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

[Snart pulls his blue-tinted goggles down over his eyes just before they enter town, ready for fun and mayhem now. He grins and saunters next to Yondu, ready to ice the ground of anyone who runs at them with a weapon, or freeze any hand that raises a gun to them.]

Looking at you is enough to make their blood run cold.

Who? Little ol' me? Why I got the looks of an angel. I don't know why they'd be shyin' away from that...

[Except those two prostitutes that have retreated to the side of a door. And Yondu slows to check them out, giving one an up and down, before looking at Snart.]

Glad Terrans engage in the universe's oldest occupation in all your time periods, looks like.

[Some guy walks out of the brothel and spooks and runs right back in. Then hides behind the mistress. Well, at least no one is coming after them yet.]

Pretty sure there's nothing that looks like you on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

[When Yondu slows, Snart glances over towards whatever it is that's caught his attention. Behind his goggles, he rolls his eyes.]

Eyes on the prize, Blue. Don't get distracted from the job by a pretty face.

[But although they're getting plenty of stares, it's largely the kind of glassy-eyed shock of someone who thinks that life might be a drunken hallucination. No one's seriously kicking up a fuss yet. What does it take to get some proper notoriety around here? He aims his cold gun at a nearby well and freezes the water. A filthy man with a scraggly beard taps at the ice-filled bucket in confusion.]

[Yondu curls his lip at the man's very pointed inability to notice that his companion just froze the water next to him.]

Nice shootin'. But for some reason looks like we're the only ones thinkin' any of this is unusual.

Well, worth causin' a stir anyway. [And with that Yondu whistles. His arrow lurches out. pierces right through the bucket and causes ice chunks to go flying. Then returns at whispy bird call worth of a sound, to be caught in his master's fist up by his head.]

[Yup. More confused than startled.]

I think we're the only ones sober. [He sneers.

Dammit, he was expecting to have to overcome what Rip described as the natural human tendency to forget or explain away the incomprehensible. He hadn't expected to also contend with plain old ass-drunkenness.

Then Yondu's single arrow goes flying and Snart watches, eyebrows rising above the edge of his goggles. The thing's fast.]

Nice arrow. I know a guy in Starling City who still uses a bow. What a loser, right?

TEST DRIVE 001b

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