collectedmemes | TEST DRIVE #2

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TEST DRIVE #2

Hi shoppers! Welcome to the second Test Drive Meme for COLLECTED. A few things before we get started:

» This TDM is open to any players who are interested in applying. Collected is an invite-only game, meaning that invites come from being on the mod plurklists, but for this round, our TDM is open to anyone who has an interest. If you are interested in applying but do not have an invite, please PM our mod account (

collectedmods) with a link to your toplevel on this TDM and we will extend an invitation to you! Please note that you can only reserve and apply if you have an invite.

» As was the case in the first TDM, TDM threads are not canon. Because of this, feel free to assume CR for the ease of threads.

» While we’ve listed out some prompts here, feel free to make up your own prompts using the setting, or use any of the prompts from our last TDM as well!

» If you have any questions about what you can and can’t do (or about anything else) reply to the QUESTIONS comment below, and we’ll get back to you soon.

Most importantly, have fun! And thank you so much for your interest in Collected! 🧡

PROMPTS

Have you ever been to a parking lot circus? Well, they exist, and you’re in luck - the circus has come to town! Or rather, it’s come to the mall. For a limited time, a big top has appeared in the dusty, desolate parking lot of the mall. You’ll find a big tunnel vacuum sealed to the front doors of the mall that allows access to and from the tent, so how much could it hurt to go inside?

The tunnel and tent seem to have been crafted with the same skill as the mall was - it somehow keeps the toxic air from outside out. The only difference between the mall and the tent is that the big top doesn’t do as good of a job of keeping the blistering heat out - it’ll protect you from burns, but it’s going to be pretty hot in there underneath the summer sun! Be sure to bring a cold drink on your way in.

Inside the tent, you won’t find any staff or performers, unfortunately. Everything inside the tent seems to be in mint condition, though, strangely enough, as though restored to its former glory - not unlike how some of the stores in the abandoned mall revert back to their pristine states sometimes. While there’s no performance to catch, there is plenty to look at and experience:

I.

Right after coming in through the fun tunnel, the first thing to your right is a collection of popcorn machines, the same kind you’d see at an amusement park where kernels must be poured in. You’ll find several unmarked bags of popcorn right near the machines, and they look decidedly not rotten, unlike most of the food in the mall.

Things are never that easy and simple here, though! Pop a bag of these bad boys and consume some of it and you’ll find yourself with one of the following afflictions:

A. Caramel corn flavor: Loss of sight. Hopefully you trust your companion enough not to attack or steal from you, because you’ll need to navigate to somewhere safe until this one wears off!
B. Extra butter flavor: Loss of hearing. No matter how hard you try, it seems you can’t hear anything around you anymore! Learn to communicate non-verbally with your companion, and quick!
C. Cheddar flavor: Literally just food poisoning. You won’t be feeling so hot!

The only saving grace of these cursed popcorn bags is that there’s an antidote to be found if you have a careful eye: an inscription on the popcorn machines appears once they’ve been warmed from use, and it says, in the case of illness, have a taste of each flavor to get back to square one! You’ll have to suffer a bit more to get back to normal quickly, but.. it’s better than waiting out the effects, right?

II.

While there are no performers to be seen, their costumes can be found in the wardrobes in the back of the circus. They are typical of what you’d expect of a circus: colorful, frilly, and easy to put on, given their stretch. There are even props and accessories lying around like clown noses, jewelry, hula hoops, juggling balls, the whole nine yards. Given the horrible state of all the clothes and other fun items inside the mall, it might be tempting to take some of these outfits and items to repurpose them for your own wardrobe and use.

But be careful: donning these clothes or taking these items will give you the abilities of that circus performer. Wear or pick up anything belonging to a:

A. Clown, and you’ll feel like you need to make your companion laugh. Whether that’s through corny jokes, physical comedy, or other means, you won’t be able to resist.
B. Trapeze artist, and you’ll be blessed with great flexibility, and feel utterly fearless. Maybe that translates into being unafraid to speak your mind, or maybe you’re feeling brave enough to walk the tightrope - either way, nothing’s scaring you anymore.
C. Animal tamer, and you’ll want to train your companion to do tricks and follow your will (and not in the fun way, unless you’re into that).

Costumes of all kinds are here, though, so feel free to find anything that might belong to a circus performer and have the costumes possess you!

III.

All good things must come to an end, sadly. Whatever material the tent and tunnel is made of is not completely as sturdy as what the mall is built of - and after a fun day of activities, the tent and tunnel will begin to deteriorate and be destroyed.

