There was an accident. The details are hazy and obscure, but it's still the first thing you remember. Maybe a car wreck — metal and broken glass everywhere, and the sirens and the
screaming. Maybe your bike hit a rock and you careened uncontrollably off a mountain path. Maybe something less mundane, even impossible seems to have happened to you. You can't quite make out the details, not who was at fault or why. Try as you might, the chaos is all you can truly remember.
It's also the
last thing you remember from before waking up.
When you open your eyes, the accident is gone. Instead, you're in a hospital bed, and the nursing staff greet you with cheerful smiles.
Don't worry, they tell you. You'll make a full recovery here. Where is here? Why, home in Wayward Pines, of course!
option one | (SLICE OF LIFE) | A HOPPING GOOD TIME |
Easter may not be for another month, but this year the festivities kicked off early (possibly due to the unseasonably warm weather? temperatures have reached highs that could almost be mistaken for summer, especially by veteran residents). Yards are decorated with inflatable bunnies and chicks, and you'll find your eyeballs assaulted by pastels virtually everywhere you go.
(Linda's house boasts the most elaborate and yet
perfectly tasteful of decorations. No one dares declare otherwise.)
Mid-April culminates in an Egg Hunt (for the kids!) that doubles as all-purpose revelry: a townwide gathering on the lush green expanse of the Play Field. Easter ham is provided in quantity; with sides to be provided by, well, you!
(Does "sides" mean alcohol? Probably. Does it mean "anything that isn't ham?" Hopefully!)
Wayward Pines’ moderate handful of children scatter about in the meantime, their attention span significantly shorter than an all-day event; by the time they've wandered off, most if not all of the brightly colored plastic eggs have been plucked from the field and loaded up into baskets, where their plunderers will later find little Crackerjack-style toys. Though... that doesn't seem to be the end of the eggs after all; the observant may note a few still winking from behind a tree or under the bleachers. More interestingly, they may further note these seem to be more the Fabergé variety, at least in size and ostentation.
Go on, investigate! It'll be fun! At least, for a certain type of person who enjoys a certain type of prize. The contents look like they might be from the estate sale of an elderly eccentric: old jewelry, an ornate spoon, etc (....wait, was that a pair of dentures? huh). Occasionally, a slightly less innocuous prize can be discovered - is that hand-sewn doll with real human hair a child’s toy, or something subtly occultic?
Oh well. Given the monsters outside the fence and the hallucinogenic mushrooms in town, that's probably not the weirdest thing you'll see this week.
option two | (HORROR) | LET'S SEE WHAT'S IN SPORE |
The stowaway came through the fence unnoticed, clinging imperceptibly to the the clothes and shoes of an unsuspecting team of homecoming expeditioneers - at least, that’s what Ortech’s mycologists will conclude in their thorough investigation in the weeks to come. Here and now, there’s a new, colorful addition to the flora of the town. Seemingly overnight, clusters of
mushrooms (vivid blue and shaped a little bit like brains) are sprouting in dark, wet places throughout the woods. They’re quite pretty and also
large, reaching roughly a foot in height.
Perhaps you’re curious about this new addition and reached out to touch one by choice. Perhaps you’ve stumbled upon it entirely by accident. Perhaps you have no idea they’re even present until it’s too late.
The mushrooms release spores into the air, almost cloyingly sweet in scent, though it doesn’t seem like anything is wrong right away. No itchiness, no watering eyes, no trouble breathing. Colors may seem a little brighter, but that’s about it.
In roughly thirty minutes, that all changes.
For anywhere between an hour and a day, characters experience
many or all of a host of symptoms including nausea, loss of appetite, dry mouth, uncoordinated movements, and intensified sensory experiences. But oh, that's not all. It can also come with visual disturbances (maybe even hallucinations), disordered thinking, paranoia, mild or dramatic mood changes, mixed senses ("seeing" sounds, "hearing" colors), detachment from reality, outright panic, and changes in the perception of time itself.
