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Well Mod ([personal profile] wellie) wrote in [community profile] wellcome2024-04-19 04:40 pm
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6.0 Test Drive Meme

6.0 Test Drive Meme

Welcome to Well! See the first prompt for how your characters arrive in Well. Your character arrives with only a handful of memories, clad in a mix of Old Western clothes and clothes that might fit in at a renaissance fair, and no items from home.

Anyone is free to play on the TDM, but you need an invite to apply. Feel free to use these prompts, and interact with the arrival or locations. NPCs are around, but only say a certain set of phrases. TDMs can be considered game canon.

This TDM takes place from the first week of May onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during May and June. This will be the only TDM for May, June, and July.

Applications are open April 26th until May 1st, and May 27th until June 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.

Arrival: Escape!
Content warnings: forced captivity, blood, eating eyes, drowning in sand, forced intimacy

The First Room

You wake up somewhere dark and damp. Maybe this is your first time waking up here, maybe it's your fourth, but the beginning is the same. You're in a small stone room. The only light comes from torches flicking on the walls. The room is bare except for a metal door. And you're not alone. You and someone (or someones) are here together, and you have to get out.

The door is locked, and to leave it you must just find one key. On the door is a note with a clue:

Freedom is hot!

The key is in fact in one of the torches! Depending on luck, you might find it on your first try, or your fourth. Find a way to extinguish the torches, and handle the hot, hot key to unlock the door.
After this, you find yourself in one of the following rooms. Choose one from the first set, then one from the second set, then one from the third set. You will always end in the final room. You must travel through five rooms to escape.

If you don't complete a task in five minutes, you will return to very first room and have to start again.

You can choose your own path, or comment below to have a random path set for you!

The Second Room

You find yourself in one of the following rooms:
1. There Ain't Room
2. Glitter Bomb
3. Riddles Three
1. There Ain't Room
In this room is a shooting game. There's a barrier with bebe guns attached to it, and at the far end are small cut outs of people. There's a sign on the far wall, in old-West style script, reading:

There Ain't Room

The cut outs look sort of familiar! There are cut outs of you and your compatriot(s), as well as some typical cowboy looking cut outs. Shoot your own cut out to escape! You each must shoot your own one, if you shoot each others', that person feels it as if they have been shot, and will start bleeding.

When you successfully hit all of your own cut outs, the floor under you opens up and you drop into the next room.

2. Glitter Bomb
As you walk through the doorway, you feel oddly.... sticky? Like your skin is covered in honey. Because it is! Yum.

In front of you is a room covered in glitter. There's so much glitter. You can't see a door, but you have to find a way out. Search the room to find the exit.

The exit is a trapped door in the floor. You'll need to make your way through the glitter, all the while it will stick to your very sticky skin. You'll need to dig a big enough path to get through, open the door and get into the next room! Too bad some glitter will come with you, and you'll still be sticky.

3. Riddles Three
A large hour glass in the middle of the room starts ticking down with sand as soon as you enter this room. One three of the walls are riddles engraved in the stone, and chalkboards in front of them. You must answer all three riddles correctly before the sand runs out to escape:
  • Where waves kiss sand and breezes blow, where tropic dreams grow, I'm where you want to go. What am I? Answer: Kokomo
  • With auburn locks and eyes of green, a rival, a threat, a beauty queen. Answer: Jolene
  • With cowboy hats and boots that stride, no one told me where my horse I ride. Answer: Old Town Road
Once you answer correctly, the hour glass disappears, leaving a hole in the floor that you must jump through to exit.

The Third Room

Next, you find yourself in one of the following rooms:
A. Cry For Me
B. Love Me
C. Hold Me
A. Cry For Me
This room is beautiful and shiny, the walls made of crystals. In the middle of the room is a crystal plinth with a small crystal cup on it. In flowing script around the cup it reads:

Collect five tears

You must collect five tears in the cup to escape. Once you do, an entry way opens in the crystal in front of you.

