takamagahara | (no subject)

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test drive

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TEST DRIVE # 08

Whether you're trying to figure out how your character would fare in this setting, trying to get some samples together, or just dipping your toes in the water, you've come to the right place! The Test Drive is here to make your life easy by letting you see what the game is like without actually joining it first. So here is how it works:

1: Post a starter with your character, including whether they are a god or shinki in the subject line.
2: Act like your character is established enough in the setting to allow your thread to go places.
3: Take on any god/shinki of your choosing, as long as they're not already in the game!
4: Comment around to the other people on the meme.
5: Have lots of fun!

To get you started, here are some ideas for thread-starters! Feel free to come up with your own ideas if these don't strike your fancy, though.

Junky Jokes

There is a small spirit girl who is determined to hear some funny jokes before she passes on to the next life. Your job is to come up with some horribly bad, wonderfully funny jokes to make her laugh. Be warned, though, she's got a very serious face that's hard to crack.

Knights Knives

The swords of the knights at a local museum's exhibit have gone missing. They are praying for them to be returned because these swords are worth so much and such a great part of history. Hopefully you'll be able to find them, because otherwise those prayers are going to someone else.

Ludicrous Lightning

There's been a streak of heat lightning going on. It's so intense that sometimes the lightning will light up the night sky as if it were day and there have been numerous power outages in the area. Go help out the people who are without power and make sure that everyone can still live as normally as possible!

More Money

Who doesn't need more money? A little convenience store needs help since all of their employees have fallen ill at the same time. They're offering double wages to anyone who will work for them. Unfortunately, the store is a hot spot for misfortune and ghouls of various kinds. Have fun!

Neon Nourishment

Surprise! A very American man is shoving neon bright candy and cakes at everyone who will stop for even a moment, and he easily notices all Far Shore residents as well. Which means every time you pass him, you'll be getting more and more of this hideously colored food. Enjoy~

If you're uncertain about anything, feel free to check out the Premise, Rules, and FAQ posts. And don't hesitate to ask any questions you might have on the FAQ!
When and if you're ready to join the game, check out the Taken Characters before throwing in a Reserve and starting on your Application
Have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Some days he gets roped into helping out other gods and shinki who he’s not even technically allied with—and this is just one of those days wherein he’s resigned to it.

And he’s only a lot less abrasive due to the fact that unlike most of the denizens of the Far Shore, she is relatively quiet, ladylike, and polite. And likely difficult to sass, anyway.

“I am afraid my ability to manipulate this technology is limited, milady.” Being from a medieval fantasy kinda sucks like that. “How does one begin to seek out such a place?”

"Well, usually ask someone. However it doesn't seem like people are paying much attention to us. I guess we could just break a display case and see where they come running from but that may not be the best thing either as I'm not 100% sure how unnoticeable we are. I mean are we truly invisible, or simply seen as someone else's problem?"

Ruri looks up at the cameras, then look to the nearest guard, "What are your specialties? Are any of them convincing someone to take an early lunch break?"

“From my experience, the mortals generally find our ilk rather difficult to perceive. Of course, there are the occasional exceptions…” He’s had to play substitute teacher to human students once, after all.

Clearing his throat, he continues, “However, I am quite capable of stealth, milady. If you need anything in particular destroyed from a distance…” He pulls out one of his daggers, expertly tossing it into the air and catching it one-handed by its tip as a demonstration.

"Hrm."

Ruri looks back and forth, destroying anything in a museum is bad karma, and probably would get black marks, but then again, she needs to see how the security here works. Not quite being used to the whole god thing over the meddlesome teenager thing she peers over at the guard again, then the curtains over him, then the guard again.

"See if you can't dump those curtains over the guard. I want to see how they react to something going amiss and from there we can find the holes in their systems."

Happily, there are quite a number of things inside the museum that he doesn’t mind getting rid of—

“Excellent choice, milady. Those curtains badly need to be replaced.” And if he can contribute to such hideous things never seeing the light of day—let alone the inside of an esteemed institution as a museum—then he’ll gladly let that dagger fly.

And fly it does, whizzing overhead until it slams against the curtain pole, upending it from its hook and spilling several feet of heavy fabric onto the head of the unfortunate guard.

With that alarms go off, Ruri steps back against the wall as to not get caught in the hubbub and looks up to the cameras seeing which ones go active and to see what other countermeasures go in place. No direct cages or anything, the guards are more active and she can see a few cameras come to life she nods a bit as the people are herded out of the room.

