fishesoutofwater | Test Dive #1

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test dive

Test Dive #1

PREMISE & NAVIGATION ✦ RULES ✦ MOD CONTACT
TAKEN ✦ RESERVES ✦ APPLICATIONS ✦ HIATUS & DROPS
FAQ ✦ BASE ✦ BIOMES ✦ URSULA ✦ URSULA CONTACT

TEST DIVE MEME

For information about the animals and locations, be sure to check out the BIOME and BASE pages!

A1: Go Fish
You! Yes, you! Your friendly neighbourhood AI has a task she would like to encourage YOU to do! After all, you can’t forget the most important fact: you’re here to make the planet habitable. Which means cataloguing, capturing and studying potential threats to anyone’s life. That includes a swarm of Stalkers that have been hanging around the waters awfully near the base, which presents a perfect research opportunity! At least, URSULA seems to think so.

Don’t go in willy-nilly waving your knife around, though. URSULA doesn’t want you to bring in tonight’s Sashimi Surprise™, she wants you to bring in a Stalker that’s still kicking. Which means you have to capture a live one. So hold back your crazy power or trigger-happy instincts!

How will you take one in alive without ending up dead yourself? You could go in the brute-force way, slamming its jaws shut and bagging it, though it’s pretty strong itself… or you could be a bit more cunning, taming it with bait or giving it shiny metal salvage to play with before luring it into a tank to bring it into the base. You might want to get a helping hand with this task, since it’s not exactly an easy one-man job.

A2: Go With Fish
So, now you’ve got a live and very disgruntled Stalker on your hands! Hopefully, said hands don’t have to be amputated (it’s okay if they have to though, URSULA will fix it. Try not to watch the nanites go). What do you do with it? You could keep it as a pet and observe its growth! You could dissect it and study its anatomy! Or you could… eat it. (After going through all the effort to bring it in alive?!)

B: The Abysmal Sea
You’re stranded.

One of the planet’s troublesome signal-interfering pulses has just made your communication devices 100% nonfunctional. No matter how you try to call URSULA for help, she isn’t able to respond. The database strapped to your wrist is just a useless chunk of metal now, leaving you without a useful library of knowledge to survive off. If you were driving any underwater vehicle prior to this point, it’s broken down. And unless you’re a mechanic, it’ll be pretty hard to get it jumpstarted again.

Don’t fret! The communication systems always come online eventually, so if you stay put, it’ll boot back up and give you directions straight back to base so you can finally get home. But can you really afford to stay put? The sunlight’s slowly streaming out of the sky, leaving the waters darker and darker with each passing second. Soon, you won’t be able to see five feet in front of you, and the only warning you’ll get of any approaching threat is through sound, if they even make any.

You have a few choices: take a daring risk and try swimming back to base, but on the off-chance you don’t remember the directions correctly from before you were cut off, you’re going to get even more lost, in the darkness of the night no less. Or, you could huddle in, with any friends if they were unfortunate enough to be with you, and start focusing on getting warm. Because spending the night out here in the vast oceans with the entire world against you is becoming a very, very real possibility.

C: It’s dangerous to go alone. Take them!
URSULA’s technology is breathtaking. With enough materials, she could make practically anything: weapons, vehicles, all those human comforts and entertainments she forgot to build... or perhaps she could expand the base to give everyone even more leg room. But there’s a catch: you need to get those materials to her in the first place, and scavenging can be a monumental task.

The planet Iniidae has a plethora of materials to provide, but you’ve got to go find them first. Some are easy enough to get, by plucking off the ground or breaking a rock. But some are a bit more challenging, such as Crash Powder, seeing that the Crash defending it will literally explode in your face if you get too close. And then there’s materials such as Blood Oil, only harvestable within the Blood Kelp Caves several hundred meters underwater in the pitch-black darkness… remember, you have to gather resources with your two bare hands. No such thing as driving around and conveniently collecting them within the somewhat-relative safety of an armored vehicle.

