TEST DRIVE MEME #1

[libraryassistants]

Welcome To The Library

You awake in the stacks.

You’re not sure when you fell asleep, and the memories of the last things you were doing are hazy at best. But now you’re here, and all you can see is books in every direction, the bookshelves teetering high enough above you to reach to the sky.

A helpful sign points you in the direction of the main circulation desk, and even if you try to ignore it and go in any other direction, the desk is where you will find yourself. A figure sits behind the desk, not even looking up as they sort through books and other media; they look, to your character, to be the exact picture of what they expect a Librarian to be.

Trying to the Librarian a question will get them shushed, but they’ll point down a hallway to the side, leading to a kitchenette and what appears to be a dorm room, where they’ll find they’re not alone in this strange place. But once they’ve looked away, when they look back, the Librarian is gone.

Welcome to the Unfinished Library

Coffee Corner

Sometime after your arrival, you enter the lobby to find yourself greeted by what appears to be a little tea cart containing a carafe of very weak coffee, a pot of very strong tea, mismatched creamers and sugar packets, and assorted cheap boxed shortbread cookies alongside small paper plates and cups. (For some reason, there also seems to be a pile of coupons for a free yacht ride.) There is a sign next to them, stating:

Welcome Editors!
Please enjoy these complimentary refreshments.
Do NOT take food or drink into the stacks and please wash your hands BEFORE touching anything.

Looking around, you see that you and everyone else present have also been supplied with sticker name tags with “Hello, my name is _____.” Take it off, and it will magically be replaced by a new one. It seems it’s time to mingle, or perhaps try to get anywhere but here.

There is also a phone set up on the desk, with a small sign labeling it as the “Assistants’ Line.” Give it a try, and you might get someone to talk to.


Between the Stacks

While exploring the labyrinthine sprawl of the Stacks, you find a door tucked between the towering bookshelves. Opening it, you see the impossible: a community garden, fresh produce glistening with morning dew and ripe for the picking. The open sky stretches welcomingly overhead, the warmth of an unseen sun warming the soft grass underfoot.

A large fence spans the generous perimeter of the garden. No matter how high you go, the fence follows with you. Those trying to get a peek on the other side should make a plan.

When the room is no longer in use and the door is closed, the garden will disappear; rotating out of cycle. The next time the door opens, maybe it’s a computer lab - decked out with technology from… some planet and century. Or maybe it’s a meeting room, complete with someone else’s handouts scattered across the table. Closing and reopening the door will reveal a different room each time. What's your pick?


Maker’s Meetup

There’s a cheerful, if not generic, poster on the bulletin board by the help desk, declaring:



The Maker Space in question is, for the moment, easy to find, a few nice and similarly formatted signs with arrows helping leading the way through the stacks. As promised, there are a number of machines and tools related to crafting and making things, including a table that, for some reason, just has construction paper and safety scissors.

It seems the materials for the room have been recently stocked, too; there’s a little pile of fabric (mostly scraps, but a lot of larger pieces that can be made into something without needing to piecemeal it together), some sheet metal of various sheens, and bits of wood that could be shaped into something maybe as large as a small bowl. There are also some more generic arts-and-crafts materials (on a separate table from the scissors); puff balls, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners and other sorts of things.

There doesn’t appear to be anyone actually around to teach the use of the machines, but it can’t be that hard… right?


Transition In - Prepare for Dheekis

In the Lobby, things begin to… change.

The tiled floors have started to fuzz along the grout, the colour and texture slowly bleeding out into cool grey metal. The change continues to flow up the walls, coloured strips of lighting dividing sturdy steel segments. What few doors there are shimmer, an overlay of automated mechanisms clinging closely to them. Hydraulic pistons pump as if pushing the doors open when you approach, but alas - these doors remain sadly hand-operated.

Within a few moments, gravity in the Lobby seems to decrease. Steps are lighter; a jump turns neatly into a bounce, leaving you hanging weightless in the air for a few long moments. The furniture remaining in the lobby begins to float, as do any items that have been left loose. If it’s not nailed down, consider it airborne.

The effect spans only the space (ha) of the Lobby. Exiting to another room will bring an unceremonious return to the Library’s usual gravity, and please note: the success of your landing is not guaranteed. Please proceed cautiously.

After some time - maybe it's days, who's to say? - you begin to feel it. A pull that tugs you to the Stacks, drawing you step by step closer to the next Story to unfold.


The Difficulty with Dheekis

On the SS Covenant, things usually run pretty smoothly. Usually. Unfortunately, there was an… incident at the last stopover at the Eternis Station. One of the crew members became utterly besotted with one of the little creatures the Eturian ambassador carried them with, called dheekis, and the ambassador was more than happy to gift them one. Unfortunately, the reason they were so willing to do that is that the fluffy little creatures, somewhere between a bunny and a rodent, are very prolific breeders, and additionally can procreate asexually when there’s only one of them around. Which means that after a week in space, it was no longer possible to keep them hidden.

Since then, it has been a game of trying to capture and contain the little pests, shoving them into boxes so they’re packed tight- dheekis only stop reproducing when there is literally no more space for them. And they are trying very hard to fill up the void space on the ship; they’re under beds, in rafters, engineering nooks, forgotten corners, you name it. How long will it take to get rid of them all? Can you get rid of them all? Because if you have one dheeki, it won’t stay one for long.

[This is a free-form ‘Story’ prompt and cannot be considered canon to the game; since there’s no information post, feel free to make up whatever details you like!]

Comments

The Bride | Creature Commandos | OTA

[monstrous_bride]

Welcome

She awakes to books towering high over her. She sits up with a jerk, heart accelerating at the idea that this might be yet another mission gone wrong - but when nothing happens, she takes a moment to look around, pushing to her feet with a sigh.

"What the hell is this place..."

It doesn't take her long to find the Librarian, though her regret at not simply grabbing them and shaking them becomes greater when they disappear, the Bride storming back to the desk and looking it over thoroughly for any clues. She raps fingers on the top, swearing under her breath. And tipping over a pile of books with a poking finger just to express her displeasure before, finally, moving on.

"Shushing me," she grumbles, under her breath. "Unbelievable. Like a goddamned toddler."

Coffee Corner

"Oh, God, no," she groans, rubbing her forehead when she sees...well, all of it. No, no, no, no, no, no - whoever they are behind this don't get to pretend they're innocuous and cutesy like this. This place has teeth behind it, she's sure of it, and so she moves through the room with a look on her face like that of a simmering storm - hard to miss, given her multicolored, stitched and bolted together form.

She's tempted to take some of the cookies into the stacks and smoosh them in books just to express her displeasure, but that's...that's wrong, isn't it? Damaging books. Had Victor taught her that, or...?

She's considering that when she notices the nametag: Hello, my name is THE BRIDE.

"Are you kid-" she starts, then rips it off. And finds an identical one underneath. "What the..." She begins ripping off one after another, until she's got a decent amount in her hand...and is still name-tagged.

"Someone here thinks they're funny."

Difficulty with Dheekis

She doesn't like being compelled to do anything - it reminds her of Waller and her lovely little methods of control. So she's slowly seething in the situation she finds herself in. Which she can only assume comes from a rejected script for a science fiction show.

Frankly, she's just glad she isn't in some short skirt and go-go boots outfit. But she's also feeling a bit direct when someone puts the problem to her.

"Well we could stomp on them," she says, laconically. "Alternatively, keep shoving them out the nearest airlocks until we make headway. Get enough of the ship back, vent the rest to space. No more problem."

She really is in a bad mood.

CYA!

[OOC: Always happy to take on ideas you have as well - feel free to contact me via pm or on plurk at c_for_characters Also will match prose or brackets.]

Coffee Corner

[ugh_emotions]

A tall person approaches. It is not looking at her. In fact it has a general air about it that suggests it would rather not be approaching her at all.

"Defacing works," it says.

(Its own name tag is unreadable, all text now hidden under a large circular burn mark.)

