test drive | 1

[unplug]

test drive

Welcome to the first test drive for Systemwide! We are excited to have you. All prospective players are welcome to tag in and test out their characters, be they unplugged or free born. We would like to offer a range of scenarios that can be expected during gameplay, which are also useable prompts for app samples, and of course, if something else about the setting strikes you, feel free to come up with your own!

Please put your character name and canon in your subject line, and indicate which prompt you are launching from.

simulation | maybe this is your first time. perhaps you've been here countless times. it's a room, as confined as a boxing ring, as expansive as a battle field, whatever you need it to be, whatever you're here to train for.

1.

Before you is a city of rooftops, empty of human life. This is a safe place, because while it may hurt you, at least it won't kill you. Perhaps you are practicing your influence over reality, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Are you successful, or are you failing to free your mind? Perhaps you're helping someone else overcome their fear of heights.

And of course, an operator can always load up some Agent-like training programs to make it interesting.

2.

Congratulations, you know kung-fu, or maybe some other system of combat, like crazy parkour archery, cartwheeling with guns, or sword fighting on horse back. Perhaps you're trying out something even more fantastic, a magical skill or a superpower.

Show me. Or a friend.

mission | whether on board a ship or with your mind sunk deep into a Matrix, you will have to join the battle eventually. sometimes things go terribly wrong. what are you gonna do about it?

3.

Something's gone wrong with this extraction.

There's a lot of information to process. Your target's been extracted, and that's the good news -- your ship, in reality, is heading to their location now -- but the bad news is your team has been scattered. You could be anywhere within this Matrix, deep in the jungle, or lost on a subway train, or staggering out of the crashing waves of a night time beach, and the operator needs a minute to figure out your exact location before they can direct you to a port out of here, or send another operative to collect you.

All you have to do is stay alive for that long. Easy, right?

4.

You were warned of this. You've been prepared in endless simulations, with a dozen cautionary tales, training sessions with the EMP. Still, it's nothing like you imagined, when the operator shouts: "Sentinel closing in at seven o' clock. It's gaining."

And then the shriek of metal.

reality | as much as many Matrixes are designed to be a comfort, you have to face the real world sometime. or maybe this is the world you have only ever known.

5.

Annual celebrations are rare to come by, but the anniversary of Neo's Truce is one that always draws in the crowd. The event takes place in a massive cavern in Zion known as the Temple, and there is music, and there is dancing [a little NSFW].

Everyone is there.

Where are you?

6.

The wind on your face, up here on the desolate surface, tastes bitter, different to what it feels like in a simulated reality. It's freezing cold and always dark, but sometimes, you need a reminder about what it is you're fighting for. Or maybe you're seeing the wasteland of Earth for the first time.

Either way, you shouldn't be out here for too long. The machines might find you.

wildcard | choose your own adventure.

7.

Perhaps you're riding with the Dothraki, or sitting under the Sorting Hat for the first time. Maybe the pleather bodysuit is pinching under your armpits as the traffic of the 90's roars by, or the Nova Empire's sprawling city glitters, towering above you. Maybe you're showing someone around the place you called home for your entire fictional life.

Or perhaps it's nothing as fantastical as that: the Council meeting droned on for two hours, and you're just happy to be home, even if it's a tiny enclosure with rust-edged furniture. Maybe someone's coming over for lunch, and there are real greens in the protein slurry today; maybe you're about to ask to join a crew.

There are infinite worlds to explore, but try to remember that only one of them is real.

Comments

[forcemageure]

[ For a moment that seems to hang suspended, frozen in the chill he feels only half as much as Anders (he's always been a furnace, a quality his brightly grim sense of humor immediately hit upon as making him a fantastic battery), Hawke's not sure if he's relieved or not. On one hand, of course he is, on the other--well...no. No, he's definitely relieved, enough that his stomach turns over. What he's not sure of is whether or not he ought to feel bad about that.

