test drive;

[thecommissary]

The game cap is 30 players. We currently have 22 players in game. TDM Guidelines 1. We strongly encourage you to post to the AU Workshop before posting here, just to get your concept out there. Feel free to link to your workshop post in your tag for easy lookup purposes. 2. Threads can be game canon if both players agree to it. 3. No one is late! Consider this a permanent test drive (until captcha is hit, if that happens). We'll be tracking top-levels and drawing attention to new posts. 4. You don't have to use any of the prompts below; feel free to create your own! 5. Don't worry about cell block assignments for the purpose of the TDMm if you haven't chosen one - feel free to keep it vague or retcon the threads a bit later. Prompt 1: Common Room The common room has books, magazines, newspapers, cards, and board games. The television has been out of commission for a while, but oh! Look! It seems like a new TV has been mounted on the wall! And this one's a 32 inch flat screen, a nice substitute for the old broken tube TV someone broke over a Monopoly dispute turned violent. If you decide to watch the TV, the screen cuts to static a few minutes after you start watching and a strange voice starts to speak. It's a soft voice, but with the occasional distortion as if spoken by a person standing too close too a microphone. "Hello there! You must be [CHARACTER NAME]. I think it's about time you got to know somebody a little bit better. Why don't you..." (Choose one of the following options:) "Tell someone something you don't want them to know. It doesn't have to be terribly juicy, as long as you'd prefer not to have told them." "Give one of your fellow inmates a nice hard slap across the cheek." "Be nice. Ask somebody if there's anything you can do for them. Anything at all." "Find someone with a snack, and take it away from them." "Go up to someone you don't know, and ask them what they did." "If you decide to ignore me, or you tell anyone you're not acting of your own free will, the guard beside the magazine stand will send you strait to the SHU for two weeks.. Your choice." No one else in the common room seems to hear the voice except you - although the aforementioned guard sure seems to be staring you down. The other people watching TV continue to react to the show that was playing. Prompt 2: Lockdown Uh-oh. Something bad must have happened, because the entire prison has been put into lockdown without bothering to herd everyone back to their proper blocks. You've been herded into a cell with someone from ANY block, and who knows when you'll be let out. You have a set of bunk beds, a table and chair, a toilet and sink, and two shelves where the inmates who actually reside in that cell have put anything that belongs to them. Now's a good time to get to know your new temporary cellmate. Or pray that you're on good terms, if you already know them. Prompt 3: The Yard It's recreation time! Your daily opportunity for a couple hours of fresh air, if you choose to take it (or if the indoor guards are sick of you and decide you're going outside whether you like it or not). The guards here are primarily concerned with preventing your escape, so if you're not lingering around the fences you'll be watched less than if you were inside. If you're new, weak, or don't have a solid group of allies yet, that also means it's less likely that anyone will help you if someone else decides to pick a fight. Be careful. The outdoor guards to a careful, meticulous sweep of the entire area every night, trying to keep...something out. It seems they were slacking off a bit yesterday: the tiniest sliver of obsidian rock has made its way into the yard undetected and - ow - you've brushed up against it, embedding it somewhere on your body. The shard has imbued you with one of the following effects: The next person who makes eye contact with you can read your thoughts, and you can read theirs. Careful, it might get hard to tell who's who after a while. You suddenly feel frightened and timid, as if everyone in the yard is bigger, stronger, and out to hurt you. You are overcome with the urge to dig into the ground with your bare hands, looking for more of the rocks. The next person you see fills you with rage, and you want to attack them. You become exceptionally suggestible, and will do whatever you're told. You feel a strange euphoria: regardless of how you felt before, the prison now feels like the very best place to be, as if you're at the center of the universe. Regardless of the effect, the shard will slowly start to burn hotter and hotter, compelling you to remove it.

Comments

[souille]

[ Abigail actually manages to laugh at that; the sound is strange to her ears after so long. ]

Let's hope we're both starting as we mean to go on.

[violenti]

[ His brows raise in surprise, but the smile returns. ]

Yeah... that's... a good way of looking at it. Let's hope so. Speaking of going on, if you don't mind my asking: how long are you here?

[souille]

[ The smile fades a little as she's brought back to the reality of her situation. ]

Fifteen years. Hopefully a little less with good behaviour.

[violenti]

Oh? [ Rook waves one hand dismissively, noting the shift in her expression and feeling a little guilty for it. No one wanted to think about the fact they were in prison. ] You've got the right attitude. You'll be out of here before you know it.

[souille]

Maybe. [ She's looks a little pensive now, ruminating on their situation. ] I guess the idea of going back out into a world that will have changed so much, that's daunting in its own way.

[ She supposes it's infinitely preferable to the idea of being here forever, though. ]

[violenti]

You think so? New technology, maybe. A president by a different name. But I think generally things... and people, will be the same as they've always been.

[ Rook settles back, tone easy and intentionally light. ] Even if it's not, a change of pace can be scary, but not bad, right? You might be champing at the bit for some change by then. [ He smiles reassuringly. ]

[souille]

Maybe. I guess we'll see. [ She isn't convinced, especially with how she might struggle to adjust to the outside world after so long, but she knows that he's trying to reassure her and she appreciates it. She tries to match his smile, even if hers looks a little more uncertain. ]

Do you mind if I ask how you went from being a police officer to ending up on this side of the bars? We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. [ She adds the last part quickly, not wanting to stir up a sore subject just to fulfil her curiosity. ]

[violenti]

Hah. [ Rook scrubs a hand through his hair, then smooths it back down in something that seems a nervous habit. ] It's fine. It was all over national news, what's one more person?

[ Casual as he sounds, his gaze is a bit distant, somewhere past Abigail. He remembers several things in quick succession, few of them pleasant. A small, short shake of his head, and his gaze refocuses. ]

There was a cult that set up shop in that county- I think they hired me because they needed more bodies, honestly. The cult bought up any bit of land they could get their hands on, whatever it took: coercion, blackmail. For a long time, they were left alone, arming themselves to the teeth, retrofitting nuclear bunkers for what they called 'the Collapse' - the biblical End of Days, [ He pauses uncomfortably, remembering the flash of nuclear fire, the feel of the aftershock whipping over him - something he was later told was a product of the Bliss. He continues. ] Making some hallucinogenic drug they called Bliss- enough of it turned people into basically braindead, obedient zombies. We were ignorant of most of it, and a lot of the folks thought they were harmless. Just a weird religious group. First amendment, right?

[ Rook makes a face, mouth tugging into a thin line. ] Sorry, don't know if you want that much information. Anyway, a couple of videos surfaced online that managed to convince a judge to issue an arrest warrant for their leader, Joseph. A federal marshal comes in, and most of the sheriff's department - mind you, there were only four of us, Hope County is about as rural as you get - go in to arrest this man, and it was my job to put the cuffs on him. The rookie deputy, barely out of academy. We start to take off in the chopper we flew in there, and it- it goes bad. The chopper goes down, the cult members take every one of my friends. Joseph said it had triggered the Collapse, said the cult had to begin 'the Reaping' - basically, everything they had been doing, just a lot more violently and openly. The marshal and I escaped into the woods—

[ Rook stops again, giving a short laugh at himself. ] I'm sorry, you probably want the short version, huh?

[souille]

[ Abigail shrugs, feeling a little bad that he'd thought to apologise. ]

I've got nothing but time, after all.

[ It sounds surreal to her, cults preaching about the end of days, but then she's seen enough crazy in her own life to believe him. ]

[violenti]

I suppose that's true. [ Rook shrugs in return, offering a sheepish smile. ]

Well, then- the Marshal and I escaped into the woods, and met up together, jacked one of the cult's trucks and tried to flee back to Missoula to get the national guard in. That... went about as well as the helicopter had gone, and we ended up in the river. The marshal ended up taken too. I washed up on shore a ways down from him, and was found by this prepper... a lot of people up there are preppers, folks with bunkers and weapons and nonperishable food to last whatever kind of apocalypse comes their way. I guess that's why the cult picked Hope County.

After two different crashes and damn near drowning, I was out for a while. By the time I woke up, the peggies were broadcasting about their 'Collapse' and their 'Reaping'. They'd taken over towers, jammed signals, blocked all roads in and out of the county. Like I said, Hope County is pretty rural, surrounded by mountains. It didn't take much. We couldn't send for help. I found evidence later of people that had tried to fly out in chartered planes and had been shot down.

The leaders of the cult pushed out their own broadcasts instead, pure propaganda. They put my friends - the other deputies, and the marshal - on the screens. One of them had his face beat black and blue, one had duct tape on her mouth, one was drugged so much he had no concept of reality anymore. Dutch said - he was the prepper that picked me up off the riverbank, sorry - he said that we could fight back, folk just needed someone to show them the way, and I... I don't know. Something snapped in me, I guess. Maybe it was cathartic, hurting the people who had hurt me, and my friends, and the people I knew. I guess I thought it was easier to gun my way through the cult than try and sneak out to find help.

In any case, eventually people did get out, and get help. The cult's leader and I were- well, they arrested him. Later in the hospital, they arrested me, too. I killed a lot of people, I won't deny that. Maybe some of them didn't need killing. Hell, maybe most of them. But the things that cult did to innocent people... [ Rook shakes his head, gaze directed at the floor. ]

To a lot of people, what I did was just another Ruby Ridge, another Waco. Just the law flexing its power over folk that are just trying to live in their own way. If cops had left them alone, nothing bad would've happened. To a lot more, I guess I'm too dangerous to be around normal people. Might snap and decide I want to kill more people, and maybe this time they'll be innocent. [ A resigned shrug. ] A lot of people defended me. I don't know if they should have or not. They convicted me of I don't know how many cases of 'deliberate mitigated homicide'... I think most other states call it voluntary manslaughter. Self-defense, but excessive force.

[ He leaves out a lot of details. Details about firsthand knowledge of the effects of Bliss, about being classically conditioned and brainwashed. He leaves out details, too, about what the cult had done to people, the ways they'd been slaughtered and tortured.

Rook spreads his hands with a grim sort of 'ta da' air. ]

And that is the story about how a cop became a convicted criminal.

[souille]

[ There's a lot to take in there, though she's grateful for the detail he's given, especially as she's been quite tight-lipped herself. There is a part of her that finds the idea of the cult just a little fascinating, even as dangerous as Rook describes them, though she figures that probably says more about herself and her desperate desire to belong to anything at all. But the situation itself sounds awful, and she's sure that Rook only did what he had to in order to survive. ]

That sounds insane. You have to be seriously tough to get through something like that. For what it's worth, it doesn't sound like the sort of thing you should have to spend the rest of your life behind bars for.

[violenti]

[ Rook is quiet, and despite his mostly neutral expression, something about him seems surprised at her answer.

It's... a nice sentiment. Useless to his situation, but he appreciates the affirmation that he was doing what he thought was right, and that other people saw that. ]

Well, whatever lets folks sleep at night, I suppose. A devil can't hurt you if he's in prison. But... thank you.