[monstrous_bride]

"Right," she says, after a long pause. She is looking at it, eyes narrowed. You never know what you're going to get after all.

"You have a special reason to want to go unremarked, or are you just trying to piss this place off, too?"

[ugh_emotions]

Ugh. She's looking at it. It hates when humans look at it.

But since she is looking at it, she'll definitely see its face twist into an unhappy scowl. Even as it still does not look at her.

"My name is private."

[monstrous_bride]

Jokes on it, she's not even human! Certainly not in a legal sense, thank you American court system.

And the scowl certainly doesn't cause her to back down. In fact, there's only one reason she can immediately think of why a name would be private, and it is in the very lengthy book of 'things that piss off the Bride.'

"Is this one of those 'speak the name and gain power over them' magic things? Because the last thing I want is more magic."

She and magic aren't friends. They're more in 'kick each other as hard as possible somewhere that hurts' territory.

Difficulty with Dheekis

[bashasasdemon]

"Don't tempt me." Kai is also in a bad mood, and while in isolation the dheekis are cute and harmless, in the kind of numbers they are now dealing with they are clearly not. He's already discovering that he doesn't like space, and the constant decreasing of available space thanks to these things is making him increasingly claustrophobic.

He grabs a few and stuff them into a bag he's found, which at least presses them against each other enough that they're not likely to reproduce in between him being here and getting to the crates. It's not nearly enough to make any kind of a dent, and he's clearly eyeing some like he's trying to think of the best way to shoot them off the ship.

[monstrous_bride]

She's doing much the same, an aggrieved look upon her face.

"I don't think we're going to have much of a choice in the end," she says, squishing a few more into her sack.

"This is the stupidest mission I've ever been on," she adds.

[bashasasdemon]

"Is that possible? I don't know enough about how these... ships work." To Kai, ships are things that go on water. Maybe are capable of flight, if it's an Immortal Blessed vessel. But they don't go to space. This is all very outside of his wheel house.

He snorts at her last comment. "Same," he agrees, "I think I'd be worried if it wasn't."

[monstrous_bride]

"Finite space," she replies, lashing the sack shut.

"The more of these things, the more space they take up. The more of the oxygen they consume. The more usable parts of the ship we lose control of. In short, it just gets worse and worse until there's a catastrophic problem or we lose out on the battle of who gets the oxygen."

welcome

[brokeassgoing]

Badou didn't exactly give the Librarian an easy time, too, and when he sees the woman with the Hair have a similar experience, and somehow refrain from throttling the Librarian, he scoffs.

"I'm about to light this shit on fire." Not really. "I got a lot to say, y'know!"

Re: welcome

[monstrous_bride]

"Right," she says, doing her best to sound uninterested. "Do me a favor and don't burn down an enclosed space while I am still inside it."

[brokeassgoing]

"Hey, there's no windows. Much as I love the smell of smoke, I'd go down too," Badou chuckles, shaking his head at her.

[monstrous_bride]

"Good, that's logic. Keep using it," she replies, caustically.

Because she's pretty sure he's one of that sort, the sort you let go first through the door on a mission. Call her a cynic.

Coffee Corner

[dreamquestion]

Randolph got his brief bout of staring done while the Bride (allegedly) was distracted tearing up name tags; he hasn't touched his own - Hello, my name is RANDOLPH CARTER - but he does regard her with sympathy in her plight.

"Perhaps defacement might fare better than destruction, in the face of something that doesn't wish to be destroyed," he offers lightly, extending a hand to take the dead-to-her tags if she so wishes. "In time perhaps we'll find an inkwell and sort it out accordingly, but in the interim - I'm sure you have a far lovelier name than a title you clearly hold such ire with."

Re: Coffee Corner

[monstrous_bride]

"You'd think," she replied, giving him a long evaluating look before handing the discarded tags.

"But history appears to have other ideas on that score."

Re: Coffee Corner

[dreamquestion]

"History is also written by the victors," he says dryly, taking the tags and ripping the whole pile in half between his hands before he goes to toss them in a nearby bin tucked half-out of sight beneath the refreshments. "While I'm sure no survivors appreciate having to perform twice the labour to reap less than half the rewards, your voice matters, madam, of that you are assured."

