❪ test drive: #1 - the overflow ❫

[natha]

YOUR STORY BEGINS     The Storm came. You only remember darkness, but you don't remember much after that. All you know, perhaps, is that it was cold as you slept. You don't know for how long you slept, but the dreams were short, at least. You remember the expanse of stars and the universe that came in view. Every world and solar system ever known was displayed in your dreams in careful, pristine detail. You have also witnessed The Storm, which has devoured a fair portion of these galaxies. It was a dark, thick smog; ominous in appearance and ever foreboding. Your Earth and similar planets were immersed in The Storm. Somehow, you knew it would be the last you'd see of it. That was when she told you what happened, and how you can help. You knew that you'll be living somewhere new, even though you never asked for it. The details here weren't clear, but you knew you'd made a deal with Darma. Not long after, you'll wake at Thesa Station — Your body is still cold. It was all a dream, but somehow, you knew it wasn't — now, will you keep that promise you made to Darma? PROMPT: THE MESS HALL     It's fascinating to the Orbiters how such a dull room can be turned around so completely with people in it. All meals are served by Roman, and while all the food is delicious, some of it is a bit odd. Is that neon green soup? That’s hideous. If you happen to be in the mess hall at a particularly unlucky time, you and the food will suddenly begin to drift. Someone’s got jokes, and they’ve turned off the gravity control. Now it’s just you, your fellow refugees, and the floating sea of food. Wait, did that person just chuck a pie in your direction? PROMPT: TRAINING MODULES     While it’s all nice and well to familiarize oneself with Thesa Station, it is most advised that new arrivals venture out a bit. Not physically. No one is quite prepared for that yet. However, there will be several virtual reality training programs set for those who dare to be adventurous. For those who aren’t and don’t dare, well— good luck, all the same. Be advised, however, that participating in one of the training modules will start you off favorably with the Natha Orbiters’ in terms of REPUTATION. Once seated and appropriately strapped in, the system will automatically whir to life and the dense foliage and forestry of a section of El Nysa will open up. According to one’s map registry, it clear to see that it’s miles from the outer gates of Olympia, but not as far enough to venture into any other territories. So, in that sense, you’re safe. 1. Or you could have been, but unfortunately the wilderness is home to various types of beasts and monsters hailing from different universes and galaxies. On the bright side, perhaps one of them will be oddly familiar to you. Or maybe someone else who is currently synced is willing to give you that extra helping hand. Fortunately, if you’re powerless, there are options. From telekinesis to flight, there are strange abilities one can adopt and “test” out in the virtual reality. Granted, you’re only limited to one at a time. They say in the near future, some of you may be granted these abilities under certain conditions. But, please practice some caution. You aren’t alone in the system, after all. 2.. Who do you fight for, the VR system will ask you individually before you enter the module. The righteous Olympians, or the free-spirited Wyvers? Whatever your choice, when you enter El Nysa, you will wholly and truly believe your allegiance. A. Working together: You now have to suffer the consequences of your choice, as you and your partner have been captured by guards of the opposite faction. Now jailed and soon-to-be tortured, you must find some way to negotiate your release. Perhaps you’ll find some means to escape without detection. Maybe you’re the “fight your way out” sort of people. B. Facing your enemy: That person you stepped into the VR with? They’re out to capture you. Or maybe you seek to capture them. 3. When you enter the virtual reality, things aren’t exactly how they’re supposed to be. Maybe that’s natural, especially if this is your first time, but the