Don’t worry: It doesn’t seem to be fatal. Here's hoping you have someplace quiet and comfy to ride out the trip, because it’s probably gonna be a
bad one.
option three | (ACTION-ADVENTURE) | A SAMPLE EXPEDITION |
The crisp morning air finds you lingering at the base of a watchtower just inside the northwestern fence. You’ve signed up for an expedition - maybe your first, or maybe you’ve lost count - and here’s hoping you’re a morning person, because you’ve been told to rendezvous at this patch of fence at no later than 8 AM.
Your
teammate in this expedition has yet to arrive. Maybe they’re a friend - someone you know from home, or a friend you’ve made here in Wayward Pines - and the two of you signed up together. Maybe you’re paired up with a stranger, another solo adventurer looking to make tracks outside of the safe zone without waiting for a solo expedition to show up on the roster. Maybe you’re a designated expedition chaperone, assigned to guide someone who doesn’t have clearance of their own. Maybe
you don’t have clearance, and your teammate is the chaperone assigned to guide
you. Either way, they have five more minutes before they’re late, so they should be showing up pretty soon!
Your
destination can be any number of things depending on the make-up of your expedition duo. Two combatants might be fetching a rumored supply cache, or maybe they’re routing and destroying the home nest of a small band of
abbies that have wandered a little too close to Wayward Pines for Ortech’s comfort. A team with a scientist may be on an expedition to catalogue or discover the local flora and fauna - or a more generalized academic might be in search of a private library documented to exist nearby. A techie or mechanic may be responsible for repairing and fetching a valuable vehicle (for example, a helicopter), or maybe they’re assigned to repair functionality to a nearby radio tower. Basically: Go ahead and wing it. Make shit up. The apocalypse is your oyster and we’d rather you go nuts with the details than worry about not getting things precisely right.
For the sake of this Test Drive, your
expedition route can be whatever you’d like it to be, but this
example route will be the same regardless of destination.
Your destination is about five miles from the safe zone within the fence. You depart through a well-concealed and well-guarded gate in the
northwestern fence, where the map you’ve been given tells you to curve to the right up a path that leads to the top of the northern cliffs. From here, all of Wayward Pines is visible below you - but you definitely can’t afford to linger long if you plan to make it back by nightfall. The path back down is steeper, with a scattering of loose rocks that make footing tricky.
From there, you head due north through a river valley. Your map strongly suggests you detour through the trees, indicating aberration activity along the clearer riverbanks, but the forest is dense and will absolutely slow you down. The choice is yours either way.
Your destination is just past the end of the valley, but nothing in life is simple, and the river seems to be damming up behind a fresh new rockslide that blocks the mouth of the valley and your destination along with it. This is the final obstacle to clear before your destination - but you’re likely behind schedule, and it’s time to decide if you dare stay the night out here in the wild or try to hoof it back to the fence in the fading light.
(If you’re in the mood for some
combat, you’re welcome to toss in an aberration attack if they choose to trek along the riverbanks... Or at the rockslide, a terribly convenient place for an unexpectedly well-designed ambush.)
option four | ON THE NETWORK |
Though it's not as high-tech as you might be used to (or hell, maybe you're ren faire and it's centuries beyond anything you've seen), Wayward Pines does in fact have a network to accommodate its citizens.
Go ahead, post a network post! The network has text, audio, and video functionality via the smartphones provided to each character when they arrive.
MOD NOTES
Welcome to our pre-opening test drive here in The Pines! Just one important thing to note:
Upon arrival in Wayward Pines, characters find themselves struggling to remember entirely who they were or where they came from. Memories return progressively over the next two weeks. You're welcome to play with this mechanic in any of these prompts, but it's definitely not mandatory! For more details on this temporary memory loss, see our FAQ.
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bumfuckidaho2019-03-21 09:59 pm
TEST DRIVE MEME
no subject
Yes, it's disssgusting, isn't it. But very useful.
[He reminds himself to tighten up, there was a little bit of a hiss on 'disgusting'. Humans don't as a rule play with their mouth-sounds. Though, now that he thinks about it-]
<That's correct. -ah, good. I can still thought-speak in human morph. I'm an Andalite, even in this form. You're not human either, are you?>
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He casts a quick glance around, noting the way this alien has very helpfully driven off the native aliens with that unsettling display ... but still, he has to ask: ]
Can everyone else ... hear this? Or is it directly to me?
