reveriance | TEST DRIVE #002

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TEST DRIVE #002

TEST DRIVE #002

( 0 0 1 ) » WAKE UP

Were you asleep or were you unconscious? It doesn't matter: when you come to, there's an odd taste in your mouth and there's a low-level mechanical hum in the air. Your head hurts and you feel nauseous. You aren't anywhere you know: everything around you is metal, from the floor you lie on all the way to the ceiling. You are dressed in a jumpsuit you definitely weren't wearing before.

"We tried to save the world. I think— I think we did the opposite."

The message repeats on a loop. If you look for its source, you find a comms device on the floor next to you. The logo on its wallpaper says REVERIE TERMINAL. Upon closer inspection, you find the same logo on your jumpsuit.

Welcome to your new home. What choice do you have but to explore your surroundings?

( 0 0 1 . 1 ) » WAKE UP WHERE?
When you wake up, you find that you're not alone. But more importantly, you find that you're in a closet. An empty closet, bar you and your new companion. It's small, cramped, and there is no door that you can see. The ceiling is low, there is barely any lights, only some coming from the tiny flashlight clipped to your suit's shoulder. You cannot be sure that there is any air coming in to the room.

Are these grooves in the wall supposed to mean something?

( 0 0 2 ) » OBSERVATION DECK

There were no windows in the corridor you woke up in and no windows in any of the crew quarters you might have checked for occupants — but there are plenty of windows on the uppermost level of the station, deck 1. In fact, there are windows from floor to ceiling all along the circumference of the station's circular deck, and it's possible to walk along it all. What it shows is a strange solar system you've never seen before and a planet that might resemble one you know, but certainly isn't the same.

You're in space. You don't know where you are. Neither does anyone else.

( 0 0 3 ) » BAR

On deck 3, you find the bar. Tucked away from the crew quarters, it's dimly lit, there are bar stools thrown down on the floor and what looks like some very old drink spills, crusty and dark against the bar top. But there is alcohol here, or at least, what you think is alcohol, in bottles with faded labels, most of them indecipherable. Take a drink, get drunk, start a fight, or start a party? You're stuck on this station, might as well make the most of it, right?

( 0 0 4 ) » SPACEQUAKES

One second, you are is walking. Magnetic boots are on, the ground feels solid enough, for a metal deck in a space station. Everything is perfectly fine, or at least as fine as it can be, given that you still don't know where you are or how you came to be here.

The next moment, it's like everything explodes around you. You're thrown against the wall as sparks erupts from electrical panels, as the whole station rumbles and shakes around you. You fall to the deck, earning yourself scratches from the grating. When you look up, it's like nothing has happened. No wires hanging from open panels, no flickering lights, no more shaking. Like an earthquake in space.

( 0 0 5 ) » NETWORK

The comms device you found next to you when waking up connects to a station-wide network, REVERIE NET. You have the option to post video, voice or text messages.

What will you share?

( 0 0 6 ) » WILDCARD

The station features a variety of locations, from sleeping quarters free for the claiming to a dirty swimming pool and a bar that still holds alcohol (though some of the bottles seem to have been opened a while ago).

Go wild, but don't wreck the place. It's your home for the foreseeable future, after all.

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001.1 Wake Up Where?

This isn't the first time Shepard has ever woken up in a strange place with vaguely ominous warnings playing on repeat. Hell, this isn't even the first time she'd woken up in a place like this without her armor. She'd have preferred to have her gun on her but, frankly, she could get by without a pistol if she had to.

The other person in the cell, well, they don't look like they are doing quite as well as she is.

"Hey," Shepard tries and the sound bounces back at her--the walls are far too close for comfort. "Hey, get up," she hazards again and, for good measure, shoves them in the side with her foot as she draws herself to standing.

"We've got problems."

003 Bar

"I guess this will do," Shepard announces as she peers into the room.

The place is thrashed, the chairs upended, cups cluttering the floor, and scattered trash everywhere. There is about an equal measure of broken glass and bent metal to unbroken--she's seen worse but not much. She strays in, boots crunching on broken tumblers, and eyes the bar itself. There are a few bottles on the shelves but none of them look expensive or worthwhile. Shepard eyes them a moment then decides to take her chances and snags one.

The top takes some trying but she forces it off and is greeted by the scent of strong, cheap alcohol. On a whim, she grabs one of the cleanest looking glasses off the floor and fills it up.

"Cheers," she says to the empty room and downs the whole of it like she'd just poured a shot.

