monsterooc | TDM #1;

TDM #1;

TEST DRIVE
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one; a rough morning

[The TDM will not be game canon, except for the very first part where characters awaken and interact with the nurse. The prompts will be the same every month in order to keep all the focus and attention on the events in the game itself!]

You wake up dazed and confused, laying on what appears to be a metal cot tucked in the corner of a room, a single window is beaming it's sunlight from the wall right beside you. The room is very small, with only the one bed walled off by curtains that drape from the middle of the room to separate it from the rest of the world. The air smells dusty, with a hint of something metallic that lingers in the back of your throat. You feel tired, and weak. Head dizzy, face warm, and you can't move any part of your body except for the eyes. Panic starts to set in, when you realize that no matter how hard you try to move a leg, or an arm, there's absolutely no response from your body whatsoever. But thankfully or not, you aren't left alone with that panic for long.

You can hear the sound of rifling through drawers. A pause. And then a soft, yet husky voice calls out to you from the other side of the curtain: "Hang on there sweetie, I'll be right with you."

Not a moment passes before a large, clawed hand reaches in through your curtain and grabs hold of the fabric. For a moment, your heart is caught in your throat. You try to get up, to run, but you couldn't get away in time even if you could move. In only seconds, the hand throws the fabric aside to reveal...

...an older looking woman, at least from the head to the middle of her torso. But what's connected to her torso is what startles you the most.

She has the tail of a snake, a corn snake with her colors bright and vibrant as the ones you've seen in pictures. Within her arms is a clipboard and pen, which she picks up and clicks to begin writing something down.

"Well hello there, dear. I'm Ms. Morgan and you're wondering why you can't move, right? That would be my fault, I'm afraid. Until I can get you checked out properly, I've paralyzed you so you don't freak out and make things worse for me."

She continues to write, until hitting the bottom of the page. From there she flips it over, and checks off a few more things.

"While I've got you here, I can at least tell you a little bit about what's going on. It's a long story, but within the last decade a deathly plague has been cropping up here and there. It'll get any critter, whether they're covered in fur or scales, and no one understands where it came from or how we can get rid of it. Our top brains tried and tried to find a way to help the ill, but every single time ended with a failure and another broken heart.

We've really done about everything we could think of, and we'd given up hope for a couple of years. But just recently there's been a breakthrough, and someone had the bright idea to mix foreign DNA with ours and see if any of it could make some kind of cure. I don't really get it, myself but I'm desperate enough to do anything."

Without warning, Ms. Morgan raises her gaze towards you and you're suddenly able to use your limbs again. Though, you feel like you've got pins and needles in every single inch of your body and it makes it a little hard to properly move anything at first.

"But that's where you come in. Before you woke up, I had injected you with a little bit of the plague, and a little bit of somethin' special to help your body acclimate to it better. Our uh.. "leader".. wants to observe your symptoms for a little while, so you're quarantined to this big building for now.

I wouldn't recommend trying to leave, anyway. It's so dang foggy outside that without a guide, you'll be wandering around for weeks."

The older woman then turns the clipboard to face you, and shoves it towards you with the pen. It's a stat page, by the looks of it. Things like your height, weight, and descriptors of what you look like. At the bottom of the page is a line for a signature.

"Now if you wouldn't mind... could you sign this paper? It won't matter much at the end of the day, since you don't really have a choice about something that already happened, but it shows us who is and isn't willing to participate in finding a cure. Aka: who is and isn't going to be a pain in the ass."

You can take the paper and sign it, or you may refuse. Either way, she'll take the clipboard back and start to usher you up from the bed and towards the door.

"I know all of this is a little overwhelming and unfair, but I'm going to warn you that if you start going on some rampage the moment you leave this room you're not going to like what'll happen to 'ya! You'll be thrown in detention for the smaller stuff, but if you do something real bad then you'll get expelled... which is just a fancy word around here for executed.

So be careful out there, sweetie. Don't get into any trouble."

As soon as you are out the door, you are met with about 30 other people standing in a crowd. You begin to scan their faces, one by one. They look about as confused as you do, and the closer you look the more you notice. A number, printed onto the skin of those standing around you. On his cheek, her neck, their arm...

