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test drive | 1
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?
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.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.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.
no subject
Being in this weird fucking place doesn't help. Trying to wrap her head around everything really doesn't fucking help. Existential crisis is putting it lightly. ]
So? Shouldn't sneak up on people like that.
[ Because as far as Ellie is concerned, he totally sneaked up on her.
Ugh. Whatever. Her racing heart is starting to calm now, anyway.
She takes proper hold of her fork again, stabs it into the goop. ]
What the hell is a yeast infection, anyway?
[ She sure as hell knows what an infection is, but yeast? What the fuck is that? What the hell kind of infection would look like what she's eating?
Have fun explaining to her what a yeast infection is, dude. ]
no subject
It's something he can sense because remembers feeling it.
He can see every kid hunter in her posture, every Krissy Chambers he ever met. He can see himself.
She's from a fucked up situation. His lips part a little as his eyes flick over her, that understanding rushing through him for a second before his face blanks out again. The only thing worse than agitating her further would be letting on he can see through her, he knows that from experience, so he covers it up quick. ]
Moldy bread.
[ He deadpans, a blatant level of sarcasm coating it that he doesn't bother hiding. In other words, if you don't know he's not gonna be the one to tell you, kid. He's sure she can pick up on that, because kids her age are fucking smart about that kinda thing. ]
What the hell are you doing running around alone anyway, pipsqueak? What are you, like, twelve?
[ He's antagonizing her not because he particularly means anything he's saying, but he figures riling her up a little about something other than whatever's eating at her nerves might take her mind somewhere else. Give her a little distraction to help her get a grip.
Crowded public places ain't exactly the best way to get reintroduced to reality if everything you knew before it was violence. ]
no subject
Oh. Wait. Oookay. The guy is just being a dick. She shifts on her seat, throws him a glance that's equal parts wary and a flat 'real funny, asshole'. Which… leaves her wondering what the fuck a yeast infection actually is. But okay, fine, seems he's not interested in telling her, for whatever reason.
Probably best they don't talk about infections, anyway. And fungus. Both are too fucking close to home for her; and trying to come to terms with the fact that her immunity to the infection that destroyed the world as she knew it means nothing, the fact that all the people she cared about who died because of her died in vain, is an even harder, bitterer pill to swallow. ]
Uhh. [ Why the hell is she running around alone? And 'What're you, like, twelve?' - fuck, why does that remind her of Joel? A small squeeze of uneasy panic twists in her chest, which she instantly squashes down on. ] 'Cause I got no choice? It's not like asked to be here, jeez.
[ Definitely sounding defensive here. Defensive and cagey. ]
And I'm fourteen, by the way? Not that that's any of your business, or got anything to do with anything.
no subject
His head bobs absently and he shrugs, conceeding her point. Why are any of them running around here alone? Because there were clearly so many friggin' other options. It totally explains why he's having a communal slop dinner in a cafeteria with a tween. ]
Yeah, okay, fair enough.
[ He responds, distracted by the way goop is oozing through the prongs on his fork. He pulls a face. God, he misses beef. His liver for a burger, seriously, he'll trade internal organs for cows at this point. ]
I guess I'm just tryin' to figure out why you're hangin' around up here when there's, like, a whole subsection overrun with kids your age down on B level.
[ He mentions casually, dropping the information like she totally already knew it. Follows it by innocently shoveling another forkful into his mouth. God, shoot him now. ]
no subject
[ Cagey though she is, she sounds genuinely a little surprised. Not excited or hopeful by that little nugget of information necessarily, but definitely surprised. Goes to show how much she's been keeping to herself. ]
I dunno. [ A small, dismissive one-shouldered shrug as she scoops up some goop. ] I prefer being on my own, I guess.
[ She's not even going to go into why. She leans over her plate slightly, shoves the fork of goop into her mouth instead. Kind of chews it, swallows it. She casts another wary glance over at the dude. ]
Anyway. Why did you decide to sit next to a kid? This part is-- [ She waves her fork in gesture of the mess hall. ] Totally overrun with boring, old adults your age. You coulda gone and sat next to any of 'em. I mean, how old are you? Like, sixty?
[ Ellie knows this guy is hardly sixty. He doesn't look anywhere near as old as Joel - which, by the way, she doesn't actually know how old Joel is, just knows he's pretty fucking old compared to a lot of people in their world - but she's just being a bit of a brat. ]
no subject
He can't help but snort at that age guess. Wow, thanks a lot, kid. His ego's certainly not a fan of her. ]
Thirty four.
[ He responds, annoyance in his tone. He knows she's screwing with him, but hey. Gotta keep up the back and forth, right. He points his fork at her. ]
You tried sitting with some of these assclowns? All any of them ever wanna talk about is how way important they were back home or whatever. 'Wah, I was saving the world', who cares, it's all fake ass imaginary crap. Shut up and eat your chicken paste.
[ He rants, maybe a little more loudly than he should because a blonde woman across the room shoots him a hard look. He shrugs at her defiantly. She snorts at his maturity, rolls her eyes, and ignores him again.
He huffs. ]
no subject
She goes silent and takes to staring down at her plate at what he says next, though. Sure, he's got a point about people waxing on about how important they mighta been back in their-- worlds or whatever, but that fake ass imaginary crap where she is from? Or was plugged into? Or whatever the fuck it's called? Wasn't so fucking fake ass imaginary to Ellie. The people she cared about who died because of her, and the one person she loves more than anything who died while she was left behind - they were pretty fucking real to her. Still are real.
And being the cure for mankind? It's a responsibility she never wanted burdened on her shoulders, but it at least gave her a purpose in a shitty fucking world, and more importantly, it at least gave her hope that everyone she ever cared about who died because of her wouldn't have to have died in vain.
And now that's all gone, like none of it meant anything. Like Riley meant nothing. Like Sam and Tess and Henry meant nothing. Like everything she had gone through on her own, and she'd gone through with Joel, meant fucking nothing.
But then she shakes it off and pushes all of that far down somewhere deep inside her again. Assumes that same closed-off wariness. She shoots the guy a look. ]
Jeez, who went and shoved a giant stick up your ass?