Weekend Entertainment Part 1: October Test Drive Meme!

[havetubawilltravel]

It's an app_this_plz weekend! So if you've got 'em, 'come flaunt 'em!


H O W T O P L A Y:

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--> Have fun! Post is open until Monday's DE and/or until the next Test Drive Meme!

Comments

Like This!

[boghadair]

It's a festival week, and Merida is exhausted and bored. Between the constant need for ceremony and fancy dress has gotten on her last availible nerve, and her mother's constant henpecking has not smoothed her mood.

Milliways, appearing as it does just as she's headed up to hide in the castle's rafters, is therefore a pleasing evening's diversion.

She ambles up to the bar and decides to request the one treat she favors and cannot obtain in her time. "A rainbow soda?"

Merida gets it and then plunges her straw into the drink, then plunks the other end into her mouth and starts blowing multicolored bubbles.

Boredom: it's a dangerous thing. Please come relieve her of some of it.

Re: Like This!

[woman_of_valor]

"What sort of brew is that?" asks a warrior nearby who is drinking a cup of water. Mulan is still very new and doesn't trust the food or drink here since magic always has a price.

[boghadair]

Merida jumps at the woman's authoritative tone, spitting the straw out before turning to address the woman. "They call it a soda," she says. "It's like ginger beer with a wee bit less spice. And a speck more color."

[1stwitness]

A man in a longcoat strides purposefully through the door, then stops and stares around, bewildered.

"What is this, now?"

[igetthatalot]

"Not what you were expecting, huh?" says the short, broadly-built fellow sitting nearby. "Seems like we get that a lot around here."

[1stwitness]

"Nothing in my life is what I expect any more", he returns, shifting to look at the speaker. "It's somewhat gratifying to know that at least here, I'm not alone in that... wherever "here" is."

[igetthatalot]

"It's called Milliways," Varric says, making a sweeping gesture of presentation to the rest of the room. "Nobody ever seems to expect to find the place the first time- I know I didn't. They tell me it's at the end of the world. I can't vouch for that, but it's a lot nicer and a whole lot better stocked than the tavern I was trying to reach at the time. What brings you here, my newly bewildered friend?"

[1stwitness]

"A tunnel into what should have been the old armory", he says, eyes flicking rapidly around the room before he turns back to Varric. "And as you say the end of the world, quite possibly, in some way, my wife. Ichabod Crane."

[igetthatalot]

"If there's an armory here I haven't found it yet," he says. "Varric Tethras, at your service. From the city of Kirkwall, if that means anything to you."

From the sound of things, he doesn't expect it to. This guy's probably from that Earth place.

[1stwitness]

"It doesn't, I'm afraid. It sounds as though it might be Scottish, but your own name certainly does not. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr Tethras, despite the odd circumstances."

[igetthatalot]

"I'm told the countryside out back resembles somewhere in Scotland, but no, that's not where Kirkwall is," says Varric. "So unless you recognize the Free Marches, or the country of Ferelden or the Tevinter Imperium, I'm just going to assume that you're from another world entirely. Apparently that's a thing here. The magic doesn't really care where people come from, it just brings them in and lets them go. Somebody really needs to talk toa mage about that."

[1stwitness]

"None of those mean a thing", he confirms, frowning. "'The magic'? Acting independently?"

[igetthatalot]

"The magic's what operates the door," says Varric. "Some mage or other enchanted a perfectly ordinary tavern door so that from time to time, when people somewhere else are minding their own business and pass through a door in their own ... world, or realm, or whatever you want to call it... the door they open comes to this place instead. They walk in here, they see all kinds of people they don't know from all kinds of places that might or might not exist where they come from, they develop headaches trying to figure it out. Then there's usually the drinks, the first of which is free, while they try to figure it out some more. Eventually they go home and then the headaches start again, because they return to the moment they left."

[1stwitness]

"...I really can't imagine who would do such a thing - or why, for that matter. But I suppose in one way, returning to the moment you left would save on difficult explanations."

In honor of my copy of the Blu-ray shipping from Amazon...

[boneslumlord]

The door opens on a brightly-lit, but only dimly-glimpsed, street. If you looked quickly, you might recognize it as somewhere in the Far East, or possibly in the Los Angeles of Blade Runner. But you'd have to look very quickly, because it's only open long enough for a man in a fancy suit and one gold shoe to fall through in a gush of fluids.

For that matter, you'd have to look just as quickly to see confusion on the man's face; it disappears the moment the door slams behind him — well, in front of him really, since he fell in backwards. His first priority is to get out of the bluish puddle that formed around him. His second is to corral a waitrat. "Can we get a Wet Floor sign here?" he asks it. "A biohazard sign would be good too."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Thaaaaaaat's a familiar voice. Ellen hasn't heard that voice since two Halloweens ago; her head whips around sharply. "Reverend Avellone?" she calls. "Is that..."

Oh.

Huh.

"... whoops."