....where's yours?

two; and there was only one bed

It's time to hit the sack after a long, confusing day and you've been given a number and a letter to find your assigned room. Lucky monsters will find themselves with their own room, a single bed that only has accommodations for one. The less lucky will find themselves with one roommate, two beds fit snugly inside. And the unluckiest will have to live in the bunk-bed rooms, which can have two to six bunks in one room. Each room has one bathroom attached, the bigger rooms with more beds will have two. Every room will have dressers and cabinets for storage and a closet to hang clothes.

You'll have to learn to live in peace and share with your roommates, otherwise snide comments and petty arguments are going to be pretty tough to avoid in such cramped rooms! You can always trade rooms if you make friends outside of your dorm, there's no rules about swapping or sleeping over as long as you get a decent amount of sleep every night.

If you're a little hungry, you can head over to the cafeteria to get yourself some grub. From raw meat, bags of blood, and piles of freshly cleaned bones to crisp vegetables and fruits, impossible meat in any form you can think of, and sweets upon sweets made with all sorts of ingredients to accommodate any diet. It's a buffet style room that's serve your own everything, there's even soft serve stations!

There's a curfew for when you're allowed to get yourself something to eat, and when you're supposed to be going to bed. However, if you stay up late the only punishment you'll be privy to is having to go to class with only an hour of sleep.

The curfew, for those curious, looks like this:

DINING HOURS - 6 AM to 10 PM
BEDTIME - 11 PM

three; something's changing

It's been about 3 days since you'd been pricked in the arm with that mysterious liquid, and it seemed like it was any normal shot you would have had to take before entering a new school. No side effects besides a little swelling, at the beginning. But after day three you begin to feel... strange. And you realize that this isn't any old injection.

Shivering, sweating, and a little headache begin to settle and not long after is when your body will begin to change. For some it's extremely painful, but for the lucky it almost seems to work like magic with no feeling to it whatsoever. It may lasts seconds, it may last days, but slowly and surely new limbs start to pop out of your body. Maybe you grow a foot or two in height, or shrink down to six inches tall? There's unfortunately no way to stop it from happening, but that's why you're all at this Academy! If you ever wondered why there were so many creatures that staffed the halls of this school... there's your answer.

They're here to teach you about your new anatomy, and if your changes are bringing you too much pain you can go to the Nurse's office and she can help you through them with painkillers, bandages, ice/heating pads, kisses on your booboos or just a place to take a nap for a few hours until it's all (hopefully) over.

Head on over to the Monster Page to see what monsters you can play around with! The Unlocked monsters will be available as the game progresses!

four; put to the test

In the early hours of a particularly foggy Monday, every student and teacher will hear the voice of what sounds to be six different people speaking at once, in the same tone and infliction in order to unify into one voice. It's unfamiliar, a voice belonging to someone you haven't yet seen. Not that it's known for sure, but it belongs to the Headmaster of Monster Heights. An Angel who views the new monsters as children, creatures they personally gave life to. Their tone gives off that vibe entirely, sounding amused and warm like a loving parent.

Good morning, new friends. It's been about... oh... two weeks, shall we say? Since you were scooped up from your little homes and brought into our loving arms? Two weeks since the beginning of new life, the beginning of new possibilities and yet some of you have really been causing such a ruckus. Arguing with teachers, refusing to cooperate, always wanting to leave and find your way home...

Their voice trails off, and they end with a weary sigh. They shift into a tone of empathy, but at the same time they sound... patronizing. And it's hard to tell if it's on purpose.

We get it. We really do. You don't understand this environment or the vision we have for you, and you would probably rather be somewhere familiar instead.

Trust us, our children. As would we. We only have the energy for plucking you out of your habitats, but we are working on a way to put you back in. It may take days... or months... but we will let you go back. One day.

In the meantime, we must begin your curriculum. And what better way to start than a fitness test? What can you do, now that you're different than before? And what will you improve after a year of learning, growing, and experiencing with your mentors?

We can't wait to see.