Since it’s so dangerous to go alone, URSULA will encourage you all to leave the base in pairs or groups if you’re going to try collecting some of the more precarious materials to harvest. She has heard that most lifeforms find being reconstituted from nanites traumatic, so try not to die in front of each other!

D: Hide and Seek Help
URSULA knows that everyone needs downtime, and no one can go salvaging or gathering specimens all the time. So what do you do for fun on an alien ocean planet when the AI who made your base forgot to make any kind of entertainment room?

Why, play hide-and-seek, of course! There’s a lot of places to hide away from others, and it’s challenging to find anyone. (Sometimes, too challenging to find them… ever… but that’s not the point.) The area around the base and submarine is relatively safe, so anyone can hide away in a coral structure or a cave, and telepathy makes it easy to taunt your seekers without revealing where you are.

Of course, you may encounter a Bone Shark or even a stray Stalker, and you won’t have time to get away or even scream as it attacks you, but hey. What other way to make hide-and-seek more thrilling than to turn it into hide-and-hope-you-get-found-as-you-shout-for-help-to-anyone-who-can-hear-your-telepathy?

E: Toilet Humor
Really, it was bound to happen eventually. Someone's in the bathroom observatory, doing their 'business', and someone is trying very hard to catch a fish for dinner outside. Your eyes meet. Someone has literally been caught with their pants down.

And in that moment your telepathy goes a little wonky, because it's good to have open communication about this incident.

F: The Caverns of Dream
The ocean calls you. Of course, it's much easier to dismiss it as nightmares. You'll probably think that's all it is after you have them. Flashes of screaming sea creatures writhing in agony, pleading for help, but these creatures can't ask for help, can they? Something huge, beyond the scope of imagination, moves in the ocean of your dreams and calls out to you to go deeper into the darkness. It pleads and begs but not with a voice you can hear or words you can understand.

You wake up in a sweat with the unrelenting desire to take a swim, even though it's late and everyone is asleep. Or maybe someone else just had the same nightmare as you? Are you willing to take a swim and try to understand the dream?

BASED ON CODE BY TESSISAMESS AND SUPERSUITS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ It was likely not his intention, but the defensive way he responds brings home a point Ellana had not been able to clearly see before now: his age. It's been some time since she's been dealing with many young men or women closely, and those who hovered on the brink of adulthood were those most sensitive to being spoken with in ways they might believe are lectures. It's odd, the way that makes her pause, if only because it reminds her more of being back with her clan than the years of work that followed after Corypheus wreaked his havoc.

It's a strange nostalgia to have, quirking her lips up at the corner with a faint pang of an old heartsickness. She should take the time to stop by Wycome and visit her clan's Keeper. One doesn't necessarily go home... but one can remember.

Who knows if she'll have the time or not.

She nudges the thought to the side, feeling this is neither the time nor place. Instead, she wisely holds off from responding to his exclamation. When he follows up with his second statement, she says: ]

Thank you.

[ And nothing more.

... Or nothing more until she catches the movement of those shadows, to which her response is immediate. Eyes widening, she brings her amputated arm around, the pinned up sleeve pointing toward Brett. She calls out: ]

Watch out!

[ Says it into the breathing apparatus at the same time as she mentally shouts, sending a burst of concentrated magical energy to force back whatever was advancing on the both of them. Her hold on the barrier keeping the Stalker in falters, then strengthens again through an act of willpower that leaves her feeling a little lightheaded. Eesh... there has to be more effective ways of moving around than only swimming on her own, but they might be in danger from more than the Stalker right now, and she needs to keep that in mind.

She won't really be able to effectively fight like this, but she'll do her damndest, and she'll call out for anyone else nearby to assist in at least pulling the young man back out if things go suddenly south.

(Brett. Use your words, young man!) ]

Edited 2016-02-24 06:42 (UTC)

[Too used to fighting normal humans and not the supernatural when conventional weapons were nothing in the face of his shadows, Brett isn't expecting anything to force them back. In his surprise (a part of which becomes wariness when a part of him, instinctively, goes into battle mode), the shadows flare up. On the bright (?) side, the way they begin to move with him as the center might suggest to Ellana that they pose no threat to him.]

