farsickooc | Test Drive Meme #1

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*test drive meme

Test Drive Meme #1

Welcome to Fernweh's Test Drive Meme! Do you have an interest in joining the game? Need to make sure the setting works for you and your character first? Or have you made the decision to join the game and need fresh samples for your application? Whatever the reason, feel free to use the scenarios however you wish.

You know what to do! If you don’t, just follow the instructions.

How To Play:

→ Comment with the character you would like to test drive (duplicates are allowed)
→ Choose a scenario or start your own
→ Tag around
→ Have fun!

SCENARIOS

01. Arrival

You have been sitting and staring at the sign above you for some time now, lost in a blur of swirling questions that seems to start with how you ended up there; in a place (and time, maybe) that you know you weren't an hour earlier. Or maybe you're an old hand at this by now and you've figured out that this is simply another stop that the multiverse bus has made. So why not get off and look around a little?

At any rate, the sign points you towards the direction of a place called "Gazin", which looks like a decent-sized town from where you stand. There has to be someone who can explain.

02. Around Town

So, you've settled in. Well, mostly. At least you know where things are without taking too many wrong turns and ending up in the less desirable areas of town. But now you can go about your day. Visit the market, check out the local shops or have a drink with a new friend at one of several inns.

03. Exploring

You've heard people talk about some pretty interesting places and now you're itching to get out and find them. Be careful though, there are creatures and monsters out there that will be pretty interested in meeting you and may wish to have you for its next meal. Better take someone along. And maybe some weapons, too. Make sure one is made of silver.

04. Monsters

So, you managed to find that location you were looking for. Good for you! Only.. it seems you've also found one of the native creatures to the area and you now face to face with it. Um. Good luck! We'll see you when you get back!

Hopefully.

05. Celebration

It won't take long for you to figure out that people of Gazin are, all in all, pretty happy people. It shows, too, when a seemingly quiet evening suddenly bursts into a random, impromptu party to celebrate whatever good fortune has touched a person. Name Days, good harvests, betrothals, weddings, or just life in general.

Sing, dance, drink and be happy, too!

06. Wild Card!

Want something else? Feel free to choose your own adventure or mix and match to create something completely different!

NAVIGATION

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Arrival

Sweeney was, in a word, drunk. Not the kind of good natured 1am, here to party kind of drunk. He was the kind of drunk that one worked on until they'd cleared out every close local of their anything that contained alcohol and no one would sell you anymore. The kind that only ended in you passing out or worse, you sobering up into a hangover.

The ungodly groan that the tall man gave from his leafy 'grave' just outside of town by all of maybe 10 feet sounded more like something dying than something living, and it took another full minute for him to roll onto his hands and knees, another loud groan of protest at life to get him to his feet where he clenched his head between the heels of his hands.

It only took a crack of his eyes to see something very disconcerting for the nearly 7 foot man. "They've stolen my fucking boot." The sky was glanced at - a bad decision based on the squint and recoil, one hand coming to cover his eyes.

"Give me back my fucking boot!" he demanded of no one in particular, accent notably Irish but far from heavy.

Exploring

No one could really tell him how he came here, much less where he actually was. They kept repeating names at him to the point where it all sounded like nonsense and Sweeney found himself stalking off out of town, frustrated, sober, and ornery. Someone had to know. Someone had to have a better answer to 'Where are your gods' than laughing at him.

"I bet you're laughin', aren't you, you one eyed fuck," he muttered up at the sky.

As he came up across a small band of farmland, his stomach rumbled. It wasn't going to be the first time he stole food, and it wasn't going to be the last, but at least farmlands were something he was familiar with moving through. Sweeney and his one boot crept up on the farmstead, eyes sharply sweeping for any signs of life.

Claire has only been there a couple of days herself, the first of which was her looking unmoved and almost defeated. But she's been through this before, only the first time she had came to underwater. In a fountain. Across the multiverse in some mining camp. Needless to say, finding herself at a sign, across the multiverse in some medieval land was a great deal more preferred.

She hasn't made a plan yet and knows her purpose there is likely for the same reason she got transported to the settlement: her skills. But modern medicine isn't really a thing in this new place and so the night nurse had to adapt. Quickly.

Without really thinking too much about it, Claire ends up back where she arrives as part of a walk she decides to go on and ends up hearing the stern voice of a very Irish man.

Stopping a good distance behind him, she listens to his complaint, then closes an eye and carefully looks up into the sky.

"I don't think that's how you arrived," Claire answers instead, moving her gaze to him. "I mean I can't confirm that for sure but.."

"Doesn't matter how I got here," he grumbled back in response, unevenly heading for the thicker treeline and something solid to lean against. "Never matters, by boat, by fuckin' spear, by a twist of curses." He touched his busted lip, dried blood tight on his skin as his other hand started to pat himself down.