"Look for one of them talking into a walkie talkie and then start following them. That one is probably the one in charge. From there we can see how their organization moves and where the control center is."

He sits by observing the flurry of people—the minutiae of machinery unfortunately escapes him, but as far as responding to an emergency, be it a security or a housekeeping issue, is concerned, Jakob can be quite critical of how it’s done, and see the flaws therein. The way people are checking for injuries, calling for the cleaning staff, checking their equipment…

He turns to her with a look of puzzlement at the mention of a “walkie-talkie.” He might have figured out what common household appliances are, but stuff like this? It takes him a moment to put two and two together.

“Er, you would be referring to the one speaking into that device, is that correct?” It looks like a bulkier, more primitive version of those smartphones the people of the Far Shore generally use to connect to the Heaven’s BBS.

“Consider it done.” He pulls out another dagger from beneath his butler’s uniform. “Please stay behind me, milady. I can easily defend you should they happen to notice us.”

"Yes, that would be it. Probably the zone commander."

Defense is an odd thought though, but she isn't in her ship, nor does she have an S class jumper waiting in the wings if things go wrong, and finally she can't pull rank on anyone who gets in her way. It was almost a shame she wasn't old enough to get her handgun classifications.

"I'll keep close behind. Don't worry about me."

Skulking around beneath the notice of the assembled museum staff turned out to be easier than he thought. Jakob easily towers over them, and yet for the most part the personnel don’t seem to notice that they’re even there, although he makes sure to keep in front of Ruri anyway, just in case her divine presence might alert them somehow.

He’s still in the process of understanding how this whole afterlife thing works, after all; but it is a relief to know that they don’t have to knock somebody out and steal their uniform to sneak in.

“There,” he whispers, having located a guy who looks like he’s in charge, and who happens to be walking briskly away from the scene. And though they’re on his trail, Jakob still doesn’t know what to expect, and so keeps his knives out. He’d expected to find a guardhouse somewhere, maybe, or a barracks, or even…

He takes a moment to peer behind him. “Would an ambush here be likely, milady?” he inquires politely.

"There may be 3 or 4 rent a cops inside, one or two trained surveillance people and probably a supervisor. Three of them may be armed tops, most rent a cops don't get guns."

With that she walks up to the wall, looks at the electronic badge reader and sighs, then stares at it intensely and sighs again.

"Nanobots are missing, are they actually going to try and make me use magic?"

Before trying she looks down the hall and slumps her shoulders before touching the lock and having the door open.

"Should I let you go first?"

“It would be for the best, I feel.” Although from what he can gather from most of her gibberish, it seems that most of the inmates of that room is likely to be unarmed anyway.

Still, he creeps into the dimly-lit office carefully, the place reminding him of the room of a certain tech junkie at his temple. The various computer equipment and monitors showing live video feeds from security cameras aren’t helping with that impression at all—and now Jakob wonders why he’d ended up with this job instead of someone more tech-savvy.

Oh right, because anything his asshole techie housemate can do, he can do better.

He peers over the shoulders of some security personnel observing the monitors or their smartphones, before turning to Ruri once more.

“What do we need to look for, milady?”

Ruri quickly takes the room in, then points to the fellow in the monitor chair.

"I need him to be outside, for at least half an hour. That should be enough time to take a full inventory of all their cameras and tape. Then I can start building a plan from that."

With that she peers over at the coffee machine. Hypothetically dumping hot coffee on someone's lap would take them out of commission for a bit but she isn't certain if that is a good idea, nor if it is ok to just wheel his chair out of the room. With that she sighs and looks to her companion.

"I'm not terribly well versed on the rules of interaction, so I leave it to your discretion."

It’s sort of refreshing to work with someone who’s well-versed in technology without being a cackling supervillain about it. For that alone he could almost kiss her.

Instead, he stands at attention, mulling over their options. It’s tempting to just drag the guy out of there, chair and all, or knock him out—but either of those things would cause undue injury and alarm. Some sort of sleeping or paralysis spell might have done the job as well, but he has none of the components for that, nor does he know how to mix potions with such properties and spike the man’s coffee with them.

“It’s a bit crude, but…” That swivel chair the man is on—it’s got one too many fiddly bits for Jakob to bother with normally, but in this case, all he needs to do is to snatch at a loose thread—which he may or may not have helped to loosen courtesy of his dagger—and secure one end to that lever used to adjust the chair’s height. A quick poke in the man’s ass ensures that he’ll jump to his feet abruptly enough to tear open a huge seam in his backside.

