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pluviooc2024-01-23 10:00 am
pluviosamods) wrote in pluviooc2024-01-23 10:00 am
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Test Drive 01
TEST DRIVE
Hello, and welcome to the first Pluviosa Test Drive!
Rather than a series of prompts that are set after arrival to the game, this Test Drive is instead more of a soft open for the game. That is to say, not only are Test Drive threads game canon, but the Test Drive should be regarded as the "start" of the game chronologically and contains arrival-related events and information.
Or lack of information, as the case in fact is, because there is no greeting party waiting to reassure characters that everything is fine back in their worlds and that they'll get to go home again. (On the flip side, there's no one telling them that their worlds have been destroyed, either.) There is only the ship, the things inside it, the raging storm outside, and what characters can figure out for themselves.
It is advised that potential players familiarize themselves with the Premise page, the Rules/Session Zero page, and at least the first few paragraphs of the Setting page. As Pluviosa is a horror game, we especially encourage players to be aware of the content warnings that will be major themes of the game.
(cw: minor blood, visions, storm weather)
The first thing you become aware of is the sound of dripping. Your mind is fogged, as though woken from the wrong part of your sleep cycle. In your daze, you're convinced that the sound of dripping is blood. Yours? Someone else's? You can't be sure. It's dripping from somewhere. It's your fault, whichever it is.
Good. One way or another, you'll be free of this nightmare -
And then, in response to the sound of a crack of thunder outside, clarity returns.
Characters come around as though disturbed from a deep sleep. Once they have shaken off the (vision? impression?) of blood, they will find that the dripping sound, at least, was real. Fortunately, it's only water - rainwater, more than likely, judging from the occasional booms of thunder and flashes of lightning overhead. One hell of a storm, quite possibly the worst characters have ever experienced, is raging outside.
Outside where? Well, outside the ship, of course.
As a general rule, characters wake up in a random room of the first level of the ship below the main decks. Theoretically, this should be a relatively safe, dry place - but with the age of the ship, its state of disrepair, and the number of plants above that have dug their roots into the deck above, leaks are plentiful. Thus, the sound of dripping water is a constant even in enclosed areas - and, of course, the outside of the ship is being pounded by rain in shimmering sheets, adding to the cacophony of noise accented by the thunder.
Even the protective bubble over the deck itself and the balconies of the rooms is having trouble working to keep the rain out - the rain isn't terrifying hurricane levels, but it is steady and water floods steadily down the stairs and over the edges of the gap down the center of the ship. The worst of the wind, too, has been kept out, but occasional gusts send ripples through the rain.
There is no power inside the ship right now and barely any light besides the flash of lightning - although characters may arrive while it is nominally day, the clouds stretching from horizon to horizon have blocked out the sun almost completely. The motion of the ship is also far worse than usual due to the storm winds - it's easy to believe that you are in fact at sea, unless you manage to get close enough to the exterior windows or balconies to be able to see the ship's legs in motion through the cascade of water that runs down the exterior.
(cw: hallucinations, thinking things that are real are hallucinations)
In the dark, you have to rely on your other senses - hearing, sound, smell. Smell is giving you the best information to start out with - rain, of course, but also mildew, plants, and old metal. (Is that a whiff of blood at the bottom? No, it's because of that bad dream you had messing with your head.)
No one comes to greet you. No one comes to find you. Instinctively, you know - no one is coming. You'll have to save yourself.
Characters will be fully convinced that they are alone until they actually run into another character. Even things that seem like they should be indicative of another person's presence, such as hearing voices or seeing someone shine a light down a hallway - your character will be convinced that that is just a hallucination until they can definitely lay eyes on another person, hear their voice clearly (ie: not half-drowned-out by the rain) or otherwise be certain of their presence.
That isn't to say that hallucinations aren't occurring. All characters, but especially those who are alone, will periodically hear murmuring voices, smell blood, smoke, and other scents reminiscent of destruction, and see what appear to be the flashes of flashlights, flickering lightbulbs, and the shadows of people walking around. These hallucinations fade in and out in intensity, but they always clear up for at least a little while when a character notices the sound of thunder. Given that the thunder is very frequent during the storm (every few minutes), most hallucinations won't last for long.
For most characters, the voices will be unintelligible murmurs. However, if your character has experienced an event of mass destruction at some point in their life (apocalypse or near-apocalypse, destruction of a city, volcano eruption, being the only survivor of a town that was slaughtered, etc), or has a connection to the dead, they will be able to pick out that the voices of the hallucinations are talking about either attempting to rescue people from something similar (eg: a distant voice shouting "there's someone still alive over here!") or, alternately, talking about how everything is lost, everyone is doomed now, etc. They may hear one type of voice or both at different times, at player discretion.
(cw: dead loved ones, hallucinations/delusions, violence, potential death. THIS PROMPT CONTAINS PVP OPTIONS.)
You're not supposed to be alone. There was someone with you, only a few hours or years or minutes or lifetimes ago. You weren't always alone, and you have to find them.