B. Love Me
This room is very plain, and on a piece of paper dangling from a string in the middle of the room is the instructions for this room:

Exchange five sincere compliments each. Don't break eye contact.

You must do this within the alloted five minutes to escape. If the compliments are less than sincere, you may try again, but if you don't reach the five each by the end of the five minutes or if you break eye contact even once, you will be returned to the first room.

C. Hold Me
This room looks a lot like the pub in town. The walls are wood paneled and there's jangling piano music coming from--somewhere?

In the middle of the room is a mechanical bull, with a sign reading:

Stay on the bull together for 45 seconds.

If you succeed within the five minutes, you're free to continue on!

The Fourth Room

Next, you find yourself in one of the following rooms:
I. Blood
II. Sweat
III. Tears
I. Blood
This room is very tall. There's a rope dangling down one wall. On the wall it reads:

Climb!

And that's what you have to do. The word "Climb" starts to bleed. And then the walls start to bleed. The room will fill up with blood within five minutes, so you better get climbing!

At the top of the room is a hatch that will let you escape through a hatch in the ceiling.

II. Sweat
When you enter this room, one of you finds that you are alone. You're standing at the edge of a pool, and that pool is full of sand. It's also searingly hot in here. On the wall, it reads:

Rescue your partner!

One person is chained at the bottom of a swimming pool full of sand. A counter on the wall counts down until they will suffocate. Better get swimming!

Once you've rescued your partner, a door on the other side of the pool will open up. Better move fast to get there!

III. Tears
This room is dark, very dark. You can just barely see, except for a glow-in-the-dark sign reading:

Eat some eyes!

And that's what you need to do! In the walls are eyes. They're watching you. You must each eat an eye to continue on. Once you do, a door cracks open in the far wall.

The Fifth Room

No matter the path you took to get here, the final room is the same:
The last room you end up in, even though you enter through the same door, you find yourselves separated by a wall. There is a door for each of you at the far side of the room. You can hear each other, but you can't see each other. Each of you have a plinth in front of you, which reads:

Who should escape?

In front of you are the names of yourself and your partner(s). You place the name of the person you believe should escape in a slot in the table.

Once everyone has made a selection, the names will light up:
  • If you all chose each other, your room lights up green.
  • If you all chose yourselves, your room lights up green.
  • If someone chose themselves, and someone else chose another person, the room of the person with the most "votes" lights up green. The others light up red.
If your room is green, when you open the final door, you've escaped! Welcome to Wellstone.

If your room is red, when you open the door, you find yourself back in the first room. Good luck!
When you escape, you step into the lobby of the Staywell. It's bright and airy with beautiful white stone. When you look behind you, it seems that you've stepped out of a supply closet. Weird!

The receptionist greets you as he always does, welcoming you home.

New characters arrive using this prompt. Characters can return from death from the previous cycle using this prompt. You can also just wake up and be in this prompt, so you can do this as many times as you like.

tl;dr:
  • You wake up in an escape room! You must finish (at least) five rooms to escape. You have five minutes to finish each room. If you fail, you'll be taken back to the beginning of the dungeon.

It's alive!
Content warnings: public shaming

When you shake off the glitter and the sand, it might be time to head on down into Wellstone town. The air is full of a shimmering warmth that might be familiar to some. It's like the sun has been baked into the very stones and is radiating back up at you. Run-down buildings lean against each other for support, made out of mostly weathered stone with a few old boards here and there to keep structures up. Desiccated, skeletal fingers of dried-out ivy climb them, waving occasionally as you pass. Waving, and… whispering? For more information about how the town has changed, check out this month's Wellstone Post or read the Locations Page.

The town is alive with sneering, whispering voices. It's unclear where exactly they're coming from, but they're everywhere. Step into the Cactus Pad Tavern and you might hear a decisive no manners! spat sharply from the doorway. Make your way to the steaming bathhouse to wash off that honey, but be careful when you're undressing: you might just hear rude snickering from the air around you. Wow, the walls might say, your toes are so long. What weird feet!