004 Spacequakes

Low gravity arrays were the worst; she hated them in basic, hated them on post, and hated them now. Mag-boots combined with normal pressure were just asking to make a person sick, begging for it, and it was only by dint of her years of service that she could take it without flinching. Unfortunately, the sudden jarring toss of gravity and the bolt of electricity was enough to toss even Shepard on her ass.

She hit the wall with a resounding bang and, on instinct, managed to wind her arm through something and catch herself before the whole building blew apart. Seeing how explosive decompression didn't kill her a moment later, Shepard was at something of a loss. The shaking ceased and, in an instant, it was like it had never happened.

"Shit, seriously?" she seethed and glowered at the ceiling. She couldn't hear any groaning but, frankly, that didn't mean something wasn't broken. She was (quite possibly) the world's worst engineer, but that didn't really matter. If something was broken, she had to find it, it was part of the job.

It's when he's shoved onto his side that Peter jolts awake with a gasp. His head jerks around, eyes wide as they dart about erratically. When he spots the woman above him, Peter is jerking back.

And not getting very far, of course; his back thumps with the wall. He scrambles for purchase before he finally manages to his feet.

"Who--" Peter swallows hard, trying to gather his thoughts. With all of his might, he tries to keep his voice from trembling: "What is going on here?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Shepard answers on reflex then pauses, eyes the guy who just scrambled upright, and clicks her tongue.

"Scratch that," Shepard says and shakes her head. "We're in a box. I don't remember how I got here so I figure drugs or kidnapping, which means some asshole with a gun is probably waiting outside.

"If not some asshole with a gun, probably something bad enough to make us wish it was just some asshole with a gun." She considers the walls and the lack of visible door. "Here's to hoping, aye?"

Peter does try to piece things together as to who this woman might be and where he is. He immediately doesn't feel like this could have much to do with the war. Is she American? Probably, with that attitude.

He gives a nervous smile to the woman. "At the very least, I would prefer to see a man on the other side than anything else that could be waiting for us," Peter agrees. He glances at the walls, silently grateful that nothing looks out of the sorts right now.

The other problem being: no door. Nothing visible to the eye.

Right. Peter closes his eyes a moment, then looks at the woman. "I could... try something? To see if we're missing anything obvious."

He's a little squirrely, this guy, but doesn't seem to be having a panic attack right this instant so Shepard lets it go without comment. His offer is a bit ominous but he looks like would probably have a hernia if she asked him to lift her armor so he's not really an active threat. Shepard stares a second and then gestures in the space between them (which is not much, she comes very close to hitting him with the gesture).

"By all means," she says. "Tell me what I'm missing."

Edited (You're not my buddy, pal. Except you are.) 2018-05-20 03:52 (UTC)

Instinctively, Peter jerks his head back from her hand, true to his jumpy nature. He bites his lower lip a moment, then tells her quietly: "Do your best not to move, miss."

Glowing blue runes begin to appear in a circle around Peter, as if to embed themselves. A booming voice fills the room:

NAROKATH PARGON REDGORMOR PARGON PARGON ULYAOTH PARGON

The runes disappear from view and the voice stops. Nothing changes for Shepard, but for Peter, he's observing the tiny room as much as he can. Eventually, he sees it: a switch is right behind the woman, revealed by the spell he's cast.

"Behind you. I can reach it, I think?"

Shepard snorts audibly as he calls her 'miss' but, in a singular move, does as he requests. She holds still while he summons glowing letters, which is a neat trick, but then there's the booming voice and, frankly, that's a bit old hat. She holds off judgement, however, until he tells her about the switch behind her.

He's staring like she's going to rip his head off for leaning in and...okay, that's pretty fair, she supposes. Shepard folds her arms over her chest and pivots, making some small space for him to reach around her to the wall that had been at her back.

"Go for it, Spooky."

"Peter. It's, um. It's Peter."

Though Shepard does her best to make room for him, Peter is briefly hesitant because there's still not much room to really reach. For a moment, he tries to reach for it, but he's not terribly tall and his fingers just brush where the switch is.

"Bloody hell," he mutters, frowning to himself.

He reaches again, still misses, and eventually decides he has to do this the most awkward way possible: slowly, Peter presses up close to Shepard, cheek to cheek, wincing to himself as his fingers finally find the switch.

Peter pulls it, and the wall slides open to their escape.