You'll find them. You do. But not in any kind of condition to keep you company. This lump of flesh is empty now. The plants are already growing over it, reclaiming it. There's blood in the soil, and there's the sound of someone else coming up behind you.
Someone is coming. You'll have to save yourself.
There are various heaps of organic debris that characters can stumble across when wandering around in the dark - piled up leaves, rotted plants, heaps of ferns, moss, and so on. Even solid wood, sometimes - the trunks of small, twisted trees that took root where they might and have grown out from balconies to the exterior or inwards down the jungled crevasse between the two halves of the ship. In the low light, it's easy to literally stumble across them, or mistake them for something else in the brief light of a flash of lightning.
It's the mistaking them for something else that could be a problem. Characters may find themselves absolutely convinced that these heaps of leaves are the body of a loved one - especially if they were wandering around looking for someone in particular. They may or may not accurately perceive leaf cover on the outside of the "body," but unless they dig their hands in enough to be sure of the heap's contents - but who would want to go digging their hands into the body of someone they love? - or they see the shape in clear lighting (which would have to be provided by another character), it will be near impossible to convince them that the pile is just that, and not a corpse.
But that's not the really dangerous part. The dangerous part of all this is that if someone unexpected approaches while the character is in the same room as the 'body,' they may become convinced that the new arrival is responsible for their loved one's death. It doesn't matter how illogical it is on the surface - fear, or rage, or whatever it is that might fuel them will turn on the stranger. And whatever it is that convinces them of this has also turned their fight-or-flight reflex solidly to fight, whether it's for revenge or the last chance at survival for a cornered rat.
Characters so affected will fight until one of the following occurs: If they are led out of sight of the 'body,' they return to their senses (given that they may be inclined to chase the 'perpetrator,' this may be the best non-violent way to resolve the issue). If they are convinced that the 'body' is fake (through physical contact or clear lighting as above), they also return to their senses. And finally, if they kill the 'perpetrator' or are themselves killed or knocked unconscious, the effect ends. In all of these cases, it ends with the sharpness of a rubber band snapped against the skin, and the character is fully aware of their altered mental state and what occurred as a result.
If your character dies as a result of this prompt (and you want that thread to be game canon), please give the mods a heads-up if/when you are accepted into the game. Although this will not count as an 'official' death and will not consume a character's "freebie" revival, there may still be consequences for your character's death.
(cw: worms. many worms. not parasitic. just worms.)
It's easy to take a wrong step in the dark. Of course, tripping and falling isn't the worst thing that can happen.
This isn't the worst thing that could happen, either. That doesn't make it any better in the moment - the split-second when the ground erupts and a writhing mass of something slimy doesn't so much crawl out as jump out - but maybe it will make it better later.
You know how worms come writhing up out of the ground during a rainstorm, when the soil is absolutely saturated?
Well, that's true of the soil on the ship as well, except the worms here aren't just common earthworms anymore. They've learned to climb, the slime that they use to wriggle through the soil modified such that they can cause it to turn sticky and squelch their way up walls, ceilings - and anyone they happen to come across. If you step in the wrong place, an entire cluster of them will respond, by clinging to your clothes and body, squirming upwards in a desperate bid to escape the wet soil and the continuous rivulets of water caused by the storm.
Or perhaps you sat down to rest somewhere and felt them creeping - or didn't, until there was suddenly something wet and cold on your bare skin. Or maybe you encountered the worms not through their climbing, but afterwards, when they drop off the ceiling and fall down on your head as the enzyme that renders their slime sticky wears out. However it happens... worms.
Fortunately, they're harmless - aside from being a bit larger than the earthworms a character is likely to be familiar with, and their strange ability to become sticky, these are largely indistinguishable from normal earthworms. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell that in the dark and the wet - this is their native environment, not yours, and anyone would panic at the sensation of worms trying to crawl up them or into dry places in their clothes.
There is an easy solution to this: Because the worms are fleeing the rain in the soil, they won't climb up anything that's just as wet as the dirt they left behind. All a character has to do to become worm-free is get thoroughly soaked, such as by stepping out into the reduced-but-still-pouring rain on a balcony or deck protected by the ship's bubbles. Unfortunately.... Well, then they're wet. And there doesn't seem to be anywhere to dry off any time soon...
For information on the general shape and state of the ship, please see the setting page. Please note that mods will not be running investigations during the test drive period.
Q: Do our characters still have their powers/items?
Generally speaking, yes. Characters have their powers intact (with certain exceptions, largely for potential-gamebreak reasons) and whatever items they were carrying at their canonpoints. Please see the FAQ for more details.
Q: My character is dead and/or dying at their canonpoint!
Well... Now they aren't. Specifically, dead characters come back as their most recent 'healthy' state of being (unless they're a type of character that is playable while dead, such as a vampire or a Bleach shinigami, in which case they continue as normal for them); they also arrive already soaked through by the rain, regardless of the location they wake up. Characters who are mortally injured find that their wounds have healed; in place of whatever blood was soaking through their clothes/dripping from their bodies/in their mouth from a Cough of Death, they instead find pure water.