Sweeney looked like he'd gone through hell, though hell was just a very rough bar in New Orleans where he had earned himself no friends but had gained a black eye, a broken rib and a swollen and bleeding lip.

"Where the fuck is this? Missouri?" One of his last cigarettes was kicked out and stuck between his lips, as crooked and damaged as the man lighting it up with a wince.

His terse response isn't taken personally. Arriving in an unknown place, with some unknown person talking at them like they knew them. At least Claire isn't pretending to be some know-it-all, but when the man turns enough that his face becomes visible, the nurse does move to get a better look. It's not often a person will arrive in these kinds of places looking like they were straight out from a UFC tournament. No, most times, there's some healing thing happening between the worlds.

"Not Missouri," she confirms with a shake of her head, watching him, looking for any signs of pain that he might be in. Claire can't help it, it's her default. "Wait, do you often find yourself that drunk you end up in random American states like Missouri?"

She definitely caught trailing whiff of some residual potent alcohol on him.

"That's a silver fucking lining. Hate Missouri. Ohio too." Settling against a tree with a breathy grunt, Sweeney took another draw, looking her over just as boldly back. Yes, he hurt. Breathing hurt. Drinking would hurt. But that wasn't going to stop him from doing it. A face like his has seen a lot of the wrong end of fists, but he gave as good as he got, apparent by the scuffs and bruises on his knuckles.

"I go where I'm told. Big Man likes the midwest. Less questions." He took another puff. "Who are you then?" Not a god, he could tell that much and that was in her favor. Sweeney didn't feel like getting looked down on by one today.

Claire was about to share that she'd never been, but something told her that he wouldn't care to know that sort of information about someone he doesn't know, so, she continues to quietly assess his condition, all the while listening. The guy wasn't altogether rude but the nurse got the feeling he could turn and be an asshole pretty quickly. That reminds her of someone else she knows.

Frank Castle.

"Someone who arrived here the same way you did a few days ago," she answers, looking towards Gazin briefly before looking back to the new arrival. "My name is Claire. And who are you?"

The question comes now with a bit of Bronx Latina's attitude in her voice. Nothing rude, but enough to show she can hold her own.

It would only have started a rant on said states and while his voice wasn't half bad, in his opinion, she probably didn't want jump on that train.

"I'm called Mad Sweeney," he answered, one hazel eye on her as he drew from his bent smoke, pulling it away from his lips as he continued. "But you can just call me Sweeney."

There was no disputing the Mad part. "I'm a leprechaun."

It was the slightest bit of fun to see how people took it; to assume he was just a drunk or otherwise properly insane. Claire looked like a grounded person - clean and comfortable in her clothes like normal people.

Luckily, Claire has heard an Irish accent before and although Sweeney was dead face serious while making the introduction, she figures that was his way of telling her where he was from. It doesn't quite dawn on her yet that he's being serious in the most literal of ways.

"A leprechaun," she echoes, wondering how much of this is also drunk talk. Yet, there's also a side that reminds her of where she is, where she's been and who she's made friends with along the way and before he can accuse her of not believing him, she nods slowly. When she speaks again she's also serious. "For someone associated with good luck, it doesn't look like you have much in the way of stores for yourself? Or does it not work that way?"

It's a fair assumption. Sweeney was fairly drunk and there was no hiding his inebriation, though he wished he was much more far gone. Perhaps then he could have some real fun, when he couldn't remember it.

"Oh, it does, but I lost my luck. Fucking Generosity - I grabbed the wrong coin. Or the right one if you're the Dead Wife." Sweeney took another draw, one eye squinted at her.

"You ever seen real magic? C'mere and I'll show you the best coin trick in the midwest."

If he didn't sound drunk before, he sure did now. Dead Wife?

"Can't say as I have," Claire replies, hesitating a long moment before stepping down the little incline towards the tree. Maybe she's being a little too trusting but him being drunk gave her an advantage. Or so she thinks.

When she gets close enough, she furrows a brow inquisitively. "You going to make one appear from behind my ear?"

"I'll make one appear from yer ass if you like," Sweeney promised with a pull of a well fitting impish kind of grin as he raised one bruised hand, fingers rubbing against themselves to produce a short stream of gold coins that clicked against each other as they fell into the grass at their feet.

"A fat lot of good gold is for living." It didn't get him out of what he owed - nothing but the debt repaid would fill that bill, and in a breath, something priceless to others was near worthless to him.

His tongue stuck out, coin pressed into his tongue falling to join the others as he did it again and again, like someone spitting.

"I'd bet three of those coins that they don't have anything like that in... You never told me where this is. Are you sure it's not Illinois? No Hotel America down the road?"