The voices might interrupt a conversation at breakfast to make fun of something you said. Your mirror and your wardrobe might question your outfit choices. They're loud enough to be heard by everyone in a public space and seem to delight in saying cutting things at the worst possible moment. You don't recognize the voices, exactly, but they seem just familiar enough to really hurt, and the voices seem to know you well enough. They might even call you out when you tell a little white lie, or let everyone know exactly how loud you snore.

There's no way, seemingly, to get them to shut up, so... may as well get used to it?

tl;dr:
  • The town is alive, and it is judging you. Your outfits, your words, your body, your habits: nothing is off-limits.
  • The voices sound just familiar enough to feel like voices you know, but aren't able to be pinpointed to a single person.

diablotin: (Default)

[personal profile] diablotin 2024-05-23 11:47 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Palamedes clocks her lie immediately. Alec's friend, killjoy as he is, knowing him well enough to when someone he doesn't even know is and isn't being puppetted — it's not a flaw in her scheme she can be mad about. ]

Imp, [ she repeats brightly, taking Pal's objection as a sign to use 'wizard' as often as possible. ]

Overlord Imp, if you're feeling formal. Supreme Ruler is a good runner up. And as my first decree, I demand you address myself and Overlord Regent with the bare minimum of proper respect: you have to use our cape names.
anglophone: (011 | your smiles nothing but teeth)

[personal profile] anglophone 2024-05-24 01:47 am (UTC)(link)
[ Regent leans against the doorway as Palamedes and Aisha exchange words, folding his arms across his chest and crossing one ankle over the other. He tips his head to the side until one point of his crown touches the frame.

He's still and poised, his usual fidgeting absent except for a fingernail tapping on the metal case of his walkie-talkie frustratingly just off-beat. ]


Technically, you'd be dealing with both of our powers.

[ He points this out to Palamedes like an idle observation as he elbows off the door and steps lightly into the room. ]

You might want to recalculate your odds. And you [ when he addresses Imp, his voice lilts up, casual chill turning into anticipation ] should know better than to use politically incorrect language. We're modern day villains! You have to clean up your act or we'll be all over the bulletin board.

[ He swings his arms at his sides and grins behind his mask, then walks briskly across the room to join Imp - only at the last second, he reaches out to firmly shove her back. ]

I have a reputation.
hellonspectacles: (Indubitable)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2024-05-25 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
[Palamedes looks from the girl, to Alec, and back to the girl again. The camaraderie between them in effervescent and unmistakable; they’re obviously very good friends, and maybe even something more. What’s more, they both remember each other. It’s odd, though—Alec has never had very much good to say about the world he left behind when he came to Wellstone, and he certainly hasn’t mentioned any people he liked. In contrast, before Camilla got here, Pal thinks he probably never stopped talking about her.

But that’s a puzzle for another time; whatever reason Alec had for keeping his friend a secret, he probably won’t be admitting it right now. For now, Pal just looks at them like an aggrieved teacher. If they’re going to assume he’s a party pooper, he might as well play the part.]


Are you both entirely finished?
diablotin: (12)

[personal profile] diablotin 2024-05-26 03:01 am (UTC)(link)
[ Imp lets out a shriek of a laugh, hand grabbing his shirt to pull Regent with her violently as she topples back onto the bed. They scramble — only Pal's admonishment makes her stop moving, the soft curve of her silk-wrapped cheek pressed into the hard surface of Regent's mask.

Imp keeps her eyes on Palamedes as she whispers sotto voce right in Regent's ear, ]


You didn't tell me he was the Dungeon Daddy.
anglophone: (011 | your smiles nothing but teeth)

[personal profile] anglophone 2024-05-26 02:13 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Alec laughs when Aisha pulls him down, a laugh unlike any Palamedes will have heard out of him before. It's unrehearsed and a little funny sounding, a giggle that pops and crackles like static on a radio. He's easily outmatched by Aisha in their wrestling, because he's busier trying to annoy her than win.