Q: Can my character(s) explore the ship?
Your characters are welcome to explore as much as they're willing and capable of doing in the wet and the rain! However, getting between floors is a challenge in the current weather - with the power off, the elevators do not work, and the stairs are consistently flooded by a cascade of rainwater. However, mods will not be running any official, guided explorations until after game opening.
Q: Is there anywhere dry to rest?
Nowhere is completely dry, but the aft portion of the ship is significantly drier than the middle and fore. The reason for this is that there is a series of partial decks (the residential decks) over roughly the last third of the ship. The rain is fully blocked by the roof overhead, in theory, but in practice the wind and the flooding leave this space only sort of dry. It's possible to find your way here on your own and find some place to sleep that doesn't blow mold spores into your face when you sit down, but it's also darker here, since the lightning's light is also blocked out by the roof.
Q: BATHROOMS?
Unfortunately, the lack of water in the pipes means that the toilets (which can be found relatively intact in most suites, though many are full of standing water) are also not running. Characters get to deal with this issue as they see fit, whether that's using the dilapidated toilets or using a more fertilizer-like strategy.
Q: Is there anything from the game's main info pages that doesn't apply to this Test Drive?
Given that the power is currently off, the Ship (as in the entity) cannot be interacted with on the Test Drive (and characters have no reason to think it's there). Anything else that would require power, such as the elevators or water from the faucets, also does not work.
Q: How long does the storm last?
ICly, it begins to lighten up on the evening of the second day after the first characters wake up, though it is still raining steadily with occasional thunder throughout that night. (Characters will continue to trickle in throughout the duration of the storm, though most arrive before the end of the first day.) The characters will be able to see the sun starting on the third morning - which is also planned to be the game's formal opening, so we won't say more until then!
Q: Do our characters receive anything upon arrival?
Not a thing! Nor do they encounter any kind of informational NPC or anything that gives them a solid idea what's going on. The only exception to this is that all characters experience the dripping-blood related vision/dream/impression detailed in the first prompt of the Test Drive. Additionally, characters who have a unique tie to their world (such as Aerith's connection to the Lifestream in FFVII) will be aware that they're not in their own world anymore.
Q: What are our characters eating?
Since the power hasn't come on yet... Whatever they're adventurous and/or knowledgeable enough to find that doesn't kill them! This can include edible plants and limited amounts of things brought from home (please don't have your character bring 99 casseroles even if your game's inventory system allows it), but mods are not tracking this specifically. Most characters will be expected to be hungry and unhappy but not literally starving come game open. At least there's plenty of water.
Q: I have some specific question I need to ask about my specific character on the test drive!
Please post your question in response to the header comment QUESTIONS below!
Rather than a series of prompts that are set after arrival to the game, this Test Drive is instead more of a soft open for the game. That is to say, not only are Test Drive threads game canon, but the Test Drive should be regarded as the "start" of the game chronologically and contains arrival-related events and information.
Or lack of information, as the case in fact is, because there is no greeting party waiting to reassure characters that everything is fine back in their worlds and that they'll get to go home again. (On the flip side, there's no one telling them that their worlds have been destroyed, either.) There is only the ship, the things inside it, the raging storm outside, and what characters can figure out for themselves.
It is advised that potential players familiarize themselves with the Premise page, the Rules/Session Zero page, and at least the first few paragraphs of the Setting page. As Pluviosa is a horror game, we especially encourage players to be aware of the content warnings that will be major themes of the game.
ARRIVAL
(cw: minor blood, visions, storm weather)
The first thing you become aware of is the sound of dripping. Your mind is fogged, as though woken from the wrong part of your sleep cycle. In your daze, you're convinced that the sound of dripping is blood. Yours? Someone else's? You can't be sure. It's dripping from somewhere. It's your fault, whichever it is.
Good. One way or another, you'll be free of this nightmare -
And then, in response to the sound of a crack of thunder outside, clarity returns.
Characters come around as though disturbed from a deep sleep. Once they have shaken off the (vision? impression?) of blood, they will find that the dripping sound, at least, was real. Fortunately, it's only water - rainwater, more than likely, judging from the occasional booms of thunder and flashes of lightning overhead. One hell of a storm, quite possibly the worst characters have ever experienced, is raging outside.
Outside where? Well, outside the ship, of course.
As a general rule, characters wake up in a random room of the first level of the ship below the main decks. Theoretically, this should be a relatively safe, dry place - but with the age of the ship, its state of disrepair, and the number of plants above that have dug their roots into the deck above, leaks are plentiful. Thus, the sound of dripping water is a constant even in enclosed areas - and, of course, the outside of the ship is being pounded by rain in shimmering sheets, adding to the cacophony of noise accented by the thunder.
Even the protective bubble over the deck itself and the balconies of the rooms is having trouble working to keep the rain out - the rain isn't terrifying hurricane levels, but it is steady and water floods steadily down the stairs and over the edges of the gap down the center of the ship. The worst of the wind, too, has been kept out, but occasional gusts send ripples through the rain.
