TEST DIVE #2

[subnauticmods]

≡U.R.S.U.L.A. NAVIGATION

_ 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!

A: There’s a Storm on the Horizon
A brainstorm. On advice about the ingenuity of multi person parties, and from admitted lack of understanding of many needs of organics, URSULA has selected you and a partner (or partners) to go to one of the observatories with food, beds, and recording devices to have a jam session for ideas about missions.

You are not to leave the room until you have some good ones. So get cracking! Start suggesting to one another what the base needs to do.

Or get horribly, horribly sidetracked and possibly a little crazy at being locked up together with the ocean staring at you. Judging.

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: Almost, but not quite, Entirely Unlike Tea
The droids, URSULA promises, will do their best to make anything you want. Go on! Ask them anything! She’s excited. This seems like a great way to test out their capacities.

Of course, you need to be very careful what you wish for. Maybe you ask for Hamlet by William Shakespeare, and they do their best but only know so much, giving you a book with some… creative changes. Maybe you ask for a puzzle box, but you weren’t specific enough and things went awry.

Maybe you made the mistake of asking for tea..

No matter what, you were given something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike what you asked for. Now what do you do with it?

E: CREATURE FEATURES (possible body horror)
As more data is collected on the creatures of the deep, DNA can also be gathered to allow URSULA to research how to integrate it into her crew members in useful and hopefully unintrusive ways, unless of course permission is given first for more obvious or exhausting additions.

Well, that's the idea, anyway.

Unfortunately, something malfunctioned while URSULA was researching. Her incomplete serum was injected into you through your devices while you slept (or maybe you were knocked unconscious by the sudden change to your body). Now maybe you have the temperament of a Stalker or the thirst of a Bleeder or Gasopod pods on your back that trigger when you're startled. How this genetic malfunction works and what it is can be up to you but while URSULA assures you it's only temporary, you're stuck like this for now.

Have fun?

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

Comments

[inject]

[ She didn't look terribly impressed with his attitude, even if it mirrored her own. She pointed to the bench and pulled on a new pair of latex gloves. A bulge in the palm gave away her own mutation. ]

Get up. I need to make sure you don't have anything other than the obvious.

[ It shouldn't take too long. She was already lifting up one of the sensors. ]

[splinten]

[He was confident he was fine. He had spent his entire life looking after himself. He didn't need to rely on someone else, particularly not someone who was clearly having her own problems. This was stupid, and he wanted to leave.

He didn't not. Without changing expression or saying a word, he took a seat on the bench as ordered.

He just also happened to impassively sit there silently resenting authority, like the mature teenager he is.]

Okay, sure.

[inject]

[ She definitely agreed with him on one thing: this was stupid. If URSULA had been the AI back home, Valentine would have scrapped her immediately for less idiotic system. Unfortunately, she was all they had, and she had to accept that.

Just like she had to accept that what she wanted right now, more than anything, was to let her 'suckers' burst out and drain this snooty teen with his anime shades dry of all of his blood.

Probably not the best thing for onsite medical personel to be feeling. ]

Been hypnotising anyone accidentally?

[ It was gruff and clipped, but gave no hint of her increasing irritation with her own changes. Just her current irritation with the situation. That was how she liked it.

As she spoke, she slathered the sensor with jelly so that it would read his pulse more easily once she attached it. ]

[splinten]

Only with my sickwicked raps.

[It's okay, Valentine. No one would blame you for draining this shitty little loser of his blood. They might even thank you.

The coolkid act is ... slightly marred by the way he leaaaaans away a little at seeing her with the jelly and the sensor.] What's that for?

[He has literally never gotten professional medical care in his life and suddenly he feels uncomfortable with this entire thing??]

[inject]

[ Her sharp, dry snort said all it needed say about his raps, 'sickwicked' or not. This lady was not impressed by them and their potential for being slick as a bowling alley floor.

She also wasn't thrilled with the body language, but at least all he was doing was leaning away. Valentine raised a brow at him and tapped the sensor in her hand. ]

So that I can get a good reading when I put it against your skin.

Don't tell me you're scared of a little lubrication? With an attitude and shades like that?

[splinten]

[HOW DARE SHE DERIDE THE FINE ART OF RAP. Her loss.

Naturally, he immediately flares up in defensiveness.] I'm not fucking scared of lube. I just—that's going against my skin? What for? What does it read, and how?

[He isn't scared of lube, but he is absolutely not comfortable with actually trusting himself in anyone's hands and he didn't really know that visits to the doctor involved any physical interaction.

The coolkid isn't feeling cool about this.]

[inject]

Of course it's going against your skin. I can't imagine it's any less alarming than whatever URSULA gave you to make it glitter like that. [ Honestly. She wished she could just tell this kid and the ones like him to shove it and leave her be. The urge to puncture him and suck out all the blood was not going away.

She stuck her arm out and pressed it against her inner elbow. A little reading blipped on the device. Blood Pressure. Breathing rate. Temperature. Heart Rate. Perspiration. Muscle twitches. Any immediately obvious foreign bodies (he might be able to see 'Bleeder mutation' if he were sharp eyed enough).

Dramatically, she took the sensor away and wiped the slightly wet splotch on her arm with an antiseptic wipe, then used another to wipe the sensor clean itself. Magical. ] What an imposition.

[splinten]

Hey, URSULA is just trying her best for us.

[Even if it doesn't look invasive, Dirk's pride is now bleeding, and for all his moments of apathy, he absolutely has something of a temper. It's a bad mix.]

Fine, cool. Whatever. I still want to know how it actually works technologically speaking.

[And, because he doesn't know when to stop antagonizing people:] It looks like it would suck if you caught the scent of blood right now.