"Uh-huh, whatever," Shepard replies as Peter corrects her and then very, very stiffly presses himself up against her and reaches around toward her ass--and then the door snaps open. She cocks a brow at him and, since she is directly blocking the way out, has him at her mercy a moment as she stares.

"Do that again and you'll owe me dinner," Shepard says, deadpan, and then abruptly steps back and away from him, out into a hallway. She half expects him to come tumbling out but, through some small miracle, he doesn't.

Unfortunately, there is no man with a gun in the hall.

"Damn," Shepard says dispassionately as she stares at the bulkheads. They're very plain and very bare. "Guess we should keep an eye on the vents."

"Sorry, sorry," Peter says, trying desperately to not just die from sheer anxiety and embarrassment. Somehow, he succeeds in living.

Fortunately, they're free, but no closer to solving their mystery of where they are or why they're here. Her advice about the vents makes him wince, but he doesn't think she's wrong. All sorts of things would be able to hide in there, after all. It makes sense to him.

"This hallway looks a bit like a submarine, but." Peter clicks his tongue. "It doesn't look right to me. It's off."

It does cause his stomach to drop a bit. The insides looking too smooth, maybe too advanced even. That doesn't necessarily mean it's human creation. It could mean anything.

"Submarine?" Shepard repeats with a note of honest confusion and incredulity. The hallways is bog standard for a space outpost, so standard that it doesn't occur to her that they might be groundside until he tosses out that observation. She glances back at him, her brows knit, and then returns to looking for a weapon.

"Where the hell are you from?" She asks sharply and, this is important, mostly rhetorically.

She could probably punch anything smaller than a Krogan to death, if it came to it, but if something fast and deadly hit them from a vent she would prefer to be armed. Unfortunately this means ripping something off the wall to use. That thing doesn't look important--she grabs it and yanks it hard.

Her confusion just makes him shrug a little. To him, submarines are new and this is the closest comparison he has to make. Maybe she'd just never seen one in the paper or something of the like.

Or maybe something else.

He doesn't bother to answer, mostly because he doesn't really hear the sincerity in her voice, but also because as soon as she gets the chance she's ripping something from the wall and that strength doesn't look human.

Then something else happens: the gravity shuts off.

The closest sensation he's ever felt is when he'd ended up, horrifyingly enough, in a dimension set by a trapper, but even then he's never lost his footing and ended up floating like this.

"What did you do?!" And to him, with barely contained fear: "What are you?"

"Pissed off," Shepard answered as the gravity kicekd off. "I guess that answers the question of where the hell we are."

The sickening sensation of weightlessness settled in Shepard's stomach and she shook her head. In one hand she has her new blunt weapon, with the other she reaches out and grabs the bulkhead, bracing mostly to prevent herself from flipping over and starting that spiral.

The other guy doesn't seem to realize he should do that.

"Is this your first time in space, Spooky?"

There are several thoughts flying through his mind, but he'll have a better time analyzing them when he isn't floating. He can't propel himself or do much of anything but... well spin.

"No one has been to space where I'm from!" is all he can find to clarify, because he knows that'll be different. That either tells him that this woman is from a radically different place, or a different time. Maybe both.

Something that isn't too foreign to him in comparison to space travel.

"Can you fix it?" Hopefully before he starts getting motion sickness.

Ah shit.

Peter, wherever he is from, is pre-space flight. That complicates things but the immediate threat is of Peter vomiting in zero-g. The guy looks green as hell and, frankly, Shepard is not down to deal with that.

"Kind of, hold on," Shepard instructs with a mildly chagrinned expression. She is not an adept, using biotics is hard for her which is why she generally only uses them to punch people into oblivion. Pulling two people down to the floor is not so different from that...sort of.

A blue light surrounds Shepard's head and fist as she focuses. It thins and dims as it spreads around her and thins farther as it appears around Peter. The force-field is uneven and kind of amateurish but it's sufficient to pull them down to standing on the floor. She keeps her closed fist at her side as she focuses and gestures with the piece of makeshift rebar she just ripped off the wall.

"Lets find a better section with more gravity, come on."

Whatever it is that this woman does, it looks like no manner of science he's familiar with. For his experiences, he assumes magick, but it looks like no manner of spell he's witnessed cast or known. Still, it's enough that when she brings the both of them down, he's not going to argue about it.

"Thank you, that's... that's significantly better."

Though he still feels odd, it's remarkably improved standing upright and walking like a normal human again.

"I'm sorry if this is an odd question, but. What year is it that you're from?"