problems here seem a bit more fundamental. Maybe you find yourself under a parental safety lock, and you’re suddenly censored. Exposed back? Censored. Body suit? Censored. Or replaced with a mascot costume. Worst of all? You can’t sign out. Not right now, at least. Regardless, whatever it is— ridiculous filters, body alterations, or even body swaps with other users... you are assured it’ll all be fixed with due time. Zasere sends his humblest apologies and promises no more wire chewing, or so the announcement states. PROMPT: STASIS UNIT     You have found the massive section of Thesa known as the Stasis Unit. There’s no special access required to access this part of Thesa Station, but refugees are warned that it may not be for the faint of heart. Here, in large pods that nearly cover every square inch of the space, are all of the people the Orbiters have managed to rescue. Your loved ones, your greatest enemy, your next door neighbor— you might find them here. These people are in a state of deep cryosleep. Due to the damaging effects of The Storm, their bodies are not yet ready to be awoken. PROMPT: HANGAR STATION     You find your way to the hangar station. Here rests are a factory worth of docked mobile suits. You recall how the Orbiters had previously spoken of a "space frontier," but only after seeing this you realize how real their words are. Most machinery have marks of wear and tear, assurance that they have indeed been used before, and an assembly of others are going through repairs and maintenance. No one seems to care that you've just strolled in. In fact, there seems to be a couple of the aircraft that beckon you to take a closer look. Maybe you’ll only look on the outside, maybe you'll be greeted by the hand of a mobile suit extending toward you and welcoming you to its cockpit. You go out and explore SPACE!!! Unfortunately, that mobile suit should have warned you it only had 20 minutes of flight time left in its system. Or, perhaps, you’re a particularly ambitious pilot and you’ve strayed past the designated perimeter. Either way, the HUD display is now blinking with errors, cropping up with a single message: DISTRESS SIGNAL. 1. You’re the poor sap who happened to chill around the Observation Deck. Unfortunately, everyone seems busy with the influx of mobile suits out and about, and the only one who can answer this distress signal is on the Navigation System, well, you. Hope you can figure out the controls fast enough. Guide the pilot back to the safety of the hangar using the most efficient route possible. Keen Navigators will find an instruction manual that provides a shortcut to automatically return a suit back to base. 2. You’re actually sitting in a two-seater mobile suit. Funny how that works, isn’t it? Maybe you were unwittingly dropped down a hatch, or dragged along for a joyride by your ambitious co-pilot. Either way, it looks like help is going to take some time... PROMPT: OMAGE     Upon receiving your mobile phone, you will be asked to set a username. Voila, you can now access the network! You can choose to send a message to the entire network, specific usernames, or you can try out the Orbiters’ service, Omage, which connects you to a random user. They thought this might be a good way for their new guests to make friends with each other... Connecting to server... Looking for someone you can chat with... You’re now chatting with [username]... Say hi! PROMPT: WILDCARD     You are welcome to write any scenarios in Thesa Station! Characters have been granted temporary access to the Observation Room, and are encouraged to study it carefully. FINAL OOC NOTE     These threads may be carried over as game canon if players choose! Players are encouraged to submit TDM threads as application samples, but they are not required. Please direct any OOC questions to the questions thread below! A Training Module thread of AC length on the TDM may be submitted for 1 NATHA ORBITER REPUTATION POINT after acceptance. QUICK NAV premise ● faq ● world ● map ● reputation ● npcs taken ● reserves ● application calendar ● hiatus/drops ● modbox [ FULL NAVIGATION ] elnysa nysalogs nysaisles nysaooc elnyan