What was that for!?

[... And there's a part of him that's caught off-guard by the notion that a human would try and look out for him like that. While he knows that not all humans are utterly self-serving, there's never been a need for it either. All of his human subordinates are well aware that he's far more capable of looking after himself than any of them are.]

[ He may be caught off guard — Ellana is trying to piece together this puzzle as she watches the shadows flare up and reform, radiating out from her as of yet unannounced young companion. ]

The shadows are yours.

[ She looks from the shadows as a collective to Brett's face, lowering her left arm as she does so. ]

They weren't attacking you, they were coming from you.

[ Under not holding a Stalker captive circumstances, this would be fascinating, but given the present set of circumstances (and the fact that she's been the one helping keep friends and subordinates alive for the last few years, far beyond what she'd expected she'd do as a Keeper, should she have ever succeeded as one from her position of First in the clan) it's firmly shelved for later, if ever. ]

Am I right? You were never in danger.

[ She doesn't include herself in that equation, though she doubts she was either, because the point isn't to reassure herself of her own position: it's to understand what she's seeing now. ]

Yes.

[His tone is impatient, as if he'd expected this to be obvious from the beginning. Oh, and partly because he's not the most patient person to begin with.]

Even if I were in danger, I wouldn't need you to look out for me.

[It feels wrong, coming from a human—and besides, while Brett knows that he's not as strong as the captain, he still prides himself on being able to hold his own in a fight. If he couldn't, then he truly would be unworthy of his position as vice-captain, as he'd voiced to Neil when he'd been offed the position.]

Now, do you want to transport that thing or not? Because if you do, then this time, don't attack.

[ Impatience... this is more difficult with her attention divided and a strain on her system already, but she makes herself breathe in, then exhale, looking to Brett once more. Listening and hearing what he's saying, to draw conclusions past what she has so far: he's young, he's impatient, he doesn't see a need to explain what he likely should, he believes himself capable of defending himself, and likely is. She has no reason to believe otherwise, just reasons aplenty to be aware that he may well cause his own problems through that impatience and attitude.

Again, not unfamiliar territory, even amoung adults she knows and calls friend. Tempers are tempers. He'll have to stumble, live, and learn like the rest of them. ]

So let me see if I understand. Your shadows transport... objects and people, some unknown distance. Presumably from here to where Ursula's stationed.

[ She pauses to give him a chance to interject. Ellana doesn't believe he will, past perhaps in a derisive way. It's easier to let the attitude roll off her back looking at him, seeing his apparent age in mannerisms and the like. She'd have less patience for it in those who should have a broader experience of the world these days, but that, too, she knows was not always the case. She's changed. She's not always seen it, but in being forced to deal with so much of the world in ways she never would have if circumstances hadn't made those demands... ]

I believe you when you say you're capable of looking out for yourself. It may be worth keeping in mind the same is likely true for several here. Few appreciate being startled.

[ Yet in having lowered her left arm, or the stump of it, she makes no further move of aggression or warning, not even defense. She kicks her legs and does what she can to stay upright. If he'd wondered at if she lectured earlier, the real lecture was now, in those two sentences, and it was delivered with little more than a wry note as she waited to see what this shadowy transportation consisted of as a whole. ]

[In a sense, he doesn't have that broad of a world experience, no, particularly since as a dragon, his sense of development is skewed compared to a more "normal" being. Aware from birth, he never did start from the same point that human infants would; neither had he been given the chance for that childlike obliviousness he's seen in those like Efina. Perhaps his growth only truly started after meeting Neil.

She's not wrong either when she thinks that he won't bother to interject, his expression stony—all the more when she begins lecturing him for real. He looks as if he wants to snap something back at that, but he instead elects for dismissive silence (after maybe an annoyed tch, at least).