There is no power inside the ship right now and barely any light besides the flash of lightning - although characters may arrive while it is nominally day, the clouds stretching from horizon to horizon have blocked out the sun almost completely. The motion of the ship is also far worse than usual due to the storm winds - it's easy to believe that you are in fact at sea, unless you manage to get close enough to the exterior windows or balconies to be able to see the ship's legs in motion through the cascade of water that runs down the exterior.
SEEING IS BELIEVING
(cw: hallucinations, thinking things that are real are hallucinations)
In the dark, you have to rely on your other senses - hearing, sound, smell. Smell is giving you the best information to start out with - rain, of course, but also mildew, plants, and old metal. (Is that a whiff of blood at the bottom? No, it's because of that bad dream you had messing with your head.)
No one comes to greet you. No one comes to find you. Instinctively, you know - no one is coming. You'll have to save yourself.
Characters will be fully convinced that they are alone until they actually run into another character. Even things that seem like they should be indicative of another person's presence, such as hearing voices or seeing someone shine a light down a hallway - your character will be convinced that that is just a hallucination until they can definitely lay eyes on another person, hear their voice clearly (ie: not half-drowned-out by the rain) or otherwise be certain of their presence.
That isn't to say that hallucinations aren't occurring. All characters, but especially those who are alone, will periodically hear murmuring voices, smell blood, smoke, and other scents reminiscent of destruction, and see what appear to be the flashes of flashlights, flickering lightbulbs, and the shadows of people walking around. These hallucinations fade in and out in intensity, but they always clear up for at least a little while when a character notices the sound of thunder. Given that the thunder is very frequent during the storm (every few minutes), most hallucinations won't last for long.
For most characters, the voices will be unintelligible murmurs. However, if your character has experienced an event of mass destruction at some point in their life (apocalypse or near-apocalypse, destruction of a city, volcano eruption, being the only survivor of a town that was slaughtered, etc), or has a connection to the dead, they will be able to pick out that the voices of the hallucinations are talking about either attempting to rescue people from something similar (eg: a distant voice shouting "there's someone still alive over here!") or, alternately, talking about how everything is lost, everyone is doomed now, etc. They may hear one type of voice or both at different times, at player discretion.
TO RUN ITS COURSE
(cw: dead loved ones, hallucinations/delusions, violence, potential death. THIS PROMPT CONTAINS PVP OPTIONS.)
You're not supposed to be alone. There was someone with you, only a few hours or years or minutes or lifetimes ago. You weren't always alone, and you have to find them.
You'll find them. You do. But not in any kind of condition to keep you company. This lump of flesh is empty now. The plants are already growing over it, reclaiming it. There's blood in the soil, and there's the sound of someone else coming up behind you.
Someone is coming. You'll have to save yourself.
There are various heaps of organic debris that characters can stumble across when wandering around in the dark - piled up leaves, rotted plants, heaps of ferns, moss, and so on. Even solid wood, sometimes - the trunks of small, twisted trees that took root where they might and have grown out from balconies to the exterior or inwards down the jungled crevasse between the two halves of the ship. In the low light, it's easy to literally stumble across them, or mistake them for something else in the brief light of a flash of lightning.
It's the mistaking them for something else that could be a problem. Characters may find themselves absolutely convinced that these heaps of leaves are the body of a loved one - especially if they were wandering around looking for someone in particular. They may or may not accurately perceive leaf cover on the outside of the "body," but unless they dig their hands in enough to be sure of the heap's contents - but who would want to go digging their hands into the body of someone they love? - or they see the shape in clear lighting (which would have to be provided by another character), it will be near impossible to convince them that the pile is just that, and not a corpse.
But that's not the really dangerous part. The dangerous part of all this is that if someone unexpected approaches while the character is in the same room as the 'body,' they may become convinced that the new arrival is responsible for their loved one's death. It doesn't matter how illogical it is on the surface - fear, or rage, or whatever it is that might fuel them will turn on the stranger. And whatever it is that convinces them of this has also turned their fight-or-flight reflex solidly to fight, whether it's for revenge or the last chance at survival for a cornered rat.
Characters so affected will fight until one of the following occurs: If they are led out of sight of the 'body,' they return to their senses (given that they may be inclined to chase the 'perpetrator,' this may be the best non-violent way to resolve the issue). If they are convinced that the 'body' is fake (through physical contact or clear lighting as above), they also return to their senses. And finally, if they kill the 'perpetrator' or are themselves killed or knocked unconscious, the effect ends. In all of these cases, it ends with the sharpness of a rubber band snapped against the skin, and the character is fully aware of their altered mental state and what occurred as a result.
If your character dies as a result of this prompt (and you want that thread to be game canon), please give the mods a heads-up if/when you are accepted into the game. Although this will not count as an 'official' death and will not consume a character's "freebie" revival, there may still be consequences for your character's death.