Due to the radioactive sun outside, the top of the tent and tunnel will start to burn and get holes in it eventually, which will let in toxic air and harmful rays - not only that, but fires will start catching inside the tent as well. You’ll need to high tail it out of the circus and head back to the safety of the mall unless you want to fry in the horrible conditions outside. Exposure to the sunlight from outside will give you painful burns and welts, and it’s near impossible to inhale the thick, poisonous air from outside without keeling over.

While you’ll be able to survive limited exposure, it’s not wise to get stuck out here. Besides, you’ll find that upon returning to the mall, your wounds will mysteriously begin to heal, slowly and painfully. So, run quickly, and make sure not to leave anyone behind!

NAVIGATION

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Nope. Never been better.

[ this is about as bold-faced a lie as can possibly be told, even if it's spoken with remarkable confidence. still, the fact that there are trails of dried blood from ears, and her sides, and pretty much everywhere really doesn't do much to help her case.

she looks up abbacchio's way. and then she just... squints, the muscles on her face trying very hard to get her anything more than "long haired blob." with the shitty lights blinding her all through the place, it doesn't seem likely. ]

So, you get visitors often? [ it's still strikingly casual, even if she very noticeably is not letting go of the sword. ]

( with everything else, the trails of blood leaking from her ears almost seem like the least strange thing, but the more harrow's brain turns that fact over and over again, the less it makes sense. necromancy? no. even if her body had the ability, it took years of education, research, study, and practice to conceive of, memorize, and enact a necromantic formula — she wouldn't have the wherewithal, and even if she did, one had to trip through a few more states before they started bleeding from the ears.

subarachnoid hemorrhage? she's no querulous scribe of the Sixth, but harrow has been the watchful boatman for enough passages from this side to the River to know most of the causes. she has no proof, but it's the only medical reason that makes sense.

her expression to the retort is not necessarily angry as it is exhausted — a gloved hand separates from the flowing folds of her sleeve to impatiently gesture, as if to literally brush it away. the situation has robbed whatever relief she might have felt at being reunited with her cavalier after the longest period of separation from her since they were both miniature and snot-nosed (though there is still some shard of relief still wedged in there, like a piece of very tenacious shrapnel). in its place is a whirlwind of confusion and nerve-tingling alarm.

it tests what small amount of patience harrowhark possesses. ) Can you, in respect of what is going on, for once cease in trying — in vain, I will add — to be humorous and make some damned sense?

( but even as she is saying it, her brain continues to ceaselessly work, turning over all bit and scraps of information presented to it and forming every permutation of possible solution it could piece together between them until something sticks. she gives pause, remembering the actual phrase (not nav's bastardized version of it) and its origin, scribbled on a piece of flimsy in a study by a necromancer and his cavalier some ten thousand years ago.

as they searched for what she had been searching for, back in canaan house: the lyctoral secret.

because one tends to act similarly, given the sudden understanding of something, even in different circumstances, harrow is almost a mirror image of how she had been standing before another newborn lyctor, crouched before a wall which stretched out, dripping and red: YOU LIED TO US. )

Oh, fuck. ( her gaze sharpens its focus, and she pulls out her journal, flipping through its myriad pages. ) The megatheorem.

( first of all: she's irate that palamedes sextus was right. he would never let her live it down, and she hates him doubly more than she already did for that. but also: it makes sense in a way that she hadn't wanted it to, viewing the trials which had all required the willing cooperation between necromancer and cavalier to merely be metaphorical and not literal. she doesn't have all of the pieces — she hadn't done all of the trials, gotten all of the keys, read all of the theorems — but she can see the shape out of it out of the ones she has inscribed in her diary, all gathered together and overlaid over what she saw before her. she lowers it, staring at gideon now with her dark eyes a storm of many different things: confusion, denial — betrayal? of the worst kind, and one she was very familiar with: when one betrayed themself. )

... No. This is wrong. I — I wouldn't.

[ when lottie says no, claudia's absolutely perplexed. she has yet to have a solid grasp on the concept of this rumored electricity thing because she hasn't seen it in action herself, but if that's what this is, then it's pretty amazing. especially since it's not being run on magic.

she smiles a little as the popcorn starts to fill up more, but then there's the mention of a "microwave"-- ]

What's a microwave? [ a beat, then: ] No, hang on -- if there's a book back in the building where I can read up on all of this stuff, tell me where I can find it. Science, magic...same thing, right?

[ not at all, claudia. not at all. ]

i.