It's time for your first test! Every now and then, the students will be asked to perform a few physical tasks in order to see how well adjusted they become to their new bodies. There will be tests to see how high, far, and fast monsters are able to fly. How powerful their magic is. How well they're able to see in the dark, how fast they can run. All these and more will be held all around the Academy, and every time a student finishes a test they are given a "Good Job!" sticker to put somewhere on their body. Each color coded to which test was performed. If you gather all stickers, you may win a prize!*

*prizes vary from a plastic trophy to a foam #1 finger and many other novelty toys made for children who win competitions

**characters who become teachers may help with testing! but they also will be able to take the tests themselves and win prizes

five; a helping hand

Either you were asked to help out, were dragged along because you looked useful, or you asked directly yourself if you could help. There's a noticeable lack of teachers, janitors, cooks, and pretty much any other staff member you could think of so once the existing staff realized that some of the new arrivals fit the bill for what they needed they quickly sprang into getting all the helping hands they could.

You're brought to the faculty room, a large break room that's more like two rooms together, fitted with a conference table as well as a little lounge with two couches, a tv, and a water cooler with hot water options as well. There's a little kitchen that has a microwave, coffee and tea pots, sink, and a fridge. Luckily, the power will never go out in here as everything is powered with magic instead of actual electricity!

On the conference table, there's a large gift basket full of those edible fruit-on-a-stick bouquets with a 'Welcome, new faces!' note set neatly on the table in front of it. Some of the fruit kebabs are dipped in chocolate, some of them are plain!

Teachers are given an assigned classroom, a schedule, and a pamphlet that shows them generally what to expect as a teacher. They choose exactly what they want to teach, but there's usually an obvious reason why they were picked. Someone who arrives with a pair of wings might be asked to teach flying, for example.

There's uniforms for janitors and chefs, and the nurse's aids will be given their own personal first aid kids. Every job has their own little crash-course, and everyone with a job will be expected to still take classes about their new monster body parts and powers. They'll have to juggle their own schedules, picking times out of their jobs to take a class or two. They may also opt to take classes on their days off, as there are always classes being taught every day of the week.

code bases by tricklet

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

((OOC: Canon point is during but before the end of the final battle of Gideon the Ninth. I will avoid spoilers if you indicate a wish for it in your reply, and match format to either action or prose! CWs and opt out are here.))

I. I Tried, And Therefore No One May Criticize Me
Gideon cuts into Ms. Morgan's little convocation so many times that the Naga freezes her again so that she can finish. It only serves to make her blood boil hotter, just as it had what seemed like eons ago when Harrowhark had thrashed her soundly on the shuttle launch and thwarted her escape. Only now, as she was finally given authority over her bones and the sundry attached meat, Gideon wasn't running away from Harrow, but toward. There was too much at stake, and besides that...

Well, never mind what besides. She threw the doors open and beheld a bunch of motley folk, scowling. "Okay, assholes, out of my way. Unless you're Cohort and know where the shuttles are."

Five minutes and several thrown punches later, Gideon stood In Detention, already casing the door to see what she could do with the lock.

"Amateurs," the broad-shouldered teen with the ginger mohawk and smeared skull paint snorted, pushing a pair of massive mirrored sunglasses up on her forehead for a closer look. "They don't even guve you ankle monitors. Out in a minute, two tops."

An even more substantial scabbard was slung across her back - empty, as they'd confiscated it when they locked her up - and she wore black robes that made her look as though she'd mistaken this for ... well ... a different large gothic castle of a school. At least at first blush this one seemed far less terfy. She glanced over her shoulder at whoever might happen to be sharing the cell.

"Just don't be a douchebag and rat me out."

II. Is This Real Life?
The cafeteria was practically a wet dream for someone who had spent ninety-nine percent of her seventeen years shoveling down gruel and slurping over-processed and refiltered water. Gideon's eyes nearly popped out of their black-painted sockets as she meandered the buffet, piling one of everything that wasn't clearly meant for monsters on a tray. Eventually she needed a second. By the time she reached the desserts, she was starting to wish there was a bone adept around to make a couple of constructs to help her carry more.

Stopping in front of the soft serve machine, Gideon squinted.

"Hey," she said to the first hapless person or mobster who happened to pass by. "What's this for?"