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<I'm speaking only to you. In this morph I can't tell, but my stalk eyes can see slightly further along the light spectrum. Besides. Rusty fuel pumps? Human blood is red from oxidation but they don't call it that, do they?>
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Well. It couldn't hurt to have an ally, and another species in the vast minority on this planet wouldn't be a bad place to start looking for one. Mouth still twisted unhappily, he gestures with a nod toward the entrance he'd strolled in through not so long ago. ]
Let's have a walk. And they might, it seems you aren't quite the expert either.
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Of course I'm not an expert, I can only remember three peoples just now. [Three? Oh, the Yeerks. He just doesn't have a mental dossier about them, their abilities and appearance, and their homeworld like he does Andalites and humans. Just that he was one's slave, and that thought is enough to press down the buoyancy the Andalite's been riding on. Anything that can keep a morph-capable Andalite as a slave is formidable. He suddenly really needs to demorph, have his tailblade present.]
A moment.
[Morphing description goes here. It's still gross. Bones and/or internal organs may or may not be briefly exposed to air and light, though that happens rarely. When he's done all the minor injuries he was sporting before morphing the first time are gone, though one ear is fluffy inside and out and the other is almost hairless inside.
and, there's the optimism again, along with a return of the slight claustrophobia. The Andalite curls his tail up to a confident angle that is still low enough to not hit the ceiling.]
<Lead on, then. I'm curious.>
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He flickers to life again when that thoughtspeak voice is back, though, and starts up a march for the door. What were they talking about before the gross stuff? Ah, right. ]
Three is more than I can recall right now. [ That’s an irritated mumble; he’s pretty sure he’s spent a long time traveling and meeting new people and species, so the mental blank is annoying. ] And what about you, that show with the organic soup you make of yourself, to take on a new shape? Is that a racial trick?
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<No. I think it's some kind of technology. The 'soup' doesn't need to be carbon-based, either. Something just needs to have DNA or a close equivalent, and once I've taken a copy I can morph that shape.>
[But not plants, he remembers. Not normal plants. Maybe nothing sessile and without a nervous system? It would be nice if he could remember more about the details.]
<I take it that you are inorganic yourself, then?>
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[ Morph, there’s an interesting lingo. As another species keen on seeking alternative modes, Knock Out is pretty sure his race picked better. Transform is catchier. He keeps the thoughts kindly to himself as he leads the way down the sidewalk from the hospital, steadfast ignoring whatever looks out here his blue friend attracts. ]
Right you are. And a little too large for the hospital.
[ No sign of his real body yet, though, as he leads down a line of cars parked along the sidewalk. ]
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<And you are preparing to show off, possibly in response to watching me morph. Very well. I am duly chastened. You should know, it doesn't look or feel any better on my end.>
[He smiles, a subtle movement of those eyes and ears.
Inorganic... that can mean just composed of silica or... something? instead of carbon, or it can mean 'machine'. Maybe it can mean more than that. He doesn't poke at the huge gaps in his knowledge like they're a missing tooth because that metaphor would never occur to him.]
no subject
He comes to a stop a few sidewalk turns down from the door of the hospital, where the parked cars have thinned out, and the building itself shades the area into semi-discretion. His path ends, specifically, beside a low-set, flashy red luxury car, with pale, stylized flame decals down the sides — an Aston Martin, which is a name he remembers well. He turns back to the Andalite. ]
I’m preparing to show off because I — [ Here the holoform’s face contorts with a frown. More holes in his memory. ] Have reason to stay in hiding. It sounds easier to trust someone else who doesn’t belong on this planet, over a local.
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[This is a human car, all up in inviting sky and oilgrass colors - or human blood and warning colors, he supposes. Initially he takes the flame decals as stylized leaves of some kind. He hopes he's not expected to climb in - as himself he won't fit that kind of interior, and it looks like it would be horribly claustrophobic even to his human form. Though when he is human confined spaces don't bother him so much.]