[There is a grizzled old voice saying,] ...can't do anything about this, right? [over the quiet sound of crunching.] Mm, no. Probably not good. [One would think the tall, black-clad man would be exceedingly old by the sound of the voice.

But when he steps back to turn and acknowledge whoever approaches for popcorn, the face under the hat is young and beautiful.]

I wouldn't advise eating any.

[His voice is stoic, but gentle. Not at all like the voice heard before.]

iii.

[The heat in the tent hadn't been so bad before, so long as the sun wasn't there. Now the sun is very much here, and D is realizing almost immediately things aren't going to turn out well. For him, or anyone else.

But he doesn't run for the tunnel and the mall. He dodges piercing beams of light filing in from the disappearing circus top and flames, and heads farther inward at a brisk pace. It doesn't look like he's having a great time against sun and poisonous air, but he won't leave people behind, unfortunately.]

Can you run? [He really should sound way less level about all this.] We need to leave quickly.

[ ah. the way he says that with such incredulity tells her that he's another one of those people who've never heard of magic before. she looks at him with a small grin on her face. ]

Yeah, a sun magic spell! I'd show you one right now if I had a sun staff on me, buuuut...

[ she stays on the opposite side of the machine -- keith can come around if he wants. but she puts a hand on her hip and snaps her fingers together once -- twice, since the first time didn't work. then, a small flame appears in the palm of her hand, illuminating the area around her. ]

See? Magic.

[ she wants, so badly, to bite back at that. for once? she's had nine months to keep her mouth shut. harrow can handle a few bad responses. but even more than the temptation to be a shit just because she can, even stronger, is the quiet hope that harrow will understand - or maybe even that she won't, that she'll refuse to wrap her mind around the facts presented and chase some other wild theory. so she stays silent when chided, watching harrow's face like a mirror...

and of course she gets it first try. there's a weird sort of pride to the thought, even if it's tempered by something neither of them would ever allow her to call "pity." ]

Yep. The megatheorem.

[ she watches harrow carefully through shaded eyes, waiting for... something. anything. how long does she have before harrow tries something stupid again? she could lie- ha, fat chance, the reverend daughter would never get suckered by something like that. so instead, she grits her teeth and goes for the kidney punch that is truth. ]

No. You wouldn't. I had to kick things off for you. [ there's a distant bitterness to her voice, one that sounds almost at home in harrowhark's acidic tones - but not a regret, weirdly. no time for regret. ] Nonagesimus, before you do something we're both going to regret - that's my job, remember? - you need to promise me something.

[He's being nosy, as one does when they are a ten thousand year old hunter and not-professional scientist.

As tall and adorned as he is, no one would exactly expect him to move as silently as he does when he looks into the wardrobe. Hm. He pauses when he spots the chronic manspreader, eyes dropping to the bag and the sword.]

Hello, [is all he says in greeting, but it sounds purposeful on his part even if it lacks any emotion.]

( when pouring over the information that she had available (which she still does even here, with all of this new time), she considers all possibilities based on the fragments of the picture that she has. perhaps she has brushed against the truth of it a few times, but she had set it aside out of hand — she had placed her hope in the elegance of necromancy in action and that such a sacred and holy secret would not be so obvious and monstrous.

she makes another impatient gesture with her hands, and the two skeletal constructs turn and stalk away, taking up sentinel positions in the center of the two hallways which conjoined on their position. she takes another few steps closer, only a few feet away from her own lyctoral body now, and she stops when she hears the answer. tension arrests her expression, several lines standing out in her neck as she clenches her jaw. the sickly sort of betrayal she had presented dries up, grows brittle, and burns away in an instant; in its place is a pain far more novel, a treason far more close to her shriveled heart because it had been inflicted by the only person she had ever decided to trust, all secrets laid bare, fully and completely. )

You—

( her instinct — an old one, and one that she is only vaguely ashamed of — is to lash out in her pain, to skewer gideon with lances of barbed words, trying to dig out the regret or the guilt wherever it hid (or gouge out the shape of it, if it didn't). but she can't. not in this moment, not with the embarrassment of a lump in her throat she was having difficulty working around. her teeth grind, and her eyelids flutter for a moment before resolving into a harsh gaze under heavy, furrowed brows. when she responds, the word is thick and beleaguered, having been forced through the emotional wringer that is her state: ) What?