CONTENTS WORMING
(cw: worms. many worms. not parasitic. just worms.)
It's easy to take a wrong step in the dark. Of course, tripping and falling isn't the worst thing that can happen.
This isn't the worst thing that could happen, either. That doesn't make it any better in the moment - the split-second when the ground erupts and a writhing mass of something slimy doesn't so much crawl out as jump out - but maybe it will make it better later.
You know how worms come writhing up out of the ground during a rainstorm, when the soil is absolutely saturated?
Well, that's true of the soil on the ship as well, except the worms here aren't just common earthworms anymore. They've learned to climb, the slime that they use to wriggle through the soil modified such that they can cause it to turn sticky and squelch their way up walls, ceilings - and anyone they happen to come across. If you step in the wrong place, an entire cluster of them will respond, by clinging to your clothes and body, squirming upwards in a desperate bid to escape the wet soil and the continuous rivulets of water caused by the storm.
Or perhaps you sat down to rest somewhere and felt them creeping - or didn't, until there was suddenly something wet and cold on your bare skin. Or maybe you encountered the worms not through their climbing, but afterwards, when they drop off the ceiling and fall down on your head as the enzyme that renders their slime sticky wears out. However it happens... worms.
Fortunately, they're harmless - aside from being a bit larger than the earthworms a character is likely to be familiar with, and their strange ability to become sticky, these are largely indistinguishable from normal earthworms. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell that in the dark and the wet - this is their native environment, not yours, and anyone would panic at the sensation of worms trying to crawl up them or into dry places in their clothes.
There is an easy solution to this: Because the worms are fleeing the rain in the soil, they won't climb up anything that's just as wet as the dirt they left behind. All a character has to do to become worm-free is get thoroughly soaked, such as by stepping out into the reduced-but-still-pouring rain on a balcony or deck protected by the ship's bubbles. Unfortunately.... Well, then they're wet. And there doesn't seem to be anywhere to dry off any time soon...
FAQ
Q: Do our characters still have their powers/items?
Generally speaking, yes. Characters have their powers intact (with certain exceptions, largely for potential-gamebreak reasons) and whatever items they were carrying at their canonpoints. Please see the FAQ for more details.
Q: My character is dead and/or dying at their canonpoint!
Well... Now they aren't. Specifically, dead characters come back as their most recent 'healthy' state of being (unless they're a type of character that is playable while dead, such as a vampire or a Bleach shinigami, in which case they continue as normal for them); they also arrive already soaked through by the rain, regardless of the location they wake up. Characters who are mortally injured find that their wounds have healed; in place of whatever blood was soaking through their clothes/dripping from their bodies/in their mouth from a Cough of Death, they instead find pure water.
Q: Can my character(s) explore the ship?
Your characters are welcome to explore as much as they're willing and capable of doing in the wet and the rain! However, getting between floors is a challenge in the current weather - with the power off, the elevators do not work, and the stairs are consistently flooded by a cascade of rainwater. However, mods will not be running any official, guided explorations until after game opening.
Q: Is there anywhere dry to rest?
Nowhere is completely dry, but the aft portion of the ship is significantly drier than the middle and fore. The reason for this is that there is a series of partial decks (the residential decks) over roughly the last third of the ship. The rain is fully blocked by the roof overhead, in theory, but in practice the wind and the flooding leave this space only sort of dry. It's possible to find your way here on your own and find some place to sleep that doesn't blow mold spores into your face when you sit down, but it's also darker here, since the lightning's light is also blocked out by the roof.
Q: BATHROOMS?
Unfortunately, the lack of water in the pipes means that the toilets (which can be found relatively intact in most suites, though many are full of standing water) are also not running. Characters get to deal with this issue as they see fit, whether that's using the dilapidated toilets or using a more fertilizer-like strategy.
Q: Is there anything from the game's main info pages that doesn't apply to this Test Drive?
Given that the power is currently off, the Ship (as in the entity) cannot be interacted with on the Test Drive (and characters have no reason to think it's there). Anything else that would require power, such as the elevators or water from the faucets, also does not work.
Q: How long does the storm last?
ICly, it begins to lighten up on the evening of the second day after the first characters wake up, though it is still raining steadily with occasional thunder throughout that night. (Characters will continue to trickle in throughout the duration of the storm, though most arrive before the end of the first day.) The characters will be able to see the sun starting on the third morning - which is also planned to be the game's formal opening, so we won't say more until then!
Q: Do our characters receive anything upon arrival?
Not a thing! Nor do they encounter any kind of informational NPC or anything that gives them a solid idea what's going on. The only exception to this is that all characters experience the dripping-blood related vision/dream/impression detailed in the first prompt of the Test Drive. Additionally, characters who have a unique tie to their world (such as Aerith's connection to the Lifestream in FFVII) will be aware that they're not in their own world anymore.
Q: What are our characters eating?
