crystalclods | Test Drive Meme | August-September 2016

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test drive

Test Drive Meme | August-September 2016


TEST DRIVE MEME
Welcome to the Cosmographia Test Drive Meme! This is a place for you to test out any characters you've been considering for the game or just to splash around in the waters and see what's right for you. Give our infopages a glance over and use the prompts below as a jumping off point! Threads from prompt A and B can be made canon for the game so long as both parties agree to it! Prompts C and D, unfortunately, cannot, as they take their cues from events and Excursions already run in Cosmographia. In short - pick a character, write up a starter and have a blast!
PROMPT A - ARRIVAL
You don't remember getting in this hole but you definitely remember falling out of it. You go tumbling out into the heart of a cavernous temple. Sparkling Gems suspended in bubbles float lazily about the ceiling, just a little out of reach. There's a greenish glow cast over the room by the huge crystal looming before you in the center. It's... curiously heart shaped, now you think to take a closer look at it. If you're curious enough to touch it, you'll get some basic answers about your situation... but then again, there's no guarantee you're just going to walk up to a giant weird thing in the middle of a giant weird room and touch it, right? Why not take a look around and see for yourself what kind of place this is? Perhaps you'll run into someone in the same predicament as you, or perhaps you'll run into someone who can help explain why there's a weird rock now affixed to your body?
PROMPT B - THE FARMER'S MARKET
It's Thursday in Waverly Bay, and that can mean only one thing: the weekly Farmer's Market is here again! The town plaza is all abuzz with activity today. Stalls not only from farmers on the outskirts of town but from crafty residents with interesting homemade items to sell, and businesses looking to attract the Market's crowd are all here! The weather's a little chilly but it's still an excellent place to spend the day, so long as you've got some money to spend. Are you shopping for a good deal on vegetables for dinner? Or perhaps you're getting a feel for the residents, having recently arrived? Or, perhaps, are you an industrious gem who's looking to set up shop? Either way, you're bound to run into somebody in this bustling, busy place.
PROMPT C - INVESTIGATION
Now that you're starting to get a hold of your powers, you've been sent through the warp pads on some kind of mission to the Gem Observatory. From the sounds of things, there's an ancient relic here somewhere that could serve useful for the Gems in the Temple and someone has to go out and find it. ... the only problem is that you're not exactly sure where you should start looking in this place. And on top of that, it's a complete mess. Junk and debris and books and papers everywhere with no clue where this relic could be. You're going to have to do some serious digging to find this thing. And on top of that, you might find that when you try to go back the warp pad you took here has managed to stop working in between your arrival and now. Maybe something went wrong back in the control room? Or the pad itself needs fixing? You'll have to poke around in the guts of the machine to try and figure this one out.
PROMPT D - COMBAT
Uh-oh! Looks like you've run into a monster! These critters can pop up anywhere around Waverly Bay so it doesn't really matter where you were before or what you were up to. All you know now is that you need to buckle down and beat this thing! *Giant Mothwing* - With broad wings that shed scales on the wind, this corrupted Gem bears a striking resemblance to a large moth or butterfly. The body between its wings is no beauty, though - it usually stays rolled into a wheel-like spiral to protect its flat, pinkish gem, but when it uncurls to attack it looks more like a worm with teeth. Yikes! Loud noises make it lash out in agitation. Even when it's not attacking, it flies around restlessly, shedding sharp, glasslike scales that can leave nasty cuts as they whiz past. It'll be hard to get close to it unless it's lured down out of the sky. *Chameleoid* - The shape of this monster's body is more like a tardigrade than a lizard, but its camouflage ability and long, sticky tongue are worth commemorating. The Chameleoid can flatten and expand its body, and change the color and texture of its outer hide to blend in seamlessly with its surroundings, and it uses this ability to duck in and out of battle. Keep an eye out for suspicious movement when it vanishes from view. The Chameleoid shoots out its 20-foot-long tongue to disarm, trip up, and gross out Gems, but it's not averse to eating any small objects it might grab. The inside of its mouth looks softer than the rest of it, so maybe you can turn that to your advantage...? *Strawberry Spider* - Though its long, spindly legs holding it off the ground make it look like a spider, this monster is actually mostly made up of plant material. Trees and strawberry plants are rooted in the corrupted Gem's featureless, geometric body, forming woody legs and blanketing the monster in foliage and strawberries. Its aroma may be sweet, but the Strawberry Spider is ruthless and very, very perturbed. It stands 15 feet tall and 25 feet wide, and its skittering feet move fast to stomp on attacking Gems. Thinking of cutting off a leg? Try it, and hundreds of strawberry runners will immediately sprout from the stump to ensnare you. The strawberries are hungry, and they've got a "taste for blood"... Damaging the plants living on it won't actually hurt the corrupted Gem, and they grow back fast. This will be a tough monster to defeat. *Wildcard Option* - Make your own! You know by now that you've got some special powers just from being a Gem. Apparently, from what little you've heard, you can shapeshift into things and pull a weapon from your gem, and you have some sort of unique special power. But maybe you don't know what it is yet, or you're still not used to using it? Guess you're going to have to learn on the job. Don't leave your fellow gems hanging if you see them fighting one of these little guys either! You're going to need each other to take 'em down!
PROMPT E - WILDCARD
Not into any of these prompts? Thought of something more fun? Go for it!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alas, she is not the young woman he knew in the world he originally came from, and besides, a huge pigeon would be memorable to her. She'd probably get along with Emi, though, if she ever met her.

