fishesoutofwater | TEST DIVE #2

Entry tags:

test dive

TEST DIVE #2

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

D;

[The eleven-year-old staggers under the weight of an iron cauldron with pink flowers enameled on the sides. It seems rude to complain when she did ask for a flower pot, but she's not sure how much use this one will be for what she intended.

She's not even sure she can get it back to the rooms.]

F;

[Cheria stands with both hands pressed agains the curved glass wall of an observatory, shivering a little as she watches the nighttime sea. The flickering lights of swimming creatures should be beautiful, are beautiful, but the chills wont go away.

They need help. She's as sure of that as she's been of anything in her life.

She'll die if she goes out there. She's just as sure of that.

A cough worms its way up her throat, then another, like an agreement. She pulls her hands from the glass and hugs herself.]

[This child is coughing. What does one do with coughs.

One drinks orange soda until one feels better, right? Wait, no, fuck, that isn't it. What do you do when people are sick? Endless pop culture knowledge, don't fail him now! No, not when people are faking sick, when they're actually sick. ...CHICKEN SOUP!

There are no chickens.

Goddammit.]

Hey.

Do you need fish soup?

[n a i l e d i t]

[She turns sharply enough that she almost falls over, though she manages to catch her balance with only a brief wobble. He's taller than her, a little older, but she can't recall seeing him on the ship.]

Fish... soup? [Another small burst of coughs keeps her from saying anything else, but when she gets her breath back enough, she shakes her head.] No, thank you. I'm not hungry.

Edited 2016-04-26 00:30 (UTC)

[He is like a millisecond from flashstepping over to her to make sure she's okay. But the kid is balancing herself. Cool.]

Okay.

[...

...

...]

You need a blanket or something?

[welp]

[ He reminds her of someone.

Given how few people she really knows, it isn't hard to think of who. She sighs out a laugh.]

Thank you. I'm all right, really. I just had a bad dream. I'm Cheria.

Edited 2016-04-26 01:00 (UTC)

Dirk.

[Ah. A bad dream. Probably the bad dream he also had.

He would tell literally any adult to just jump into the ocean. He would, frankly, probably assume most teenagers should too. But he remembers the things Dave said to him about his upbringing, and he always has known that he is one of the least qualified people to have anything to do with taking care of a kid. And now there is a kid, in front of him, looking unwell, troubled by a dream that stinks of a vision.

What does he doooooooo.]

Do you need something to help you go back to sleep?

[Dear heavens, he's trying so hard. Normally, this is where she'd start to get annoyed. Normally, she'd prepare her arguments against being babied. But there's something baffled in the way he's trying to help, like Sophie shoving the flower at her, and she can't quite make it to irritation.]

No thank you. Really, I'm fine. I can take care of myself. [She hops up onto the bench in the center of the room, kicking her feet and watching a swirl of yellow-green lights travel past in concert.] It's amazing, isn't it?

[Is that true? Should any child be allowed to take care of themselves? Sure, Dirk did, and so did Roxy and Jake, but that sample suggests you don't want to follow this trend. But even if she can't take care of herself, he definitely can't take care of her. So he should just not. But that seems super fucking neglectful, like the neglect Dave suffered. And he doesn't want to be shitty and neglectful.

Goddammit why is this so hard.

His eyes flicker behind his sunglasses over to the pattern of lights. It is beautiful. It is also familiar.]

It is. I was sorta hoping for a different kind of scenery in a new world, but it's not bad.

Different? [She stops kicking, thinking of the green fields and endless forests and exhausting hills around Lhant. The ocean, going on and on and touching a million places she'll never see.

Being able to see this one after thinking she'd die in Lhant is a gift.] It's completely different. Isn't it?

Edited 2016-04-26 01:38 (UTC)

[Whoops. He glances at the child, who was staring so happily out at the big blue sea. It's completely different. So this, for her, is like what green forests would be for him, grass, life not brought down by a tyrant to warp a planet to her whims. Something outside of his limited experience.]

I grew up someplace like this. [It feels like a good way to set it aside.] But if you've never seen something of this sort before, I understand why it would be breathtaking. Ocean and land are like completely different worlds.

Oh. [She brushes the front of her wetsuit with her thumb, trying not to think about Asbel or her grandfather or Hubert or Sophie or Richard--

She shakes her head. They're fine. Somewhere out there, they made it. If she survived, they had to.]

Didn't you want to come here?

I kinda got lost on the way to the place I was heading to. [That's what he assumes, anyway. They were opening the door, Jade was going to drop their planet in the new world, and everyone was going to settle down in... probably in Can Town, that seems likely. He is getting the impression that no one has the heart to tell the Mayor 'no,' and that in fact several people are very excited about the idea of Can Town.

But, somehow, there was a wrong turn. And now he's here. In the ocean.

Again.

He sits down beside her on the bench. It is a vast ocean, and it's a new one. The most important thing to remember is that it isn't one he's alone in. This time, there's company.

It makes the endless water feel less like an abyss.]

I heard some of the crew actually intended to be on this planet. Was that what happened for you?

Not exactly. My grandfather signed on with a terraforming ship, because Lord Lhant was part of the charter. So I went with.

[Never mind that he'd done his best to get her to stay behind, given how dangerous it would all be.

If she survived....]

I don't know if this is the right place, or how I got to the base, but Grandfather and Lord Lhant and my friends are out there somewhere. [She smiles a little.] That's probably why I had a bad dream. Worrying about them. Who knows what kind of trouble Asbel will get into before I find him.

[Her smile fades and the chill returns. It would be nice if she could believe that was all the dream meant.]