[boneslumlord]

The man tilts his head; he's probably blinking behind those smoked glasses, but there's no way to be sure. "Yeah, no. And you ain't the Marshal's kid, either; she's Japanese and you're... Korean-American, right?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"If my father can be believed, yes," says Ellen, although to judge by her tone that's in some doubt. "The only marshal I know is darker skinned than me, anyway."

Marshal, sheriff, same difference, right? It's all Westerns and pointy stars.

"My name's Ellen Park. What just happened, and why is my Pip-Boy's Geiger counter going off?"

[boneslumlord]

"Does he have a British accent?" It sounds like Pentecost, but around here, Chau knows it's a good idea to make sure.

"Call me Hannibal Chau. What happened is that the Door saved me from being swallowed by a baby giant monster, and your Geiger counter's going off because some of the critter's body fluids followed me in."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"My father, yes. The marshal, no. He sounds like something out of an old Western vid."

She's still not clear on where Dad's accent came from. The only other people who talked like that were the Mr. Handys, these days.

"Oh. All right. Do you need anti-rad chems?" she says immediately. "I'm no doctor, but I've had to chelate myself for radiation exposure a couple of times before. It's easier on someone else."

[boneslumlord]

"Good idea. I don't think I got any on me, but Kaiju Blue is some potent shit. At least I didn't breathe it."

While he's waiting: "So... 'vid'? 'Chems'? What year is it on your side of that door?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"All right. Rad-Away is an intravenous medication, fair warning," Ellen says. "The alternative is an anti-rad-absorption chem you take in pill form, but it's mostly potassium iodide, so Rad-X tends to take longer to take effect and doesn't help that much once your thyroid's hot."

"Oh- 2279, for me. How about you, before I ask anything else?"

[boneslumlord]

"Do I look like a guy who's scared of needles? And it's 2025 in the Hong Kong Boneslum for me. Or it was, anyway."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's usually the biggest and the toughest ones who have the most problem with needles," Ellen says serenely as she produces a bag of yellow-orange fluid from Karkat's storage deck. "Consider it a compliment. I have no idea what a boneslum is, so I'm going to guess that you're probably not from the same line of historical events as my world. Especially since we didn't start getting anything that could really be described a a giant monster until well after 2077. Hold out your arm, please."

[boneslumlord]

He's already taken a seat, draped his jacket over the back of the chair and rolled up a sleeve of his silk shirt. Now he flashes her a gold-bedecked grin. "I don't know anyone who's got more problem with needles than they do with watching body parts turn blue and fall off." He holds out his arm. "'77, huh? Back home, the first kaiju showed up in '13, and if Pentecost and his crew can pull it off, the last one should be showing up tonight if it hasn't already. Reckoner hit Hong Kong in '16; the Boneslum is where they rebuilt around its skeleton." He almost adds if you can believe it, but if she comes here, she almost certainly can.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Fair point," Ellen says; she's yet to encounter a ghoul who's had issues with needles, and they have body parts drop off all the time, poor fellows. As she produces an alcohol wipe (Milliways is very good for small consumables they long since ran out of in the Wasteland) she adds, "I don't think I know that word, though. 'Kaiju', I mean. From the sound of things they're bigger than deathclaws, right?"

And if it was big enough of course they would build around the skeleton. Megaton would have done the same if a monstrous mutated beast had created their crater and died, after all.

[boneslumlord]

"Unless your deathclaws are bigger than 30 stories, that's a yes. And kaiju's Japanese; it actually means 'strange creature', but in English it usually meant 'giant beast' even before Trespasser came ashore and stomped San Francisco. So what happened in '77 that hit your world with giant monsters?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Mmm, no," Ellen says, blinking. "Good Lord, that's huge."

She's going to take a moment to get the Rad-Away needle in and the flow started before continuing.

"Well, by comparison with your kaiju I guess the things we have don't count very much as giants at all. Seven-foot mutant crab things that walk like a man, scorpions as big as an old Corvega, things like that... and deathclaws are about ten or fifteen feet long, nose to tail, with the breeding mothers being maybe half again that size to twice that size. I'm afraid we had world-wide atomic warfare in 2077 and we really haven't recovered since."

[boneslumlord]

If Chau does have any worries about the needle, they don't show on his face as it goes in. Maybe he's just distracted by Ellen's news. Or maybe he's trying to picture a Corvega, and coming up with a sort of subcompact sports car.

"World-wide? Shit. At least the kaiju stick to the Pacific so far. Seems the Mid-Atlantic Ridge ain't as hospitable to whatever tech created the Breach. I figure a geologist or a physicist could tell you why, but I'm more of a biology expert. So to speak."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The line's going good and strong, so Ellen settles back in her seat to keep an eye on it while Chau talks. "Kaiju biology, I'm guessing?" she says. "That must be a complicated field, if these things aren't naturally from Earth."

(Look, he mentioned a Breach and the oceans; it's a reasonable guess to make.)

[boneslumlord]

"They aren't, and it is. But it turns out, with the right motivation, a talented amateur can figure out things even the experts don't know." Another gilded grin. "In this case, the good ol' American profit motive."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh! Well, yes, that makes sense," Ellen says. And it does; Scribe Yearling, after all, put out a bounty on pre-War books because independent contractors had a better chance of bringing them in than overworked Initiates. "There's a market for that kind of thing?"