Comments

That's what nosy vampires get for asking too many questions! also I messed up the second link sobs

[ofobedience]

[There'd been reason to hide, in a sense, back in his own world, if one could ever truly call it hiding. Skulking about in the shadows and the dark secret depths below the city, but even then there were those who knew, or at least heard slithers and splinters of rumours of that place Below, where monsters were created. But there's little point in all that now, is there? All that slinking secrecy, not when his world and everything in it is gone to dust and consumed by the storm, swallowed down by oblivion.

More than a little, he wishes he'd been swallowed down with it.

Even now though, perhaps, his answer isn't the most direct. Isn't exactly a technical or precise explanation, but true for all that.]

A weapon. A hound of war. A dog, hahah.

[At least, in a vague way, it explains the smell...]

i did wonder... and look . . . giovanni's weird

[speeds]

[ It's hard to piece everything together when he isn't familiar with Giovanni's world. So many things here are new, even if he's already learned lots about his own world -- this is another thing altogether. He stays quiet as Giovanni's thoughts splinter off briefly, only to laugh slightly himself at the response he gets. ]

That explains some things, more than you probably realise.

[ He doesn't know if Giovanni can sense anything from his scent in return or if this is all one way, but for him it isn't pleasant. ]

...he is pretty weird, yes ;;

[ofobedience]

[It's not quite the response he'd been expecting. Well, in truth he hadn't been expecting anything, but the stranger's reaction is unanticipated all the same. Because yes he can pick up on the idiosyncrasy of this being's scent, knows he's something other than human, but he remains perfectly unaware that it's a sense they both share. Besides which, he can't say he finds Edward's scent unpleasant, exactly. Only alien, strange.

He turns to look at him with that tilt of the head that makes him seem all the more what he just claimed to be, all curious dog.]

Oh? Such as?

it's ok ... they both are

[speeds]

[ He glances away at the look Giovanni ends up giving him, trying to not laugh because he's going to be rude enough with this as it is. ]

You kind of smell like one. Not as bad as something that exists back home, but enough that I can smell it.

[ It doesn't give him too many hints on what he is, but it's something. ]

this is very true

[ofobedience]

[There's the infinitesimal narrowing of his eyes when the Edward averts his gaze from him, the stifled signs of amusement vaguely discernible despite his efforts. Does this guy think he's funny...

...but then the answer comes, and Giovanni feels mild surprise like a snapped stem, even as something somewhere quietly ripples in him, the pant and scrabble of the thing in his Spine. He keeps himself meticulously neat and clean, when he isn't covered in blood. And yet, and yet--]

You're telling me I smell like dog.

[And suddenly, he wants to laugh. Of course he does.]

smh...

[speeds]

[ Honestly, he is terrible at being funny most of the time, but sometimes he finds himself funny too, yes. The answer should explain it this time, though. ]

Just a little. It's why I was quite curious. You definitely aren't the same as the ones I'm used to, but... it does stand out compared to most people.

[ofobedience]

[He does laugh this time, a short barked out sound that stands for amusement, yes, but also something else. Something harder, less pleasant. He smiles his razorblade smile.]

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

[The hard smile lingers even as he keeps moving, eyes returning to the pods, still searching the sleeping faces for the shape of someone he knows.]

But if we're sharing, perhaps you'll do me the courtesy of telling me what you are. I can't say yours is a scent I recognise.

[He glances back over his shoulder then, almost (almost) smirks.]

No likeness I can insult you with.

[speeds]

I suppose not. [ The laughter is definitely gone by now though, instead he changes course, indicating Giovanni should turn as well - they're heading deeper into the stasis unit. ]

That's because it's a lie.

[ His mouth twists into more of a frown, brow furrowing with it. He's cautious, that's for certain. ]

A mask, of sorts. It's something... that would normally draw people in.

[ Yet, he doesn't put a label on himself - not yet. ]

[ofobedience]

[And turn he does, heads in deeper. It's a quiet thing, dulled and dampened by the direction of their conversation, but somewhere inside of him things start to twist and tighten, the growing concern and fear and longing, fret that he'll find what he's looking for. Fret that he won't.

But again, externally, he remains as cool and calm as ever.]

A mask.

[His lips twist again in an odd kind of smile-- he knows something of masks after all. Still--]

So you draw people in. Although, from my perspective, you just smell...if not wrong, then different. Alien.

[A beat.]

That doesn't quite answer my question, though.

[speeds]

[ The coolness doesn't matter whenever those thoughts skirt to the surface before dwindling back down again. ]

You aren't human.

[ It's easier to say it like that now he knows, though he doesn't give a name for himself still - instead offering only something simple: ]

Neither am I. Though I don't have a name for it.

[ It's a lie, but there's only so much he can trust to tell right now. Not when he can see how unstable Giovanni's thoughts are under the surface. ]

[ofobedience]

[His eyes move briefly back to Edward then, quite openly assessing, and though his face betrays no sign of emotion or suspicion, his thoughts are something else. He doesn't believe it, not really, this claim of not knowing. Suspects it to be a lie, or at best a half-truth. Wonders vaguely what this being might be hiding, why it matters.

But ultimately, it matters little to him.