Assuming that this time, she doesn't dispel them, his shadows extend to her and her captive once more. Once they reach them, she'll find herself phasing into the ground, as are the Stalker and Brett, before they travel through the earth as shadows towards the base. Eventually, once Brett feels they're in an appropriate room to dump the Stalker in, they pop up from the floor, corporeal again. That said, while Ellana is free to move, Brett has more sense than to let the Stalker free, which he continues to keep restrained by his shadows. It means that he has no attention to spare on Ellana once they reemerge, as his efforts are spent on struggling to keep his mist firm against the Stalker's thrashing.

... It's really too bad that the only available tank large enough to hold it isn't directly on the floor or against a wall/some kind of physical object, meaning that although he can technically phase the Stalker through the tank walls in the air if he can manage to get the creature near it, he couldn't simply pop the Stalker into it from the floor or what have you. Instead, here it is in its tangible, fighting glory. Joy.]

[ She's going to put that down as a singularly unpleasant experience, particularly as she had no control over it and hadn't expected it to take as long as it did (despite that time not being so great). Had that all happened without her first interrupting the process, Brett would have had to deal with intense questioning after the fact, if, well, the third party hadn't been there.

Thankfully stalling him out by being concerned for his welfare and having a live Stalker on their collective hands meant that when they were suddenly inside the biome, in the lab, Ellana manages to keep her feet, push aside the sense of nausea, and only stare for a moment or two as the stranded, eleven foot long fish out of water struggled and thrashed against tendrils of barely tangible shadow-smoke-who knows what it is anyway. The water the Stalker had been surrounded with hadn't managed to tag along for the travel process, but once they were all more firm again, it cam crashing down alongside the barrier itself. She was going to have to work on that: she didn't generally try to hold a barrier around elements. It was odd enough to adapt to temporary containment when it was meant as a protective element.

So they're there, water sloshing around their ankles, giant fish thrashing around while Ellana slides toward the largest tank, throwing her left shoulder into moving the massive covering to the side. It's unlocked, and once it starts to shift, she steps back and energizes it into moving backward. With the top off, she turns back to the spectacle of Brett (the yet to be named) and the Stalker: young man and large fish, a tale best told by people not currently present.

She's not looking forward to the headache she's about to get, but it's not like either of them can lift a creature that size into the tank as is. Brett might be able to phase it through part, but without much time to discuss (it's a fish out of water, there's no way that's good), she opts for on the spot pragmatism: slamming one spell into the water with enough force to temporarily energize it and toss the fish up and toward the tank.

... If it makes it in or not is probably going to be dependent on Brett's capabilities. ]

There!

[Brett really would rather prefer better discussion and cooperation—this is why he vastly prefers working with the captain and Iris and not some stranger (let alone a human). Still, he doesn't have much of a choice in the matter: once he realizes what Ellana is doing, he attempts to add to the force via using his mist to throw the creature up as well. For added measure, he keeps part of his mist touching the fish, following it in its trajectory through the air, so that if the fish does risk colliding with the tank instead of properly falling in it, he can phase it through.

Which, as it turns out, is needed. When it looks as if the Stalker is about to hit the edge, it instead passes through. Once it's in the water, rendering Brett's ability unneeded, his shadows withdraw, going back to swirling around him. For a few moments, he watches the fish warily, before:]

Is that all?

[ They're at least on the same page wishing that the present reality was otherwise, but having been thrust into situations where she's had to work alongside people who outright threatened to kill her if she stepped out of line, while marked by something none of them really understood (or hadn't, back then)... well. Wishes amounted to little. Their slap-dash cooperation took care of the big, fishy problem, and as Ellana stands there in her wetsuit and pulls her breather out of her mouth, she has to look around.

They're in a room that's been drenched and wrecked by the Stalker's thrashing about before they tanked it. Various items are knocked over, in disarray, and water is pooling around their feet (and his shadows, that's much stranger now that she's seeing them with a less pressing target on hand). Turning with Brett still in her peripheral vision, she reaches out, pulling on invisible lines back toward herself. The top of the tank settles back into place, the sloshing water from the Stalker cut down to minimal splashing. ]

Can you see the latching mechanism?