[inject]

[ Her smirk wasn't entirely mirthless this time. It had a shade of dark humour to it. ] Yes. It would. [ In more ways than one, but not in any she couldn't control urges for. She was a big girl after all. If she could pretend to be Double's partner in crime, she could deal with an urge to suck blood if she caught the scent of it.

That all said and done, she gelled up the sensor again before taking Dirk's wrist and straightening his arm. Her grip was no-nonsense and firm, not careful and considerate of his feelings. She just wanted this done.

The gel was a little cold when it touched and there was a slight eletrical tingle, but that was all. ]

[splinten]

[Dirk's glasses hide his eyes, and his mouth is no more than a hard line. And yet he still manages to wear a look of murder. It takes everything he has not to pull out his sword when she grabs his wrist.

A bite of electricity. Okay, he can understand how it would get blood pressure from contact, temperature too. Breathing rate. How is it getting that? He has no clue. That annoys him more.

There's nothing other than the Mesmer in him (really lame tattoos are presumably not enough of a foreign body to show up) although when it comes to muscle twitches, his whole body tenses with a readiness to attack the second she made contact, so there's that. He isn't exactly relaxing now, either. It's more like he's watching her waiting for the moment she turns dangerous and he has to fight back.

No, he's not overreacting to a doctor's checkup. Why would you say that. That's ridiculous!]

Is this the end of it?

[inject]

Your heart rate is high and you're glittering. [ She said it mildly, pulling the little device away from him. ] Aside from that you seem just fine. [ Yet another waste of time, both for herself and for him. She didn't particularly care about his wasted time, but hers was pretty irritating. ]

Unfortunately I need to ask a few more questions before we can both continue with our merry lives.

Are you going to be fussy, or will we just be mature adults and get this done with?

[splinten]

[The quantity of murder in his mostly neutral expression has, somehow, amplified. Because he is not a mature adult at all.]

Ask away, doc.

[He's in such a bad mood that he doesn't even go for an ironic comment about him and hearts. Truly, a mark of great irritation.]

[inject]

There's a good boy.

[ Sighing, she pulls a pen out of her Victoria's Secret Compartment and lifts up a checklist. It's full of useless General Health Questions that she won't even bother with.

Her tentacle-suckers pushed against her gloves. ]

Any unusual reactions to the pulses in the ocean?

[splinten]

['There's a good boy' holy shit he wants to kill her

And what kind of person keeps a pen in their cleavage?]

No.

[inject]

Particular taste for fish that you didn't have before?

[ She made a small note, then gave a wry, self-depreciating smile. ]

Or even a particular craving for people on the base?

[ The answer would probably be no. Mesmers weren't hunters of large prey, usually. Still, it was part of her job to ask the 'important questions'. ]

[splinten]

[These were so stupid. So he answered like a mature adult.]

No, and still no. [He shrugged.] There's a shortage of hot guys in this place.

[Mature.]

[inject]

I'll keep that in mind, [ said the ace nurse dryly. It was no consolation to her that this small irritant found this just as stupid as she did. ]

Now I just need a blood sample.

[splinten]

Okay, give me the needle.

[That was it. Point blank. He was not going to let her take a blood sample from him. He wasn't afraid of blood, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let this woman taken it. Any chance of that vanished after her 'good boy' remark. (As if he himself hadn't been provoking her the entire time.)

He held his hand out, expectant. Because frankly, he would rather chop her hand off than let her put a needle into him.]

[inject]

[ Valentine looked at him. She was very, very tempted to give him a puff of chloroform and just do what she had to do. Unfortunately, that would be like draining him of all of his blood - wonderful in theory, but more trouble than it was worse in practise.

Having neither needle or bulb to hand, she crossed her arms under her breasts and leaned back. ] One mistake and I take over, [ She said, blandly, her eye not leaving his face. ] Non-negotiable.

[splinten]

Deal. [He didn't intend on failing.]

No needle? What were you going to use, then?

[He wasn't going to just cut himself open with a sword.

He could, but it seemed inadvisable even with Conditional Immortality.]

[inject]

[ Without changing her expression a hair, she opened one of the drawers where the sterilized tips were. ]

I was going to assume someone who wanted to use the needles knew where they were.

[ Her dry tone all but said that she'd put her assumptions far too high. ]

[splinten]

Brilliant logical inference. It's completely reasonable to expect someone to know where you've stored items in your own lab they've never been in before.

[He snatched the needle out of her hand, and if she wasn't going to be helpful, then fine, he'd rummage himself: rubber to wrap around his arm, cotton balls and antiseptic, phials for the blood.

Dirk did understand how to take a blood sample for himself. He was just more accustomed to doing it the easy way.]

[inject]

[ Her own lab? She goddamn wishes, kid. She goddamn wishes. ]

Ah, how foolish of me. No help, except to be handed everything.

[ She didn't move to help him as rummaged, however, and instead pulled her fingers back to stretch her palm. The bulges of the Bleeder tentacles were more than slightly obvious.

i am cracking up at them. and only realized this many comments in that I put down the wrong letter

[splinten]

[He wasn't going to give a response to that (it would probably have amounted to "shut up you fucking know that isn't true") and instead, once he found what he needed, he sad himself down and got it done. Rubber strip around upper arm, phial into needle, antiseptic swabbed over crook of the arm, stab. Blood pulsing up appropriately into the tube. Bam.]

Need extra for a snack?

omg same, and dw about it i put two Es up on my starter lmao

[inject]

[ She was mildly impressed with his effeciency. Not enough to say anything, but enough not to give him any grief for his little comment. In fact, the slight smile she gave showed that she found the disparaging remark a little funny. ]

I'm a big girl. Best to diet.

[ It was a pain trying to handle the blood samples when she wanted nothing more than to suck it all up, but she was a person, not an animal, and she could control her urges.

She held her out out for the bulb. ]

Want a lollipop?