TEST DRIVE MEME.

[futurologists]

A PIRATE'S LIFE FOR ME Welcome to the Viridian Sea, a rolling body of water populated by a small number of islands and an even greater number of pirates and merchant ships. Sailing, rum, and high-seas adventure is the name of the game for this mission: after the freshly-recruited volunteers (that's you!) are welcomed into Hathaway, they are sent via controlled interdimensional rift to deal with a certain pirate ship that has been causing a certain amount of trouble. The crew of Red Scream, a murderous band of Mako pirates, has been reaving a path of destruction through the sea, scuttling ships of merchants, civilians, and other pirate bands alike. They have also kidnapped a governor's daughter, asking an exorbitant ransom to return her at all, let alone alive. If this wasn't enough of a reason for Hathaway to intervene, Red Scream's current goal is firmly pointed at a legendary treasure buried in a crater somewhere in the Viridian Sea. Hathaway analysts have studied the crater and found that it was definitely caused by a temporal shard cast off from the Merging. And if Red Scream gets its hands on the shard, it'll be bad news. The crew of Little Squid has reached out to Hathaway for help reaching the treasure. The ship and crew are both small, but they are an optimistic and hardworking bunch, and are willing to equally split the treasure with Hathaway as a reward -- they just have to reach it first. ▸ PROMPTS Your mission is simple: reach the treasure before the Mako pirates. If you have the time, you can try and save the governor's daughter -- it's not why Hathaway has been hired, but her father will likely be grateful enough to grant a reward. ONE ▸ GOING ROGUE. High-seas adventure not your cup of tea? The tropical islands dotting the Viridian Sea are flush with distractions, including pirate havens replete with gambling, food, and liquor. It's a hedonist's paradise -- if you can avoid displeasing the heavily-armed locals. TWO ▸ LITTLE SQUID. Ever been on a brig before? The crew of Little Squid are happy to show you the ropes -- literally -- and teach you how to be a master seafarer in no time. The only food on board unfortunately consists of salted meat and hard bread, but there's plenty of rum to go around. Life on the seas is tough, especially during rough weather; unfortunately, they have no cure for seasickness, so if you're afflicted, you might want to head below decks and wait it out. But the view during calm waters is unlike anything else. THREE ▸ RED SCREAM. It was bound to happen: Little Squid runs smack dab into Red Scream on the race to the treasure. Board the enemy ship or wait for them to come to you, but either way, you'd better be ready for some close-quarters combat. The Mako pirates of Red Scream are humanoid sharks with teeth to match, so in addition to their cutlasses and blunderbusses, you'll want to avoid being bitten. If fighting isn't your specialty, you could always hide below decks of Little Squid and hope you don't get noticed. Or, if you're feeling bold, you can board Red Scream and look for the governor's daughter, who is being kept in the captain's quarters -- she's about six years old and ready to fight, so get ready to have your hands full. FOUR ▸ THE TREASURE. Finally, Little Squid reaches the island where the treasure is. There are caves throughout the island where more standard pirate treasure is found -- gold doubloons in rotted old chests and the like -- but there's also a massive crater formed where the temporal shard plummeted to the surface. The crater is a wide hole with sheer walls, so you'd better find someone who can fly or brush up on your spelunking skills. The further down you go into the crater, the darker it gets, but somewhere on the bottom an eerie blue light is glowing. The source is the temporal shard: make your way through a winding tunnel system to find it and retrieve it. But beware -- the shard has attracted temporal insects, ravenous, time-eating bugs that can slow or hasten the flow of time just due to their appetite. Find yourself in their presence and you'll be moving in slow motion or you'll suddenly be aged 50 years. The only way to stop the effects are to kill the bugs and retrieve the shard. FIVE ▸ CHIT-CHAT. It's your standard network option. Maybe you've got a little downtime and you're bored. Or maybe you got lost in the caves and you think you saw a g-g-ghost pirate. Maybe you're just trying to figure out how the hell this magical jewelry thing works! No matter what, you get one username to identify you and one only -- if you don't enter one, it will default to your real name (for example, Voldemort's would be tomriddle.) Choose wisely... or make it assfarts69, if that's your thing. More information on the jewelcomms can be found on the devices guide. SIX ▸ WILDCARD. Do whatever the heck you want! Explore the jungles and waterfalls of the islands, have a party on the beach, try to befriend a dolphin. The world is your oyster. ▸ OOC NOTES Welcome to the first test drive meme of Futurology Season 2! Because the season hasn't started yet, this test drive is meant to be a mini-mission, similar in feel to the missions we have in-game but on a much smaller scale. Since no characters currently have official specializations, we also have no specialized prompts, but plan to in the future. However, feel free to play as if your character is level 1 of whichever specialization you would like to choose. Please be aware this test drive is game canon. Questions about the game can be directed to the FAQ. If you've been with us before, you might notice things look a little different around here. Make sure you check out the welcome page for the basic rundown of how your character joined up with Hathaway. For further information about the game, the full navigation has all the links you'll need. Apps will reopen to the public on 6 January, with early apps for returning characters opening on 4 January. Apps will close when we reach our 60-player cap or on 15 January, whichever happens first. We hope to see you then!