As such the moment breaks and Giovanni shrugs, turns back towards the pods. Slim fingers reaching out to run idly along the cool metal surface of one, then the next.]

I see. And what about the others you spoke of? The ones you said seem something like myself, only different?

[Something like him. Not likely, he thinks. He hopes. What he is-- he may want to be better perhaps, may wish he was the tool Mother had created him to be, and yet. And yet. It's not a fate he'd wish on anything else. To be shaped by someone else's hands into something twisted and monstrous and wrong and doomed, ultimately, to misery.]

[speeds]

[ He keeps quiet, waiting for the inevitable questions that usually come up -- but nothing comes and with that he only feels relief. ]

We call them "shape-shifters". They're part of a tribe that have lived in the area I've moved to for a long time. Werewolves exist as well, but they're so few now. Either way, they both smell worse to me than you do.

[ He pauses as they walk into another aisle of pods, eyeing the faces to see if any seem similar to the thoughts Giovanni had before. ]

They weren't made into what they are.

[ofobedience]

[Werewolves. Something from stories, old legends, nothing that one would believe to exist and yet here's this stranger telling him that it's so. Though any incredulity in him is a small thing, quickly crushed-- why not, after all? They're currently traveling through space aboard a station full of all kinds of beings from all kinds of worlds, and he himself is the stuff of nightmares, something whispered about and shudderingly imagined by those in the Underground of his own contained little world. Why not just give it all up and believe in anything that he's told? Anything at all?

There's a mental faltering in him then, the sick feeling one experiences the moment before a fall, and once again he's suddenly reminded that everything he knew is gone and what remains is an existence he could never have begun to imagine. One that frightens him-- not because of the creatures that exist within it - he has little to fear from all that - but only because it's something big and complex and utterly beyond his understanding.

Again though, he says nothing of this. Keeps his face empty and his eyes fixed coolly on the pods.]

And yet, you're still telling me I smell bad. What manners you have.

[Though if anything, he only sounds wryly amused, just the vaguest hint of self-consciousness beneath the surface. And though something in him mentally snags over that final sentence - he hadn't overtly said he'd been made, had he? - he assumes that the word 'weapon' must have made it obvious enough.]

And that's good for--

[Good for them-- he was going to say, in reference to their lack of artificiality...only the words are cut clean through as though with a blade, his movements coming to abrupt halt in front of one particular pod. He says nothing as he looks down at the woman inside, face wiped clean of emotion as she sleeps, made all the more beautiful in her stillness.

Internally, there's a moment of absolute emptiness before a burst of feeling so intense it almost floors him floods through his mind and up behind his eyes and judders through his bones. Love hate anger loss despair longing fear adulation relief, sick souldeep subservience because it's MotherMotherMother.]

[speeds]

[ Considering he doesn't even know werewolves in his own world, he has little problem with bringing them up by name. They've been almost hunted out of their existence by the vampires - ordered to be slaughtered. The shapeshifters are different, older Native American tribes that took the form of wolves and hunted the cold ones to keep people safe. The only reason why Edward and his family had been left alone is due to a truce between the two - so long as the Cullens didn't harm a human, they were allowed to live on the land.

Here, he doesn't have that kind of luxury. He has to be a little more careful with his words. ]

Habit. [ It's all he says in response to the comment about his smell though, laughing it off as a way of showing he really doesn't mean offence, it is just habit. They never go near the reservation now, but even going close by that once or twice he'd crept into Bella's room to watch her sleep, the scent was in the air from Jacob's past visits.

He hasn't tried to find her in here. The last words he'd said had been that the bus had been full anyway, that she wasn't welcome with his family. It's better if he does keep away. Whether it was better or worse for Giovanni is up in the air, though his reaction to finally finding who he thinks of as "Mother" is something else entirely.

The woman, whoever she is, is beautiful. He can't deny that either. All sharp lines and she does look peaceful in the pod. He can't concentrate on her with how loud Giovanni's thoughts are though. So many feelings come flooding in with the thoughts of loneliness and being lost just get taken over with one word. "Mother".

