Test Drive

[uploadedmods]

TEST DRIVE 001


-TDM threads can be considered game canon if players involved agree & if it suits any roles you may decide to choose for the current plot.
-Any reserving player that does not submit an app by Saturday morning will be subject to challenging applicants.
-Participation in the Test Drive is worth a flat 10 points per month rather than per thread, and you must have a minimum of 5 comments in that month to qualify for it.
-This TDM is good for the duration of the Mist setting. A new TDM will go up before the next setting.

The NETWORK for this setting is a voice-only walkie talkie system that can be used to communicate between all locations. The default channel will be open to all walkie talkies, but characters can change to an unused channel for private conversation.
of note: There seems to be something strange about these walkie talkies, in that there is no static. The quality is disturbingly crystal clear, like the person you're speaking to is right next to you instead of miles away.

CONTENT WARNING: Some prompts contain gore, character death, and substance abuse.

Reserves will open on Saturday, September 8 until Saturday, September 15
Applications will open Saturday, September 15 until Saturday, September 22

General Prompts


The lights above you are a blindingly, pristine white. The walls around you curve up into the ceiling like the inside of an MRI machine. Your hands, feet, and midsection are strapped to a clinical table, and minutes seem to tick by, with no clear course for escape presenting itself to you.

The curved white space above you flickers with color, and a perfect square like a television screen expands before your eyes. It pans over what appears to be a town, something small and simply populated.

“Hello, and welcome to your first setting,” a neutrally cadenced feminine sounding voice begins, riding the line between human and machine. As she speaks, captions of the text type themselves in neat and perfect Arial font. “The location is loosely based off Bridgton, Maine, United States of America, Earth. The year is 2007. You have been selected to participate. Obedience ensures an enjoyable and immersive experience for our audience. If you have been granted a role, instructions will follow. Do not talk about the role. Do not attempt disobedience. If you have not been granted a role, your objective for this round is simple: survive.”

After that, the shackles may release promptly and allow your character to roam free. Or perhaps not — perhaps they've been given a role to play, and if so, further instructions will play out upon the screen. Once suitably briefed, characters will be released to their own devices. Beware the mist.

CHECK OUT THE CURRENT SETTING PAGE FOR DETAILS ABOUT THE LOCATION.

learn from the mistakes of others

A pair of unperturbed mall inhabitants decide to chance the mist. They're the first of a handful to trickle out the front doors, and they seem to get by just fine. About a minute ticks by, and they disappear completely into the dense fog that presses in from every direction. It's so anticlimactic that for a moment it almost seems stupid to feel uncomfortable by the sight of it.

Until precisely one half of a body is hurled abruptly and with great force from an indeterminate point in the obscurity. It's not a top half or a bottom half; no, it's a cleanly sliced left half, head to toe as though a neat line were cut down the middle. It slams into the transparent glass doors and crumples before them, still and obviously unmoving, slowly leaking.

After a few seconds, a dark tendril of something reaches out, curls around the jutting left ankle, and drags it with painstaking slowness back into the fog.

At least the rest of them probably made it, right?

Right?

Hopefully you weren't one of the others to follow their lead. If you were, that dark shape seems to be closing in awfully quick.

eff this, let's bounce

A pair of car keys can be found discarded or perhaps dropped in their owners' haste. Braving the mist when it's at its lightest and pressing the key fob will cause a car to beep politely, flashing lights to indicate its location in the fog. Take anyone willing to go with you and pile in. Try to get the hell out of dodge!

An excellent idea....

Within five miles of the car's journey the battery will die and the engine will stall. Consider yourselves effectively stranded and with no one but yourselves to blame. Perhaps help will come if you wait long enough? Hours, surely no more than a few days... Maybe you should consider braving the fog to get back? Five miles can feel like a hundred in conditions like these.

Either way, it seems like you're trapped in the car for about as long as R. Kelly got trapped in the closet during that one unfortunate CD.

radio chatter

Characters in the library and the church will be able to communicate via walkie talkie radio chatter immediately! Characters in the mall will not have this ability until later in the month, so any network style threads with a mall character will take place during Week Two of the October plot or later, after most people have already been fully introduced to the setting and given time to adapt.

Roles

Employee of the Month (Multiple)

Some characters will be printed wearing a designated kiosk uniform, their name sloppily stickered in slightly crooked letters onto a Dippin' Dots badge, or whatever store they may happen to be assigned to. The cool voice that introduces them to the mist will carry on to tell them that they'll be playing employee # _____ in this month's immersive experience. Their motivations and objectives are simple: go to work.

Except the role seems to be bugged, because they can never not go to work. If they leave the five or six foot radius of their designated post they'll begin to experience consequences, which worsen in severity based on distance and duration. The role doesn't end at mall closing, it doesn't end on Saturdays, it simply doesn't end. Hopefully next month's code push will have a bug fix; we apologize for the inconvenience.

(If choosing to keep these threads as game canon, the role will wear off within the first in-game week)

Aggravated Assault

Congratulations, participant! You will be playing the role of a CONVICTED FELON having recently been released on parole. Your motivation for this month's immersive experience is frustration. Having undergone hard time, you'll find that we have increased your aggression and temper characteristics, and lowered your inhibitions. Your objective is to find and begin an altercation with Snuff the Rooster, who will be playing the role of the person who turned you in, NARK. Your altercation must take place in a public space with witnesses, and may not stop until Snuff the Rooster is unconscious, evicted from the mall, or someone intervenes.

Thank you for your participation!

Consequences for not completing the objective in this role can be moderate to severe.

Snuff the Rooster

Congratulations, participant! You will be playing the role of NARK. Formerly a close friend and ally of CONVICTED FELON from Aggravated Assault, you were quick to roll on them during police questioning in exchange for your freedom. Your motivation is to turn over a new leaf, and get your shit together. Your objective is to survive the altercation.

Thank you for your participation!

The Lovers (Duo Role)

Congratulations, participant! You will be playing one half of a partnership role! Please seek out (character 2). Your motivation this round is love, and the need to protect your partner from threats both inside and outside of the mall. Your objectives is to greet your lover with a kiss and place them above all others. Do not act like strangers.
Consequences for not completing the objective in this role or failing to present a convincing couple can be mild to moderate.

Pathological

Congratulations, participant! You will be playing a background character in our current setting. Your motivation is to tell lies; at least one third of what you say must be unarguably untrue. Your objective is to keep these lies from being discovered as false.
Consequences for not complying with this role can vary from mild to severe, with the compulsion to tell larger and larger lies growing as time goes on.

Scared Speechless

Congratulations, participant! You will be playing a background character in our current setting. You may choose one person, stranger or otherwise. This is the only person you may communicate with, either verbally or through writing.
Consequences for not complying with this role are severe.

Glitches

potency error

Someone seems to have miscalculated the relative strength of intoxicants; all inhibition-altering substances seem to have been cranked up to eleven. One shot has the strength of three, though the taste seems to stay exactly the same. One or two drinks will quickly creep up on you. One of the joints found discarded in the bathroom trashcans will easily green you out. God forbid you've got anything stronger.

greatest movie of all time

Settling in to the relatively nice theater found at the far end of the mall is a decent way to make the time go by. The projectors are automated, and there are six different theaters that show flicks at scheduled times.

Except that every single one of them is showing Spider-Man 3. Every single one, every single showing, no matter what is advertised, becomes Spider-Man 3. That's how you know this is a horror game. Hope you didn't wander in by mistake because the doors will shut behind you and leave you to watch the entire showing. Please keep your feet off of the seats.

please replace toner cartridge

It seems there was an error in printing someone this first time around; everything came through but the visuals somehow. Your character is flesh and blood, fully formed, wearing tangible clothes even, but are completely invisible. Donning additional clothing causes it to clip out and then promptly disappear. Taking clothes off will cause them to reappear. Hopefully this gets fixed in the next lite patch.

(If choosing to keep these threads as game canon, the glitch will wear off within the first in-game week)

code bases by tricklet

Comments

[blowshard]

[ It's almost excruciating, just standing here doing... nothing. Waiting. Watching. Wondering if one of those things that passes by through the mist from time to time is going to work its way toward them and then they wind up being a smear of blood down a glass door.

But it doesn't happen. Nothing happens. Inasa finds himself feeling antsy and more than a little paranoid. What if one of those things does come back. Neither one of them have a way to fight back against it. Did either one of them think to bring a knife out here with them? He doesn't think so.

Inasa hears Todoroki say something and he looks up, eyebrows furrowing slightly as he peers through mist. ]

That-- that's impossible.