There wasn't a shortage of magicians or illusionists in New York, but it was pretty easy to tell the good ones from the bad ones. This guy? He was pretty damn good. Slightly weird in a David Blaine kind of way, but damn good. No use of smoke and mirrors here. And as she watches the coins drop out of his mouth, her expression is definitely one of awe. Claire looks impressed.

"People here call it the World. But the town over there is called Gazin and it's somewhere in the multiverse," she answers, looking to see if there's any confusion with her saying that much. She continues. "You're not going to find a Hotel America anywhere around here. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's still several hundred years from happening."

Claire steps back and gives a nod, with a small smirk.

"So, if you can make coins appear like that you should be able to conjure up another boot."

It was the only boost to his self-esteem he had anymore, that awe upon her face and he looked suitably satisfied before his eyebrows raised, lips curling around his cigarette again, propping it there even as he breathed it in. No, he wasn't worried about cancer.

'The Multiverse' got Sweeney's attention, brow furrowing in new focus on her before he scoffed at her assertion, eyes set back to wandering the scant horizon. No Hotel America, no Gods, no Wednesday. Shit.

"And how many boots do you keep in your Horde?" he both asked and accused, taking another almost angry draw. "It's meant for important things, not whatever shit product comes out of Michigan. I want the bastard who took the one that matches this one - they're broken in." They were his favorite, what could he say.

Not many smokers did. Not until it was too late anyway. Still, even being a nurse, Claire wasn't in the habit of lecturing anyone, least of all someone she doesn't know.

Her gaze moves off, giving a shrug as she steps up the incline a few steps and lowers down to sit on a fallen tree that appears to be hacked up on one end, most likely for someone's woodburning oven.

"Okay, well, I don't know what to say," Claire replies, furrowing her brows defensively. "Chances are it was stolen before you got here so you might want to move on and get over it."

Claire looks at him, deciding then and there that she wasn't going to take his bullshit attitude. Getting up again, she gestures with a flick of her head towards Gazin.

"Town has shops where you can find a pair. Hell, I saw a few drunks passed out behind the tavern yesterday and they had some decent looking boots on if you want to get a pair for free."

Sweeney watched her come closer and settle, hazelnut eyes following her movement and a bare smirk given at her admission. But it dropped quickly at the idea that he abandon his best set of boots in far too many years.

"Get over it," he scoffed. "You obviously don't understand the value of a good broken in pair," he accused. "Stole those off a drunk too." The sad wheel of his reality made her suggestion terribly fitting. He frowned slightly at his cigarette, wishing desperately it was a fifth of jack.

"Fuckin' Gazin it is, I suppose. No towncar around with the smug bastard in it to ferry me away." He took one last drag before dropping it to the ground, grinding it into the grass with his one boot tip. "They better have whiskey or beer."

Who he was threatening wasn't clear, but it wasn't Claire, for all his grump and bluster.

There's a slight, almost obscure little victory grin as she turns towards Gazin. Yes, this one definitely reminds her of Frank in more than a few ways and it makes her miss the settlement and the people there but she would do well to focus on that.

"They have both," Claire replies, nodding. When Sweeney has fallen in stride, she glances towards him. "Who are you talking about? And why does he ferry you away?"

Whoever it is it seems the multiverse has one of them, too.

Sweeney grunted - the only form of approval he was going to be able to manage just now.

"Wednesday, the right old cunt," he swore in introduction. "Ridin' around the back roads of middle america in his land yacht of a Buick. Betty, he calls her. Stinks like aspercreme and crow piss, when he's not making me walk my ass to Wisconsin. This place, you're better for being rid of him, trust me. Brings nothin' but trouble to anyone he crosses."

Oh the loaded stories behind all that.

He looked at Claire sidelong again. "You said you arrived. Where'd you come from?"

Sweeney isn't the only one who chose this farmstead as a target. Of course, Elaine had gotten there first, and she'd successfully been hiding in the cornfield nearest the cellar for a while now, watching, waiting.

A deep, masculine sigh reverberates in her head. This is taking too long. We're going to waste away in this field. In this oppressive sun. Just let me kill him or get inside already.

Elaine does nothing but roll her eyes at the voice of her constant companion, her focus remaining on the farmer leading what seems to be the last of his horses back to his barn. She heard the voice of his wife inside calling for supper not too long ago, too, and the smell of hot cooked food is making her ache with impatience.

Okay, maybe Dougal did have a point, this was taking too long. But she still wasn't willing to risk a kill that would inevitably turn into two so close to town. Anyway, they were simple working folks, they didn't deserve to be set upon by the sadistic demon in her head. They wouldn't miss a jar or two of food on so plentiful a farm. She wasn't in this to hurt anyone if she didn't have to.

She's close to her moment, the moment to dash across the open grass to the cellar door. The farmer is closing the latch on the barn and about to turn around and walk to the main house..