III. I Warned You About Stairs (transformation cw: head trauma, gore, body horror)
She's dragging her heels to class when the first transformations start. There's a sharp pain in her head, and Gideon drops her bag as she reaches up to clutch her temples. Almost immediately, she pulls her hands away, just in time to avoid being gored by two enormous horns that erupt out and down in thick, sweeping curves. Short fur sprouts starting at her collar bone, making her skin a seething, burning mass of itchy pinpricks, and she only manages to blurt out -

"Oh, shi---"

Then her legs crumple beneath her as her leg bones start to rearrange, femur splitting, sectioning off an extra jut of bone that pushes her legs, skin stretching like a small latex glove over a massive hand, her tibia and fibula shifting and fusing into some cursed metatarsal as her patellas rotate around to the back and rearrange and stretch and twist into something new she doesn't know a word for, something - well, duh, Nav - inhuman.

She tries to endure it - she's felt worse - but Gideon's legs are also sprouting new nerves and muscles, which twitch involuntarily and send her tumbling down the stairs. Instead of screaming in pain, Gideon fills her lungs and hollers:

"FuuuuuckHeyLookOutHotMessIncoming!"

IV: Wildcard
((Wanna spar? Comb the library for dirty comic books with a thirsty space lesbian? Trade class notes? ??? Profit?))

"HEYWatchWhereYou'reGoing!" Shionne's matching Gideon with mashing words together, and yelling them at max volume. She just manages to plaster herself flat against the wall as the mess of monster and person goes tumbling by, though Shionne still flinches at just how close of a call that was.

...Honestly. People should look BOTH ways before falling down the stairs.

She stays against the wall for a few more second. Then gives another wince when she adds up how many stairs that was. And whatever was happening to the person who fell down. She COULD just keep climbing the stairs, but that doesn't sit right.

"Here's a suggestion." She calls down the stairs, while carefully picking her way along the steps. "You don't make any more sudden movements... And I can try healing you."

"I WAS watching," Gideon said, cross yet muffled from her position on the floor. "It didn't mean I could actually do anything about it other than holler at you. ... Are you a flesh adept or something? Not that I couldn't use it. Whatever just happened seriously did a number on my legs."

She paused, realizing she was just lying there with her arse in the air and not really able to defend herself. Aiglamene would be having an actual cow if she could see her... and if the ancient nun even knew what a cow was.

"Let's make that sudden movement thing a mutual agreement and you've got a deal."

"Fine by me... But I've never heard of a flesh adept before."

If anything, the name put an odd shiver down her spine. Didn't exactly sound pleasant... But then again, neither is the sight at the bottom of the stairs. She was not entirely certain human legs were supposed to bend that way, exactly... And the horns were going to take some getting used to as well.

But she still steadied herself; no flinching away from this. She hated it enough when thatwas the reaction she got. Shionne paused on the last step, and put her hand out.

"I just know how to handle healing artes... It'll at least take care of the bruises, and should mend any cuts."

"Yeah, flesh adept," Gideon said with a brusque sort of cheerfulness, taking the offered hand and wrangling herself into a sitting position. At least the change wasn't doing any harm to her biceps. Since this stranger was (a) pretty easy on the eyes and (b) offering to help, she decided she could lower her guard a little.

"S'what we call a person who can heal skin, muscles, you know. Squishy bits. ... Thanks for the hand. I'm Gideon."

Huh-!? WOAH!

[ Incoming teen? Incoming high velocity teen!?

Ky manages to dodge Gideon at the last minute, reaching one hand out and pulling the girl back by the color of her shirt before she could faceplant into the floor. ]

Language! I mean... Pardon my reach but are you quite alright!?

Nice catch, but no bad touch, or I'll kick your arse.

[not that she could actually stand, but details. he didn't know that ... yet]

Depends on your definition of alright.

Ah...

[ You can't just bluescreen the paladin types by talking like this. Ky doesn't know how to respond! Bad touch...no. No! He wouldn't do that! He wouldn't! He's married! He has a child! ]

I did not...intend...my actions as such? M-my apologies.

[ He is still grabbing the collar of her shirt...should he drop her? Is that more polite? Ah, the ideals of knights and kings fail him utterly in this moment. ]

My definition of alright is one where you are not in pain, I suppose?

[oh, he was an honor and duty junkie, like Colum or maybe Protisilaus. Gideon didn't speak Froofy Knight, as much as she was probably supposed to, but she wasn't mad about it]

Eh, no big. ... As for pain, yeah, whatever my bones are doing? Absolute red hot bitch.

