ateratooc | TD006

Test Drive 006

WELCOME TO ATERAT

Here is our Fifth Test Drive Meme! There are a lot of areas of the city to explore, so please have a look around! In case you need a little help getting started, I've included a few prompts below, or feel free to start your own! Exploration and player initiative are the names of the game here!

Helpful Links to Get Started

Arrival & General Information | Setting & Bestiary | Locales & Businesses | Residences & Housing Info | Rules & FAQ (ask questions here!)

I. Crash Into Me

Not exactly, but close enough. You have just arrived and received a strange satchel from a tiny, strange little man and are left more or less to your own devices (more information on what to expect upon arrival can be found here)! Follow directions to the north and check out the housing, or maybe have a look around the Historium and try to get some information from that giant glowing ball, see what you can waste your meager starter coin on in the Market District, or maybe just meet the neighbors.

II. What Goes Bump in the Night

It looks like Aterat proper has a spirit problem. Maybe you're seeing specters, hearing disembodied voices, your windows rattle when there's no breeze outside. Maybe there are cold spots in your place of business (or your apartment, which is so much worse). Either way, you're 100% convinced you're haunted. Hopefully, someone else believes you, or maybe you're used to feeling crazy.

III. When the Carnival Came to Town?

Take a look at the prompts from our latest event and go to town (or the carnival).

IV. Try the Network

The Tell-Phone allows for text, video, and audio transmissions to everyone else who has one. Give it a whirl!

V. Wildcard

The above prompts are all options, and there's much more to the setting than what they provide. Do your best (or your worst)!

Navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"He was clearly more than just a messenger," she shrugged. Her assumption was that he knew more than he presented to anyone around them. Perhaps that was a bit of paranoia, but a healthy bit of paranoia was always a good thing.

For a second her fingers traced the hilt of her blade. "Mm, probably shouldn't have it out in the open like this." It brought her a bit of comfort though and she could always camouflage if she noticed more people around. She caught it rather easily and sighed.

"It seems a bit odd to trust a gift from strangers so easily. But I suppose they could do whatever they want with us anyway." So did extra caution really bring her anything?

"Probably, and this place is more than it seems too, probably." He rolled his shoulder in a shrug. He wasn't doing anything to hide the twin pistols in shoulder harnesses he was wearing, either. If the locals were offended, it wasn't any skin off his nose.

"Sister, there are guys around here in full plate and carriages with giant birds. I think a cell phone's the least of our concerns." He looked her over again as he approached, finishing his cigarette and tossing the butt without much concern for where it landed. He wasn't too worried about littering.

"You got a team looking for you back home or do you do solo work?"

"More than probably." At least she was speaking to someone that seemed to know what they had been thrown into. That realization gave her a brief pause and she looked him over up and down, as if she were judging his merit. Or how easy he might be to actually talk to openly.

"Reminds me a bit of Otherworld." She muttered. Seems like it'd been an eternity since she had last been to Otherworld, though that was probably a complete over exaggeration.

"I figured." That he was in a similar line of work. It was hard to not notice his own weapons and well, perhaps she'd taken a surface glance. Being the team telepath was a job one rarely broke out of.

"I'm lucky enough to have two teams and do a bit of solo work."

"Otherworld, huh? Capital O?" He couldn't say he'd never heard of the place, but it wasn't as though he'd ever been invited for any of the off-world antics his teammates ever got up to. The human card didn't afford you anything like that.

He scoffed as he reached into his own pocket to pull out the key the midget had given him. "You keep yourself busy, it sounds like. Are they well-paying gigs at least?"

"Capital O. You might have heard of Avalon in myths and legends, it's a kingdom there." That was about the easiest explanation she could possibly think of to offer about what precisely Otherworld was. It gave a basis that didn't get into the complexities of the Starlight Citadel and being an ancient base between all other realities.

"We're not precisely paid." But they also never hurt for money.

He nodded in response. It wasn't a shocking revelation, learning that a kingdom from Arthurian legend actually existed somewhere, but he did file that away under information about this woman that may prove useful. "So, this isn't your friend trip to Narnia." She could have some good insight into things.

He actually cracked a smile at that. "There's your first mistake. Always require payment. It makes you feel better about the shitty things people make you do." And it was in that moment that Cole realized something. He didn't even know how the purple-haired woman was. "The name's Cole, by the way, or Grifter if we're using our superhero names."

"Far from it," she said about as casually as one would if they were answering a question about how often they had tea.

"Nobody makes me do anything, Cole," she said with a rather serious expression on her face. No, all bad decisions were almost always completely of her own volition. Which was an important distinction for her to have known. Identity was something of an important thing to her. As was informing him that she was more interesting in using actual names than codenames.

"Betsy."

"Well, sister, this is my first ride, but so far I'm not impressed." People had talked about weird occurrences and the occasional monster, but for the most part, that just sounded like home.

He threw up his hands in surrender as he pushed away from the column. "Okay, okay. All I'm saying is in my experience, spandex and teams means you do a lot of peoples' dirty work, and maybe you should at least get paid for it." He shrugs. "I've been doing it for a few decades, but what do I know?" He didn't look a day over 25, but looks could be deceiving.

"Either way, the welcome committee could be a lot harder on the eyes. I can say it's terrible to meet you, Betsy."

"Would this impress anyone?" It seemed so...backwards. Old. Unimpressive seemed like a given for anyone that arrived.

"I have more than enough money to not need to worry about whether or not the X-Men or X-Force directly pays me," she replied with a chuckle. Not to mention "We also have more than enough taken care of to not need to worry about it." Most things were provided for wherever they were living at a given time.

"A few decades, hm? And you haven't gotten tired of it yet?" She shook her head. "Do you always think of fellow new arrivals as your welcoming committee?"

"Avalon could be cool, but I'm pretty sure the novelty would wear off pretty quickly." Cole wasn't really impressed by anything, anymore. Maybe he was just too jaded.

He nodded, rolling his shoulder in a shrug. "Sure, that's nice, but if they're the ones 'providing' for you, they call the shots. If they pay you, you're not beholden. It's an obligation thing." But to each their own.

He scoffed. "Did I wasn't?" But he did move his eyes over her form. "Maybe it's wishful thinking."

"Novelty is one thing that Avalon never runs out of," she said with a shrug. "It's position as something of a nexus means it's always changing despite some locations being more archaic looking than this place."

She shook her head in disagreement to his sentiment. "We're a team. We all make our own choices on what we do or do not want to follow through with." They were a dysfunctional team that occasionally acted more like a family than a team, but they all had the freedom to come and go as they wished. "It's also purely voluntary." She'd made the choice to join X-Force and she hardly regretted it.

"You seem to have an unhealthy idea of what being a member of a team entails." She gave him a little smirk. "What exactly are you wishing for?"

"A nexus?" He wasn't a moron. He knew what the term meant, but Betsy sounded as though she were saying it in a very specific way, to mean a very specific thing. In a way, this place was something similar, if he was following along appropriately.

He arched an eyebrow as she described her team, though before rolling his shoulder in a shrug. It sounded idealistic, but he didn't have a reason not to believe her, either. "I guess some of us are lucky."

He actually smirked at her question. "A welcoming committee. You've got a leg up on the dwarf." Gnome. Whatever.

Continued here

TD006

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