When they wash up on the stern shores of Pal's reproval, Alec has his arms draped over Aisha's shoulders. He snickers at her comment, dragging his knee up to tap against hers. ]


Because he's not. [ He matches her conspicuous whispering. ] John's the Dungeon Daddy. Or he was, until the Great Wizard Break Up of a Couple Months Ago. Now he's the Deadbeat Dungeon Daddy.

Wizards have very complicated personal lives.

[ With this wisdom solemnly dispensed, Alec addresses Palamedes. ]

We're done. For now. You better watch your back, given all of this unexpected impudence, but after consulting my colleague we've decided to spare you for the time being, on account of wanting to see the skeletons.

[ He stays tangled up with Aisha, shifting only to make a little bit more of a semi-comfortable bundle of sharp angles for her to drape over. ]
hellonspectacles: (resting bitch face)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2024-05-28 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
[Palamedes sighs and rolls his eyes. He’s tempted to refuse—but he had promised skeletons, technically. What’s more, he is, at heart, a show-off, and while skeletons might not be his speciality, they are pretty cool.

And so, with a weary shake of his head, he turns back to his desk and shuffles through a drawer until he pulls out what looks like an off-white knob of plaster. Then he turns back around to face the children, rolls the object in his hands, and tosses it into the air.

As it lands on the floor, it forms a skeleton—beginning from the feet and growing to the top of the skull. It’s a pretty cool trick, if he does say so himself.]
diablotin: (03)

[personal profile] diablotin 2024-05-28 02:59 am (UTC)(link)
[ It's a cool trick. It's an incredible trick. It's such an exciting trick that Imp jolts upright, sitting draped over Regent so she can get a better view of the incredible, show-stopping, never-before-seen Master class necromancer bullshit. The skeleton stabilizes as her voice comes out elated and loud. ]

Holy shit! Regent, you fucking liar, he's the Bone Daddy!

[ Imp propels herself up onto her knees with no mercy of what the force of pushing her weight off of Regent's ribs will do to him. She grabs the footer of the bed with both hands. She's all huge brown eyes and giddy excitement. ]

How many can you make? Let me fight it! Let me fight all of them!
anglophone: (011 | your smiles nothing but teeth)

[personal profile] anglophone 2024-05-29 03:06 am (UTC)(link)
[ Alec lets out an oof with a squeaking creak at the tail end when Aisha flings herself upward in excitement, then follows at a slower pace, conspicuously rubbing his tragically possibly bruised ribs.

He kind of hopes they do bruise. He noticed a few new ones when he was scraping off honey and glitter, light purple marks on his elbows and shins. He dug his thumb into the one on his left arm until it throbbed with a borderline pleasant ache.

He pushes down a little now, grinding thin skin over bone, and slumps forward to prop his opposite elbow on his knee. ]


You should let her fight it. She's really good at that. [ He remarks, idly, like straightforward praise out of his mouth is an everyday occurrence. ] And I promised you skeletons, Imp. Did I not promise you skeletons? Is that not a skeleton? These accusations of dishonesty wound me. Nearly as much as your sharp ass elbows.

[ Since Palamedes is finally being a good sport, it occurs to Alec he could reciprocate. ]

We weren't actually going to attack you, by the way. Probably. Not much. But you really have to learn to lighten up.
hellonspectacles: (I would never do anything silly)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2024-06-01 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
[Palamedes looks at Aisha, and then at Alec, and he finally understands: the girl is Alec's cavalier.

Not literally, of course. But she's certainly something like it.

With something like a smile, he watches Aisha's eyes go huge.]


Don't worry, Alec, I wasn't actually concerned about an ambush. Even if I couldn't stop you, Camilla would make sure they never found your body.