[ How could Endeavor be walking so calmly through the mist like that and with... with his flames burning so brightly? How did he get to keep his quirk? ]

a

[blowshard]

[ There sure have been A Lot of things happening recently, haven't there? Inasa had been toward the back of the crowd when the body hit the door, had only been able to stand there and stare as the chunk was dragged back off again. It's not as though he could--or even wanted to, if he's honest--go running out after it. There was no one to save out there. What would be the point, other than a quick death of his own?

But he can do something inside, and that's what he finally starts moving to do.

So the next thing Bakugou is going to see is a bench being carried above the crowd as they start drifting away from the doors. It eventually emerges from the sea as Inasa does, the bench levered against his shoulder for an extra help, before he drops it down into the ground directly in front of the doors. Inasa straightens up and turns to his side and-- ]

Oh! Bakugou!

a

[blowshard]

[ Wow. That-- that's easy one of the most disgusting things he has ever seen in his entire life. Actually, no, scratch that, it's right there at the top of the list, and he goes to school with Shishikura, the human meatball maker.

There's a voice that rings out above the crowd, though, one that Inasa is almost certain he recognizes. But he can't see the source, not in this crowd. It isn't until it disperses a bit that he sees the small form head off and--oh. The wings are incredibly small, but there's absolutely no doubt about it.

He follows Hawks until the pro takes a seat and he sucks in a deep breath before he steps toward him and promptly snaps a deep brow. ]

Hello, sir! You're the pro hero Hawks, aren't you? It's an honor, sir!

[156]

The lights went on a second time and Crane nodded and tapped the back of the chair. "Harry Steeger, yes," he corrected without missing a beat. That made much more sense in context. Niles considered this addition for another second, making a hm face. He'd come back to that.

Without steering directly into the storm of greater metaphor, he shifted the sails on this little boat and offered his hand out across the expanse.

"How rude of me; I didn't even introduce myself. I'm Niles."

[outwear]

Yeah, we're seeing a lot of that here, too.

[ He's already heard there are people trapped in a library and a church, but he has no idea when they're thinking of mounting a rescue. ]

Where are you? I'm at the mall. Over.

[generalstudies]

Are you even listening to me?! [Still, there's not yelling from Bakugou, the kid who had looked like a wild animal on the sports festival podium, was keeping his cool here. It was infuriating. It was infuriating but...]

[He hops back over his makeshift barricade with a huff. In a few moments, some rags and bottles of cleaner get tossed over and skid across the register countertop and onto the floor.]

[(thankfully, no bottles open or spill, but it's still pretty sloppily done)]

There! [from the back]

[yorozuya]

[Embrace the feeling of self-confidence! Of your boyish soul! How do you expect to take up the helm as a beloved JUMP icon if you can't do that?! Don't make him worry about the direction of JUMP anymore than he has been. He already has enough on his plate as it is...

The kid does something with the straightener, and Gintoki is already stretching, attempting to catch a glimpse at any progress in taming the Wavy Beast. Unfortunately... the straightener is pulled away and nothing seems to have changed at all. He gives a few nervous glances before pointing to the hair atop his head.]

That... That didn't do anything-

[The other's question is ignored, discarded for a much more pressing question.
Was the curse of the perm so powerful that not even a straightener could tame it...?
His hopes were beginning to fracture.]

[middlechilde]

The food court. There are a couple machines here. I've been watching them. I feel like they're...bringing people. Somehow.

[Which makes no sense at all. She's well aware. But it's all she has to go on, at the moment.]

Over.

[yorozuya]

[Everyone is a kid until proven otherwise. Who sounds cool regarding someone as a 'guy' or a 'man' or a 'dude'? No one. But kid? Now there's a mature edge to that turn of phrase.]

Do I look like some tax grubber to you? [There is... genuine offense in his tone. He scowls before shaking his head.] You gonna answer the question? Don't tell me you're dirt broke.

[yorozuya]

[... Do not show up as a ghost!!! Not because the idea is scary or anything. That's just. Y'know. That'd suck. So stay alive and as something that wouldn't potentially haunt him, okay? Okay.]

[The albino's eyes narrow as he watches the kid continue to struggle. His brows furrow and he takes another - much larger - swig of his can of beer. He finished the beverage and crushes the can before tossing it aside.]