"Twenty-one eighty-five C-E," Shepard answers without much consideration. Keeping them both on the ground is a bit of a task, but it beats floating.

The hallways are boring, standard prefab units, with little to no actual markings to guide their way. Shepard just starts in a direction, hopeful that they'll reach a juncture before long, but it's slow going. She can't exactly keep a hold on this if they aren't close and if they are moving too fast.

"Keep up, Spooky, I can't keep you on the ground if you're meandering."

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atome - 2018-05-23 04:09 (UTC) - Expand

[ it's on one of her everyday patrols that venus sees something new: the bar's in crappy condition. broken glass, bent metal, liquor fallen to the ground... the quakes have really done a number to the station, huh? they had this clean- well, mostly clean just yesterday, and now this.

she also sees the woman downing a glass of something - and not even wincing. um?? ]

Oh my god?? [ she doesn't mean for her voice to echo like that, all the way from the entrance. actually, she doesn't mean to even say anything. but it's said sure enough, and she quickly elaborates- ] How do you even do that? Shots already make me want to die a little.

[Shepard holds up a finger as the exclaimation goes off behind her. She heard the door open but she'd been mid-swig. It takes her another solid second to finish downing the drink.

Vodka. Probably.]

Years of practice; it also helps if you want to die a lot.

[She sets the glass down and turns to spot a...what an actual teenager? With wings? Weird but sure, why not? A teenager staring at her in mild horror.]

Aren't you too young to be in here?

Edited (Super important changes made here.) 2018-05-20 04:55 (UTC)

Haha. Oh my god?

[ but god, does she sound impressed. same, honestly?? when shepard turns around, she braces herself, waiting for the inevitable questions- what are you? are you a demon? an angel?

so when what actually comes out is an implication about her age, venus can't help but stare dumbfounded for a moment. ]

...what? [ and then, as that fully sinks in, she just. sort of crosses her arms and tries very hard to not look like she's panicking. ] Haha. Um. I don't think there's a minimum drinking age in space?

[ that's what she's been led to believe! sort of! at least it was a good enough justification for her at the time!! ]

That's a Spacer answer if I ever heard one.

[There probably is, there was when she last checked, but Shepard doesn't really give a shit. She eyes the teenager and the flustered set of her arms (wings didn't look too ruffled, oddly) and then gestures to the scattered glasses.]

Grab a glass if you want some. We're being civilized today.

I don't really know what that means? [ she's sort of assuming it's a negative? not because of any tone in shepard's voice, but because usually when people call her things they're sort of ambiently bad. ] But, uh- okay. Sounds good to me.

[ she hadn't. actually intended to drink just yet? she's trying to be responsible for once and help out around the place. but it's not like she's really got anything better to do. and a few shots aren't the worst idea that could happen. so she walks over to shepard, sorting through the glasses until she finds one relatively undisturbed by the recent commotion, and just. puts it down on the bartop. ]

Find anything good in here so far? [ it's spoken more as a joke than anything. even if there was something fancy, venus is pretty firmly in the "all alcohol is garbage" camp.

but hey, it's fun at least?? ]

Samus prided herself on always being ready. After all, in space, anything can happen and no one will hear about it until it's too late. Unless you're ready, consistently poised like an apex feline predator on some sort of powder stimulant. And Samus was always ready.

Well, except right now. Right now she was frustrated, tired, and hungry and the damn fabricator was spitting out nothing but air and her focus was all on the attempt to smack it in just the right sequence to make it-

A distracted thought like that was just enough to throw her off her guard as the station shook and tossed Samus to ground. Sparks flew around her head and she closed her eyes reflexively, feeling the hot licks of electricity graze her skin. Samus kept them closed until everything was still, and opened to find a woman looking just as jostled as she herself was.

"It was only a matter of time," she grumbled, pushing herself back upright. "It seems like it's time to actually find the source of power on this station."

"Was that not the first fucking thing you did?" Shepard asked, more confused than actually bothered.

Why would that not be the first thing anyone did on a new station...well, maybe second. Killing any local unchained AIs was usually first, second was figuring out if the place was going to blow or not.

"Well shit, let's go find whatever's doing that. Come on."

"We can't get through the doors," Samus frowned. "How do you no-"

Except Shepard was already on her way out, apparently. Samus quickly strode to catch up and stared quizzically down at Shepard, now able to finish her sentence.

"How do you not know this?"

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TEST DRIVE #002

Commander Jane Shepard | Mass Effect

WAKE UP.

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003

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004

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