test drive meme

Ingress travel can be disorienting. Your trip? More than most. 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. A voice, just out of hearing, calling a name you think is yours. 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 catch a glimpse of a space filled with a soft cerulean light, a feeling of dankness 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 is it?

Certainly, it's not where you are now.

sleep, perchance to...

You're dreaming.

You have to be. Certainly, you don't remember arriving in this strange, dim forest of your own accord. Gnarled trees form a solid barrier and a thin cage blocking the sky, silvery light illuminating the ground below in patchwork on all sides. The path beneath you seems to stretch out ahead and back for an eternity, though a light (an exit?) can be seen in the distance. Movement too, down the myriad array of branching side roads.

If you hurry, you can catch up.

* Take the Path:

No matter how quickly you travel, you won't ever reach that glow of light on the horizon. You may, however, encounter other walkers in the night. Friends, foes, strangers. Whoever is sharing your dreaming vigil, you might be grateful for the company. Certainly it's better than the feeling you get traveling alone: a prickle of paranoia and the sense that something just past view is watching.

* Less Traveled By:

The roads lead nowhere. The prickle at the back of your neck hasn't ceased. They're out there; they're watching you, and it's infuriating. But you can stop them. You can break free of it all.

The trees are firm and unyielding, but eventually, your efforts force them to give way. Through cut limbs and snapped branches, magic or agility or sheer, brute strength, you make a hole large enough to crawl through. And just as quickly, you realize your mistake.

The trees aren't there to keep you in.

Inky darkness roils from the gap between the paths, looking to devour you. If you run, it follows. If you hide, it seeks. It calls in voices only you can hear: your friends and your tormentors, the cries of everyone you've left behind. Find help to face your nightmares, or be consumed by them.

* All the Difference:

The light in the distance might still be out of reach, but through long searching, you've found a different sort of exit. Fog chokes off this opening between the trees, thick and obscuring. One step into the mist, and you lose all sight of anything outside it.

Two steps? Three? Ten? You're not sure how many it took before the world around you began to change. Perhaps you've found yourself in someone's worst moments. Perhaps you've landed in a fantasy. Perhaps this is your dream, with a stranger's face or voice intruding. Either way, you'll have to work together to get out.

OUT OF CHARACTER INFO

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For mature or graphic content, please label.For questions, please direct them to the FAQ or the Feedback page.

Please Note: due to the chaotic nature of upcoming events, players who intend to preserve their threads for game use should not assume they were given the usual introduction to Thisavrou at the Ingress Complex. The above scenarios are, however, valid as game canon.

As always, be kind and have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This is... awkward.

To say the least. They're traveling in an alien world, and as much as he wants to just spill out everything, this really isn't the time. Or place. If they got too into discussing things, something could easily attack them both. And then where would they be?

Also, the subject of whose armor he's got on.

It's like being on a long car trip with a live grenade. Or so it feels like.

"Get the feeling we're being followed? Or is that just me?"

Because that's clearly a better thing to talk about than anything else running through his head.

     That instantly gets Alfor's attention, his earlier attempts to come up with conversational subjects easily slipping from his thoughts as he looks first at Shiro, and then around them, suddenly more cautious. "...I'd had that sense that something was watching me ever since I'd been wandering these paths," he admits.

     ...which was why he'd plowed through the nearest treeline with his sword. But now that he's not completely distracted by the things this young man with the funny ears has informed him, he can once feel those eyes unseen, yet definitely watching him. Alfor's hand grips his weapon tighter, attempting to make out anything in the shadows of the trees around them, casting a look over his shoulder.

     "...whatever it is, they keep out of sight. Not out in the open, but I'm almost certain something's been flanking us."

"At one point, someone was." Him, it was him.

Please excuse him if it comes out drier than plain toast. But that's what you get for bursting through the bushes at him. Not important now, though. Because the feeling of eyes is like fingers up the back of his neck. He's unconsciously taking a step back, back and to the side.

Putting his back to the king's, fingers igniting in purple light.

"Up for a little more tree trimming?"

     And you wonder you almost got skewered, Shiro.

     Alfor's turned as well, bringing his sword up, catching a glimpse of Shiro's glowing hand out of the corner of his eye. Even though he can't be seen for the position they take, the grin is evident in his voice.

     "I think I might be. The scenery's been incredibly dull, what with trees, trees and more trees."

Would he have? Or was the armor durable enough? Things he probably should have asked when they all first took on this job. Oh well. He wasn't skewered, no harm done.

But it's in that moment, that grin and that quip, he can't help but really like Alfor. He can't help the grin of his own, either.

"Then let's hope this works."

Time to scythe his hand forward, to cut through the nearest thicket of trees like it was actually a blade, instead of the flat of his palm.

The trees had taken some work to get through, but Alfor figures that whatever lurked beyond would either be frightened off, or ultimately revealed. And either works for him, as it's always easier to attack an enemy you could identify.

The moment he feels Shiro shift into action, the Altean king does likewise, swinging his white blade in a broad arc at the branches, hoping that its edge won't be dulled too much for its use being reduced to amateur gardening.

For his part, it looks sort of like someone practicing their martial arts against hapless trees and shrubs. Except wherever the light touches, the plants crash to the ground, their edges burned and blackened. Severed like someone passed a white-hot knife through them.

Unfortunately, it doesn't reveal more than other pathways. Empty and twisting through the mists.

Nothing, no one, on the other side.

     Even against something immobile as trees, it appears that Alfor's weapon and stance isn't merely for show. His form is as sharp as the blade he wields, slicing horizontally, diagonally, vertically and then repeat. He's a decent swordsman; it's just that his battle strategy needs work. A...lot of work.

     Despite there being just as much of branches and limbs littering the ground in the wake of his sword, the results are otherwise very much the same as that done in by Shiro's enhanced prosthesis. The sensation of being watched hasn't left, but the darkness beyond seems almost tangible, and... Wait, when did this fog come up?

     "I don't like this..." the Altean king murmurs, stepping back from the opening.

Once it's clear there's nothing on the other side of either wall of trees, he steps back, slowly. Intending to go back to back with Alfor again. It's odd, this sort of nagging familiarity.

Something feels like he's been fighting back to back with Keith. Maybe it's the sword.

"Neither do I." The familiarity is something to think about later. When they're not stuck here. "The best chance is probably finding another Ingress. If nothing else, there should be more people."

"Agreed." Alfor seems perfectly at ease with trusting Shiro at his back. His daughter has given him the armor and named him the black paladin, and if he can't trust her judgment, then who can he trust? Although it is a curious thing... Why does this young man not make use of his bayard?

"You would know what to look for in that more than I would, but I do suggest we keep moving. If there are others around, I think there's a better chance of coming across them if we stick to the path."

tdm 20

test drive meme

sleep, perchance to...

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