Edited 2016-04-26 02:34 (UTC)

[Her friends and family probably aren't okay. The bad dream probably wasn't just worrying about them.

For someone who is aloof and great at withholding information, Dirk is actually a bit uncomfortable with the idea of lying to her. However, he definitely doesn't know about her friends and family. So that isn't something that he will say anything about. There's no point in stressing her out when he straight up doesn't know. It's just cynical speculation. Putting in forward, in fact, would be unfair.

The dream, he thinks, is different. Without turning his head from the ocean, he glances at her, then back to the glass walls before them.]

Is it the dream where it feels like the ocean is calling to you?

[She leans away from him, staring at his profile and trying not to let the sinking feeling and the press of black water all around overwhelm her. She curls her hands into fists and clenches them close to her chest, feeling her heartbeat, reminding herself that even out in that dark ocean, there's beautiful, beautiful lights.]

How did you know that?

That dream woke me up too.

[He doesn't look at her. He continues to watch the sea.]

When I woke up, I really wanted to take a swim.

[ Sharp little inhale, then silence. What can she say? That itch is still there. The steady pressure that has nothing to do with how deep they are and everything to do with the unexplainable desperation from below. ]

I don't know how to swim. I wasn't allowed to learn.

[ Which has nothing to do with anything. She shivers again. ]

Dude, why not? That's a useful skill for any kid to have.

I mean, who knows when you might turn up somewhere with nothing but miles of ocean all around you.

[Okay, so the second part was ironic, but the first part is sincere. Kids should know how to swim!

He notices her shivering, and he knows that she said she didn't want a blanket, but he's pretty sure that there is no situation where giving a shivering kid something warm is a bad thing to do. So he mutters something under his breath (it sounds suspiciously like "Getting hella chill all up in here / Time to drop my duds gone god tier") and out of inventory space, the Prince of Heart God Tier outfit drops into his hands.

He yoinks the god tier hoodie from the pile and offers it to her. Look, it even has a tiara sewn into the hood! Isn't that amazing? (He does not feel it's amazing, fuck Sburb.)]

You can toss this on if you want. It's colder under the ocean than most places on land.

[It occurs to her for the first time that no one here knows the things she's not supposed to do. No one here has been given lectures on her health by Grandfather or Lady Kerri. Moreover, no one needs to know.

The sudden appearance of the clothes gets her to jump to her feet in surprise.] How did you--?

[He really is like Sophie. She takes the hoodie slowly and puts it on, trying to decide what to do as it falls over and swamps her in warm cloth. She doesn't feel right lying, but she doesn't have to lie, exactly, to keep the truth private.]

The water was dangerous. [For her. Like cold, like running too much, like walking up hills. It's truth. She pushes the hood back a little so she can see Dirk's face better.]

There aren't a lot of things that aren't dangerous.

[Says the boy who grew up post-apocalypse only to enter a video game that destroys worlds. He looks over at her buried in his hoodie, and it actually amuses him. He doesn't smile, but still.]

Damn, that actually works for you. I think I should just admit that you wear it better and abdicate my mythological role. Are you ready to be Princess of Heart?

[He absolutely means it as a joke because he would never ever want any child to have to play Sburb, and of course if she were a player, it would already be predestined in the nonsense that is Paradox Space.

Still, he's pretty impressed that she makes that look adorable. On him, it just felt a bit dweeby. (He does still like the gloves though.)]

Edited 2016-04-26 22:00 (UTC)

(no subject)

nonparaille - 2016-07-01 01:48 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

splinten - 2016-07-01 01:52 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

nonparaille - 2016-07-01 01:54 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

splinten - 2016-07-01 01:58 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

nonparaille - 2016-07-01 02:09 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

splinten - 2016-07-01 02:16 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

nonparaille - 2016-07-01 02:19 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

splinten - 2016-07-01 02:21 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

nonparaille - 2016-07-01 02:25 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

splinten - 2016-07-01 02:29 (UTC) - Expand

[Oh no, the poor dear. Merrill is quick to come to her side and place a hand against the other side of the cauldron to balance it.]

Oh! Isn't that a bit big for you? Do you need to make a large batch of potions?

Oh, thank you. [There's a light sheen of sweat on her forehead, and she closes her mouth to hold in a cough, since her hands are full. Once it's passed, she clears her throat.]

No - I mean, yes, it might be a little big. But no, I'm not making potions. I wanted to see if I could grow something from that island south of the ship.

Oh! You... oh! [She gets it now. Merrill looks at the cute giant pot and smiles.] I love the flowers you put on it! I'm sure the plants will, too. But do you want me to carry it? I don't mind.

I didn't. [She sets the pot down with a sheepish smile and wipes her forehead.] The little machines did. I like them too, though.

[Cheria tries, very hard, not to bristle at the offer of help. She doesn't know this woman, she needs to be polite, and besides, it's an attempt to be nice. She was having trouble. Still, she sounds the tiniest bit defensive.] No, that's all right. I can get it back.

Edited 2016-04-26 03:28 (UTC)

[The sight is sad, but amusing to say the least. His face, however, forms a frown, as he remembers what he had gotten when he had asked the droids for flour.

She's not having the most fun, is she.]

Aw, hell...wonder how they messed that one up. [He muttered to himself, before catching up to the girl (wasn't like she was hauling it in the first place), and decidedly holds up one part of the cauldron. Although he had considered taking it from her hands in the first place, he didn't want to risk having to put up with a prideful kid, if she were one.

See, you're strong too!]

This'll be easier. It's lighter, right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only