It may have been the case that Emerick was caught trying to sneak into places he shouldn't be. Could anyone blame him? He was a journalist at heart through and through. He wanted to figure out what was really going on here, and that often required breaking into places he shouldn't be and reading files that he shouldn't have access to.

It... Was a lot easier at home. He understood how things worked in Night City and could bypass security systems, pull files from computers, hack safes. He definitely wasn't a netrunner - not by any means - but he could get what he needed for a story. Here? Things were much more physical. He didn't know how to pick locks, he wasn't sure how to crack a safe. The mistakes he made were definitely rookie, and he got caught.

"The only thing I'd snitch on is what they're really doing to us here," was all he initially replied with. He wanted to get out of here too, he just had none of the practical skills to do so.

"What, uh, are you doing? How are you gonna get us out?"

"Picked plenty of locks harder than this," Gideon said under her breath, busy with the tumblers. Anyone else may have asked him to move put of their light, but she was accustomed to working in almost total darkness.

"Almost got it, I think..."

Emerick could say that he had also picked plenty of locks harder than the one she was picking now but he had no clue how to break through these locks - he was used to computerized locks and having to hack his way through them. He was no netrunner, not by a long shot, but he could muddle his way through in a pinch.

"What got you in here, anyway?"

He was trying not to crowd her while she worked, but he was also trying to figure out how picking one of these locks even worked. It didn't make sense to him.

This...This is familiar. Eating together, the warmth of camaraderie and people just being around you, eating talking amiably...Priyet misses this from her human days at the magic school. There's a deep pang of longing for before, even as she wanders aimlessly and picks at each tray just to see what she might like the most.

She's just finished creating an abomination of pudding, cake, sprinkles, and mousse into her little dessert bowl when Gideon asks about the mysterious machine, and-- hm. That's a damn good question. She toddles over on pudgy little legs, still towering over the other girl even when she's built like a poppet, and stares at the contraption.

"Um...I don't know. It's here with the sweets, so it must be for sweet things, right? And there are buttons..."

She moves to point at one big, green, intimidating button (the button for the vanilla side, of course), but ends up accidentally pushing it just for a second. The machine whirrs, and spits a gobbet of half-melted soft-serve out onto the floor, which is enough reason for Priyet to let out a little noise of surprise and totter away a little.

"What is that?"

"Shit!" Gideon reflexively reaches around her back for the sword that had been confiscated.

"It fucking spat on you! ... or worse ... you okay? Whatever you are?"

"That's a good question. What is it. What is anything? Everything is potential. It's meant to be soft serve. I think. But who knows what's in it. Better not to eat at all." He presses one of the handles and watches the goop go downward before catching it in a paper cup and licking experimentally off the side.

"But it could be a makeshift sled, a transistor radio, a jury rigged explosive device spitting boiling hot custard at your enemies. What would you use it for?"

Gideon watched the old dude completely fail to follow his own unsolicited advice and squinted at him, eyebrows disappearing behind her shades. The amount of black he was wearing was a little comforting in a way she'd rather die than admit, and he had prattled on like Pro did ... which she'd be more forthcoming to admit relief at, even as it took her brain a second to process all that.

"Don't know what most of those things are," she said with the blandness of a teen Trying Not To Care, "but it's in a place full of stuff to eat? So clearly we're meant to eat it and you probably just said not to to fuck with me."

Gideon smirked, studying the machine, looking at the condensation on the metal and realizing it was probably colder than a Ninth nun's nipple.

"If it wasn't sub-zero I'd say something that drips white goo on command could have all sorts of uses. But honestly if it tastes any good I'd just use it to stuff my face. Like the rest've all this." She nodded toward her loaded-to-bear tray. The only thing she had neglected was the oatmeal bar. "Haven't had too many things in the way of food before."

"Possibly. I'm good at that. Or maybe not. It's a mystery." He takes another lick and is mostly satisfied. "Not bad if you don't mind your endocrine system clanging with sugar... and notes of pineapple. Pineapple. Which is neither a pine nor an apple by the way." He points a spoon at her.

"In any case you should find out for yourself. I know how to resuscitate just about anything when it comes to it." He takes another taste. "The Doctor by the way, nice to meet you here in our hour of imprisonment."