His eyes lid regardless, because despite catching Anders' subdued tone it would probably take something on the order of a machine showing up right now to flip the switch that would turn him entirely from salacious to serious himself. ]

As tempting as that is I'd never forgive myself if you froze, or were eaten or--whatever it is that happens out here.

[ The dead space around them catches his attention at that, the reminder that long trips to the surface don't exactly come highly recommended. Though for less time than it might; Anders has, all 'glowing' jokes aside, always been the brightest thing wherever Hawke is. ]

That's enough. [ He pulls in air, lets it out again. ] I believe you. Enough to save the thorough investigation for more inviting accommodations, anyway.

[ This is the point at which he reaches out with the aim of tugging Anders' sleeve back down; it's up to Anders whether or not he gets that far, of course but it's--it is what it is. Hawke missed him, and moreover he's used to being the one who reminds him that he still has a human body, a thing that requires rest and food and protection from the elements. ]

[dissent]

[ Anders lets him, shivering at the barest brush of Hawke's fingers against his skin — though not with cold. How could he feel the cold when the promise of a thorough investigation makes him feel so warm?

He clears his throat, trying to find his voice. Maker, but this is nothing like he imagined. ]

I have a room. You could— come find me, when you're done enjoying the scenery.

[ That's a parting line. It is. But he doesn't want to let Hawke out of his sight, so he doesn't move, feet still rooted to the ground, eyes still searching Hawke's face for something, some sort of tell. Without the beard he looks younger, more open, even if Hawke's expressiveness has always been a cover, honesty kept in the hesitations and the moments he thinks noone's looking.

Maybe what he's looking for is recrimination. ]

How much have they told you? About how it all... works. About the Matrix.

[forcemageure]

[ That is the kind of parting-line-that-isn't Hawke hasn't heard from Anders in what he thinks might be literal years, with its little kite tail of humor and uncertain lilt in the middle. Unusual, but not unwelcome, although his eyebrows do march toward his hairline, expression snagged somewhere between pleased and surprised. In the end it meets itself midway, highlighting why he grew a beard in the first place. Because without one he looks Carver's age. ]

When I'm done, he says, as if I was enjoying it before. Can I still say I enjoy watching you leave? Or have we passed that milestone?

[ His flirting remains ridiculous, and doubly so out here, on the pitted, pockmarked surface of a world so empty of life even echoes die quickly. Maybe he wasn't, per se, enjoying the scenery, but there is something mercilessly satisfying about it. Hawke always feels more sure of his feet when he knows where the bottom is, that flat place where things can't get any worse: he is, for all his hangman's humor, an optimist.

Regardless. Since Anders let him get close and isn't moving, he sees absolutely no reason not to exist in extremely close proximity. ]

You want the version I've heard, or the version I've understood? If you're pressed for time I can assure you one's much shorter than the other.

[dissent]

[ Anders' breath catches in his throat. Hawke flirting back shouldn't be a surprise, not with the years they lived together, but everything else so far has felt like starting over and this is no different. He's been tossed back to uncertainty and wanting, to effusive bubbles below his ribcage when Hawke is. Himself, basically.

Anders' hand is still palm up, Hawke's is still near, and he touches their fingers lightly together. No reason, this time, just hoping to impart some comfort in the face of a confusion he remembers well. ]

It's a lot to take in, I know.

[ He wouldn't know where to start. His job is to fix the IV, not talk people through understanding "virtual reality". The closest comparison he can think of is a Harrowing, and as far as he knows Hawke's only set foot in the Fade once, for Feynriel. Still, worth a shot, right? ]

It's like the Fade. Everyone had their own different dream they were stuck in. And there are other Anders still in there, dreaming other dreams.

[ Different, being the operative word there. It's all getting increasingly stuck in his throat, and this is both a terrible time and place to have this conversation, but his fingers are slowly sliding into a tangle with Hawke's, and he breathes through the vice around his chest to persevere. ]

And you know my luck. I thought if I went back for you — woke you up — I'd pick the wrong Hawke.