[monstrous_bride]

Oh, he's a curious sort, and she has no idea how to classify him - and she likes to classify quickly. Makes it easier to think of reasons not to like people.

"People say that about history, but I've been around long enough to know it's written by historians, so generally it's more of an ongoing, brawling debate. With occasional fisticuffs if you get enough whiskey in them."

It has very little to do with what he said. But she doesn't know what to make of what he said, so it'll do for now.

Coffee Corner

[fearinahandfulof]

"How do they do that?" The woman standing before her is tall for a human, with extremely pale hair and skin. Her eyes gleam silver, and she has a sword sheathed on her back that's roughly as long as she is tall. Like the Bride, she's also holding a clump of name tags in her hand.

It occurs to Cassandra just a second too late that this... entity? (not a yoma or an Awakened Being; she'd be able to tell if she was) might not know either. She manages not to cringe, but it's a near thing.

[monstrous_bride]

"Probably stinking magic," she replies with irritability before even looking at the speaker.

And then she does. And looks up. Huh.

"Nice sword," she adds, more casually than she feels. Tall warriors with swords not being something she wants to have to deal with today. So much of her life ending up in combat, after all.

[fearinahandfulof]

..Stinking Magic? She'd ask, but this woman seems irritated enough as it is.

She watches as the woman turns, managing not to fidget as she sizes Cassandra up. "...Thank you?" Most of the people she knows have ones just like it, and she's never usually around humans outside of the Organization's men. She is, however, cognizant enough to keep her hands down and away from the hilt. She's really not looking for a fight, especially in a place like this.

[monstrous_bride]

Irritated is her ground state of being. Comes of being brought into the universe as an adult via massive amounts of unholy science and electricity.

"More of a general comment than a compliment," she says, keeping up her study of the other. She, for her part, wears a pistol on her hip, though that's for when she's dealing with something she can't punch into submission. Her hands, for the record, are on her hips.

"Just checking: you haven't been hired to try and kill me, or take over the world, or whatever this place is? Just that if I have to deal with Tall and Deadly, I'd rather get started right away."

Coffee Corner

[hellandbackpack]

Charles couldn't help but be fascinated by the way that the stickers just keep coming. If Edwin were here, he'd have three different theories on how that little trick was done, but this particular ghost doesn't really have the same head for books and magic that he does. What he does see however, is her clearly growing frustration, so he'll just dig the sharpie out of his pocket he'd used to add a little cartoon ghost to his own nametag set just under a mess of pins on his lapel. (That hadn't been his sharpie to begin with, but well it was now!)

"They seem to let us write on 'em," He commented, holding the capped marker up between a pair of fingers, tilted her way with a sympathetic smile. "If you wanna just cross it out or write 'sod off' on it or something."

[monstrous_bride]

She takes the sharpie with a raised eyebrow. She's suspicious of such a friendly greeting - people should be a lot more intimidating of the tall zombie of multiple bodies bolted together, thank you - but it's a practical help.

And thus she scratches over the name, substituting "Shove It" before handing the sharpie back.

"Well aren't you just the spirit of helpfulness."

[hellandbackpack]

Charles was never an especially cautious sort to begin with. Being dead? Well his reasons to be wary dropped like a rock. And besides that, no matter how she looked, the worst she'd done is be annoyed at her nametag that he'd seen so far.

He huffs a short laugh at the new appellation to her name tag, accepting the sharpie back, giving it a twirl between his fingers, more just to have something to do with his hands.

"Seems like we're all stuck here together, yeah? If this place isn't as quaint as it's comin' off as, I'm bankin' on not makin' a bunch of enemies right out the gate."

[monstrous_bride]

"Seems it," she replies. "And I wouldn't trust this appearance at all. Anything that has the power to bring us here can make the place, or itself, look any way it likes."

She sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"I just hope it's not freaking magic. A few days without its nonsense would be lovely."