[ For the lid. Not answering the other question right now since the answer to that is no, but I have a funny idea you're going to slip away which would leave the whole of the room to her to take care of setting to rights. Tugging her goggles down and allowing them to rest around her neck, she rests her fingers along her jawbone. ]

I'd like to make sure he stays in there and doesn't throw himself back out to flop around in front of us all over again.

[ Considering further thrashing includes an attempt to charge up and into the aerated top, those worries don't appear to be foundless. ]

Edited 2016-02-25 00:32 (UTC)

[Brett hopes that he won't be the one responsible for cleaning this mess up (though if push comes to shove... well, he's used to work, especially considering how lazy the captain could be). As he similarly pulls down his goggles, he shoots her a glance. While he would, unsurprisingly, like to slip away now, he can in fact see the latching mechanism and understands the logic in dealing with it, so.

A tendril of mist extends from his shadows, curling upwards towards the latch and setting in place without Brett otherwise moving. There.]

...

[ She... snorts, a soft sound, when she sees that. Particularly as it's done in silence. Not much for talking, is he? ]

Thank you.

[ She ends up repeating. Again, better to try and foster positive relationships instead of allowing them to be negative from the start. Been there, worked against that, prefers not to go back to it if she can avoid it. The friendships formed had been worth it, though the setting could have been improved.

You know, with less "doom upon the world" going on. (Was there really any less of it now?) ]

Just leaves us with setting this place to rights again before we head off on our own again.

[ Since they do have to live and work here. ]

[Brett isn't great at fostering positive relationships when they're not with dragons, which may or may not be becoming increasingly evident as he remains silent. As if ignoring her presence, he begins using his shadows to pick up fallen objects and right them once more (not much he can do about the water at their feet; his shadows can't hold onto that). Seeing as how she hasn't said anything he needs to directly reply to, he won't.]

[ ... Really chatty.

Either way, she likewise joins in with righting what they can, and looking for implements to use to herd the water. She finds a tray over what appears to be a drain. Pried up off the floor, it allows the pooled water to slowly start trickling out. ]

So what should I call you?

[ She asks while she pries up the tray, stuck to the ground through sheer force of happy suction between the water and some air trapped underneath it. It gives with an audible pop. ]

[...]

Is there a reason you need to know my name?

[His tone is curt. It, uh, doesn't take a genius that he's not exactly interested in giving what he considers to be a human his name.]

[ This is... going somewhere very, very slowly. Ellana lifts her eyebrows a fraction, setting down the tray she's holding in hand with a gentle clink. The Stalker bashes against the side of its tank to a muffled thud, leading to her tipping her head it's way, eyes flicking toward it in speculation. She hopes that tank holds the creature, but what exactly is Ursula going to do with a live specimen?

... A fillet might be nice? ]

You might say I've grown fond of introductions over the years. [ A pause. ] That, and I'm terrible at nicknames.

[Welcome to Bonding With Brett When You're Not a Dragon 101: it's a very lengthy course.

Likewise, he shoots the Stalker a worried glance, his shadows not presently sorting things away flaring up lest he need to subdue the creature, before they relax once more.]

Don't even think about it. [Giving him a nickname, that is.] ... Brett. Brett Graves.

[ Ellana has never been to formalised education, more of a self studier as well as someone out of a society of (sadly warped over time) oral traditions. Here goes something...!

Such as a half smile and a polite dip of her head his way while she squats to pick up a series of instruments strew across the damp floor. Interesting to note how his shadow-tendril-tentacle-whatsits respond to him and his moods, presuming he was likewise on edge with the Stalker issue. ]

It's nice to meet you, Brett.

[ Does she introduce herself in turn? Not right now. She wonders at what point, if any, he'll ask. Sooner rather than later if her statement about being fond of introductions irritates him when she doesn't immediately give on in turn, or if he decides it doesn't matter. Wouldn't be the first time she's responded to hey, you. ]

[It's nice to meet you, Brett. The sentiment is very much not mutual, and he doubts that it's even sincere on her part to begin with. He hasn't given her a reason to like him; he has no interest in doing so either.]

Tch.

