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

[He'd lost track of counting the hours he'd been awake at around thirty-six. It had started, of course, well before reaching the Cove. And then Mrs. Turner deciding to declare war on Davy bloody Jones like that was remotely a brilliant idea. And so he, and Jack, and the crew had spent all the night refitting and gearing up for war, losing what wasn't helpful, and packing on more powder and shot, and-

Well, being told there's one room left, in an inn he's stayed at plenty of times in his life, and the person standing next to him being Jack Sparrow-

He's not in the slightest surprised when Jack snatches the key and attempts a run for it. Not at all. and he's considered the same thing, going to the Pearl and grabbing the captain's tent and setting it up and sleeping there, as well, because at this point his vision is blurry and his whole body aches, not just the bruises and cuts and battered parts of him, his normally-achey leg singing a song of pure misery. He's not surprised at all that Jack would be that goddamn selfish and do that.

But what he does know is that it will be a cold day in Hell before he lets Jack get away with it. Aching leg or no, his strides are longer, his reach is longer, and he has little compunction about catching up and trying to shove a foot under Jack's feet to trip him up.]

Like hell y'are, Jack Sparrow, that room be mine, I was here first.

[It's a simple plan. Send Jack face first into the floor. Take the key. Obtain room. Lock Jack out. ??? Profit.]

[ The thing is, Jack's played this game before. Playing keep away with a key. Except, last time, it was with the Key to the Chest to the Heart of Davy Jones and his opponents were both William Turner and James Norrington. And he won that round. ]

You must be mistaken, mate. This be my key to my room.

[ This time, however, the stakes are much lower, but his opponent is Hector Barbossa, a man Jack technically has beaten before -- but with a great deal of cheating on the side.

Not to mention that his sway, always a bit more prominent after long stretches of time on the sea, is made a bit longer from his pure exhaustion. And so when Hector sticks his freakishly long leg into the precarious arrangement of Jack's own, it doesn't take much for his balance to finally give up.

He hits the ground hard (and with a loud curse) and the suddenness of it all is enough for him to lose his grip on the key. After all, this one doesn't have a nice string attached it -- there's no easy purchase to the key but the key itself. And it goes clattering out of his hand and out of his reach.

But Hector himself isn't out of range yet. And, instead of scrambling after the key, Jack goes after Hector. He grabs onto one of Hector's leg and he pulls. After all, Hector's got a lot longer to fall than Jack has, and it may give Jack a chance to re-obtain the key before Hector's equally freakishly long arms can grab onto it. ]

[The key goes skittering across the floor, and about the time Hector goes to grab for it, does Jack fucking Sparrow grab that damned leg that's been giving him fits since the end of the battle and yanks it. That leg is testy on good days, even Hector will admit that, but right now it is a miserable thing and trying its damnedest to give out beneath him anyway, so Jack's yank is really the last straw.

The knee buckles like its made of wet paper and before Hector can catch himself on anything - the railing of the stairs, a table, a chair - he starts going down, and Jack is right. He does have a longer way to fall. The difference is Jack hasn't, for once, it seems planned the trajectory of Hector's fall, and when he goes down, and hard, it's right on top of Jack. That, at least, softens the blow of the thing initially, despite jarring a thousand tiny bruises and cuts and other assorted injuries, enough to actually get him to seethe.

Before he gropes one hand up to Jack's face and presses down, in the unsuccessful effort to push himself back upright. Funny, really, how he hasn't realized how wobbly his arms feel until now.]

TEST DRIVE 001b

no not you

too bad, i'm here to stay

this is uncalled for