Edited (its completely useless but my was part of my first idea for this so i edit) 2020-08-09 22:36 (UTC)

[ figaro's more interested in the popcorn than the machine itself, though he doesn't make a move to help himself to a couple of bites right now. he tilts his head curiously at claudia's query, however. ]

It looks too simplistic enough for a mere sun spell, though. Maybe it's run by another energy resource? I wouldn't put it past this place that there are mana stones lying around here.

[ that's even freakier, heck. ]

[ he waves a hand, it's fine. ]

That's all right. I'm a doctor myself, so these are all the kind of jokes I know. But since you laughed, that means I did something right there!

[ he's grinning, but then he realizes something. ]

You said "were", so does that mean...

[ being stuck in a necromancer's body doesn't make a lot of sense when you're a dipshit cavalier. for one, necromancers are puny, or at least harrow is. for another, cavaliers aren't, or at the very least you sure as shit weren't.

but more confusing than anything else is the feelings that exist in the world around you. like a sixth sense you've suddenly become aware of but have no words to describe. you know well enough what it is you're feeling, thanergy and thalergy, and harrow's memories give some tiny bit of understanding, but even that's not much. just enough to have the names. just enough to feel the shift in the air and know that someone's in here with you. someone silent. someone who is most assuredly a threat, meaning you need to get off your ass and-

oh, fuck, he said hello. change of plans. ]

Hey. [ she doesn't jump when he speaks, but she does visibly relax a bit - the hand on her sword's hilt loosening up. ] This seat yours?

"I'm sorry," Sabriel says through gritted teeth. Part of it's simple frustration, and part of it's the sudden surge of pain from her injuries. Her tone is blankly polite, any audible sign of frustration buried beneath years of etiquette training.

"I don't know what an android is, or where Detroit is, but I apologize deeply for misunderstanding. I-" Sabriel looks down at her hands, and her frown deepens. Her injuries hurt, but they're healing far quicker than they should. Sabriel looks from her injuries to the stranger's face, realization dawning.

"Do your wounds normally heal so quickly?"

[ there's a tone in harrow's voice that's far too familiar and far too painful to think about right now. of course she's angry. can't stand the idea of being anything less than purely self-sufficient, right? can't stand the idea of being bound to her. but she's got to focus, because right now- ]

I don't know what the fuck either of us did to get here. And I sure as shit don't know why you've forgotten a completely new set of things. But I'm about to tell you a lot of stuff that you don't want to hear. [ not probably. she knows it for a fact already. ] And I need you to promise you're not going to carve it out of your fucking brain the second I look the other way. Got it?

[ hastily, still with a bit of that earlier irritation- ] No getting Tridentarius to do it either. Still counts.

I think it's technology. [Sabriel's certainly seen popcorn machines in Ancelstierre.]

I'm surprised it's still working though, considering the state of everything else here. In my experience, technology needs regular maintenance to work reliably.

The profession is pretty ripe for some good dad jokes.

[Oh yeah. She forgets that most people don't talk about their parents like that around here.]

Yeah. They're gone.

Don't. I heard you the first time.

[ they understood the joke; they're just not laughing. Because they're mean. ]

Yeah, me either. So maybe don't take any advice from me.

[She likes to try to make Lev laugh. It rarely works. She waves a hand.]

Nah. Apparently that means you're laughing at your own joke which is an egregious joke telling sin.

Ah, I apologize. I lost my parents at a young age too, so I get it.

[ kind of. it's a long, long time ago. ]

Well, wanna tell me a better doctor dad joke? I think I'm running out of material here.

( yes, that was a part of it. to harrow, self-sufficiency was like a compulsion. she had learned to be reflexive with it since before she turned ten years old.

but that wasn't the only part of it, gideon, you impertinent canker, you vindictive swine-with-the-sunglasses-still-on. it's hard to imagine, sure, but perhaps harrow had cautiously come to terms with standing on equal ground with someone for once, even if the innate vulnerability of such a thing gave instinctual rise to the gall in the back of her throat. she's stood alone for so long. aiglamene and crux were aides to her, certainly, but she had treated them as accessories more than appendages — using strings of duty and service she had puppeted their living bodies just as she had necromantically puppeted her parents' deceased ones. canaan house had been a long and difficult lesson of learning to let go of her need to accomplish everything herself, assisted only in the ways that she allowed, and to reach out to someone else.

and so you would take it upon yourself to dash all of that, to throw yourself willingly upon the pyre of the two-hundred-plus souls that comprised harrowhark nonagesimus, even when those were already quite heavy enough? you short-sighted, obstinate ass.

she is roughly four and a half seconds away from absolutely Losing Her Shit, but she waits for her cavalier to speak, for some reason.

it's far too specific to be a hypothetical. she doesn't have the exact idea of what she's getting at, but it's enough of it silhouette for her to have a vague approximation. it also gives her an idea of the answer for her next question, posed in a mad rush like air escaping from a valve when the pressure had become just too much: ) Which Tridentarius?