[And speaking of cavaliers] Constructs that can fight really aren't my specialty. How about we start with one, and we can work our way up from there?
diablotin: (Default)

[personal profile] diablotin 2024-06-04 02:25 am (UTC)(link)
[ Aisha whistles lowly at the threat on behalf of Camilla, then swings herself over the side of the bed and turns on her power. All at once, she drops from their awareness.

Before they can reorient themselves, the right kneecap of the skeleton explodes outward, and piece by piece, is torn apart. ]
anglophone: (008 | i might have hit my peak already)

[personal profile] anglophone 2024-06-04 03:31 am (UTC)(link)
[ Alec has spent enough time around Pal to be able to recognize his secretly-not-that-annoyed face. Seeing it directed at Aisha gives him an odd sense of satisfaction, even though he wouldn't have cared if Pal disapproved.

Joking about Camilla murdering him is another positive sign. He never does that when he might actually want Alec dead. He's opening his mouth to say something as the bed shifts next to him - ]


...great demonstration, Pal. [ He drawls, shaking his head. ] Very impressive. A skeleton that fights itself? Now, that's innovation in skele-warfare.

[ He rubs a spot on his ribs absently, chasing a phantom ache, and leans back on one hand to watch the skeleton disintegrate with mild interest. ]
hellonspectacles: (Go loud)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2024-06-06 01:59 am (UTC)(link)
Hush.

[Palamedes doesn’t even flinch when the patella explodes. He’s staring intently somewhere to the left of the construct, the tips of his fingers pressed together under his chin. Despite his earlier show of indifference, he had been plenty surprised by the girl’s sudden appearance out of thin air; now, though, he’s paying closer attention, and he knows what to look for. He can sense her thanergy—and when he concentrates very, very hard, he can nearly see her, like she’s something forever caught in his peripheral vision.

The kneecap regrows, and the construct kicks out its leg towards the seemingly empty air where Aisha is standing.]
diablotin: (Default)

[personal profile] diablotin 2024-06-06 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Imp jumps back, avoiding the brunt of the attack but not the entirety of the contact. People being able to see through her power sucks. It's such a goddamn pain.

She appears, briefly, awareness of the concept of Aisha Laborn light up the room like an impossible close flare for barely enough time to to shout with no small amount of glee, ]
Cheater! Cheater!

[ She jams a kitchen knife squarely through the construct's forehead, then releases it just for the anticipated pleasure of Regent's reaction. ]
anglophone: (011 | your smiles nothing but teeth)

[personal profile] anglophone 2024-06-08 03:54 am (UTC)(link)
[ His performative scowl at being hushed dissolves as soon as Aisha pops back in, sitting up higher on the edge of the bed and breaking into a desultory round of a single golf clap.

His power reaches out to brush unfelt over the ends of her nerves, a tiny tag of certainty about her reappearance. Just because. ]


Score one to zero for parahumans versus necromancers.

[ Yes, they're keeping score. ]

In spite of flagrant abuse of magical interference. [ If that sounds like something he picked up from one of Pal and Dax's polite arguments, it's because it is. ] Definitely cheating.
hellonspectacles: (He surveyed his work and saw it was good)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2024-06-09 10:09 pm (UTC)(link)
[When Aisha stabs the knife into the construct’s forehead, it shatters dramatically into a thousand pieces. Bone dust coats the girl’s hair. A few moments later, as though by some sleight of hand, Palamedes tucks the original knob of finger bone back into his pocket. The rest of the skeleton seems to have disappeared, though Aisha will still find dust clinging to her later.]

Point of order: why is it cheating when I use necromancy to find you, but it isn’t cheating when you use your powers to change our perception of reality? That’s what you’re doing, right? [He gestures to Alec, including him in the question] You’re not disappearing, as such. You’re changing how we see you.
diablotin: (07)

[personal profile] diablotin 2024-06-10 01:00 am (UTC)(link)
Ha-ha!