[forcemageure]

[ Initially Hawke waves off 'it's a lot to take in,' an expansive gesture like shooing away smoke. That phrase has defined every major crest and plateau in his life; all that makes this time different is that he doesn't have to take it all in while running.

Still. When their fingers touch he pushes back, solidifying the gesture immediately, and his other hand, settling down from its tacit insistence that he is, of course, fine, lands just below Anders' shoulder with palm flat and fingers spread. Wrong side of the chest to hear the heartbeat, but that's all right. He can be comforted, he just doesn't want to discuss that it's happening. Ever.

At least he listens more or less quietly to the extension on the impossibly sprawling concept he's been processing a little at a time (relatively slow-going, considering electricity still sounds like someone's managed to jam lightning in tubes, but going nonetheless). Until Anders pauses, and Hawke tips his chin down as one eyebrow meanders the opposite direction, expression elaborate parody. ]

Anders, are you apologizing to me?

[ A thin, faint undercurrent of amusement buoys this; it's not--funny, precisely, but Hawke sounds 90% of the time like he's about to laugh at something. He lifts his hand from Anders' chest and rubs a longer piece of his wind-lifted blond hair between thumb and forefinger before it drops back again, one corner of his mouth tugging up like a marionette limb. It's far longer, and Anders far less agitated, that he would have expected given only a few months. ]

Don't. Or do if you like I suppose, but I don't need it. I-- [ He takes his hand back another moment, almost covering his mouth before he realizes he's about to pull it down over a beard that isn't there; this time when he curls his fingers into the soft, worn fabric of Anders' sweater...thing he stays there. Uncertainty only in his pauses, and the motions he doesn't make. ]

If I'm the right one [ he must be, no one could love Anders more or better than he can; they've been through too much ] the rest can take care of itself. If you want someone to shout at you you might have to have them extract Aveline.

[ An immediate wry grimace, usually mobile, articulate tongue stumbling over the unfamiliar 'extract,' the nebulous 'them.' ]

Please don't, actually. [ Something conflicted passes over his face, a shadow there and gone. ] She has a life, and she's already put it aside for me once. But...maybe you'd like to have the rest of this conversation somewhere slightly less awful?

[ Slightly. ]

[dissent]

[ Anders kisses him instead.

It's impulsive, and a little bit stupid, but Hawke's little touches don't feel like some new flirtation, he hasn't pulled back once, or shrugged off any licentiousness, or reclaimed his own personal space. His hand tightens around Hawke's fingers like a vice, and that's all the warning there is before he leans in.

There's a moment of hesitation right before he makes contact, even though the tilt of his head is obvious right now, long nose nearly brushed up against Hawke's beardless cheek. It's not borne of any lack of desire: he's never been of two minds about Hawke, right now literally less so than with any other kiss. He's just staving himself off for a fraction of a moment to give Hawke a chance to duck away, if he wants, with those split-second instincts honed by battle.

Then they're kissing, Anders' stubble-rough mouth hot compared to the cold of the air, yielding and desperate at the same time. It's much like the first time, years of pent up aching breaking through the dam and swallowing him in foolishness, Maker, Maker, Maker a litany in his head. He lifts his free hand, cup's Hawke's face. The texture is all wrong, but the taste of him, the press and feel of him — that's the same.

Hawke said not to apologize, so Anders keeps back the words, but they're on his lips all the same.

When he pulls back, the whole devastated world blinks back brightly into being, and after a moment where he just pants softly with his eyes wide, he ducks his head, gives a sheepish little chuckle. He's too old to be acting with romantic impetuousness more suited to Varric's books. ]

All right. Let's go back in.

[ Because if they stay out here and kiss some more they'll probably get themselves killed.

Not that it wouldn't be very worth it. ]