Since the power hasn't come on yet... Whatever they're adventurous and/or knowledgeable enough to find that doesn't kill them! This can include edible plants and limited amounts of things brought from home (please don't have your character bring 99 casseroles even if your game's inventory system allows it), but mods are not tracking this specifically. Most characters will be expected to be hungry and unhappy but not literally starving come game open. At least there's plenty of water.
Q: I have some specific question I need to ask about my specific character on the test drive!
Please post your question in response to the header comment QUESTIONS below!
Re: Contents Worming
He swipes his hair away from his eyes, stepping out of the deluge of water he'd stepped into. Shaking loose rivulets of it off of his hands.]
No, yeah, I'm fine. There were just...
[He pauses. This was embarrassing, man.]
Worms. Big juicy ones, all over me. They started climbing up my legs. I think they're trying to get away from all this... Water.
[The Harbinger looks at her, fully expecting her to laugh, or think he's pathetic. He looks like a wet dog, hair clinging limply to his head. He just shrugs, resigned to his fate. Glad he wasn't covered in them OR their slime anymore.]
They kind of just burst out of the ground and startled me. I'm good.
[She'd been hearing things too. Glad he wasn't just completely losing his mind, then.]
What about you? You look like you ended up on the wrong side of every plant here.
Re: Contents Worming
“…Worms?” Lucia Corina looks down at the floor, like it will hold some kind of answers, but it’s wet enough near this balcony that no worms are visible. “There really is an entire ecosystem on this boat. How bizarre. I think it’s a boat, anyway, despite its astonishing size. Buildings don’t move this much, in my experience.” She blinks and brings herself back to the conversation. “I would certainly find myself startled if worms started climbing up my legs. Entirely understandable.”
“Wrong side of every plant?” She pats vaguely at her dripping hair and produces a twig with leaves coming off of it. “This—oh. That’s odd. I haven’t seen this type of tree since—“ She cuts herself off, not trying to hide anything so much as trying to avoid thinking about something. “I would have noticed if something this unpleasantly familiar was growing here. I haven’t recognized a single plant here. Or anything else here, for that matter. The walls, your clothing…” She gestures helplessly. “I am not usually so out of my depth. I make something of a profession of history, in fact.”
no subject
But what was all this vegetation doing in here, and where were they?
"Yeah, worms. I think the water repels them. You know, like regular worms when it rains?"
That was the best he could figure. In the meantime, she ponders his observation, feeling for twigs in her hair. She stops herself from elaborating, but he gets the distinct feeling they've been in her hair longer than either of them have been here. Especially if she couldn't recognize any plants here.
"I've met a few people that I didn't recognize at all, who talked about things my home doesn't have. And this boat is.. it's not one I've ever seen. I don't think any of us are actually supposed to be here."
It was weird, to say out loud. It almost reminds him of the domain he'd thrown himself into in Inazuma. Almost. Stranger than that, really. Less enemies to kill, just a bunch of people similarly confused about the situation.
no subject
no subject
He notices her expression, but doesn't ask. Everyone has their demons.
"Set expectations for our behaviour..."
He looks at the plants around them, the ship, the distant, incorporeal noises. The only constant here were that it was a miserable fucking place. An idea comes to mind, but he decides against it. At least, not in front of her, like this.
Maybe breaking shit later will give him some answers.
"I'd like to know that, as well. I was cooped up in a hospital bed before I woke up here. By all normal logic, I'd be barely able to stand. But I'm... Here. And feel fine. I even fought a guy!"
It doesn't make sense.
"Brought here for skills?"
That was an interesting idea. But why? Did whoever brought him here need him to clear the place of something? His best skills were chaos and incredible violence. His next best skills were cooking and theatre, and he was sure as hell no one needed him to perform here. Cooking was a different story: Everyone needed to eat at some point, right?
On that note, he realized he was growing pretty hungry.
"Have you eaten anything yet? Since you got here, I mean."
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"You were healed, as well as kidnapped? How... odd. Perhaps lends more to the idea that they want us for something. That they need you well for whatever it is."
She looks a bit concerned at the statement that he fought someone. "Who did you fight? You said you hadn't met any captors?"
Upon the question about food, she blinks, startled. She hadn't thought about it. "No, I haven't. I have some dry rations in my pack, but I don't want to open it until I get somewhere dry so I won't ruin all my things. The Iudex offered to dry everything, but I was afraid of my zither being damaged by the drastic change in moisture. And I haven't recognized any of the plants here to be able to tell what's safe to eat among them."
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Not that he wants to be here longer than he needs to be, but he doesn't think this little rendezvous is going to end anytime soon.
"Yeah, I agree. It's weird. My main skills are fighting and cooking. I haven't met anyone who I'd describe as an enemy, so uh... I guess everyone does need food, but they should have just nabbed a chef, damn."
He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. Her look of concern when he mentioned he fought someone has him shaking his head. It hadn't been that serious. Or well... it had been.
"Oh, uh, that? I fought Casper. Something real fucked up came over me, I thought he'd killed my little brother and I just started swinging. Dude's strong. He hit me with a bat and knocked me back into my senses."
Childe points to the tacky blood in his hair, the red stain almost matching the mask clipped into his hair on the opposite side.
