WINTER TEST DRIVE

[thespaceopera]

THE WINTER TEST DRIVE MEME
(Or Summer Test Drive for you Southern Hemisphere folks!)

Got someone you want to try out before you app? Well this is the post for it! Feel free to use anything that fits in the setting of Drift Fleet! Want to play bumper shuttles? Want to go wild in a med bay? Play around with the current plot? Have at it!

Threads from the Test-Drive may be made game "canon" but DO NOT count toward AC!

FOR NEW PLAYERS: You DO NOT NEED an invite to participate in the TEST DRIVE! If you decide to APP into the game, ONLY THEN will you need an invite from a current player!

Helpful Info for Ideas!:

December's Star System

Game Details

Test drives are posted SEASONALLY, so the next one will be in March!

Comments

[shamisens]

[ Kubo stares a little, surprised. But then he remembers what Mogget was . . . and what his mother had told him. He turns away. ]

Never mind.

[catonthefence]

[Mogget helpfully walks over the table and shoves his way onto Kubo's lap, because he's not getting attention paid to him.]

Do you want to hear about the last three?

[shamisens]

Oh! Yes, please.

[catonthefence]

Belgaer the Thinker is fifth. I never minded Belgaer. He can restore memories, give free will, but he can just as easily take those things away.

Six... Six is Saraneth.

[Mogget's voice drips with distaste.]

Saraneth was, for centuries, what hung on my collar. Saraneth the Binder, Saraneth the Enslaver. Saraneth who said I had to be punished and she knew what would be most fitting, that I who refused to fight Death would serve those who do.

[shamisens]

[ Definitely personal. Kubo just listens attentively. ]

Death is kind of a . . . big deal.

[catonthefence]

Yes. Death and Life are so close to one another, how can they not be?

[shamisens]

That's true, but there's more things in between life and death. Like food. Fish. The rivers, the animals, the people.

All of those things are important too.

[catonthefence]

Those are all Life things. Chartered. Life.

Mm. Fish. I like fish. And field mice. And sunbeams. Hearthfires on cold nights...

[He's quiet for a long moment, considering this.

But then his all consuming desire to be free pushes back in and he refocuses.]

Last is Astarael. The Sorrowful. She grieves for what must be done and what has been done. She reminisces and she tied herself forever to the River of Death, to stop it flowing into Life. She knows that all things must end one days and she takes all who hear her chime into Death, to test them against the stars of beyond.

[shamisens]

Everyone?

[catonthefence]

Everyone who hears Astarael's chime.

[shamisens]

And they just die?

[catonthefence]

No. They're pulled into Death. It's not the same.

Death... is like a river. Their bodies remain where they are. Their souls have a chance to fight their back, if they're strong willed enough.

Sabriel could resist the pull. I don't know how Touchstone did, dimwit that he is.

[shamisens]

So it's about will power.

[ That feels . . . off. But Kubo can't put his finger on it. Maybe because death has played such a large role in his life of late. ]

[catonthefence]

Partly, yes, when Astarael rings. It throws me into Death, but I can stroll back out.

[That which is never born and all that.

Death and dying are vastly different in Mogget's world from most. Much closer linked. Much less metaphysical.]

[shamisens]

. . . I'm not following. How can you do that?

[catonthefence]

I just can. When Astarael rings, it shatters my collar. I come back as myself. It's only happened once and Sabriel- Put this back on us again.

[Admittedly, she put it on Kerrigor, but he'd been busy chomping on Mogget's magic at the time.]

[shamisens]

[ As he finishes his rice, Kubo tries to sort out this information. ]

It seems like Death is more like trouble than inevitable.

[catonthefence]

Mortals die. Many things die. But going to Death and dying aren't the same.

[shamisens]

Why not?

[catonthefence]

Death is a place. A river. So people can send themselves there. Most can't walk back, they get swept along the river and then their bodies die when they pass too deep.

Living here is not what "Life" is.

[shamisens]

[ Then it's not death. Just some kind of magic that links Life and Death together. Nodding, Kubo notes that. Like stories, like the birds that fly away, like the lanterns that light up.

Death takes many forms. ]

[catonthefence]

[Whatever helps you sleep at night, Kubo.]

There was a child's song made about it all. A couple, actually.

[shamisens]

[ :( ]

A song?

[catonthefence]

Yes.

Five Great Charters knit the land,
Linked together, hand in hand.
One in the people who wear the crown,
Two in the folk that keep the Dead down.
Three and Five became stone and mortar,
Four sees all in frozen water.

[Mogget voice is surprisingly sweet when he sings.]

All the children in the Old Kingdom learn that song. About the Shiners who became the Charter.

[shamisens]

[ Kubo places his chopsticks and takes out his shamisen, trying to strum out the tune. The papers on his back shift. ]

Does it help?