Comments

wildcard

[grunehexe]

[The name of the organization might have changed, the location, and the way they operated... but Sieglinde had not. Still, she eschews the uniform of their group in favor of the dresses and elaborate hairstyles she is more familiar with. Still, she makes her way cautiously (with the help of the few in her trust that remained) to their goal and sets up to tend to the wounded.

But those bugs, the temporal insects... Sieglinde has seen them before. When it is all said and done, when the shard has been retrieved and contained, it is to the creatures the shard had called that she turns her attention to.

Or rather, it is to the bug's corpses she turns her attention to, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves to replace the ones soiled in her treatment of those who'd been injured in the fighting. Once she toddles closer to inspect them, some slight changes in anatomy from the ones she'd encountered in Oska so long ago make themselves clear, slight deviations in the pattern on their carapaces, the shape of the head...

Weirdly enough, she almost smiles, recalling the jumbled up memories that had resulted from the last time she had seen these creatures, the snatches of time spent as her proper age in between vague impressions of a future, the wisdom in the eyes of the unicorn, the wild way Achilles had looked in his youth.

It's just a memory, but when she raises her head... that memory has come to life.

Sieglinde can only blink in surprise at first, when a blonde youth catches her eye that reminds her so viscerally of another, from the turn of jaw to the silhouette, the intensity in his expression, his garb-]

Achilles- ?

[The name stutters out of her before she can stop it, tottering forward a few steps in pursuit despite herself. Surely it wasn't, he had left them months ago now, before Leramzan, but-]

Is that you?

[lampros]

[Victorious in battle and granted a moment's rest at last, Neoptolemus had lifted his crested helmet from his head to shake free his golden hair and wipe from his face the spatter of the slain beetles. Through the grime of battle shines his youthful beauty, the reflection of his father although dimmer, in the way that the sun's reflection upon the water is not so bold as its source yet dazzling all the same.

It would be easy to mistake the son for the father. He bears a resemblance to that peerless warrior as one would wear a mantle, carrying his inheritance in the proud port of his shoulders. Yet when he turns to her, with countenance bemused for the name of his slain father upon this girl's lips, the unfamiliar shadows attached to the familiar features become prominent: these are the marks of his mother's blood, proof of she from whose womb he came.]

Who are you who knows my father's name even in this far-flung land?

[His words carry his confusion, but there trembles too his curiosity for the man whom he would only ever know through the words of others.]

[grunehexe]

[It isn't him.

It becomes clear when he faces her, when she hears his voice and sees the differences, too subtle to pick out at distance... or, no. Perhaps that was an excuse, for having been momentarily blinded by what she hoped to see, rather than what she actually did. A shame on her, and the clinical teachings of medicine and science. Something she shouldn't have allowed, because that sort of thing only ended like this, with the pit of disappointment in her stomach-

Until the words sink in.]

Father-

[Sieglinde realizes belatedly that her hand hovers in the air where she thought to pursue him, reach for him, and so she pulls it down back to her side with a quick motion, steadies her stance and tries to stand tall instead of awkwardly, a young girl in a blood-stained apron wearing leather gloves in a cave full of insect carcasses.]

You are... his son? Neoptolemus?

[She should answer with her own, she knows, shouldn't confuse him with her knowledge of such things, but-

Oh, how fickle and cruel and strange was fate and it's workings.]

[lampros]

[He gazes upon her then as one would gaze into the depths of a pond, trying to discern through the murk what lies beneath. When she draws back, her delicate wrist withdrawing to her side, he draws closer, a sharp step cutting the distance between them. He moves as though afraid that she might slip away, as though she may be mist more so than flesh.]

Yes, that is the name bestowed upon me by my father. His great name is known across all of Hellas for his triumphs in the bloody jaws of war, yet here we are so far from any shores I have trodden before. Moreover, I shine not so brilliantly as he who sired me, and thus my name casts a shorter shadow - yet you have heard of me too.

I ask of you, sweet maiden - if you have any news of my father, some bit of his tale that I have not yet heard, then you must make all known at once.

[grunehexe]

[Oh, how she had heard of him. Of his father. Of the war they had fought and the glories they had gathered and the lives they had lived, spelled out for her in the tomes of the great library in her manor. The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Song of the Nibelungs... classics had been the way she learned her many tongues, pouring over translations in various old tongues and comparing them to her German copies to piece word to word, read each scene and page so many times in the process she might still could quote them.

And then such figures stood before her, in some ways different and in some ways exactly as she imagined.

