flawedmemes | TEST DRIVE MEME

TEST DRIVE MEME

01. ARRIVING IN PELEA
A cold wind singing down from the white-capped mountains which hang blue-black in the distance stirs your cheek, the tall grass all around you. A bough creaks as the wind makes it tremble, and the dappled shadows drift over you, leaves rustling. As you blink awake, you hear the quiet hiss of water over stones. You are not where you once were!

You and a large group of strangers are blinking awake, pulling yourselves up off the dirt, grass, and rubble near a small wooded stream. There is no evidence of civilization in sight, and as you exchange stories you realize that you must decide what to do.

Will you head past the trees and towards the mountains? Deeper into the forest? Stay put and wait for help to arrive? You might even try to meet everyone else, and either convince them to band together... or head their separate ways.

02. CITY SLICKER
There are many cities throughout the world of Pelea, and in most player characters, the Flaws, are welcomed as curiosities. From the pastoral villages or bustling, grand cities of Shousal to the massive, sprawling bureaucratic centers of the Empire, your characters will find a wide variety of cultures and races to interact with and investigate. They could be seeking empoyment, answers to the mystery of their arrival, or a quiet place to drink away their worries.

03. WILDCARD!

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Charles grunted as the voice pierced through the foggy clouds of sleep that he was still clinging to. He felt like he was waking from an opium dream, but, last he checked - last he checked he'd just grabbed a prize and was on the Ranger, on route back to Nassau.

As he wakes, he spreads his hands, and. Grass? Dirt? Cold and wet, and the smell. He grunts again.

"Doesn't smell like the ocean," he says, his voice raw as it always is. Then, it comes to him - he didn't recognize the voice that spoke to him, and he certainly knew every single voice on his crew, on his ship. He blinked his eyes open, squinting at the sun above.

He's on the ground. And the man, sitting next to him, is not only a stranger, he's also wearing the most peculiar outfit Charles had ever seen.

"The fuck are you?"

It wasn't the ocean at all, which was just as well. Harper had been on the ocean before and it had never suited him. It had a peculiar way of sending him off to places he didn't want to be, filled with Frenchmen in need of having a few pullet shoved up their arses. A great big bloody forest view was just as well.

"Irish," he answered proudly. "Here, no doubt you'll be wanting some of this."

He held out his rum-filled canteen to his new friend. Share and share alike, as they might say. On the other side of him, his baker rifle was lying in the grass with one hand firmly resting over it protectively.

Still squinting, his head pounding, Charles sat up, taking stock of his weapons. His musket was gone, but he still had his dagger and his sabre. Will have to do.

Irish had a canteen in front of Charles' face, and he took it, sniffing it before taking a swig. That, at least, was like home - cheap rum was apparently universal. Deliberately, he pulled the lid on the canteen, handing it back to Irish.

And the next second, his dagger was out and digging straight between Irish's ribs, right under his heart - he'd bleed out in a few hours - as Charles pulled close, whispering straight into Irish's ear.

"I'll ask again. Who the fuck are you, and what did you do to me?"

He might not have been pricked yet, but the threat was evident enough. With an incredible patience and restraint, the large Ulsterman settled his full attention on the Englishman. He spoke smoothly and calmly, though not with an ounce of fear. He'd rather be gutted than give anyone English that much satisfaction.

"Patrick Harper, sir. And I didn't do a bloody thing, save for keeping the flies off your stinking British corpse. Now, if you go and prick me with that, I'll have to rip that sour head of yours off and you won't make a pretty sight for the lasses like that."

Charles snorted at the threat, tilting his head as he considered his options. He wasn't scared of the man, not even with the obviously advanced weapon he didn't even try to conceal at his side. Fear was a choice, one that Charles extremely rarely made.

He pressed the blade a little closer - he also wasn't afraid to use it, but he also didn't want to do it if there was no reason for it. Unknowing of where he was, he couldn't be sure of the consequences. "If you didn't do anything, then why am I here, and not on my ship, with my crew?"

Charles almost pressed on, but as the last dregs of sleep were leaving him and his mind grew clearer, it seemed impossible that this man, that Charles had never even seen in his entire life, could have embarked on his ship, and kidnapped him without anyone seeing him, especially not Charles himself. No, it didn't seem to make sense.

Then what? He'd been going through the prize with the bookkeeper and Jack, had snapped a gold bracelet on his wrist...

He looked at his hand. The bracelet was still there. Swallowing hard, he didn't quite pull away from knifing Harper in the side, but his line of questioning changed. "All right, say I believe you. Where are we?"

"I know as much as you do, sir, and that's the truth of it there."

He had in fact considered putting a knife to this man's throat and doing the same before he even woke up, but had thought the rum would do a better job of loosening his tongue. In the end, neither alcohol or blades seemed to be getting them much of anywhere.

"I was lying right there, only some minutes ago." He pointed out a flat patch of grass some yards away. "Before that, I was with the army, sleeping out under the stars after a hard day's march, so I was."

It took some effort, instinct making Charles want to keep threatening Irish, purely a show of strength, but he ended up pulling away. He sat back a pace, his eyes trained on the man next to him, his weapon, his straight back. Charles produced a cigarillo from his pocket and lit it, letting the smoke fill his mouth, sweet tasting.

"You're a soldier, huh," he said in a grumble, eyes unwavering. He could be lying through his teeth, but the sum of the facts still wouldn't make any sense; not just the impossibility of a kidnapping, but also Irish's attire. "Do you know who I am?"

Everybody, in his world, knew who he was, from Boston to Havana to London, through the West Indies.

Patrick gave a somber nod and paid the smoke no mind.

"A Brit," he answered. "It's fine luck for you I'm such a good Catholic, else you might've not woke at all."

This was to say, he didn't know this man at all. He looked like the sort of snarling scoundrel that recruiting officers would go about snatching up to be enlisted, so men like Harper could make decent soldiers out of them. He idly wondered how many lashings this man would have to go through before he gained some proper army discipline of his own.

Charles sat there for a while, silent, assessing, smoking his cigarillo. He felt no urgency, even though their surroundings were entirely unknown to him, and danger could have been waiting around the trunk of any tree.

A Brit. He was barely that. He'd never really been a Brit; he'd never known a life like so many others had, like Jack had, like Flint had. He definitely had no love for the Crown.

"Wrong," Charles eventually said. "I'm my own man, I don't answer to any King. I don't answer to any man but myself."

Harper had a chuckle at that. "Well heaven save us all, you've got some sense in you." He lifted his canteen. "Here's to the king."

He drank once more, already seeming to have forgotten the whole incident with the knife already.

Charles tipped his head at the cheer, resisting spitting in the grass. He wondered - were His Majesty's Navy out here, too?

After a moment, he stands, trying to orient himself. There's a stream, a forest, mountains, and there's no reason for him to go anywhere else than towards the water. He starts walking, and then hesitates, turns around.

"Coming, Irish?"

He'd rather been hoping to find his own captain rolling about in the grass somewhere, but Richard Sharpe was nowhere to be seen. So after giving a thoughtful grimace, Harper rose and fell into step with his rifle about his shoulder.

"Bloody clever of you," he commented dryly, "picking that name for me. Never had that happen before."

"I'm glad you think I give a shit of your opinion of my creativity," Charles retorts just as dryly, starting to walk determinedly towards the stream. He's very aware of the time of day, and the fact that he's somewhere that is most definitely not the West Indies, and he doesn't have a coat to combat cold.

"But I'd rather get a move on and maybe find something to have for dinner rather than try and bring myself to care, since we'd starve to death before it happened."

TEST DRIVE MEME

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