empatheias_ooc | TEST DRIVE: NOVEMBER

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!mod,
*test drive

TEST DRIVE: NOVEMBER

— TEST DRIVE: NOVEMBER —

Welcome to

empatheias' test drive meme. This test drive is to help interested players test their characters in the game's environment. We've included a few prompts that incorporate specific elements of the game, though you'll find all of them have a lot of leeway for players to get as creative as necessary. Before diving in, here are a few things we'd like to remind everyone about the game in general:

Date reminders. Reserves open Tuesday, October 25 and Applications (Canon | OC) open Tuesday, November 1st.
OC Reminder! Just a quick reminder that original characters are allowed. Those interested can also use the test drive. OCs do not need to be reserved.
Emotions are key! Empatheias' premise focuses on how anyone's emotions can affect their environment, be it big or small. While not every emotion will cause a reaction, significant ones definitely will. How much effect a character will have will ultimately be up to you, the player. Also, while we're giving a lot of leeway for the test drive, keep in mind that there will be some limits in the actual game.
Everyone has an amulet. All characters have a unique amulet that is specialized for them. It will contain all of their emotion drops and it serves as the network device. Remember, communication is telepathic. Otherwise, it works basically the same.
Assume the character is already in the game. Because "OMG WHERE AM I IS THIS REAL LIFE" threads aren't going to be very helpful in this test drive! Plus those are going to happen in-game, anyway. So to make things easier, just assume that they've been around at least a week or so. Still learning the ropes, but not a complete "first day" experience.
First or third person allowed. Your threads can be in either first or third, but we'd advise being flexible about it. Remember, these threads can also be used in your application for samples! Reminder: We only require one sample and it can be done in either format. We have also made a change to our sample requirements, so look over the Applications page!

Now with that out of the way, here are some prompts you guys can work from!

PROMPTS

• Prompt A: How about giving the emotions a try?

• Prompt B: Refer to the Task Board and choose a task your character may be interested in taking up. For this prompt, you could have your character ask for help, already be in the middle of the job, or react to it in some way. Perhaps they were an unfortunate victim or want to create a job countering an existing one. You could even have a prompt making a job request. Creating jobs for the purpose of the test drive is absolutely doable.

• Prompt C: How about giving the amulets a go? Start a telepathic conversation and see how it works. Remember, the amulets are sending out the owner's thoughts so might want to be careful about how the stream of consciousness goes...

• Prompt D: The Boreas Harvest Festival is fast approaching, and the farmers are trying hard to work through the bleak weather conditions to get their crops in before they go bad from all the apathy. All hands on deck—but there may be too many unwanted hands roaming around.

Scarecrows. The scarecrows that have been set up as a festive reminder of the time of year have unfortunately come under the influence of some errant strong emotions from the farm hands that work in the fields. Unfortunately that includes trying to ward off anyone who enters the fields with pitchforks and is one of them carrying a torch? Maybe if they can be convinced that you are trustworthy they will calm down.
Invading rabbits. There are ton of rabbits ravaging the carrot patches. They're easily frightened, but some are more tenacious than others. Beware of the white rabbit with red eyes.
Save the crops! Several batches are already starting to spoil! The only thing that can save them is dumping as much positive emotions into them. Joy of good food, hope for a bountiful meal, love of eating—whatever will work. Just be careful. Too much and those things might grow and explode…

• Prompt E: Aiada, the Arehtei of appreciation and jealousy, has sent a personal request for those who are interested. There is a small island just beneath Empatheias that she has been cultivating over the many centuries. She wishes to contribute to the Harvest Festival with some seeds and spores. However, the recent atmosphere has also reached down there, and now it's all a mess! Giant mushrooms replaced the trees and there's slime and mold everywhere. The cure? Aside from getting a lot of heavy duty cleaners and pushing it off, appreciation will go a long way to help.

Goop brigade. Grab that bucket and shovel and clear the goop out! Just be careful not to have too much get on you—jealousy might take over.
Appreciation balls. To help hasten the effort, Aiada has given several tubs filled with light, green orbs. Once channeled with enough appreciation, they can be used as mini-grenades to help explode and wash the area with more positive energy. Those caught in the blast won't be harmed. If anything, they'll just be very thankful.
Watch the ledges. Careful, it's a fairly small island and the goop and slime has made things slick. If you fall… That's not a good way to go, let's just say that.

• Prompt F: Various parties are interested in the emotion shards scattered all over Thera. But this time around, the focus is on the medical laboratory as the equipment and potential research there is also of interest. For three days those who volunteer are sent back to try and gather as much as possible—but of course this won't be easy.