Sieglinde feels a stab of guilt twist her heart, to see the hunger and hope on his face. Like a dying man offered water, yet she fears she can only offer him a few drops.]

Your illustrious father...

[It's hard to get the words out. To remember how Achilles had taken her hand at that winter gala and smiled at her, the look on his face when he'd said he was returning to his world and his fate. To remember the talks they'd had in that house in Woodhurst, before everything had gone to hell and it almost made her think she could imagine what "family" felt like.]

Was a member of a group called Audentes, overseen by ALASTAIR... as was I. For months, he journeyed as you do now, to other strange and marvelous worlds. Very few of us remain now in this "Hathaway"... but I remember him. I could tell you of his adventures, and- and how he often told me that he wished he might meet you here, where time and the flow of life and death become so strange.

[How cruel.]

[lampros]

[As when a farmer sees the spring's incipient sunbeams spilling through his window and so hope pricks his heart - out he hurries to see his fields, only to find them still cloaked in winter's frost, and he despairs: so too does Neoptolemus' hope shrivel to despair.]

Could it be that my father once sailed among this crew? Such a tale seems impossible, for I know that the last ten years have kept my father in Dardanus' land, and yet there can be no doubt that you know him.

[Where his arm cradles his helmet, his fingers tighten as anguish seizes him.]

Then I have missed him again! There in Troy, I came only after the ashes of his pyre had cooled and all Argive eyes had dried. Here I come only after he has gone. Unfortunate is the son who follows in his father's footsteps, yet is doomed never to catch up to him nor even lay eyes upon him - doomed to know him only in story and song. And you, a stranger, knowing a man better than his own son shall ever know him...

[This girl holds a rare treasure, one he can never hope to win: memories of his father, whom he remembers only in the dreamy half-formed way of boyhood. Time wears upon such memories as water does upon paint, blurring and blending the colors, sapping it of all shape. He recalls his father's arms in which he was held, and his knee upon which he sat, more than his face; he recalls the thrum of his voice, but none of the words he spoke.]

...But it is not right that I should lash out at you, fair maiden, for what Fate has delivered.

[grunehexe]

[For his question, Sieglinde can only nod silently, slowly. Though it seemed impossible, it was true. He had been here. Now he was gone again, to death, and the reminder of that and the funeral pyre, (and the funeral pyre ashes they once dug through together), makes her emerald gaze water and drop, unable to look at him directly for a moment, focusing on the tightening of his fingers on his helmet, the despair of so close a miss on his stance and form.

Perhaps she shouldn't have said anything at all, but if she hadn't...]

You need not apologize, to be upset at such a destiny... I cannot know the depth of how it must feel, to lose a father so.

[Because even if she'd had a taste of what it might be like... having a father, having anything like an actual family, brothers, sisters, parents... they hadn't been her true family. (But she had lost them.) Anxiously, she pulls off a leather glove to reveal a small hand, pale and delicate, marred slightly in the subtlest of ways by a tiny scar here, a droplet of chemical burn there, slowly reaching for the pouch at her waist.]

If you desire it... I can show him to you, as he appeared to me during our adventures. It will appear so real as if they might truly leap from the paper, but... in the end, it is only portraits. If not a stunning likeness...

[It wasn't enough, was it.]

[lampros]

[He had been raised by a mother who adored him, who saw in him saw the vestiges of the man she had loved and then lost to the call of duty, and by a grandfather who cherished him, having no sons to fill his throne and dwindling into the twilight of his years. Yet there is no love comparable to that which binds father and son - and so always he has been bereft despite all that he has.

Curiosity, sharp and tremulous, fills his countenance as she tells of these portraits which shall give shape to the long missing father who haunts the fringes of his memories and the center of his thoughts.]

Yes, yes, you must show me - I must see, even if it is not truly him but only the likeness thereof.

[It cannot be enough, no doubt, but it is not nothing.]

[grunehexe]

[Looking at the photographs she has accrued through her time in ALASTAIR is achingly painful, yet despite this Sieglinde had pleaded with Haise to take them for her. Had asked about, bartered, and traded favors for older ones from before she knew how to work the mechanism on their magitek to take them, and had begun doing it herself once Haise had gone and she'd learned how to work the camera herself.

But she didn't look at them often, hadn't pulled them out to show anyone else since Lucina had been stricken with memory loss and required proof that they knew each other. Sieglinde hesitates... but she opens the pouch hanging from the chatelaine at her waist and sticks her hand in farther than should be physically possible to come back with a small album, which she flips through until she finds what she needs.

The photographs she has physical copies of, from the time in Woodhurst when the cameras could be exchanged for printed images. The home she had shared with Achilles and Patroclus. The party they had thrown her. All preserved in photographs.

Reluctant in a way, concerned with his reaction and what questions might then arise, yet sure that it was something of her duty to pass on anything he required... Sieglinde offers the album.]