"Something on your mind? Anyway... all gems have the potential to shapeshift at will." She might try to show him.

He's not Yuuya, really, but he can still change a subject and lie easily.

"Just that it's not just weird, it's very weird. I'm jealous of shapeshifters, not... uh, that's gonna take some getting used to." And what if he couldn't change back? Changing back is pretty important. If his pulses had left him as a shapeshifter, even one who had to spend a lot of time in a strange form - oh, he remembers Alex trying to tell him it was terrible to have to morph into a centaur-thing all the time - he'd have been happy with them, overall.

Edited 2016-08-20 04:21 (UTC)

"You'll get used to things around here sooner or later." Though, being able to shapeshift a bit before coming here helped.

"I always do. Eventually, anyway." It's true. Julien shakes his big head. "Mind showing me?"

"Not at all. Observe..."

One thing she's proud of was how well she could shapeshift, so with a thought her whole body glows white, reforming into the form of a giant bat.

"It's sort of like stretching, you'll need to go back to your base form eventually..."

Julien's eyes can't really widen. They're bird eyes and naturally round. His pupils go huge and tiny, though, and he takes a step back.

"Wow. Uh... is it always in your same colors?"

"The blue fur? Yes." She shifts back into her normal shape. Perhaps she can teach him a little about how to do it...

So their bodies really are just like projections... When she glows white and changes he can't see any features at all, just her outline and the gem. He feels his feathered hackles rise, spiking up on his lower neck and upper back, and works to keep that discomfort and alarm out of his voice.

...At the same time it is kinda compelling, too. If he's going to have to keep getting farther and farther away from himself, there should at least be new skills. New things.

"And you can still talk in different shapes. Okay. Is it really turning into anything at all?" The heart thing seemed to suggest that, but he feels more comfortable hearing what people say than having ideas downloaded into his head. ...Gem. God, this is weird.

The idea takes a bit to get used to, but by now Remilia was comfortable with it... and comfortable with no longer being a vampire.

"Yes. Even if we have hard light bodies or something like that." He's going to see weirder things...

It's hard to get weirder than the time he died some months ago and spent however long that had been as a chord of the music that made up that screwed-up world, but this is still strange and difficult right now.

Julien shakes his head. "Are we here for a reason, do you think?"

She's not heard of anything like that before, and as far as returning from death is concerned, her friend Pyrrha hasn't told her about it.

"Hmm, perhaps. I'm not at all certain what purpose it could be, but it's because of the Heart."

He moves his head so he can look at the giant green heart with one eye and the not-a-vampire with the other. Wide-spaced eyes are good for that. "Is it, like, alive?"

Julien may be a rock now but he feels alive. Rocks can be alive. There'd been a man made of rocks and copper wire back on Arda. "I mean, is it like a person, did it pick this?"

Yeah, handy that. "It seems so... There's a gem native to this world, Tiger's Eye. I bet she knows for sure. Perhaps it did..."

"Hmm." Now Julien shifts his weight on his big clawed feet. "So is this a good world? The last one I was in was basically nothing but howling wilderness, ruined cities, and practically mindless murder-dudes."

And since the people there he loved most are gone now he's not really sure he wants to go back, honestly. Post-apocalyptic places are wearying, even when they've turned back to nature like that.

"Yes, for the most part. Just outside this place is a small seaside town full of friendly folk. Out away from civilization, though, gem monsters abound."

She found she liked it here well enough. It certainly made her a better person.

"Ah! And we've got to go stop those monsters, and hopefully that's not playing into the hands of something worse?" Being in Save The Earth for its entire run has kind of made Julien cynical. It sure had been nice for the aliens that no one could communicate with the great beasts.

...but he would like to see the town and meet friendly people. Find out what level of technology they have.

"Actually, those are... gems, native to this world, I think. They need to be brought back here in gem form or bubbled and sent here." She's not at all sure what's meant to happen next, though...

"By the, my name is Remilia Scarlet."

"Hm." He's pretty sure there's something here that will turn any 'Gems' into monsters and they're going to find it the hard way, then. Hopefully not for a while.

"Well it's good to meet you, Remilia. My name is Julien Sakazaki." He pronounces his name the French way so it almost seems to start with a z.

Well, not like she knew it was the Diamonds that caused it, huh?

Her name, of course, was close to the name of a vampire he knew. "Nice to meet you too. I'll show you the twon, if you want."

It was close, but he'd gotten pretty used to treating people who looked and were named like his friends like strangers. Generally it's better not to even let them know.

"I'd love to see some of the town." He tilts his head. "Can you fly?" Emi'd ended up able. Again, he shouldn't let things on. "Maybe as that bat?"

"I certainly can," Remilia replies, levitating into the air and spreading out her wings. "No need to transform."

"Aww, the bat's cute though!" He spreads his own great white wings, making the chamber seem that much smaller. "Lead the way."

"Let's walk. The exit's not that far."

Probably best to walk out, given his size. She leads him out the heart room, through the residence halls, and from there, out onto the beach...

It's a big place, already larger than the Deepwood, that central hub of arrivals in Arda. Also, possibly nicer, though the woods aren't as picturesque.

Outside Julien raises his head. "I hear... cars? And that's gotta be a plane. There's technology here?"

Having bird ears he can pick up on deep sounds humans are unaware of, which carry a long ways.

Deepwood must be tiny. Waverly Bay wasn't that big a town... by modern standards at any rate.

"Yep. Plenty of technology around... but it's a bit behind in this town."

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