TEST DRIVE MEME ( 001 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #1

Hello, and welcome to our very first test drive! We’re pleased that you’re expressing an interest in the game. Here, you can test the waters, gauge how your character may fare in the world of LifeAftr, and even gain some in-game incentives, if you so choose.

Remember that Reserves will open on July 17th and that Applications will open on July 24th, in preparation for the game’s official opening on August 3rd!

But first, two important notes!

1. The island of Mu exists apart from the real world and possesses a dream-like quality that characters are innately aware of from the moment they appear on its shores. No need to panic or fret. Dreams are odd things, after all - and anything can happen in them. Why would anyone question where their mind chooses to wander in its sleep?

2. Due to the nature of Mu, threads in our test drive can not only be accepted as thread samples in your application, but can be accepted as game canon as well. In fact, certain choices your character makes in Mu have the potential to bear in-game consequences.

Shipwrecked
The white sand of the beach ridges the island’s edge, even if the clear water soon becomes murky the further out you look across the horizon until the turquoise gleam of the tide disappears in a coil of surrounding fog. Indeed, your best prospects may very well be to strike out among the trees or the crags looming out over the foam-capped waves. There’s lumber to be found and made from the palm-like trees, potentially fruit or edible tubers of some kind if you forage about some. The further you travel, however, the more of your surroundings will reveal themselves in a steady unspooling of curiosities.

One corner of Mu’s current construct drops away into a sheer cliff, initially too dangerous to brave for all but the more daredevilish, but if one starts to scan the sharp rocks below, you might catch sight of what appears to be sodden planks of wood - a wreckage tossed up against the rocks. And a little further...a bobbing, shattered wreck of a lifeboat’s remains, potentially bearing supplies that might yet be salvageable.

Fashion what you can from the wood and stone around you or scavenge from the ruin of the land, if you like. But you can’t simply stand around and wait forever. It’s going to get dark sometime - and if a creature of unknown terror doesn’t catch you, the elements surely will.

Storytime

There’s a sense of camaraderie in this cove, you think. As the sun hangs low over the horizon, the world cast into orange hues, long shadows dispersed by roaring fires that dot across the beach.

That’s right, folks: it’s storytime.

There’s no one to preside over this meeting of the minds in Mu. Call it a vague recreation of things to come, if you like, some vaguely fatidic dreamlike state where you may find yourself drawn to the heat and company that awaits you by the fire. And from there, compelled to default to that old instinct that most of intelligent civilization has revered since they were advanced enough to paint geometric shapes on cave walls.

You tell a story.

Perhaps it’s a tragedy, a tale of woe and of personal loss. Perhaps it’s the sort of thing you’d break out after a few rounds of your alcoholic beverage of choice, clapping hands to your knees as you try to bite back your mirth long enough to spill the punchline. Perhaps it’s an adventure of some sort, some unbelievable rendition of your past exploits. The only common thread to be had, as those gathered around the fire share their tales, is the fundamental rule of a ritualistic sharing of stories such as this: its truth.

But how one chooses to define "truth" is, in its own way, another story entirely...

Dance, Sucker, Dance!
The beat of your heart in your chest is difficult to ignore. It judders with a pulsing, rhythmic quality. If you’re one of those that lacks a heart, the beat is still omnipresent and all-encompassing, until your entire body is unwittingly bobbing in time to a metronomic tune that seems ingrained into your very soul. It’s inescapable. You can’t seem to move unless it’s in time to the rhythm that’s now singing in every atom of your being.

But rest assured, you’re not alone in this musical curse. Everything, from the swaying trees to the waves against the beach, jumps in time to the music. And so do the monsters approaching you, that - wait a minute.

Monsters?

Oh, yes. Did we mention those?


It seems you’ve encountered the wrath of the Boogieman, who curses you to only dance to his infernal beat. If you wish to best him, you’ll have to either evade or destroy the blobs of greenish slime that serve as his minions, all in time to the hard beat of the tune in your head. Clear the radius of his curse or risk an open confrontation, if you dare. Don’t worry if you look foolish; chances are anyone else caught in the Boogieman’s thrall feels just the same.

Mu isn’t pulling any punches to start with. It is a flighty creation, after all, and seems to revel in displacing people into new and uncomfortable situations.