Skeletal Scientists. The remains of the scientists who once worked in these rooms are still lurking, ready to protect their work. Fortunately they're relatively weak nerds, so not too difficult to dispatch. Just be careful.
Flying equipment. The various medical equipment has also taken life, scalpels and needles flying everywhere and stethoscopes ready to strangle.
Questionable liquid. Most of the easy shards have already been taken, leaving the more difficult to retrieve ones left. In particular they're found in strange, dark pink liquid. It's mostly harmless—except that upon contact intense waves of grief and suffering will course through. The longer the exposure, the worse it is. So hopefully a bucket full of it doesn't fall on you…

• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include feathers and/or confetti.

For your threads, put the Character Name and the Canon in the subject line to help readily identify them. You're also welcome to use more than one prompt for respondents to choose from. If you have any questions or want to brush up on the game information, refer to the Game Information entry. Otherwise, tag around and have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Reaper," not Reyes. The ghost had a name and it was his own, not that of the dead man he had been.

The anguish wasn't missed, eyes narrowed behind that mask as he didn't let go of McCree, but his hold loosened enough that he could easily pull out of that grip. Not trapping him, not wanting him to feel trapped on top of whatever had him running through those doors.

Reaper's head tilted. "Why would anyone be down here."

The grip on his shoulders feels ghostly familiar, and for a moment he feels like that punk kid in Blackwatch again getting a lecture from his commander. He shakes his head slightly- snap out of it- and tries to take a breath that doesn't shake.

"The, uh, the shards, right? Well, don't exactly feel like partnerin' up." He grips tightly to the one in his left fist, as if the memories will flood back in if he lets go. The ghostly figures made of smoke around him waver, strengthen, spirits haunting him with his pain.

"So if you'll excuse me..."

"Been there, done that."

At least this time those who went down here were asked without being lied to first, and apparently these shards had been avoided with good reason. Other than being submerged in who knows what, and anyone smart can tell you not to put your hand into some weird liquid if you don't know what it is.

The figures were given a glance, the only proof of it the slight change to the tilt of Reaper's head. "You need to take a breather." More observation than anything, so he tells himself.

"'m fine, sir." It comes out of him like a reflex, and he shakes his head again. It isn't Reyes behind that mask, as much as he wants it to be. A shadow of the man he once knew- a Reaper, through and through.

"Don't need you givin' me advice." He pulls away from those claws that steady him and tries to breathe. He needs to get going, find more of these shards while he's here. So he adjusts his serape and tips his hat up slightly, heading down the hallway.

The ghosts trail after him, waning, waxing, breathing like an entity of their own as he tries to shake the long-buried memories out of his head.

Would be easy to let him keep going, gaze following those figures more than they were following McCree himself. "You aren't fine, letting things follow you."

Cling and haunt, had some odd sort of feeling clinging to them as well. So there Reaper was, not leaving the cowboy alone as he turned and took a few steps to follow, growling just under his breath. "You need to take a breather, McCree. Like it or not, and clearly you still need it if you aren't noticing this yourself."

Could leave, let whatever it is do whatever it was going to do.

"The hell you talking about, following me-" He catches sight of the whisps in the corner of his eye, turns on his heel to confront the things. They're shadows, smoke, trailing after him like they're rising from his own stretched shadow in the dimly lit hall.

Maybe he does need a breather.

He tries to clear his head as he grips tightly to the shard, the strange pink liquid still sticking to the metal of his bionics, oozing between the gaps to the electronics that send sensory data to his brain.

"... The hell are these things...?"

Reaper tilted his head in something of an See? Told you way once McCree had turned around, still keeping his eyes on those things as he slowly made his way closer. Didn't trust them to just be shadows, knowing what he could do, other things he'd heard about another creature that could just suddenly appear-

"Something attached to you, probably created by emotions," Obviously and simply how things worked in this place. "Other than that, couldn't tell you."

"Created by emotions?" He echoes with a raise of his eyebrow, not daring to take his eyes off the smokey figures. They seem to almost pusle with his heartbeat, and he breathes deep, tries to steady himself. Not a good sign, if his emotions were so easily readable as to physically manifest themselves into...

Into what? Ghosts? That's what they look like, smudged, shadowy figures with obscured faces that seem to fade in and out. Ghosts from his past. Would make sense, given the spike of emotions that made them, the memories that flooded...

"... Don't have time for this. Just want to get the hell outta this hospital." Always did get the creeps from hospitals. This just made it worse.

"You're holding a shard that's solid emotion."