One word catches him off guard, makes his heart race, just a bit. Someone actually familiar? Someone he wanted a round two with? The man who threw him in fucking prison? He was here? He'd offered to dry her things--- his hydro abilities far beyond any Childe had seen before, and he'd only had a glimpse of them.
"The. The Iudex? Neuvillette?"
Oh, he had a few choice words for the guy, for sure. He laughs, disbelieving, eyes wide and feral. This was the best news all day.
"He's here? On the ship?"
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"...Oh. Are you all right? And him?" She lifts her hand a little, like she instinctively wants to reach for the injury on his head, but aborts the movement.
Lucia Corina almost steps back at Childe's reaction to the title, the swing in affect is so dramatic. The look in his eyes--she can believe he is someone who boasts mainly skill in fighting, now, and that he's the sort of person who would find joy in violence. But there's no point in denying it to keep the peace--she's sure he'll come upon the Iudex himself eventually, anyway. "Yes, he introduced himself as Iudex Neuvillette. You know him?" Know him seems an understatement for this response. What is the history between them? Neuvillette was kind to her, but so has Childe been--she has no grounds to choose between them.
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Something he understood, but couldn't personally relate to. He liked a good adventure, even if it was cold and wet and miserable and full of weird slimy worms. He was enjoying this little excursion away from his normal duties. Childe figures it'll all make a great story to tell his younger siblings when he gets home.
If he gets home.
But he's gotten out of worse places before (The Abyss. Prison.), so he's not going to worry about that.
"Oh, this? Yeah, it's fine. Casper's okay, too. I got him pretty good, but he seemed to be fine when we parted." Childe shrugs. He swears he wasn't trying to be a rude prick and attack people out of nowhere.
(Speaking of attacking people!)
"Know him? Perhaps you could say that. I have... something of a score to settle, with him." Childe says, eyes wide like dinner plates. There's a hungry look in them, and his hands itched to summon his blades and go look for the judge and drag him down to the Harbinger's level by force. Sure, making enemies out the gate wasn't a great idea when they were trapped in the same... relatively confined space as a bunch of other uninvolved parties, but well. That hadn't stopped either of them before.
(It had, really. Neuvillette had rendered him very unconscious before he could do any real harm. And the second time they met was more about the giant fucking otherworldly beast he'd spent a lifetime obsessing about and making a point to the Iudex, more than anything. So yeah: Childe considered that a score unsettled.)
"Nothing to worry about, though. It's just personal business." The Harbinger says, offering her a smile, his expression becoming something more... hinged and normal.
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"Are you sure? Head injuries can be serious, and if you haven't even cleaned it... And gods alone know what kind of filth this place harbors, to turn the wound bad. I think I've a wineskin, we could clean it!" Lucia Corina: displaying a reasonable amount of concern for injuries for someone who doesn't have access to any kind of healing magic ever, and probably doesn't actually even have germ theory!
She's notably wary of that wide-eyed hunger. She had seen elves with that kind of look, holding that kind of violence. Childe seems young and kind, but... many things can. "I... see." She doesn't. "He seems more valuable as an ally, in this circumstances?" Even aside from his power over water, he would rather not make enemies of anyone, if she can avoid it.
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Lucia fussed over it like his sister would--- he couldn't begin to express how fine he was, actually! He didn't need others worrying about him, a few injuries here and there were standard fare for his line of work. It was more concerning if he didn't return with a few wounds.
"An... ally?"
The redhead sounds a bit dumbfounded. Confused. Who did she think he was? Someone who didn't fight allies? That was like a basic bonding activity to him. He didn't make friends with anyone he wasn't interested in fighting.
"That wouldn't stop me. A little 'friendly' sparring never killed anyone."
Childe spits out the word friendly like it bit him.
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Lucia Corina thinks probably sparring that friendly has killed someone, in fact. "Wouldn't it be better to save your strength in case of a real threat?" she attempts, instead. "Something brought us all here, after all. Something that didn't think it need... fear your prowess. I'm not a threat to anything but... clearly you are." She feels rather vulnerable, actually. Hopefully he's not inclined to extend 'friendly' sparring to everyone he meets. And hopefully nothing else decides to attack her. She seems to be the most... delicate, of those she's met so far.
And she doesn't know why she's here. She doesn't know what's wanted of her. She isn't going to be on solid ground until she learns what the expectations of this place are, what kind of cage she has found herself in. She turns her head away, hair falling over her face. Everything about this situation is making her more anxious.
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Childe stares at her, confused. Everyone loved to assume mastery of Hydro meant healing, but he really didn't have any use for that. He used it to make weapons, to imbue arrows, and to keep his idling hands busy when his thoughts got too loud. Healing was not Childe's forte, he was a weapon.
"Don't worry, I don't spar with people that can't handle me. I know I'm a little intense." The redhead says with a laugh. "I know what I'm doing."
If he went all out on this ship, yeah, he'd be out of commission for a while, but it'd be worth it. Especially for a rematch with Neuvillette. The idea had the young man's heart pumping.