[draconicmail]

The door opens, and a cute little... creature steps through. He's maybe three feet tall, purple and scaly, with green spines and green eyes. Lizard? Dragon? Dinosaur? Hard to say if you don't already know. He's got a tall stack of books in his arms, and with a grunt, he lifts them up above his head, as if to place them on a shelf.

It's only once the stack is no longer in front of his face that he realizes there is no shelf, and, in fact, this isn't even the room he was expecting to walk into.

The little dragon stares for several seconds, then carefully sets his books down on the floor. He turns around to yell through the doorway he just entered by. "Twilight! If you're gonna mess with the flow of space-time, you mind warning me first?" As reactions to Milliways go, there have been worse.


((ATP reminded me I'd thought about bringing Spike here a long time ago. So why not give it a whirl now? Replies will come during my lunch break or after work.))

EEEEE SPIKE. :D

[no_vampires_plz]

Twilight double-takes. "Spike? When did you get here?"

Twilight~ :D

[draconicmail]

And then it's Spike's turn to double-take. "I--Twilight?" He stares at her, then back at the door he just came out of. He could have sworn she was back there a few minutes ago...

After a confused moment, he turns back to Twilight, scratching his head. "Uh, just now, I guess? But... where is here, anyway?" He's gradually realizing as he looks around that this is nothing he's ever seen in Equestria.

OMG I love your icon keywords.

[no_vampires_plz]

Twilight clears her throat before answering. "'Here,'" she says, "is Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It's an interdimensional nexus of all possible realities, bringing people together from every place and time in the multiverse. Most of the patrons are members of a species called 'humans' that doesn't exist in our world."

Thank you, thank you :3 I had a lot of fun filling them in!

[draconicmail]

Blink. Blink, blink. Spike continues to stare at his pony pal as he works that one over in his head. It's not exactly the easiest scenario to absorb, after all. "And... we have a door to this nexus in the library?" he finally asks. "How long have you known about it?" Long enough to give that explanation on little notice, it seems...

[no_vampires_plz]

"...no, we have a path to it in the Everfree Forest. You got here from the library?"

No, Twilight, he just randomly carries giant stacks of books around.

[draconicmail]

The little dragon looks down at the stack of books, then up at Twilight again, eyebrow quirked in an expression that says '...Seriously?' more clearly than the word itself even could.

"Uh, yeah?" Spike says aloud, gesturing behind himself to the half-open door. Sure enough, the library's central room is still visible on the other side. "I was trying to take these books into the back room, and next thing I know I'm here!"

[no_vampires_plz]

"Yeah, the door does that once in a while," says Twilight with a shrug. "Or so I'm told. I usually just get here by the Everfree Forest, like I said. But the door should lead you back to the exact time and place you came from when you're ready to leave."

[draconicmail]

"The same time, huh?" That's some pretty impressive magic. There's a lot here that's impressive-slash-amazing-slash-awe-inspiring, if Spike were to pay attention to it. But he has something else on his mind. "Is that how you've been coming here without me noticing?"

He crosses his arms, frowning at her. "You didn't answer my question. How long have you known about this place?" There's indignance in his voice, mixed, perhaps, with a bit of hurt. Has he been getting left out again?

[no_vampires_plz]

Hoo boy.

"A... couple of years now? Since before Discord showed up."

[draconicmail]

Okay, wow. He was expecting to hear a month or two, at the most. "Years? Seriously?!" Spike scowls darkly and turns away from Twilight. He guesses he knows how he rates now. "Geez. So is it just you, or have you been telling other ponies?"

[no_vampires_plz]

Twilight cringes more. "...just the ones who found their way here on their own?"

[draconicmail]

It mollifies him slightly to know that she hasn't been going around talking to everypony but him. Slightly. It doesn't mean he's forgiving anything yet, but it's a start. "This happens a lot, then? Somepony opens up a door and finds this place instead of what oughtta be on the other side?"

YAY!

[havetubawilltravel]

"Hi Spike!"

Pinkie had been having a tea party with Gummy in the rafters when her friend's familiar voice had alerted her to his presence.

Naturally, she manages to bend the laws of physics and stretch her neck all the way down toward the entranceway to properly meet him.

Hello~ :D

[draconicmail]

Spike has known Pinkie Pie for so long that her casual violations of normality almost don't even faze him any more. The operative word there, of course, is "almost". So he only recoils in shock when Pinkie stretches down to greet him, rather than screaming in terror on top of it.

"H-Hey, Pinkie," he manages, once his heart rate has calmed down. "You found this place too, huh?"

Eee your voice for him is great

[havetubawilltravel]

Pinkie, naturally, assumes he's reeling back to take in her awesome display of stretchy power. A puff of dust just to the dragon's left is the only warning Spike gets before Pinkie materializes beside him. "YOU FINALLY FOUND MILLIWAYS! We've been coming here FOREVER and...this is your first time!" she throws a hoof around his shoulder. "Do you know what that means?"!