The mall's closed, but maybe your boss wanted you to work sᴜᴘᴇʀ ᴏᴠᴇʀᴛɪᴍᴇ, y'know? Besides, there ain't a point in trying to leave. Outside this place is a shitstorm. [The man slowly lifts himself to stand.] Where were you working? Maybe we can find your boss and chew him out, huh?

[generalstudies]

[Shinso had tested his quirk a bit. Sure, it was technically illegal back home but there were always bits and ways to see how he could get it to work. Without proper training, though, it's not like he knew how to expand it. This would actually be a great time to practice, if it only worked.]

It doesn't always work. It depends on how willing they'd be to go along with my suggestion anyways.

[And, of course, the target retained full consciousness. Usually, with Brainwashing, the victim entered that sort of stunned, unresponsive state. There definitely wasn't that here, even when he could feel that he was successfully activating his quirk.]

It's not worth you breaking a bone to try and push it anyways. [It's almost like he was reading the other's mind- or, well, most of his experience seeing Midoriya's quirk involved breaking a bone anyways.]

[yorozuya]

The samurai pauses, not quite expecting an affirmation to his off-handed commentary. He blinks and allows it to pass, unsure if he wants to even travel down that road of conversation any longer. Some things were left unsaid, and maybe with this lady that would be most things.

As the woman waffles over his "odd" request, Gintoki takes to digging into his ear idly. He nods half-heartedly as she reviews her assessment of the situation before spitting out an answer.

"Yeah? But what if I get lost....? I've already lost my parents. What if I'm stuck in a loop of never-ending darkness because I can't find Beyond the Bath?," He gives a shuddered sigh, "No, no. I need more help. Show me the way."

[generalstudies]

[They didn't have any choices here, really. That was part of why he was hanging around and just trying to do his shift. That was the best way he could consider to adapt to the situation. It at least kept him a bit calmer.]

[Again, there's that quirk of the lip at asking what a cell phone was.]

It's a little phone you can carry around with you. Most of them are hooked up to the internet these days. [oh, man, he has to explain the internet]

It's like a world-wide network. So, if you're bored, you can look up information- like who gives senior discounts to ladies that look 18- or... anything else.

[...]

Like- do you like cats?

[coping]

[It's been a long time since she's smiled like this, since she was able to be back with her girls. And she does miss them dearly. Even the insane asylum was better than this place.]

The fog was starting to come in. We don't know if something worse will try and come through.

[yorozuya]

[The fact that she's still even playing along proves simply that this girl is a good girl with a good heart. Gintoki will remember that little tidbit as he leads the way into the store. Once they're in perfect trajectory of the jacket, he kneels down and motions for her to literally climb up his back.]

Usually they get sales people to get it down for you I guess. But when I asked good ol' Martin over there he told me he was too busy with other customers-- [This accusation is punctuated by a jerk of his head to a store associate who is currently walking around the store in a rather stilted fashion. Occasionally he stops, as if he were interacting with an invisible customer before he would continue walking in the same pattern repeatedly. Sometimes he would look in Gintoki and Petunia's general direction - but his eyes never focused on them. Instead he stared through them, as if they simply did not exist.]

So, since I'm not gettin' any help - I figured I'd get someone else to help me get the damn thing down, right? Now climb up. I'll steady you once you got a good perch.

[outwear]

You know, for a second Sam was all for this little change. He thought he could (haha) milk it a while, but the more Dean seemed to commit, the more uncomfortable Sam became.

He urged the conversation back toward the earlier subject, his voice lowering. "Dude, let's go. You don't owe these people anything," he said, and then clarified: "Unless you can't leave." Which, now that he thought about it, was pretty much the only reason he could imagine his brother sticking around for any amount of time in this place.

Turning to look over his shoulder again, Sam noted another shopper lingering around. He resisted the urge to engage, but the fact that they couldn't get a second to themselves was really starting to grate on him.

He nodded Dean down another aisle and moved locations again, this time to an extensive display of cabbages. Just cabbages. So many cabbages.

when canon doesn't give you a date USE CONJECTURE

[mightyboy]

Uh...2114... [So really, the distance between him and this age is a little greater than Petunia--but it was always easier to go into the past than it was to go forward, wasn't it?] But a lot of this stuff is familiar to me! So it wasn't as surprising as I bet it was for you...