There was a lot of things that were strange here and -stepping right past a shadow with a low hiss- Reaper finally stopped just a foot or so away from McCree. Eyeing him over slowly— "Looks like you can't run from them, McCree." It wasn't that hard to put together what may have happened.

Something conjured them up after all.

"I ain't running." He's defensive. Of course he's defensive. Hasn't seen this man in years and he... Well, he certainly wasn't the man he used to know. Still, he scowls, slowly loosening his fingers around the shard. One by one, they come loose, until the tiny shard glows in the palm of his metal hand.

He slips it into one of the pockets of his belt, and for a moment the shadows wane, the ghosts distorting and lightening as he tries to focus on something else. Focus on his breathing, on his task. The Reaper is close, but he doesn't have to take his advice.

Not anymore.

He brushes past the ghost from his past, the shadows trailing behind him, heading for the next little lab to find more shards.
"'Sides, whatever conjured them up ain't exactly your business."

That got a laugh-

"Never said they were, ingrate." But he was running, had been running before McCree had bumped into him judging from how hard he'd actually hit. Would have probably knocked over a normal man as sudden as it had happened. "Longer you ignore them here? Might find yourself with more unwanted company."

Reaper wasn't going to follow, he hadn't come down here for the ungrateful bastard after all. Hadn't known he was down here, let him get in over his head if he wouldn't listen.

"You mean like you?" He snorts, fiddling with the lock on the door. Must be locked for a reason- even if a place like this was abandoned, most of the doors had been busted open. Which means whatever is inside? Has got to be worth it.

"Listen, I don't need your advice." Anymore. "You and I ain't exactly on the same side." Anymore.

Regret. Survivor's guilt. It's all there, dammed up, buried under years of wandering and travelling through the world racking up a bounty on his head. He doesn't say another word as he fiddles with the lock, smirking to himself when he hears that satisfying click.

"Been real nice talking to you, 'Reaper'." He says it in a way that makes it obvious that he's lying before opening the door and heading inside, followed by wisps of shadow and smoke.

"What's one more ghost? You seem to attract them on this little adventure." Hissed, and there was something that did have him watching to keep his distance from those shadows. Some feeling even he could sense, watching them follow the cowboy from the corner of an eye.

As well as he could with the mask on.

Silent as he simply stood and watched, head tilted to the side -still had that skill, huh?- and stepped to the side simply to give those that followed room and not McCree himself. "You rarely listened when it was good for you, I don't expect any different now.

"Wouldn't be the first time I watched you go." Had his own shadows agitated, curling along shoulders as if they were feathers that had been ruffled.

He doesn't reply as he enters into the lab. Seems to be a storage area of some sort, filled with dusty pill bottles and various lab equipment. There. Just ahead was a shelf that seemed full of beakers, each and every one of them containing that pink liquid and the shards he was supposed to be collecting.

Jackpot.

He tries to ignore the sting of Reaper's words, stepping inside the lab and trying to leave him behind.
"You know I had my reasons for getting out. Was supposed to be repenting for what I did as Deadlock."

He frowns, stepping forward to pick up one of the beakers, ignoring how the ghosts shift in agitation and regret.

Reaper was already down he, he may as well follow; truce or no truce, he wasn't attacking and that counted well enough as far as he was concerned. They'd count McCree amongst their number after all; so he followed, steps silent as he glided along with little effort.

Keeping to himself and away from the other ghostly shadows.

"Feel a need to explain yourself? Thought I didn't matter to you, ingrate." There wasn't much bite behind it, preoccupied with glancing around himself. He hadn't gone this deep himself.

"Just don't appreciate bein' called an ingrate for leavin' on my own terms." He scowls, reaching up to pick one of the beakers up. The whispy forms coming from his shadow seem to waver, irritated, stung by the accusations of his leaving.

He was supposed to be repenting from everything he'd done in Deadlock, and before he got out? That wasn't what he signed up for. That was never what he signed up for.

"You gonna be haunting me for the rest of the night, Reyes?"

"Your leaving after everything makes you an ingrate." Tilting his head as he picked up a broken clipboard from the table, weighing it in his hand for a moment. "Another name in a long list of abandonment and betrayal, really."

Talons scraped against old wood before Reaper slung the broken bit at one of those shadows, just to see if there would be any sort of reaction. Testing just what the things were, really.

The shadow has no substance, just smoke and ash and guilt made manifest. The broken clipboard flies through one, smacks straight into a beaker and breaks it open. The strange pink liquid splatters over McCree's face, and he quickly wipes it off with his left hand, trying to get some visibility back.