<'Infiltration' or 'refuge' are what that makes me think of first. I... believe I would try to protect these humans if they were in peril.>
[Gaps like ocean depths. The Andalite stares hard at nothing. He has the sense that they are valuable, they are worth having with us is a fragment of some kind of assessment that makes the fur on his hackles rise, but he just doesn't know the context. Still. He should try to protect people, aliens included, he should be merciful and beneficent and freedom-loving and those are all lovely things that speak to bred-in instincts.
He turns his main eyes back towards Knock Out's projection, suddenly more formal and coming off that sarcastic aloofness, his eyes and tone sober.]
<If you keep faith with me, I will keep faith with you. I will trust your good intentions if you do the same.>
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This creature is awfully quick to jump into a truce, isn’t he? Not that that’s a problem, he won’t turn away an ally. It’s just foolish. It reminds Knock Out of — something. More blanks, unhelpful and frustrating. But what he does remember is that the correct answer to a proposal like this is yes, always yes. He’ll just have to see if it pans out that way in practice, too.
The holoform flickers out of sight, deactivated. A moment later the car shifts again, but this time it isn’t subtle. In an instant it’s a whir of metal, shifting panels as pieces of metal realign and conform to a new shape: vaguely humanoid, still forming even as it rises from the ground. In just seconds Knock Out is fully formed where the car used to be, evidence of it still apparent in the gleaming red of his paint job, the decals along his forearms. He stands nearly twenty feet tall, and steps from the parking spot onto the sidewalk proper as the last pieces of his plating click into place. ]
Sounds like a good deal to me. [ He stares down at the Andalite, faceplate even more pale than he’d designed his human form, gleaming red eyes bright with attention, and smiles. ] I’m Knock Out.
no subject
And then the scanning is forgotten and he's staring with all four eyes, the main two wide, the eyestalks as straight and upright as antennae, the mismatched ears cupping forwards. Even the curve of his tail changes, extending outwards in a longer shallower arc.
Part of him says he should probably be concerned but honestly he doesn't remember enough to listen, this is fascinating.]
<An interesting name! Now, is that a 'racial trick'?>
[He may be 'shouting' down the private channel a little. Assuming Knock-Out has a centralized brain-equivalent up in his head, it's not far enough away to have to shout.]
please enjoy this face again and again, until i get around to renewing this paid :’|
Maybe Cybertronian and Andalite conventions differ here, but traditionally — [ He leans down to close a bit of the distance between them, gesturing grandly with one sharp-fingered hand. ] I’m Knock Out, good to meet you, and you are?
[ He’ll get on with the rest in a moment; manners are important. ]
one day I'll have more than one icon myself
[With those words comes a sense of almost an aura of emotion around him - an electric sense of confidence and purpose, not at all what should go with I don't know who I am. Yes, there's a problem, it seems to indicate, but all will be well. His memory is barren and this is an alien world with strange blue skies, and yet he's free.]
<You should call me the Andalite. If there's another without names, then things will get interesting. I might have to go and name them.>
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The Andalite it is, then. [ There’s a caution in him that hates to reveal he’s missing anything more than what he’s already briefly referred to, but ... well, he’s in good company for it. ] It’s unsettling to be missing so much, isn’t it? I never liked the feeling of information flitting just along the far edges of a processor, and now that’s all I’m feeling.
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There's a thought - can I morph something like Knock Out? and, correspondingly, can I morph something bigger than that? The first seems like a no, androids don't have DNA or the equivalent, the second is a 'yes' that leads right into the unknown. It's possible, and also, he has no idea if he's acquired anything but the human morph.]
<Of course it is. I can't actually remember anything concrete, I have background knowledge of this and that. My homeworld's skies are crimson and gold and I don't know the planet's name.>
[Again, wordless self-confidence that doesn't seem to fit the words. It's wonderful to be an Andalite with no recollection of even the training that tempers this inherent optimism, to be curious and excited about possibilities.]
<This planet looks a lot like Earth. Blue sky, all-green vegetation, humans and hollow structures everywhere. It might not be.>