Edward's hand moves to Giovanni's shoulder. ]

She's one of them? [ He isn't more specific to keep his secret a little longer, but it's a way to get him talking. ]

[ofobedience]

[Perhaps, were this a different kind of situation, the fall of the other being's hand on his shoulder would have elicited a stronger reaction, all swift movement paired with the attempt to rip or tear or break, a visceral response to an unexpected touch, the legacy of having lived his life in a world of constant violence. But it doesn't come-- instead, the weight of Edward's hand is barely registered, the feel of it so vague and distant that it could be happening to someone else, in another plane of existence. In this moment there is only Her and his thoughts continue to clamour loud, tearing at him, up behind the ribs in inside his skull like butterflies with razorblade wings.

He remains cool and still and motionless on an external level, but looking down into her face like this, he realises he isn't prepared, isn't ready. He wants to rip open the pod and drag her out and scream her name over and over until she's forced to open her eyes and become present. He wants to turn and walk away and pretend he never saw her like this at all, pretend it never happened. Both desires are equally strong in him, cancel each other out until he remains here, still as stone, doing nothing.

Would she be pleased, if he were to wake her up and save her from her frozen slumber? Would she be glad to see him finally, accept him and be happy that at least one of her creations had survived, even if it is the flawed one, the useless one, the dregs and the scraps and the trash? Or would there only be the black hole of her endless disappointment, wanting only for Heine even now, after everything? Does he want to know?

He does. He doesn't. He wants her here and present and able to tell him what to do. He wishes she'd been consumed by the storm, and himself along with her.

It takes him a moment to find himself amidst the turbulence of his chaotic thoughts, but eventually he does. Forces himself to speak, his voice deceptively smooth and level, as though he feels nothing at all.]

She is. Professor Einstürzen. My creator.

[speeds]

[ Given the broken pieces of Giovanni's thoughts and the storm that seems to settle within him, Edward is already able to work out her identity before Giovanni even confirms it. "Mother" had been a name like "Father" was to him with Carlisle. Someone who had easily replaced his own absent father after creating him into something he hated -- but he had given him access to love from someone who could play the part of a family member.

He can't say it's the same thing, he doesn't hate Carlisle for what he did after all, but it has parallels that he can understand well enough. ]

Was it worth it?

[ Looking for her. Coming here. ]

[ofobedience]

[There's a moment of relative stillness then, the hush in his head interrupted only by the perpetual scrabble and scrape of the thing in him, somewhere deep enough to go almost (almost) unnoticed. Such an intrinsic part of him that he almost forgets it's there, doesn't know what it feels like, anymore, to be without it.

Silence, inside and out, as he tries to pinpoint his feelings. Flattens them out and crushes them down into something small and easier to discern. It gives him something to carry on for, doesn't it? Having her here. Whether that's a good thing, or quite the opposite, he really doesn't know.]

I don't know.

[He answers at last, his words for once a mirroring his thoughts.]

Time will tell, I suppose.

[speeds]

It seems we have plenty of it here, anyway.

[ Him more than most. What will happen with that is still up in the air, but when others start to notice he isn't aging this time, it isn't like he can run away all that far - at least that's what he's aware of right now.

It might be best that his family haven't woken up. ]

Do you want me to leave you here?

[ofobedience]

[There's a moment of silence as he thinks it over, as he tries to determine the best way to proceed. Whether he can keep control over his actions if he's left here along with Her, what will happen if he finds Heine. If he doesn't.

But eventually, he nods. Slowly. Thinks it's better, perhaps, if he could have a moment alone with his silent maker, if he's by himself when he discovers who else is here, and who isn't. Time to settle himself, to accept whatever is to come.]

If you would. There are others I still wish to look for.

[speeds]

[ He can see it more than Giovanni probably wishes for him to know now. The way he seems to just stand still, staring at the body in the pod who belongs to someone who means so much to him. Whether it's love or hate doesn't matter now.

He needs this time here alone. ]

I'll leave you to it.

[ He doesn't say anything else, just turns on his heel and moves to walk back to towards the entrance. Given that they're stuck here, it's likely he'll see him again anyway. ]