[He's smiling again as he listens to her list off the new things she's discovered, sharing in her excitement.] Those are all really cool things we have! It must be so strange seeing some of these things that were never around as much before, instead of growing up with them like I had!

[mightyboy]

[Osomatsu couldn't have known how correct that warning was.]

I'll be careful, don't worry! [Not like he had a choice.] Let me know if anything changes for you, okay? Like I said, I'll be flipping through the channels!

[generalstudies]

[the Chad wind versus the Virgin mind control]

[Shinso is a bit surprised at the recognition- it shouldn't be but, well, with all the mess of people showing up here he didn't expect it. It wasn't necessarily weird seeing the other U.A. students. It was a bit weird to be recognized from someone who saw him on TV.]

[And complimented.]

[As annoying as Inasa had proved himself, that was a pretty forthright and targeted compliment. He's not made of stone. He can take a compliment. Maybe. He's never gotten much opportunity to.]

... Thanks. [he's not embarrassed. no way. never.] I'm technically not a hero yet. There's still a lot of time and paperwork before the transfer might go through...

[dyeordie]

Who else isn't?

[ Color her surprised, but it's not the question she was expecting. She moves closer to where the sound of his voice had come from, short enough she won't bump into him. ]

[yorozuya]

[Oh right. He had run into somebody. Gintoki's eyes raise to catch a glimpse of the other's face as he realizes he's being talked to. His hand is glued to his shoulder for the time being, though he doesn't offer an apology for the collision.]

[Gintoki lets out a clipped scoff, shaking his head.] Nah, thought maybe we could level over some jelly beans, y'know? Maybe if it tasted some sugar it'd stop making such a damn scene. [Damn, these sick bastards better be glad they picked him for their "liar" role. He's a damn natural.

In actuality, his body ached to move. To do something. He'd fought plenty of alien monstrosities in the war and had faced impossible odds time and time again... and yet this somehow proved different? This stood out as an scenario in which he often saw himself simply running into some gaping maw before being ripped to sinew and bone?

It was maddening.]

I just hate being told what to do. Sit and wait. What are we even waiting for exactly? I get we're supposed to survive, but is whatever's out there... gonna end up in here eventually then, you think?

[yorozuya]

[This albino can't tell if this kid is bewildered or disillusioned. He watches the subdued expression and has to wonder if anyone was home inside that skull. He squints, waiting for the other to respond like any normal human being would do.

And instead the kid simply hoists up the can of beans and attempts to casually exit this entire scenario.

Excuse me??? The albino is quick to close their distance. In fact, he runs ahead of the kid and quickly pivots to block his bath.]

Ya got beans in your ears? I called dibs! Don't you know dibs?

[His lips curl in an overly dramatic fashion as he enunciates. He's pissed! He's really annoyed! What the hell was wrong with brats these days?]

[verbo]

I mean, if you really want my honest opinion?

[ Val leans a bit closer to him. ]

Amusement. We're just here to make someone else, or someone elses have a laugh at us. I mean, I hope I'm wrong, but it fits the description so far.

[relieable]

[hey! he's just making sure! Osomatsu looks around, then tugs on his pockets, turning them inside out]

Nothing. If I'd known I was gonna be goin' on a trip, I would've brought some. Money, an' smokes, yanno what I'm saying? But it's not like anyone told me I would be thrown into some kind of horror movie.

[mightyboy]

[Thank god. The relief is immediate when the woman stops tugging, glad that his words finally got through to her (or maybe it was his injury)--but the guilty look on her face makes him immediately feel responsible in some way.]

It's-- [He tries to reassure her--but before he can get out as much as a peep, there's a hand over his mouth. Okay, so maybe not completely at the listening stage after all. But that's fine, because they could work up to that now that she's--

--oh.

It seems that they couldn't catch a break. There's a crack that in no way comes from his bones, but seems to have come from the woman. Izuku looks up to see that whatever gem is embedded in her forehead seems to have fractured--and from her expression, it doesn't seem like it was a good thing.]

Are you okay? [He's standing now, reaching out a hand hesitantly to...do what? Comfort her? He had no idea what significance the stone in her forehead had (something to do with a quirk-like power, maybe)--and he was in no way qualified to figure out how to fix it. The hand hovers, indecisive.] Sorry, I didn't mean for you to get hurt!