memepad | test drive!

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test drive!

arrival.

We don't have a brilliant arrival prompt as of yet, but you're welcome to take a look at the arrival page and post your character's arrival if you desire! You may count this test drive as a canonical arrival if you decide to keep the character in game. Many of the below prompts are in possible arrival locations, but do not need to be arrivals.

Shopping, or something like it.

Maybe you want a toothbrush. A swimsuit. Enough sun protection to ease the transition for a vampire who'd lived their entire life safely tucked away on a space station far, far away from anything remotely sun-like. Maybe you just want to put yourself someplace everyone else is bound to go, sooner or later. Maybe you're just someone who will always default to "let's go hang out at the mall", for that matter.

Maybe you're used to shoplifting, and won't notice anything about the mall's security levels, at least at first. Maybe you're a scrupulous goody-two-shoes, and you're going to have a problem when you realize that not only is nobody asking you to pay, but there is literally no way to pay for anything you wanted to purchase.

Maybe you're just going to have to throw a temper tantrum when you realize that the Orange Julius-like storefront is also completely unstaffed, and no more automated than any other Orange Julius you've ever seen, and so you don't have any way of getting the perfect smoothie.

(Unless, maybe, you can find someone else who's got more experience with a blender than you have.)

On the shoreline.

Look. You've been to the beach before, haven't you? You know what to expect when you get there: salty water, some sand, the general sinking dread that the overpowering chemical reek of artificial-coconut-scented sunscreen is coming to get you; the usual, right?

This is maybe not your usual beach. Possibly because it's a little more like a coral reef or atoll; possibly because it's a little more like someone got carried away with programming fractals into a really big 3D printer; possibly because it isn't all that much at all like the beach you were just at, if you were maybe at a beach just before you came here anyway. No toddler temper-tantrums in earshot, no seagull con artists waiting for you to be the slightest bit distracted so they can steal your food right out of your hands, no overpowering chemical reek of artificial coconut...

Don't worry too much, though. There is sunscreen, over at the little vending machine over that-a-way, along with coverups and hats and sunglasses (oh my) — pity you can't tell what they're going to look like before the machine has spat them out at you, though.

(The water does, at least, feel like water, and taste like salt, even if the sand is disconcertingly perfectly-just-off-white, and only a few inches deep above the hull.)

By the way—if you came here in a boat, this is going to be home, at least for your boat. These are the only berths you're going to find; you can claim a berth, and if it was empty when you did, you can—presumably—keep it. Some berths are already filled with other boats. Some of these boats were clearly meant for public use, and others seem as if they used to have people living in them, or at least had private owners. Nobody's living in them right now, though. Strange.

Enjoy the spa.

Or else, you can try to enjoy the spa, if you’re motivated or don’t require any staff.

Because there isn’t any. Much like the shoreline, like the mall, like the apartments, there is a whole lot of absolutely nothing unless you can figure out how to wake up the AI—and even if you do, the AI doesn’t have a clue about how to do a massage or a stretch or a chemical peel.

But you can still enjoy the saltwater pools. Or the salt room.

Or the really nice lounge.

Or the lotus pond grid.

You can also get some good skin care supplies, or put up a note on the digital bulletin board stating what you’re looking to get done. There might be another new arrival who can give you the stretch or facial you’re looking for. If you’re someone with those skills? Better stick around. Someone might be in need.

Wildcard.

If none of these inspire you—or if all of them do and you just want to add another thing to respond to, it's up to you whether you want to put one response or several in a top level comment, we're good with anything you like—you've got a whole chunk of an empty solarpunk island to do something with. The further you stray from that shoreline the harder you will be to locate by others, but we encourage you to have fun!

Anything that the setting page inspires is probably fair game! Feel free to ask before posting if you've got any questions that reading through the mod journal doesn't yet clarify; consider this a sort of beta run. ♥

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At the mall

I am overdressed, is the second thing Jedao thinks when he emerges from there - in the middle of a blistering firefight - to here. Jedao's been to shopping areas before, although none configured quite like this. He's guessing that his no-longer-legal Kel uniform, worn these days to intimidate the impressionable, is...not what people here wear, based on the outfits he sees in the windows of the shops.

The first thing, which happens almost without conscious thought, is the assessment he does every time he enters a new location: sight lines, angles of fire, ways to set and avoid ambushes. He has his sidearm and a knife, neither of which are going to help him if he's vastly outnumbered in a space this open. And as empty as this place seems, the people he knows and depends on appear to be...missing. Not a good sign.

It's mostly empty indeed, a few people milling around here and there, and the first person to actually catch Jedao's attention is probably the one who talks. Five foot nine, skinny pale young woman with dark hair, big grey scarf, leather jacket, torn up pants.

"Doesn't it blow," Jess says as if they've met a hundred times before, "to just ... suddenly be at the mall? Of all places. The mall. Surprise!"

Jedao quickly assesses the woman. Probably not from the hexarchate, although she could pass from a distance, with that dark hair. He's going to assume she's deadlier than she looks, always a safe assumption in his line of work. Skinny or not, she's got a few inches on him, he's known assassins with that deceptive light build, and who knows what she's hiding under that jacket.

"It beat being shot at," Jedao says easily, making no attempt to suppress his native drawl, "which is what was going on before I landed here. That's assuming we're not about to be shot at, anyway. I'm Jedao, by the way, pleased to meet you. D'you think they have anything decent to drink?"

"... Most things beat being shot at. Have to give you that one. I'm not anticipating any attackers at the moment." Jessica shrugs, her normal slouching posture resulting in her shoulders and earlobes briefly making friends.