Here.

[lampros]

[He reaches for the album of photographs as Tantalus might reach for the sweet ripened fruits that dangle over his head - yet that which Neoptolemus desires does not withdraw out of his reach. He takes the album reverently, it being a a treasure unlike any he has ever seen despite all his riches, and made sacred by containing something of his father.

His astonishment is plain upon his countenance when he sees the first image, and soon his eyes shine with delight too.]

Why, there is he! Although his face does fade in my memories, I would know it from a stranger's at once - as surely as I would know my own face, although I have seen it only in reflection.

[His gaze has not lifted from the page, and his fingertips slowly trace his father's image.]

How alive he looks, as if his chest may rise with a breath and he may grow warm beneath my fingertips. How can this be?

[grunehexe]

[It is heartbreaking in a way she hadn't expected, to watch how he reacts to the photographs. She feels like a voyeur, as if she shouldn't be here, intruding on such a thing despite the fact that she had offered the album to him in the first place, that it's her in those photographs too, hair styled differently and dressed more befitting a modern Earth... but her nonetheless.

She hasn't forgotten how Achilles had called her as kin to him, how he had mentioned his son as a possible match... how could she? But the latter in particular had been something she never truly entertained. After all, the odds of such a thing, of the son arriving out of all the people that could-

But here he stood, as one departed so another arrived, and the irony considering the tale was painfully obvious.]

These are "photographs"... a way in which people of certain worlds capture moments in time down to the smallest detail using special methods.

[It was the easiest explanation she had for a technology beyond him, once beyond her own understanding.]

... that is how he appeared on a planet called Woodhurst, some months past now.

[lampros]

[He has nearly forgotten that the girl stands there: she is as the wind whose invisible hand pushes the waves, while the album in his grip is the ocean whose majesty draws his awe. And just as the sea swells to a crest and then sinks hollow, so too is Neoptolemus' delight shadowed by despair. How his heart aches for this man whose countenance he can see but whose hands he cannot clasp, whose voice he cannot hear.

He tries to place himself in the scene, traveling in his mind to this foreign land whose dress is so strange, alongside his father - what would he tell him? And what would he answer in return?

Turning the pages, slowly as he tries to absorb into his memory his father's image, and yet lurching as he eagerly seeks more moments to absorb, he notices that always close by his father stands another man whose features too call back to Hellas, that land girt by the sea.]

Who is this man, who seems to me to be a son of Achaea like my father?

[grunehexe]

[His question brings her own gaze, bright emerald darkened by memory and regret, down to the page, to the photograph in question that is held between them. That man...]

... That is Patroclus, son of Menoetius.

[He is dead.

She did not need to say that, she knows. His fate had been death, and not even ALASTAIR could, or perhaps would change that. Just as they hadn't changed Achilles'. She had held his limp arm in Woodhurst, listened vaguely for a pulse... and then she had held that same arm, reduced to flame-charred bone in a pile of ashes, before consigning it to urn.

Unbidden, her vision begins to waver slightly, with tears she resolves not to spill. This isn't about her.]

Perhaps you have heard of his exploits before the bloody gates of Troy?

[lampros]

[So enraptured is he by the images before him that he notices not how her eyes grow sodden with tears unshed like bruised storm clouds that do not give up their rain.]

The gallant son of Menoetius...his name I have heard spoken, yes, the dear friend of my father. He is much esteemed by the Achaeans for his deeds in the bloody jaws of battle.

[At last he lifts his eyes to Sieglinde, this girl so delicate in appearance despite the grime of battle marring her beauty.]

And who are you, who knows my father as I never shall? This question you never answered.

[grunehexe]

[Much esteemed. Honored. They were words she knew the both of them had lived their lives for, died for, gone knowingly to death for... and Sieglinde had forced herself to accept it, because they were of different worlds and different cultures, and who was she to tell them it was wrong?

To tell Achilles she would have much rather had him alive than esteemed for his brave deeds? Selfish as she knew it was, an ugly, consuming emotion born from her own lack of parents, the desire to connect, to feel wanted... she hadn't been able to do him that disservice.]

I am Sieglinde... Sieglinde Sullivan, who is called the Green Witch.

[She wasn't going to cry, she had already decided that... but the words won't come out any further without proof to accompany them, and a few hot tears roll down her cheeks even as she forces herself to stand as tall as she could and look him in the eye.]

The Green Witch knows no father, and yet yours offered me such a bond, in this place, and he...

[What it had been to her to be able to feel for the first time in her young life what it might be like to have a family was more important than words could truly express, and in her struggle for them, her gaze wavers, drops... and she looks down, at her awkwardly shaped feet, her clenched fists, her blood-stained apron, and the small damp circles where tears hit ground.]

And I am so sorry that he is with us no longer...

[In this world... or his own.]