Once the man runs away, radioing for someone to take over, Jakob carefully locks the door to the room and props the chair against it.

Ruri sweatdrops slightly at the exit of the staffer and then moves in front of the PC, starting to look it over.

"That was definitely an effective way of dealing with him, let's see if I can get it before they think they are haunted here."

With that she starts typing quickly, humming to herself as all of the monitors start showing different video feeds, looking from one to the other to see when the blade was last seen, then look over the various ways they were.

"I think I see when it went out, now to pull back and see the surrounding cameras and.... Hrm. Is there one on the street? Oh good."

With a frown she tabs out of the security program and into a browser, shrugging as she moves further outside, "I have a car and license tag... Ok."

With that she turns to her assistant, "We can either track down the tag online, or go and see if the police know anything. Also, do we reclaim these things personally, or just make it so normal people can find them?"

All of that is really just so much wizardry to him, whose grasp of magic is relegated to supportive spells. He still can’t quite wipe away that look of awe when she’s done, after having so quickly and efficiently taken command like that.

He has to fight himself from clapping at her efforts.

“Well done, milady! Truly I have witnessed a marvel this day.” And he means it. People using technology to streamline things is much preferred than people who mess with technology to make weaponized cat cubes—er, not that he doesn’t have any issues about those, or anything.

“As to the items in question—I believe we need only return them to their appropriate places. We need not confer with the mortals more than necessary.”

"I just reviewed available data and broke a few firewalls. It isn't hard to learn, it just takes an understanding that you want to be quiet instead of use the computer for something loud and stupid."

With that she shrugs and stands up, then gets a sticky pad and writes some things down before nodding.

"I have a view of the car, let's move to the bank across the street. I need to check their cameras then we can go to the DMV. I think that with that data we can find the thieves."

More of that technobabble. She isn’t going to make this easy, is she? Jakob smiles politely through it all, before replying with, “Er, lead the way, milady.”

And maybe it’s because he really has no memory of it, but she’s so remarkably calculating and efficient that it almost reminds him of one of those automatons his “rival” shinki has built.

Straightening up, he turns to yank the chair away from the door so they can head out. “I presume that you would have me dispatch the thieves and recover the swords, is that correct?”

"Actually, if you could just incapacitate them, I'd like to return them with the blades. It has come to my realization that most of the time simply dispatching a foe does not really equate to the kind of punishment that I've seen most humans preferring."

With that she gets up and starts out of the museum, heading for the bank to get into the ATM cameras given their spacing in the city. They are at least more reliable than traffic cameras, if only this were London, she'd have this triangulated in 15 minutes.

"I really wish I had the foresight to build a surveillance network here instead of bashing one together on the fly."

“You seem quite experienced in this sort of thing, milady.” He can’t help but feel a little curious at that—he doesn’t usually take an interest in other people unless they happen to be of some import to his own master, but that efficiency and foresight…he only wishes he can get to her level.

“Do forgive me if I speak out of turn, but…were you once a spymaster in your previous life?”

Ruri stops, spies were things wrapped in secrets, something she abhorred but she was trained in intelligence, just not well versed for it. Looking at him she tilted her head a bit.

"Spyhunter is closer to the truth. I spent a lot of time in military intelligence, but never had the ability to spin lies so I was better at keeping spies from damaging data networks. I'm not sure if that is the same where and when you come from."

She shrugs a bit, "I did a lot of odd jobs though."

He furrows his brows at that, more perturbed by the memories she might have summoned than for any real disdain toward her profession.

“I…do not remember, milady.” Such is the nature of a shinki. “Regardless, I have some knowledge of working within a military environment, myself. I find that your methods far outperform mine in that respect.”

"You strike me as more of a man of the line, one of the troops, one who does what most people do. I was a specialist."

She pauses for a second, pasts are a delicate thing and hers is no exception, that and there are a litany of rules she still is in the midst of remembering.

"Every soldier plays an important role in war though, so just remember any army needs everything to be victorious. Now let's get into that bank and find these robbers."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(no subject)

knight's knives and omfg ben why the comic sans whyyyy

I wanted to be different, everyone else was bolding, I chose to Comic Sans!

somehow that's a surprisingly bolder move than simply using boldface...

It is alien, and the alien can be more noticable.

true...

That and for some reason there seems to be some sort of taboo on comic sans.

oh that explains why my eyes were bleeding earlier

Play Clippy for a while and you will come to love Comic Sans

I think you need help...

I probably do

aww, ben...

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