The dude definitely looks military. Weird military, but military.

"There's a bar and grill off to the left that's only sort of useless. Good drinks," that she's been drinking out of a plastic cup half the time, "no staff, no food, just ingredients." Oh, right, names: "I'm Jessica. I don't cook."

Jedao's eyebrows raise at the description. "I know my way around a grill if it comes to that," he says, "and I don't mind cooking, but I'm not hungry yet, unless you are?" And: "I only just arrived. How long have you been here? Is it always this sparsely populated? Run by civilians, I presume?"

Of course, his version of "cooking" literally is bar food, but maybe that's not all bad.

"I have been eating vending machine food for the two days I've been in this mall," Jessica offers by way of explanation. It is, technically, not an answer. The vending machine gave her a reasonable facsimile of food. "So not exactly, but on the other hand, I wasn't shot at recently either."

She's been shot at ever, but not recently, and, well: the bar has perfect ingredients for bar food!

"There's basically no one here and everyone who is here has, uh. Not been here long. Or is from here. This entire place has no employees. Haven't been outside yet just in case this is a Romero situation."

"That sounds like a vote for cooking." Jedao smiles his tilted smile, reflex; he's not flirting (or at least, not intending to, not with a stranger at the far end of eternity). The part about everyone being new is more concerning. "I'm definitely not from here, and I take it you aren't either, then. You mentioned vending machines and I don't have any cash, but I'm not even sure my money would be good here if I had it." Especially since he usually relies on fraud or hacking anytime he needs to "pay" for something, but best not to mention that just in case Jessica is some kind of cop.

He heads off to the left, still talking amiably, giving Jessica the option to follow or not. "Are you allergic to anything?" His voice drifts off as he examines the ingredients available. "I could grill some kebobs...I see bell peppers, onions, red meat of some kind..." The real question is what are they going to do for food after this stuff runs out, but that's no reason they shouldn't eat now.

"Oh. Ha. No. I just gave the thing my fingerprint."

She had managed to figure that much out, at least: it had what looked like a fingerprint pad. Apply fingerprint, get M&Ms. Pretzels. A package of weird knock-off Oreos.

"I think I accidentally started a vending machine tab, but since there's no one here to complain I don't have any local currency ... no," she concludes. "No allergies except to really disgusting beer, don't try tap four. You cook, I'll bartend, what do you want?" They're the only ones in the abandoned bar and grill, so it's not like anyone has to pay for the drinks. "I do actually know how. To bartend."

"Fingerprints?" Jedao frowns. "Is someone keeping them on file?" He has occasionally wondered, after waking up in this inconveniently not-quite-human body, if it regenerates small details like fingerprints intact. He never got a chance to find out.

Jedao begins washing and chopping things up for the kebabs, and fires up the grill. He's not an amazing cook, but he's a reasonably good amateur. This is a very nice knife; if he didn't have one of his own, he'd consider purloining it. Except for that bit where Jessica might (still) be a cop. (Are there going to be cops in this strange new world, considering that everything is apparently undefended?) "I'll take any non-disgusting beer that's present," he quips. "Too early in the day for whiskey." He sounds regretful.

"I assume the machine is using it for some kind of tab. This is way more techy than I usually go."

Normally, Jessica would've left to go get drinks, but she's stuck giving Jedao a funny look, because, "There's no too early in the day for whiskey."

"That makes sense," Jedao says, careful to conceal his alarm. Really, what did he expect? There has to be some kind of surveillance here. At least the fact that they haven't been bombed either suggests that his terrible reputation hasn't followed him here, or there's some greater game at work. Fun times.

Jedao eyes Jessica with new appreciation. "Well, if that's how you feel about it, you are a woman after my own heart, and I'd like a whiskey on the rocks, please." He returns his attention to the cooking. Fortunately, kebabs aren't difficult.

He does have some curiosity as to whether his normal (?!) regeneration applies here - he doesn't want to make any bad assumptions - but it would make Jessica look at him even funnier if he burned himself on purpose just to find out.

"I'm a day drinker," is her summation of ... well, everything. Jessica Jones in two words: Day drinker. That's pretty much her assumption of her entire personality at this point. She's not a superhero and she's not a murderer, even if she's done both. (Definitely not a cop.)

Totally a day drinker.

Who knows how to pour whiskey with the skill of a bartender, something she really did used to be; she disappears briefly to return with two identical drinks, one of which is placed where Jedao can get it when he's not actively cooking. Flaming shots are one thing, flaming whiskey tumblers yet another.

"Also I'm not really sure what time it is here besides, apparently, 'daylight.' Didn't get that far."

"I drink whenever there's a supply," Jedao returns, although he files away the fact - if fact it is - for future reference. "Well, not if I'm going to be on watch, or if there's going to be a staff meeting in fourteen minutes. But I daresay liquor is a very common hobby in my line of work."

He finishes grilling the first set of kebobs, plates them nicely, and sets the plate on the counter where Jessica can reach them easily. Then he tosses back the whiskey. "Good stuff," he says appreciatively. He's mostly telling the truth. Everything he eats or drinks has a weird metallic aftertaste, which he gathers is another side-effect of not being human. With any luck, the food will be as sustaining as it smells.

"There's no way of keeping time?" he adds, dismayed; letting the reaction slip before he can cover it. He's trying to imagine it. Everywhere he's ever gone, timekeeping was strictly regulated. "No clocks?"

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test drive!

Shuos Jedao | Machineries of Empire

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