[ Imp raises her knife above her head in celebration of her victory, then spins slightly on her heal to extend the point of the blade towards Palamedes in vicious, good-natured posturing. ]

A parahuman never reveals the details of their power. That's Capes 101.

[ With a heavy tone of 'duh', and absolutely no effort to defend her hypocrisy. There are a lot of things Aisha Laborn has no interest in; a breakdown of how her power doesn't work against his power is in the gutter, swept ten miles downstream from the nearest 'who cares, fuck you' marker.

Aisha spins her knife through her fingers. It sprays bonedust into the air into her hands. The slight, momentary haze does little to cover that she almost drops the knife in her excitement. She adjusts the scarf over her nose. ]


Okay. Give me another one. Regent should get to have a go.
anglophone: (007 | someone go get me more confetti)

[personal profile] anglophone 2024-06-10 05:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Because Imp is cooler than you are.

[ Sorry, Palamedes, but that's a fact. A fact delivered lightly and casually, even while Alec's eyes track the pale fall of bone dust over Aisha's tight curls. ]

Regent doesn't want a go. [ That's for Aisha, his tone turning forbearingly patient. ] Skeletons don't have nerves, genius. Little bit of a problem for me.

[ Back to Palamedes: ] Seriously. Don't throw a skeleton at me, and I'll tell you all her deep, dark secrets.
hellonspectacles: (his eyes were a perfectly lambent grey)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2024-06-13 02:28 am (UTC)(link)
I’m not making any more skeletons. I’m not a skeleton-making machine.

[He also isn’t in any way cool and is quite aware of the fact, and therefore fully ignores this comment from Alec.]

How long have you been in town, Imp? [Goodness, that feels like a silly thing to call the girl—and this is coming from someone named Palamedes Sextus.]
diablotin: (10)

[personal profile] diablotin 2024-06-13 11:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Three hours. [ Not entirely accurate, but she hasn't exactly been checking her watch, and three hours sounds like plenty of time to cause an obscene amount of trouble. ] You promised me a skeleton army in the blink of an eye. How could you lie like that on your official application?

And you! [ Alec! ] What kind of terrible teammate are you? Holy shit. I told him to sick it on me, stupid, so you could use my fists and your intel. Now we just look uncoordinated.

[ Imp's tone is upbeat despite the critical words. To Palamedes, as she lowers her knife and takes on an air of great consideration and magnanimously allowed negotiation: ]

You get one question per skeleton. No upper limit. I answered that one on good faith, and on account of the first skeleton. I can answer many questions, like 'What's Regent's embarrassing middle name?' and 'What's his power's inconquerable weakness?'

Choose carefully.
anglophone: (007 | someone go get me more confetti)

[personal profile] anglophone 2024-06-15 04:15 am (UTC)(link)
You were involving me in unwanted skeleton combat. I have a right to defend myself.

[ He's unruffled by Aisha's accusations of being a terrible teammate. She's a very critical person sometimes. He'd never get anywhere if he took it too seriously.

But he might as well try to smooth things over, so he slides off the bed and strolls over to where she's standing to loop a companionable arm around her shoulders. Not so uncoordinated when they present as a set. ]


I don't have a middle name, and my inconquerable weakness is my vulnerability to physical attack. [ He'll even sell himself out for her, that's how considerate he is - down to the slightly unorthodox word choice. ] You can't make him make too many skeletons. He gets sweaty. It's gross.
hellonspectacles: (It's a grayer house I worry about)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2024-06-16 10:22 pm (UTC)(link)
He’s not wrong, I’m afraid. [Palamedes dips his head towards Alec.] I could give you a skeleton army, but it takes a lot of work. And frankly, you haven’t given me a good enough reason to go through all the effort. Sorry.

But I am curious about one thing, so— [He shrugs and sets his bone shard on the desk, where it grows into a new full-grown skeleton. This one can’t do much of anything. Aside from being able to sit upright at the edge of the desk, it’s as inert as a biology class anatomical model.]

