she listened, she only watched what she was doing enough to make sure she didn't burn herself with boiling water. As she poured them both a mug of water with a tea packet in, her eyes were mostly directed towards the older man. At the return question, she stopped and stared at him for a good long few seconds without even blinking.

"Yes," was the simplest answer. People weren't secure from her, but for those whom her boss was hired to protect the interests of, she supposed she was security for them. Back home she never had any interest in sharing with people what she did but here, it didn't matter so much, and he was being friendly.

"I was a researcher. Big companies or rich old bastards would hire our firm to look into other people for them, like the CEOs of other big companies they were going to merge with. It was my job to find all the skeletons in their closets: gambling debts, pedophilia, how often they beat their wife, how often they fucked their mistress, all their off-shore tax-free bank accounts. The usual." Lisbeth looked down at the bowls and the quickly boiling eggs in them.

Maybe it was better now to admit what she'd done than later. "I looked into you too but I can't find much here. The TAB isn't linked into every aspect of everyone's lives like the 'net was on Earth." She brought her eyes up to him again. "You seem okay." Not that he would know, but from her, that was rather high praise.