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

Survival

[fortunefavored]

[listen, Newt's gotten to the point where he's met and conversed with everything from a talking unicorn/pegasus (alicorn??? he can't remember) to aliens of all shapes and sizes to a talking, living, pun-making skeleton. So appearances no longer have much of an impact on Newt. So it isn't the Drifter's appearance that throws Newt off. Rather, it's the spatter of bright pink blood that splashes onto the rocks. That's WAY more disconcerting.

Newt had wandered towards the edge out of curiosity as he watched them start to descend, but as soon as that whole coughing business happens, he's letting out a load--] Woah, woah, holy shit, dude! [--and dropping straight to his knees, reaching down to grasp their wrist] What the hell do you think you're doing?!

[hyperlit]

[The Drifter doesn't glare, exactly; the black pits of their eyes and general stony demeanor is sufficient in putting people off without trying. Every citizen, with few exceptions, could and would offer little more than a feeble croak of greeting before scuttering away, retreating from the blue-skinned Drifter with the poison in their lungs.

The mantle about the lower half of their face is not particularly conducive to maintaining air flow in the event of respiratory collapse, but the Drifter doesn't seem to mind, or care. They can utter little more than the series of low, rasping coughs that sound like static, like gravel being raked across glass, as they catch the offered hand about their wrist obligingly.

They're being offered help, strange as it may seem. The creature venturing to aid them is of an unfamiliar pallor, pale-skinned and rambling, but there's no reason to deny aid when it is being freely given.

Their...friend - they would have wished the same of them.

(The pang in their heart does not entirely have to do with illness, but it is easily ignored and neglected.)

It is not until they've regained their footing, standing on more solid ground, that the companion sprite hovering at their shoulder chimes inquisitively, little bigger than a handsbreadth in length, the light at its center humming green as it projects a text-based HUD.]

i miscalculated.

[fortunefavored]

[Newt can't help but frown at the cough when he hears it, but it isn't until the Drifter is up on solid ground and, er....talking to him, in a sense, that Newt raises an eyebrow, hands on his hips, actually getting a good look at them, tilting up his head and squinting a bit at the HUD]

Uuuuh...yeah, dude, ya think? That's definitely an understatement.

[hyperlit]

[A moment, as the Drifter adjusts, stops stooping over quite so heavily, and eyes their savior. No feathers. No scales. A very...interesting variant of skin color - much more faded than they're used to.

Curious.

Their eyes crease faintly, perhaps giving off the impression that they're pursing whatever passes for their lips beneath their mantle.

Then:]

:|

[fortunefavored]

[laskdhfs Newt...can't help it. He stares at that text face a moment before he just...laughs. He can't help it. That was adorable.]

Don't give me that face! You did it to yourself; I'm just pointing it out. [he grins, widely] So, like, you okay? [he leans over the side of the cliff a bit to peer at the spatter of pink slowly dripping down the side] Because unless you go expelling pink goo like that on the regular--which, hey, if you do and it's healthy for your species or whatever, no judgement--you don't look so good.

[hyperlit]

[The Drifter can't fully process that for several long moments, scrutinizing him quizzically. That sort of reaction is a first on several levels, to the point where they simply don't have it in them to be offended.

They rub at the smear of pink across the front of their mantle, pulling it a bit more securely over their mouth.]

no cure.

[fortunefavored]

[Oh. Well that sucks.] Shit, dude, that blows. [he huffs, though, rubbing the back of his neck] But, uh...if it's any consolation, no one ever seems to age in these sorts of places, so....there's that?

[hyperlit]

?

[A literal question mark to signify their apparent confusion. The Drifter's head goes to one side in a slow, thoughtful cant.]

these sorts of places?

[fortunefavored]

[Newt blinks that question before he grimaces a bit, mouth twisting.]

This is your first time, huh? Being dragged to another dimension and dropped in without so much as hint?

Basically, I mean whatever the places is they decide to store you. They're all the same in some way or another. Nicer hamster wheel, same old cage.

[hyperlit]

[Why do you assume they know what a hamster is :| ]

island.
not dimension



?

[Is that even possible? The sands and surrounding trees are admittedly richer than anything to be found in the world left behind, but they'd presumed it was some hallucinatory good will from the jackal, that thin stripe of black that granted them the sight of clear blue water one last time.]