For a moment, his vision changes, and it's like something from a memory. Hazy candles and funeral incense, and the scent of marigolds driving stakes into his heart.

He grips tightly to the shelf, trying to get his balance back. Trying not to let the ghost see the distress on his face as his hands shake, buried emotions starting to well up to the surface like crude oil.

The shadows around him intensify, multiply, becoming more and more solid as his grief and anguish burn through his heart.
"Didn't want to leave, dammit, I didn't have a choice-!"

Huh. Tossed it a little too high—

Eyes narrowed behind the mask, metaphorical hackles raising at the shadows growing more solid. Enough that it had him drawing closer with a flexing of fingers as if ready to rip through them, ignoring the reason why the want to do so surfaced. Not out of anger, it needed to be ignored, there was no room for it.

"There is always a choice, and you made yours McCree. You left." Threw everything back into his face, not good enough. "Can the cowboy not face the truth, running as he has been?

"The figure in black fled across the desert, but the gunslinger didn't follow."

"You think I've been running all these years?!" He can't look at him, not even as he feels him approach. The shadows are restless, crowding him, and he feels like every eye in that church is on him- snap out of it. He doesn't notice the marigolds blooming in the linoleum around him, growing around his feet.

"I've been tryin' to be the person you expected me to be, Reyes-" He can't let go of the shelf, hands shaking, trying to clear all the grief out of his head, all the anguish he's bottled up ever since that funeral.

Should have stayed. Could have made a difference. Could have saved-

"Leave."

"You're running now." In more than one way, glancing over the marigolds as his shoulders tensed, a low growl building in his throat as McCree continued on. What would he know what he expected? Everything he'd ever taught the gunslinger had been thrown back in his face the moment he left-

Metal talons flashed, ripping through one of the shadows as he caught hold of Jesse's arm, because what the other was doing clearly wasn't working. There was something wrong here.

So he was pulling Jess away from that shelf, an attempt to wrench him out of those crowding shadows as he made his voice low but clear. "No. You're in no condition to be down here by yourself, ingrate."

He doesn't want to admit just how far he ran, just how long he's been running. Trying to distance himself from his grief and his guilt at throwing everything the man had done for him back in his face. Still, when those sharp talons catch at his arm, he starts, hand pulling sharply from the shelves and knocking over another beaker.

That pink liquid seeps into the cracks in his arm, sticks under the plates, adheres to the sensory wires that are supposed to give him a sense of pressure. And the scent of marigolds and cinnamon hits him like a sucker punch, and he stumbles back, away from the ghost he's been running from all these years.

Those shadows move between them, almost pitch black as Jesse finds it hard to breathe. Every eye is on him, that empty casket feels so heavy, can barely hear himself think over the shouting, hadn't even been allowed in Los Angeles National-

"Snap out of it-" He growls to himself, swallowing back remorse. The man before him isn't Reyes. He needs to remember that.

No use apologizing to ghosts.

"Jesse McCree," the name was growled but firm. A tone he might have used before meant to grab attention when it needed to be paid but wasn't. "Get out of your head and focus outside of it!"

Reaper ignore the shadows, if anything they just sparked his anger, ribbons of flame curling in the air around him as shadows curled around him. His own shadows, sharpening as he launched himself through those figures as if boosted by a beat of dark hellish wings. Seizing McCree by the arms and pulling him away from that wall, grip firm.

If the gunslinger was just going to sink into himself than why shouldn't Death reach in? "You are leaving this place now, even if I have to drag your sorry ass out myself."

The ghosts part for death, and death comes for him.

That voice, snapped in such a familiar way, like his old commander ready to chew him out has him look up, witness the dark wings that seem to curl around him, feel the sharp tug of claws digging into his shoulders. He's trying to ground himself, but now, staring death in the face- when did he catch up to him in height?- it takes every fiber of his being to hold himself together.

"Let go, Reaper." He manages to say through grit teeth, his hand curled into fists, his shoulders shaking.
"You ain't the commander anymore, he died, and I buried him, and that's all there is to it."

"You said it yourself." But he wasn't letting go, if anything Reaper's hold grew tighter as he did start to drag McCree out of that room, shoving him ahead if he had to. Get out of that spot, avoiding moving covered hands over the goo there, even it gave off some feeling he didn't want on him. "I have a truce with Overwatch.

"Consider it a favor to not leave one of theirs in over his head when he's being a stubborn fool." Jesse was firmly there with the rest of them in his mind after all. They claimed him, he knew they would, he'd been a good Blackwatch agent.

Edited (r you are not an e) 2016-10-21 07:41 (UTC)

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