Am I right about how your powers work? That is, you don’t literally become invisible: you manipulate our perceptions to make yourself seem invisible.
diablotin: (08)

[personal profile] diablotin 2024-06-18 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
[ Aisha stares sadly at the useless, dumb skeleton. With feeling, ]

Yeah, well, fuck you too.

[ As punishment for his betrayals, Alec's lap becomes victim and pillow for Aisha as she throws herself back on the bed, sighing with emphasized melancholgy, throwing a hand over her forehead like a damsel in distress. Her boots kick up onto a beam of Palamedes' bed, marking satisfying dark lines where the rubber and wood connect.

Her face falls to the side, away from Palamedes. He's a liar who has done nothing but betray her over and over, so she lies, ]
Yeah.

[ But truthfully, ] It's not like I have a manual. Can't give you the parahuman equation that spawned Imp.

[ Aisha pulls her mask down, letting it fall over her throat as she asks Alec, ] Is the four-eyes always like this?
anglophone: (001 | corona)

[personal profile] anglophone 2024-07-01 12:31 am (UTC)(link)
[ Alec follows suit in removing his mask, pushing it up and back until he hits the point where he has to unclasp a hidden mechanism to pull it loose and toss it behind him on the bed where he's been pressed into service as another piece of furniture. He shifts his narrow legs a little underneath her, trying to manifest more of a lap than he actually has and mostly succeeding in some light Aisha-jostling.

He settles one hand with unstudied casualness on her side, below her ribcage, and puts the other slightly behind him to prop himself up. ]


Pretty much. But it's not his fault. He was raised in a library by textbooks and skeletons.

He's not trying to figure out your power so he can get one over on you. He's just nosy. I know it seems suspicious, but he's actually a sucker. He puts up with me, so you know it's true.

[ He gives Palamedes a quick glance and a shrug after mounting this stellar defense. ]
hellonspectacles: (Fiat lux!)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2024-07-04 08:06 pm (UTC)(link)
[Palamedes can't really argue with Alec's assessment, and he doesn't try.] 'Academic' is just a fancy word for 'nosy' anyway. We just tend to be nosy about a wider, more esoteric range of subjects.

[He flicks his wrist, and the skeleton becomes a dog, not unlike the ones John has sometimes constructed. It can't do much of anything, either, but it does sit on its haunches and wag its tail.] Though my reasoning isn't entirely impersonal. Alec and I have noticed certain parallels between our abilities, and comparing them has helped us both understand our capabilities and limits.

[He shrugs.] It's interesting.
diablotin: (10)

[personal profile] diablotin 2024-07-11 12:47 am (UTC)(link)
[ The dog doesn't win her over or regain her attention. Aisha's all languid sprawl and smooth contours now, draped comfortably over the bed and Alec in a way that suggests everything here but Palamedes and his weird bone dog have been marked as Permanent Aisha Territory. ]

Yeah. Really interesting.

[ And then, like it's nothing, like it's the weight behind a blink, she's perched in Alec's lap, arms lazily looped around his shoulders — at least until she starts using a hand to emphasize her speech. ]

I can totally see the parallels. You both have a power where you go 'oh, look at me, I'm so powerful, I can control fifty evil henchmen skeletons' — in or out of a nervous system sack, shut up — and then you go, 'please, cooler power user, accept my application so I don't have to be a lonely lame-power loser all by myself, have pity,' and then it's like, bam! You had me going for a second and I have no choice but to admit it, but then the house of cards comes crumbling down because you don't want to sweat a little blood.

[ A sigh. ]

You know what this reminds me of? That time where Alec got lectured because he said he could be a warlord and then totally blew it because he just lounged around with ice-cream and video games all day instead.

Yeah. [ Aisha sighs, nodding sagely, a press of dark cheek to pale forehead as her arms come to retake Alec's neck, ] I see the parallels.