[... Similarly, he doesn't care what her name is, so after glancing at her and making that dismissive sound, he goes back to cleaning up with a disinterested look.]

[ One point to the school of thought in which he doesn't ask at all. Ellana gives a small shake of her head as she continues cleaning up, now looking for something to help encourage the water down toward the drain. Too bad it wasn't an element anyone dealt with. Fire, lightning, spirit, ice.

... Technically two of those could be solutions, but they were both poor ones, and she'd personally always done better with lightning than complex fire or more than simple ice. Electrocuting everything was probably not a great plan of action. ]

Where are you from?

[ As long as they're cleaning up, she'll play the annoying one. Honestly, it's easier asking a stranger all the getting to know you questions that he'll probably fight against answering than being left too much to her own thoughts. The fact he's unlikely to be curious in turn is an unintentional boon. ]

[Brett would really rather she not electrocute everything, as this isn't how he'd like to test his endurance against that sort of thing.]

Does it matter?

[ Does it? Technically yes and no; it was relevant for some kinds of understandings, but they're all here now, and isn't that what's more important? Besides, people not talking about much of their past, even where they're from, isn't strange. It's not even necessarily something everyone asks after.

And if he said nothing of Thedas, or anything she knew, how relevant would it be? ]

Only when we want it to matter. In the end, we're all here now, and it's more important if that's where we all plan on being once again. Knowing more than that isn't necessary.

[ Not from her present point of view. She's aware enough to acknowledge that might change, but... she glances his way. ]

Those shadows of yours... how is it you manipulate them like you do?

[ He'd been surprised by her magic, but so far, he hadn't started calling her a mage, or even implied anything much about it. Then again... he's been quiet. Surly. Attempting not to engage, while likewise assisting. She can't say it indicates much that he doesn't ask when as a whole, most his questions are, "Do I have to?" ]

[He could elect not to answer this as well, but honestly, he finds it pretty self-explanatory, so he might as well.]

... I'm a dragon. It's my natural ability.

[He doesn't know how to explain it better than that. It's simply a part of whom he is, and most people, where he's from, would likely accept that as soon as he mentioned being a dragon—which isn't something he feels the need to hide, for all the harm that his species has inflicted. He's never had the sort of carefree cheer that those like Efina do over being a dragon, and thus it might be a lie to say that he's happy being one, but this is the life he's been given and so he'll stand tall about what he is.]

[ She barely bites back on dumbly parroting the word dragon. She's fought dragons, at all stages of maturity, both because it has been necessary, or because she was under attack by controlled dragons. Brett Graves has an odd power, but that has no relationship to dragons that she knows. Sure, they're more resistant to the Blight, which makes Archdemons something more of a curiosity, but this?

He's a young man. Not human, she wouldn't mistake him for that with those ears and his overall build, but not a dragon. ]

I... might need you to explain what a dragon is on your world. You look nothing like the ones we have on mine. You're also a better conversationalist.

[ Attempt at levity made, the slight confusion on her face has her resting another tray against her hip, evaluating Brett all over again. Shapeshifting? It could be possible, but she's never heard of a dragon gaining the ability. Only others gaining shapeshifting abilities, and amoung those, dragon shifting was not common. Morrigan, Flemeth... two people she could name, and both women of a certain amount of influence and power, however behind the scenes. ]

Edited 2016-02-29 20:28 (UTC)

[Brett's expression twitches into a (deeper) frown, as he's not sure what that last bit is supposed to mean, especially since he's well aware that he's not a good conversationalist—even around other dragons.

It's strange, having to keep in mind that things are different across worlds. As rare as dragons are in his country, people tend to know what they are. As he tenses underneath her gaze, his shadows continue to swirl around him.]

... What's a dragon on your world?

[ Her tolerance for dodging answers has gone down over time, particularly when it may be relevant to what she needs to know. What it mostly means is she gears herself up for an exchange, asking Brett in turn: ]

If I answer your question, will you answer my question to you as well?

[ She's not supporting this as a one sided exchange. Both ways? Ellana is more than happy to comply for now. ]

Test Dive #1

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