brethrencourt | TEST DRIVE 001b

Try on those ridiculous clothes, sample the catering, and run through your lines. It's time for the Long 18th Test Drive.

ARRIVAL: Characters come to in a dark, tropical forest in a huddle. There are the sounds of strange birds, animals, and insects all around, some of them perhaps worryingly close. With a closer inspection, arrivals realize they're on an incline: Going up will prove fruitless, no matter who they are. The ground there starts to grow rocky the further they climb, and they may find themselves slipping back down to their arrival point, even if they're expert mountain climbers. The ground sloping downward will eventually level out leading toward light, music, and noise. But for the moment, they're simply a group of lost people (or monsters/bipedal animals/robots/etc) with no idea where they are or how they got here. Now's probably a good time to ask, "Who the hell are you? Where am I?" Time to use the buddy system.

TORTUGA: There's a town off the coast of Hispaniola that never sleeps, and that town is Tortuga. It's swapped hands more times than anyone can count, but for now, the French have it. And they do like the extra money the pirates that frequent it bring in; they like it so much that they imported over 1600 prostitutes from Europe to keep them happy. So you might as well relax while you're here, as much as you can with random gunshots and fist fights, anyway. Drop in for a drink at the Faithful Bride, check out the wares for sale (provided to you tax-free thanks to piracy) near the dock front. Visit the warehouse where those ill-gotten goods are stored and distributed. Maybe you're looking for work on a ship? The captains can usually be found - frazzled and busy - in the taverns and at the shipwrights and everywhere in between (just look for the hats), and if they're in a good mood, they might be willing. But the key point of Tortuga is this: Have fun. Some examples might include: A barfight! Wandering into a brothel (maybe by mistake)! Getting duped into joining a crew! There's no end of trouble to get into.

MIRROR POST: When they arrived, every person found, in a pocket or a bag or tucked away somewhere on their person, a little compact mirror. It's nothing fancy: Square, with hinges and a latch that keep it closed, the outer casing carved from seashell, the inner mirror a little spotted with age. But if it's played around with enough, it quickly becomes apparent it works as a communication device. Here you have access to all of the marked folks, no matter how far and wide they might spread. Need to have a heart to heart with a buddy in Singapore? Want to send out a general ad to everyone at large? Looking for answers to questions? This is the quickest way to get all of that.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE: The world is open, and it's full of pearls that are just waiting for you to take them. Maybe you want to have some quiet time to scrub clean in a bathhouse in Singapore. Perhaps you're visiting the fabled pirate city of Libertalia in Madagascar. Maybe you've found yourself lost in Mayan ruins or stranded on an island. Or you were shipwrecked in a hurricane. Or you've decided to relocate to Port Royal or one of the American colonies for a quieter sort of life. Either way, this is your story, might as well make it a good one.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She might have shown up in her work clothes instead of her costume, but Kara is still the person who hears worried shouting and immediately goes in that direction. The jungle isn't easy to wade through, which is why she's absolutely cheating, floating just enough to get up and over the worst of the creeping vines on the ground, but she stops cheating once she catches sight of the girl. That's hardly fair, after all. Kara tends to assume she's the only one around who can fly.]

Hi, um, hello?

[Kara is an unexpected sight herself in the middle of the jungle, about as unmuddied as Violet, hair still pulled back in a tight ponytail, tapping her glasses back into place as she draws even with her.] Hello. Um, who are you looking for?

[ Between the two of them, Kara is the only one who can fly.

But Violet doesn't know that. What Violet does know is that Kara is the first person she's seen since arriving in this forest, and she's relieved for many reasons. First and foremost being that Kara certainly isn't Count Olaf, or any of Count Olaf's known associates. Second of all, Kara looks like she actually wants to listen and to help.

Violet hasn't gotten a lot of that, lately.

And so she doesn't hesitate to answer. ] My siblings, Klaus and Sunny. Klaus isn't much younger than me, [ 12, to Violet's 14, ] but Sunny's just an infant! I was just with them, but now I'm here, and...

[ And she promised her parents she'd look after them and keep them safe. How can she do that when she doesn't know where she is? Or where they are? ]

Oh jeez. [An infant? There should not be an infant lost in the woods, she cannot let that go without doing absolutely everything she can to fix it as soon as possible.]

Okay, don't worry. Don't worry, if they're here we'll find them, I promise. [Kara reaches out to squeeze Violet's shoulder—carefully—and tips her head to one side to listen. Lots of jungle sounds, a few distant frustrated conversations, but all adults. No one Violet's age, and definitely no infants.]

...but I don't think they are, I can't hear anything...I mean, um. Sunny would probably be crying, right? And Klaus would be calling for you too. I could hear you really clearly when you were calling. ...I don't know if that's better or not, though.

[Will it be better or worse if her siblings aren't here? On the one hand, they're probably not in trouble the way Violet and Kara are in trouble, but on the other hand, if they're not here, where are they?]

[ Sunny doesn’t really cry. At least, not anymore. Though still an infant, Sunny does her very best to communicate with the world around her. She uses words -- but those words are mostly nonsense, and she and Klaus are really the only ones that can understand her.

Still, Kara may have a point. After her explanation, Violet grows silent, trying to listen for herself. She’s sure if Klaus found himself in the same situation, he’d be calling for her the very same was she had been. And though Sunny was just a baby, she’d probably be doing her best too. And she can’t hear anything, not really, nothing that she would expect from her siblings.

She doesn’t like the idea that she’s on her own -- that they may be on her own. But facts are facts. ]

You're right. I don't hear either of them. [ That doesn't stop her from looking around, one last time, just to make sure. ]

Where are they, though? If I was brought here, surely they would be too -- I was sitting right next to them. [ Not to mention, ] Where am we?

[ And, more importantly, where was Count Olaf? ]

I don't, um. I know we're on an island. In, in the Caribbean, I think.

[She'd seen that much when she'd tried flying home and gotten nowhere but put straight back into her footprints in the jungle. But that might not be reassuring. The flying part or the unable-to-fly-away part. It means this isn't random. Something's put them here for a reason.

She looks back at the girl and smiles.]

But wherever we are, at least it's a 'we' now, right? We should stick together. I'm Kara.

TEST DRIVE 001b

Arrival

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject