trans_9 | What is Love? [Valentine's Date Event]

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What is Love? [Valentine's Date Event]

It's shaping up to be another average day on the Transmigration 9. Crew members are going about their business as usual and all is (to most appearances, at least) about as "well" as things ever are on the ship.

Some crew members are going to be stopped out of the blue by impact with a force field.

"Attention Crewmen: You have been chosen to participate in an experiment!" GLaDOS's voice informs. They're not alone, someone else that was nearby is also caught within the same narrow radius. "Participation is mandatory. Please try to relax and enjoy the experience, as this will improve the quality of the test results."

Clearly this is going to be a wonderful day for science.

"You and your new scientific partner are now on a date," GLaDOS goes on. "As it would be detrimental to our study of the date experience if you were to be separated, you must remain close to your partner for the duration of the experiment. This will be enforced with the Transmigration 9 Crewman Containment Field. Prolonged exposure to the Transmigration 9 Crewman Containment Field may have unexpected side-effects. While any side-effects encountered will be documented and your desire to offer yourself to science is commendable, it is not a necessary part of this experiment."

"You will be informed when the test has been completed. We would like to thank you in advance for your full cooperation in the experiment and failure to attempt to foil it in any way."

"The experiment has begun, so you may begin dating."

[OOC: The exact details of your characters' confinement are up to players' discretion. Being trapped in a sensorium or other stationary place is a possibility, as is being stuck in a sort of roving invisible force field hamster ball that only affects the two of you. How far partners can move apart is probably subject to whatever's fun but they ideally shouldn't be able to sit on opposite sides of a room ignoring one another the whole time.

ICly the "test" lasts for a few hours and you are free to godmode GLaDOS telling them the experiment is finished.

If you would like a few tags from GLaDOS herself in your thread, ping me on this account or plurk or AIM or whatever is most convenient for you. :)]

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"Oh yes, there's a few of us running around. I barely see the others, though. For some reason, they all think I'm crazy!" He wasn't denying it, though.

"We're supposed to stay together. Maybe we'll be allowed to move if we do that?"

"We can always give it a go and find out." Who knows, maybe it would actually work! If not, well, he thinks he has a deck of cards somewhere in his sporran. After a few seconds of thought, he nods off to his left, and takes a few steps towards the edge of the forcefield on that side.

"Let's try this way and see what happens."

Good tank that he is, Mar put his best face forward and stepped into the spot he was certain would flatten his nose on the field keeping them caged in.

It didn't! "Ha! Phase 2 of the bad date begins! The MOVING phase, every melee fighter's favorite!"

Jamie shoots him a look at that, eyebrow slightly raised at the odd statement, then shakes his head and starts to walk. It's a slow process, giving him a chance to sync up with Mar so they can avoid bumping into the forcefield.

"Right. Let's see if we can get somewhere. How would ye feel about trying to get to the tavern? I think it's a wee bit closer from here."

And a drink might not be a bad idea right about now, either.

"Sure, I'm fine with that!" Mar said, even as he walked with a hand forward to keep checking on the force field's progress. If it stopped moving, he'd rather discover that with his fingers than his face... as used to that sort of punishment as his face was.

Luckily, smooth sailing was ahead!

Smooth sailing it was - at least, until they reach the tavern, and Jamie goes to take a seat. He would have thought it was close enough - he could still talk to the elf from there, after all - but the forcefield had other ideas. Try as he might, he's slowly nudged off the stool he wanted, and onto the next one over, much closer to Mar than before. "Och."

Another scowl up at the ceiling, and he turns back to Mar. "So what are ye having then...er. Sorry. I've not asked your name, or even told ye mine, have I? I'm Jamie. Jamie McCrimmon."

This wasn't something Mar was bothered by. On the one hand, people get a lot closer in the middle of pitched combat; on the other, all that armor he's wearing goes a long way to discouraging intimacy!

"Maridian, Sin'dorei, Blood Knight, Crusader, Kingslayer, the Hallowed... and the list goes on, and on. Funny thing, the denizens of Azeroth got very generous with bestowing titles upon their heroes of late."

"So I see," he replies - a touch dryly - as he picks up a tankard that's been placed on the bar. He doesn't really remember Ronnae having quite so many of those. But, well, maybe she does, and it's just he never asked.

"So why so many, then? Are there that many beasties that you've have to fight that you've distinguished yourself and gotten them or is it just they decided ye should have a whole lot of titles for some reason or other?"

Edited 2012-03-09 05:48 (UTC)

"Oh, well, in large part it's because every time there's an Azerothian holiday, I'm out there in the forefront. But some of them are actually notable titles. Killing the Lich King, that was a good thing," he said without any particular boastfulness.

"They give out titles for holidays?" That sounds daft to him, but he chooses to take a drink from his tankard rather than actually say that out loud. The Lich King, on the other hand...well, okay. The King part he understands, but that first word Mar said? He doesn't have a clue. And that's less easy for him to keep to himself.

"Oh, aye, of course. What's a Lit-ch?"

"Sure! For example, to earn the title 'the Hallowed', on Hallow's End I had to save Tirisfal from the Headless Horseman, kill said Headless Horseman, travel across two continents and a shattered world trick-or-treating, detonate rotten eggs over an entire city, kill ten Alliance opponents, and eat candy till I got sick," he recited with a distant smile. Fond memories.

"Liches are undead spellcasters, though the Lich King is a lot more complicated of an entity."

"And here I thought that wearing costumes and doing that trick-or-treating thing was hard enough," comments Jamie wryly. "It must take ye months to get through all that."

Well, except for the eating candy until you get sick part. That doesn't sound like it would take so long, really. "So does this Lit..er, Lich King have anything to do with the holidays or is that more complicated too?"

"That's a little complicated, so let's just say no. I mean, technically, Hallow's End is a celebration by the Forsaken of their escape from his mental control, but the holiday is really divorced from its origins." After all, why did ALL OF AZEROTH celebrate that? It was just an excuse to eat candy, that's why!

"M-mental control?" That's something that hits a little too close to home for him, and he swallows heavily for a moment. But, no, wait. Mar said that he defeated him, didn't he?

"So how did ye manage to win against him if he was strong enough to control a group of people?"

"Well, at the moment of our deaths, Tirion Fordring -- the paladin and wielder of Ashbringer, who'd been there with us but got frozen in an ice block right at the start of the fight -- smashed Frostmourne, and all the souls that the Lich King had imprisoned in it escaped. They pinned him down, Terenas Menethil resurrected us, and we beat the holy hell out of him."

Was that an entirely-too-simple explanation?

"O-oh, aye. I see." Too simple or not, it seems to have worked. Jamie looks a touch taken aback at the idea of dying and coming back to life...but he's a bit impressed as well. "Ye look pretty good for someone who's been dead. I would have expected ye to be a bit more...um, well, rotted, if ye don't mind my saying so."

"Oh no, that's only the Forsaken, who are pretty much walking undead in every sense of the word you'd understand it," he said cheerfully. "We die a lot. But Azeroth has a questionable relationship with the afterlife, so it's usually possible for someone with enough strength of will to be raised from the dead."

Jamie's eyebrows disappear into his bangs for a moment. "Only the Forsaken, ye say." He's vaguely tempted to ask if they want to swallow people's souls like the one that had gotten into the Vatican so long ago, but the elf seems perfectly fine with the idea of walking undead. So either they're not that bad...or maybe Mar really is crazy and simply doesn't care.

Considering he can still see the forcefield out of the corner of his eye, he decides that maybe that's a conversation he'd rather not have. Instead, he says, "Aye, well, Azeroth sounds like a very interesting place. I'd like to see it sometime."

Why is that an 'or', Jamie? "Well, death knights are also undead, but they're animated in a different way, so you wouldn't entirely know it to look at them. I mean, if you ever see my sister, you tell me if you think she's a corpse from a distance."

This sort of cue seemed like it should be immediately followed by said sister walking through the door, so he looked over expectantly. When she didn't, he gave a little shrug and paid it no more mind. "Well, Azeroth's probably destroyed now, but there's always the sensorium."

Because maybe he's trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, Mar. Or isn't 100% convinced about the crazy yet. Your pick.

"Your sister? Oh, is she here as well?" He follows Mar's glance over to the door, completely expecting her to walk through as well. But since there's no one there, he supposes she's not - or, at least, not at the moment, and finishes his drink.

"Aye, let's go over there then. I'll not mind having a look while we're waiting for GLaDOS to decide we've had enough of a date. Are ye ready?"

"I really hope she doesn't have a fixed expectation of what a successful date is." Mar slammed back his own drink, dropped the mug down, and stood. "Because I am not breaking out a simulated Romantic Picnic Basket unless there's a proto-drake involved."

That sounded horribly wrong, Mar...

"I'll not mind if ye leave romantic picnic baskets out of it as well. The only person I'd care to have one of those for is Victoria."

He doesn't know what a whatsit-drake would have to do with that anyway. And he gets the idea that maybe too many questions there would only lead to something he'd rather not care to hear. So, it's off to the Sensoriums - a little faster than before, now that he's got the hang of moving with the forcefields down. Once they're there, he gestures at the doorway, a clear invitation to let Mar go first. He can always go think up his own session later on. This one isn't for him to decide.

Mar always liked it when the escort mobs moved at a pace faster than 'a slow mosey', so he kept pace perfectly. When he entered...

That was when the sensorium projected a massive snow plain around them. The two of them stood on a broken road, their backs to a cliff where it seemed the road had once stretched out before a bridge crumbled in long-past ages. In front of them, Wyrmrest Temple stretched into the sky, red dragons wheeling around it.

"Hey, would ye look at the size of that!" comments Jamie, clearly impressed by the sight of the massive temple. It looks to stretch clear into the sky, the top far enough above him that he has to peer at the flying figures circling it. It takes him a minute to think as to what they might be, but there's not too many things with that general shape that can fly. And even Jamie's seen the odd dragon now, thanks to the ship. But he's not completely sure. So, of course, he has to ask.

"Are those...dragons?"

"Yes. This is Wyrmrest Temple, where the five Dragonflights meet in as much peace and harmony as they can ever manage. Though that's kind of... not happening right now. The Blue Dragonflight is assaulting it, to keep its red dragon protectors from interfering with their destructive work at the Blue Dragonshrine."

He pointed to the left, where a massive column of energy rose up into the sky from a spot hidden behind hills and raised ground. Blue dragons, over there, flew defensive circles around the spot where the light must rise from.

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