She turns her head away, and he frowns-- He must be worrying her more. His expression softens a little, just for a moment.
"Anyone that isn't confident in fighting is safe with me around. Whatever the threat is, I'll take care of it. Promise. I'm not the Tsaritsa's Vanguard for nothing."
The fatuus means it. While he'd looked
a littlederanged moments prior, this was a different level of that same intensity, a sort of deep earnestness in his eyes. He was not one to break a promise.no subject
Intense is definitely a word for it. Childe seems... battle-mad, in an unpredictable way, if it can be triggered by merely the mention of a name. The battle-mad can't always tell who they're attacking.
Looking away, she misses the softer expression. He promises more violence, and... well. She'd like to believe a promise of protection, but she's too chary of him now. If she has a choice of who to hide behind if something happens, it will be Casper, or even the Iudex, not Childe.
But he sounds... proud of that title. Maybe it's a safer topic. "Tsaritsa's Vanguard?"
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"You're right. I don't know. But I'm used to being covered in wounds and scrapes. I'm not an easy guy to kill."
She asks about his title, and he beams, pride swelling in his chest.
"Oh, yeah. The god of my region is called the Tsaritsa. I am honored to be her Eleventh Harbinger, which are kind of. The lot of us handle the military and government on her behalf. She has bigger concerns. I usually get sent on missions in faraway regions. I'm the guy that's usually sent behind enemy lines."
He sounds deranged. This poor woman.
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Lucia Corina upgrades him several tiers in terms of importance and terrifyingness. "...Oh. You're the hand of a god in war?" The gods can be... obscure, in their motivations, and she knows nothing of his foreign goddess, so she has even less idea what to expect of him. "That sounds like a very... important role." He glows with pride about it, it's clearly an achievement.
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Childe couldn't blame her.
He wasn't going to ask that of Lucia. Or force her to stay around him longer than necessary. He takes a few steps back, putting space between them.
"It's fine, but thank you. I can uh. Ask that Iudex guy to take a look at it."
Childe wouldn't ask. It was just easier to drop the subject that way.
"It's very important to her cause. I'm honored to serve her."
After a few moments, the redhead kind of relaxes, looking over at Lucia.
"Enough about me. What about you?"
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“I’m just a wandering storyteller and musician. I’d like to think of myself as a historian and poet, but the former two are what keep me fed. Just my zither and the road, mostly. I can usually get space to sleep on the floor or in the stables of an inn in exchange for entertainment.”
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His desire for adventure had not been ruined by his own first foray into it himself, only changed, morphed, like he himself had. Now his desires tended to linger somewhere around violence and other means of getting his energy out.
He still wished he could move so freely, on quieter nights, when he missed the warmth of his childhood home, somewhere permanent to return to. Childe had told the Traveler once, that if he ever did leave the Fatui.... he'd like to join them on their adventures.
"That sounds really nice, actually."
He means it. It sounded like a good life, to him.
"My dad was an adventurer. He did odd jobs for a living. Explored the world. He always did have some kind of story to tell."
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The redhead nods--- He can understand. Those on the outside of a lifestyle don't always see the pros and cons as clearly as people who live it. He felt the same about being part of the Fatui. Of being a Harbinger.
Childe would do anything to ensure his younger siblings didn't follow his path.
"I bet you see things from all sorts of new and different perspectives. Do you travel with anyone? I can imagine it gets pretty lonely, unless you're used to that sort of thing."
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"I have traveled with others, at times. With merchant caravans between towns, sometimes, or--for a time I traveled with some... I don't know how to describe them. We were almost adventurers, I suppose. I think Rue was running from something, and Kane followed to keep him safe. And Deorwine was a traveling showman. We just... fell in together, after we dealt with the problem of Gulda's ghost murdering people."
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"Yeah. It's a bit chilly but a lot of that is... being wet."
He listens as Lucia tells him of her travelling companions. They definitely seemed like an interesting bunch, to say the least.
A ghost murdering people? He'd heard the same from stories back home. Most of them involving water. He didn't have much experience with the idea himself, just warnings from his mother to be careful near the shore.
"Ghost murder? What was that like?"
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“Gulda’s grave goods were stolen by some fool merchant, who then sold them on. And she came looking for them, and killed everyone she found with them. We found all the pieces and brought them back to her… and Kane and I both got enthralled… Deorwine managed to hit her with a stick… and when I didn’t come back, Rue and Deorwine went in to the twisted dream I was stuck in to break me free.”
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The storm rages around them, and they seem to be... mostly safe, within the confines of the ship. Whatever was going on in here was definitely better than being out there, Childe supposes.
He listens to her, weaving various droplets of hydro between his fingers as she spoke. The redhead didn't look directly at her, or at his hand, just listening, playing with the water idly. A word, a concept, catches his attention, and he lets her finish--- she'd been enthralled? Trapped in a dream?
He's not sure what that means, but he's not afraid to ask.
"Enthralled?"
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