But she hears something behind her. A rustle of corn leaves too concentrated to be a breeze. Uneven footfalls, barely audible. Soft, hard, soft, hard.

Crouched and hidden expertly, as if blending into the shadows between the stalks of corn themselves, Elaine carefully and silently pulls out two daggers from the many belts around her waist, and turns, ever so carefully, to witness whoever or whatever is attempting to sneak up behind her. She's a lithe and fair-skinned human dressed in dark and flexible leathers, her long red hair pulled back into a single braid, a smattering of freckles decorating every inch of the exposed skin on her face and neck. The rogue's brown perceptive eyes wait coolly, her heartbeats strong and rhythmic in her chest, her dexterous hands at the ready.

Edited 2020-02-10 05:08 (UTC)

When Sweeney swept the landscape, he was looking out, not down - a tactic that wasn't really the wisest but mad men weren't wise, not anymore, and while he kept his hulking frame low, it was hard for a man his height to hide, even in the tallest grass found here. Still, it was an improvement over the disruptiveness of standing upright. He was still half drunk, half hungover, and less than graceful in his tromp through the field.

You think he'd have seen her, so nearby, but Sweeney wasn't paying any real attention and hadn't in over a century, at least.

He didn't and inside three strides, Sweeney was tripping over the woman with a colorful swear as he thumped to the ground. "What the actual fuck," he managed before he hit the ground, arms wide to catch his weight and cast an accusatory glare at her.

"What the fuck are you doing in my field?" This was clearly his.. mark, somehow. "Fuckin' Hell," he swore again under his breath as he pushed back to his feet only to hunch. "This is my mark, you oughta find your own."

In the moment before his leg knocked into her and he tripped, ow, her keen eyes took note of the source of the strange gait she'd heard coming. He only has on one boot. The other foot looks like it's seen some travel, some road. She finds it curious that instead of taking the remaining one off that he's kept it on.

It speaks to his stubbornness even more than the words that come out of his mouth. He's very quick to admit that not only he is up to no good but that he feels entitled to the spoils he's quite literally fallen into.

Daggers still at the ready as he's finished asserting himself, Elaine exhales through her nose, taking a quick glance back over her shoulder at the farmhouse. At least the farmer didn't hear him before he went inside.

Elaine turns her attention back on the nuisance hunching next to her. Sharp dark brown eyes peer at him as if seeing right through him, her talent for insight quickly working on getting a feel for what he's about. After a tense moment, she seems to make a decision, and she sheathes her daggers. Her face is not one that smiles much and especially not in the presence of strangers that decide to make their bullshit her business, but there's something lighter in her previously grave and focused expression. Something lighter that takes a few years off of her prematurely weathered face, but not necessarily something friendly.

"Maybe," she replies, her voice dark and raspy. "Or maybe we can both get what we want." Her accent is nondescript, close to generic American to his ear, but difficult to place. She rubs her shin where his boot kicked her as he fell, her eyes never leaving his, even if or especially if it makes him uncomfortable. "What is it that you're here to steal?"

A beat. Her eyebrow raises just ever so slightly.

"Shoes?"

Edited 2020-02-25 06:45 (UTC)

If only she knew how poor his remaining boot was. It might have been logical to ditch his other boot, even him out, but that would suggest more fucks given than Sweeney had been gifted with for more than a number of years.

But he wasn't that kind of threat, not right now, not in the state he was in. The only threat he was, was to a good meal and a new bottle of mead. Ale. Anything in a bottle, really. He eyed her daggers with no real note of concern, not out of arrogance but out of the aforementioned lack of fucks. He didn't expect to get stabbed unless he gave her a reason and was numbly glad to see she agreed.

She looked like.. a memory, somehow. A ghost of a people long gone that came with early morning mists and the magic and faiths of old. It was probably the red and the freckles. She could have passed as his sister. Not that he'd ever had one.

"If they've got it, yeah," he replied, defensive in tone but only like her suggestion had been absurdly obvious. He did know he was missing one. Before he could get say much more, his stomach rumbled again, gripping in pain and making him put a silencing hand over it as he dared her to say anything, jaw set in his pride. It didn't look like he had much left to cling to.

They were at a silent impasse, a silent battle of wills.

"And anything else they're dumb enough to not keep eyes on. Cheese. Meats.. Beans." There was a slight cave in his expression at the thought but he snapped back to attention like he'd almost forgot he wasn't half assed posturing. "And I'm not sharin'."

It was a lie, even if he didn't know it. He wouldn't eat in front of someone else without guilt weighing him down enough to at least offer one bite. But that's what he assumed she was also there for.

"You plannin' on killing one of his pigs, or just him with those toothpicks?"

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Test Drive Meme #1

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Arrival

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Exploring

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