"So you're a necromancer?" Gideon tilted her head at him. They didn't have "doctors" in the Houses, they had adepts of various specialties: bone, flesh, spirit. He wore enough black to be Ninth, but she would have known him. Smart like Sixth, but the only gray on him was his hair. She took another guess, a stab in the dark, as she tried to fill one of the strange, brittle, flimsy-colored dishes with the cold goop.

"I don't know what pines or apples are, but I do like sugar. 'M Gideon. You from a House, too, or is this stuff ... not eye-bleedingly new to you?"

Since she had no idea that soft serve needed to be twisted and swirled, it spilled over the cone and onto her thumb.

"Shit!" She let go of the lever, but didn't realize she'd needed to push it back up. "How did you stop it?"

"Uh, no, not usually. Any rumors you might hear are slander." Most of them. Even if some were true. "Hello, Gideon. I'm no one you met before and not from a House." At least not in a way she understood it.

"I'm the thing that goes bump in the night. The itch of the back of your brain of deja vu that's gone the second you look at it. I am Darkwing Doctor... Well no not really. Sounds cringe when I say it. That's a reference by the way." He flicks the lever to stop soft serve from spreading over the floor.

"Are necromancers common where you come from?"

"I don't get an itchy brain," Gideon said plainly, mostly because she was distracted by the cold, swiftly melting blob on her hand. She sucked at it like a cut, and her eyes widened behind her Aviators as she made a high sound of surprise.

"Damn, that's good! It may not be pines or apples but I'd eat a whole batch of it. ... But yeah, necromancers, Dominicus is practically lousy with 'em. Can't spit without hitting some kind of adept on some planets, but Ninth House only has one and she's a massive pain in my ass."

"Everyone has an itchy brain unless they're dead." Hm. That was interesting. He didn't know why that was interesting, so he filed it away in the 'to remember at a convenient time' box and shoved it in the metaphorical cavernous darkness.

"Sounds like you get on." He, at least, has had so many crushes like that. "But I've never heard of it, and I've heard of a lot of things. Which doesn't mean much but what it does mean is that I haven't heard of you yet, which in that case, nice to meet you sorry for the disaster- or that we've gone somehow sideways and no one has heard of anything."

Never in her life had Gideon Nav been so utterly and casually, even devastatingly read for filth.

"Get on?! Gross," she protested, entirely too fast. "And I'm not dead." At least - well - as far as she knew. The Lyctor could have torn her to bits and she just didn't remember, but then again ... mmm. She shoved that train of thought into the farthest corner of her mind and locked it tighter than most of Canaan House. "What d'you mean by itchy brain, then? Cuz I totally took it all literal."

She licked at the cone while she waited for him to respond, deciding that sweet yellow sugary cold slop was a fair trade off for being well confused.

"It is. It's a sensation. Like you've been somewhere before, or seen something before, but you can't guess at what. Like a lingering ghost of something you've forgotten that you shouldn't have, or something half remembered from a dream long ago. That's itchy brain." And him. But he's not going to say so. As he's already said so and it's up to her to connect the dots.

"How are you finding it?" the soft serve, he means.

"Already found it. But if you mean do I like it? Yeah, it's good. Real good." She took another lick, then made a face as she realized that the dish was starting to ... lose its structural integrity.

"Bowls are crap though. This one's already going all soft."

She took another, larger lick, well on the way to earning herself a case of brain freeze, and thought about the definition he'd given. Something clicked, at last - Gideon was no scholar, but she wasn't any slouch when it came to retaining what she'd seen and heard. And what the Doctor had just said could only lead to one conclusion for a girl from a world where the reanimated dead and ghosts were regular occurrences.

"So how'd you die? Or do you not remember? I've never actually seen a ghost, I just know they're a thing. Gotta say, I thought they'd be .... I dunno, wispier than you. Blue, even, maybe. Or green. They're always see through and funny colors in the magazines."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TDM #1;

Gideon Nav | Locked Tomb Series

III!

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1

Back from holiday hell, sorry for the delay

absolutely no worries, been in the same whirlwind

ii, aka: two lesbians discover soft serve and go fucking apeshit

sorry for the delay! Mmm holidays

Re: Gideon Nav | Locked Tomb Series

o hi

hi <3

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Darkwing Doctor fhsjfjsnfeheifksjs

I had to

<3 ofc you did

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