( but of course it would be ianthe, wouldn't it? to repurpose a previous metaphor, those two were the hands of a sleight-of-hand magician — everyone watched the beautiful, room-arresting coronabeth (including you, gideon, because of course harrow had noticed that), but harrow had watched her wan, slump-shouldered shadow. and she had watched her scurry through the darkened veins and arteries of canaan house like a rat in its warren, scraping together scraps of information where others carelessly left them.

there is a devastating moment of silence where she wrangled internally with it all, in still mentally processing the whole of it but also being forced into a position to reply with clarity at the same time. so she says something, and it takes the shape of something she would only share with gideon nav: an admission of personal fault, even if it was wrapped in her customary biting, haughty tones: ) You know I am no good with meat, tissue, or offal. And I am not so fast to lobotomize myself. ( she is shamed to know she would stoop so low as to ianthe tridentarius for help in something like that, but — she is aware of her limitations she takes a short, shaky breath, holds it for a moment, and then releases it in the words, ) Go ahead. Speak.

Oh! That's a relief. I thought you couldn't laugh at all.

Want me to tell you another one?

[Sabriel can feel the surge of magic, lacking both the familiarity of the Charter and the harshness of Free magic, but when she sees what he's done... She takes the sugar and looks at it like he just handed her some precious gems.]

Did you make these out of nothing?

[She can't hide her wonder- as far as she knows, while magic can reshape the world, it can't make something from nothing.]

No. [It's polite. Not necessarily quiet, or soft so much as subdued. But it's not cold either.] You will need to eat the others.

Unless you don't mind being blind.

[Not much moves when he shifts to glance around from beneath the brim of the hat, nothing except the bottom end of the cloak. The weight of his feet, though, are heavier than they had been when he approached before.]

If D is worried about the defense, or the mark, he doesn't show it. He does, however, stop completely. Like an act of good faith. The look of him is intimidating, but that has always been the point. Tall, ghastly pale and almost grey, with dark clothes to make him seem broader, and a hat to conceal most of his face. A sword, too, yet it remains on his back, and he doesn't reach to remove it.

The thing about D is, he isn't completely like the dead, but he is something not entirely alive, beating heart and warm skin aside.

"I don't intend to harm you," he says in a polite voice.

His stillness gives Sabriel pause- he's not attacking, or preparing to attack. So she lets the spell slip away, the marks fading back into the Charter, and she changes her grip, shifting her sword to a guard position- and revealing the inscription on it.

I was made for Abhorsen, to slay those already Dead

"Then what do you intend- and what are you? You feel neither alive nor Dead?" It's a puzzle- and a potentially dangerous one. Dead creatures are dangerous driven by their hunger for Life. But the man in front of her isn't hostile, and might be able to tell her where she is- and perhaps even how to get back.

Ianthe. One of three Lyctors still alive.

[ and there's the first truth: three lyctors in all the empire's reach. three lyctors over the vast, dead emptiness of space. that one's for free. she waits for harrow to agree, and even if she'd really rather hold out for the words "i promise" the fact that harrow's even speaking is basically as good.

she straightens her back - tall, at attention, the sword gripped naturally in her hand even as its weight lugs it down to the floor. gideon nav shines through harrow's vestments. ]

It's been nine months since Canaan House. About twenty-four hours since you fucked off to who knows where, leaving me with- [ she reaches up to rap one bony knuckle against an upper bicep. ] these. Thanks for that, by the way. I thought you'd at least do push-ups or something.

[ her hand drops back down to her side. judging by the tightly pursed lips on harrow's double, the tension to her shoulders... she's not joking around right now. ]

Which leaves an hour at most since the assassination attempt on the Emperor. And that's not even getting into the planet revenants! A lot of shit has gone down in, let me be frank, the most fucked-up, awful, very bad day of my fucking life. And now, here you are, missing even more memories.

[ her hands grip into tight fists around the sword. she speaks, angry and still growing accustomed to a body and brain that aren't her own- ]

If you did this, I'm going to kick your bony ass. And if someone else did this to you, I swear to you, I'm going to make them regret every second left of their existence.

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TEST DRIVE #2

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d | vampire hunter d | yet again i am in the tdm

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popcorn

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Popcorn

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Sweet escape

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arrival

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