[fortunefavored]

[You're gonna get an arched eyebrow for that bit of text, Drifter]

Um, no, I mean dimension. Unless you're from this dimension? Usually pretty much everyone isn't, but I dunno, maybe it's different this time around. [Newt shrugs a shoulder] I'm not from this dimension or universe or world or whatever you wanna call it.

[....]

At least, I don't think. But this doesn't look like any island I've ever been to, honestly, and you don't look like someone who would be in my original world sooooooo....I'm guessing this is another one of those unwilling dimension pulls or whatever.

[hyperlit]

[That is very possibly more words than they've ever had thrown at them at any one time. Contrary to being off-putting, it's a little bit...thrilling, in its own right. Someone honestly and completely wishes to speak to them at that sort of length.

It's new.]

is it dying?

[The next important question. Did they succeed. Is it gone. Did the Immortal Cell self-destruct, or was that little more than a hallucination brought upon by their own sickness?]

[fortunefavored]

[Newt frowns at that]

...I have absolutely zero idea what "it" is, dude.

[hyperlit]

island.
dimension.
world.

[You know, whatever he wants to call it.]

is it dying?

[fortunefavored]

[um?????] Uh...I hope not? Because if it is, we're kinda fucked. [js]

[hyperlit]

[That would be putting it lightly. The Drifter frowns slightly, plainly unsatisfied with that response. He hopes not, but he cannot say for certain.]

[The companion pings softly again, a long block of text chattering across the HUD; information they've long since committed to memory:]

HARNESSING A GREAT WELLSPRING, A PERFECT IMMORTAL CELL WAS CRAFTED TO BE IMBUED WITHIN ALL SENTIENT LIFE
A NOBLE GOAL, THOUGH SUCH A POWER TERRIFIED OTHERS, AND BROUGHT RUIN AS ITS PURPOSE WAS TRANSMOGRIFIED
THE ABHORRENT CELL STILL FESTERS DEEP IN THE CHAMBERS OF THIS WORLD

[fortunefavored]

[Newt frowns at that, hands going to his hips as he considers this information]

...well that sounds shitty. [....he huffs, then, rubbing the back of his neck] I guess the question is: is that your world or this world? Because honestly, dude? I have no idea what's going on with this world yet.

[hyperlit]

similarities.

[That much they can say for certain. The island, seemingly decoupled from the surrounding world...a lack of warp pads, seemingly, but they cannot say for certain.]

[After a hesitation, they feel they must add:]

but unfamiliar.

[fortunefavored]

[a pause while Newt considers this] Sooooo...probably not your world, then. [he huffs out a sigh] Honestly? I'm just surprised we haven't heard from some omnipotent asshole who wants to tell us our "purpose"--[yeah that was a hefty amount of sarcasm] --here.

[hyperlit]

[That earns a strange look, the Drifter cocking their head to one side. Would he have seen...he would not have. Would he?]

you've seen it?

[fortunefavored]

[There's a headshake in the negative] Nah. But this is the third round for me, and you start to see a pattern after a while, you know? There's always some sort of something, whether that's gods or an evil corporation or something else, that've trapped us here. We sure didn't come here on our own.

At least, I didn't.

[hyperlit]

[Round three. He's been subjected to this before. An unfortunate set of circumstances that he has simply learned to adapt to. An admirable trait, even if it is undergone for sobering purposes.]

the immortal cell.
judgment.

it is responsible.

[fortunefavored]

[Newt arches an eyebrow at that, resting his hands on his hips]

Yeah, I have no idea what that is. I've had an evil corporation and a group of so-called "gods," but that's all I've dealt with so far on the omnipotent controlling asshole scale.

[hyperlit]

corruption.

[That is what the Immortal Cell is. Judgment. Not a god, but a creation that would devour the world whole and desecrate it utterly. Perhaps the only thing powerful enough to displace them here.]

should find it.

[fortunefavored]

[you're getting a frown for that, buddy] Yeah. Like, that sounds great in theory, but in practice, unless you know for sure that's what we're up against here, I'd say cool your jets for a bit. Like a day or so. Whoever's keeping this cage will probably show up soon, and then you'll know where to go from there, and whether this corruption is just part of your world, or if it's leaked over here too.