TDM #8

[vivalamods]

TEST DRIVE #8

The day begins as any other, you’re going about your day, living your life, when, without warning, you feel the world around you shift on its axis. You feel a great tear, welling from the depths of your soul as you are ripped from all you have known. If you’re lucky, you arrive in the wilderness of an unfamiliar world, where the language is foreign and the people are hostile. To make your escape, you must learn some language, flee, and occasionally fight, all to find your way off the floating isles you find yourself on and to the great ocean below, where rebel forces will welcome you.

If you’re unlucky, you materialize within a room full of armed guards and are quickly subdued with charged nets, stripped of your belongings, fitted with strange devices that suppress your powers and pressed into servitude. Your days are unimaginable pain and toil.

Fortunately, even in this world, there is still hope. For the denizens of this world have not given up. And it is for that dream of salvation that the Crimson Corsairs raise their flags and sail - for liberation. Perhaps you are one who has lived their entire life under the oppressive yoke of the Empire. Perhaps you have seen first hand your family and friends cut down by nobles hunting men for sport, or perhaps you have run afoul with the church and barely escaped with your life. No matter your origin, the Corsairs sail for you, for your freedom, for your life. And today, a taste of freedom will be won for all.


ARRIVAL/LIBERATION
The attacks on Bluvink and Vindess were wildly successful, but it also created the largest risk to Imperial citizens ever. Due to the heavy dealing with certain elements of the imperial citizenry, there has been a heightened risk at the Empire cracking down on them. In an effort to protect them, the Corsairs have welcomed a large number of refugees from Imperial settlements for the first time. While some servants were also liberated in the operation, a great deal of the Corsair’s airship resources were devoted to evacuation.

As such, the Vault is filled to the brim with people being processed and temporarily housed. Whole families have been displaced, and it’s hard to determine who might be willing to sell out the Corsairs for a chance to return when offered. Please be patient, like as not, you’ll be here for a while.


UNDERGROUND OVERCROWDING

In addition to the refugees, many of Flotsam’s regulars are currently residing in the Vault. While the settlement is quite large, even its capacity is starting to become overloaded. And with the clashing personalities of typical Vault and Flotsam residents, to say nothing of all of the Imperial refugees who have been ripped from their former lives and are now residing in an unfamiliar and, for Isle-dwellers disconcerting new home, tensions are running high. It’s pretty common for brawls to break out, although if you’re taking part or attempting to keep the peace is another story entirely.


CRITICAL REPAIRS

The fighting in the Isles Above was intense, and the airships did not escape unscathed. The ships have been brought into the Vault for intensive inspection and repairs, and those who are on duty are working day and night to get them fixed up in time for the next major operation. Whether you’re a craftsperson, hunter, gatherer, or salvager, chances are high that you’ve been tapped to procure or create material for these repairs, and you haven’t really had much time to rest.

It’s all right though, the foremen kindly left free pizza in the mess hall. That makes it fine, right?


WHEN YOU’RE LAND-BOUND, BETTER DRINK

Many of the Flotsam residents are going more than a little stir-crazy hiding out in the Vault. In what is certainly an extremely cunning plan without any potential downsides, the Vault has mobilized all of the Waterlogged Row’s purveyors of grog and set them up centrally within the Vault. And thus, the Flotsam citizens are able to engage in their favorite past-time. Getting extremely drunk. In enclosed quarters. In a city full of scholars that’s under constant bombardment.

Surely nothing will go wrong.


WILDCARD

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OOC
Welcome to the eighth Test-Drive Meme for Viva La! All threads here may be considered canon once characters have entered the game. Threads here are eligible for use as a roleplay sample for applications, which will open on the 5th of February at midnight.
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Comments

[gnote]

"It is true that I am no normal necromancer. I was myself once a wandering spirit, a specter and revenant from the City of the Dead, bound to haunt my homeland at the whims of a mad god." She pauses for a moment. "I am Alara, Goddess of Undeath and Eternity. I suppose here, I'm taking up the mantle of one known as Hades."

That's a large mouthful, but Alara will ramble on at the drop of a hat if you let her.

She nods once more, then continues, rambling secured. "I suppose I should begin to figure out the intricacies of my new role, then, if I am to properly guide the lost souls here to their final destination. I have spent centuries as a lost soul myself, and I know that it is no way to spend one's afterlife."

If it seems like Alara is spouting too much narration - yeah. She's actually just Like That.

[bearsperminute]

"Hard for a god of death to stay dead, huh?" Kanna muses. She doesn't believe it yet-- for good reason; she's seen plenty of people claim to have the ear of gods before, but sure hasn't seen one who actually does. "Well, laying the dead to rest isn't a bad thing, but if you wanna piss off the judge of souls that bad by impersonating them, the best way to start's a small shrine they've set up here."

Kanna gestures Alara to follow her.

[gnote]

"I have no intention on 'pissing off' anybody, unless they wish to prey upon the innocent, or harm me or my own." She hasn't quite followed the line of Kanna's thinking there, since, after all, she is only telling the truth.

But nevertheless she follows, the growing trail of ghosts and spirits trailing behind. Occasionally, her footsteps become silent as she chooses to float rather than walk - after all, walking is rather new to her, all things considered.

She looks forward to seeing what this shrine is like.

[bearsperminute]

She leads the entire party down the cave and corridors of the Vault, packed full of hundreds, many of whom begin to stare at the procession. She pulls off her gloves, careful to stow them in a pocket, and then hums an old chant she learned from her grandfather, honoring the judge of souls.

It's... Some time-- not too too long, but long enough that one might wonder how much longer it will take-- before they arrive. She waves at the arch, the scales above it, the flame of a spirit in one scale and a crystal of ice in the other.

Within, human bones, neatly folded, make decorations, chandeliers, carefully fluted alcoves. Some of them even have names, though this is reserved only for the most notorious of Corsairs, where the skull is very carefully cemented into the wall. "This is only the lead-up to it. The shrine proper is a little further. Here, those who have gone to the Scales before us are honored."

Even here, there are people, though fewer. Almost all are mourning, and some swap daring tales of the dead. Conversation and music fill the catacombs.

Eventually, they come to an alcove, and here, carved in bas-relief, is the form of the previous Hades, behind his desk, staring down at Kanna... And at Alara. A small donation box sits in front, as well as a set of hand-bells and a small set of tools for maintaining the shrine.

"So. Now comes the proof of it." Kanna takes up a hand-bell, closes her eyes, mutters another prayer. "Whenever it pleases, I'll ring with you."

[gnote]

Alara pauses for too long at the bones and the skulls, looking into them, past them into something else. She ignores the living in favor of the dead, not quite paying respects but paying something - attention, at the very least.

And when they move on, she seems intrigued by the setup of the shrine itself. She barely noted the figure carved into the wall, instead focusing on the bells and tools and donation box.

"Intriguing... I've never seen tools quite like these before. I can infer some of these are for maintenance, but what of the bells? What purpose do they serve, here?" She asks this of Kanna, though, and not of the dead souls around them. "Ah, I can sense the barrier is thinner here, at least. You were correct about that."

[bearsperminute]

"It's..." How to put it. "The bells are used to send a prayer, or so they told me. The Empire banned them ages ago. They're... For similar reasons, they're also a necromancer's tool."