TEST DRIVE MEME ( 009 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #9

Hello, and welcome to LifeAftr! 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 March 17th, and Applications on March 24th!

Two important notes:

1. LifeAftr's test drives take place on the island of Mu, which 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, largely in the form of test drive reward items.

City Slicker
The walls of this place are uniform, gray-tinted, built from sandstone and clay. The architecture is deliberate and monochrome to an unkind extent; homogeneity, here, is the order of the day. All told, while a bit colorless, the place is not unpleasant, particularly with that periwinkle blue midday sky blanketed with soft tufts of cloud overhead.

Except for the shouts of armed guards pursuing you. You've broken the law, you see. Maybe your hair is too colorful, or your apparel contained pockets. Maybe you carried a weapon without a permit. Whichever one of those ridiculous, lengthy list of laws you've broken, it's put you in the guards' bad sights. Their technology hasn't progressed beyond that of spears and shields, but at least like this, you're being allowed something of a fighting chance.

We say "fighting," but really, your best bet is probably to try and avoid them. Mu has recreated the ironclad system present on the island of Ai'tuoh, though it's eased some of the unfair advantages stacked against you: the militia are no longer cunningly concealed among the populace, and they do not fight with needles slid into arms before you can understand what, precisely, has just gone wrong. This way, at least you have a chance to run before they seize and sedate you.

Which we recommend, by the way. The running.

Sky Islands, or Skylands
While waking on islands is all very well and good - practically par for the course in LifeAftr, in fact - one might need a moment to adjust to the strangeness of this one. This one, it turns out, is floating. Suspended in midair, this island is one of several dozens peppered throughout the sky. They drift to and fro, close to one another and then away again, but that's far from the most curious thing about them. No; their most peculiar quality is the fact that these islands shift, warping in shape as though caught in a state of perpetual flux. They ripple seamlessly from one visual to the next,: cycling through the varieties of an ice-swept tundra, a lush rainforest, a half-crumbled ruin, and infinite others in the span of mere hours.

And, if you concentrate just enough, you might find that these islands are pliable to even your will. You may be able to mold them like clay through focus of will alone, causing them to gradually shape into something familiar, even desirable: a home you miss, a place you wish you could see. But no matter how you try, you can only fabricate that which is non-sentient - plants, buildings, rocks, trees.

Just take care not to take things too far. You might find that the landscape does not take too kindly to being overly micromanaged. Too much projection of your conscious or subconscious desires will cause the entire thing to start to darken, crumble, and wither away...taking you with it.

And it's a very, very long fall back to earth.

[This prompt is a miniature version of our February event! Feel free to experiment with whatever details you uncover on the info post if you like!]

Kick Back, Relax
It's not all survivalist shenanigans and horrifying, mind-bending events. There are, in fact, plenty of moments of relaxation, of relief, and even fun to be had. Mu is not a wholly unkind being; it can allow you a much-needed respite in the form of something it suspects everyone might enjoy: a good old-fashioned party. A volleyball net has been strung between two palm trees. A length of driftwood table has been laden with any kind of food you could imagine might be found on an island: drinks served in coconut shells, carmelized shrimp, smoked oysters, skewers of fish. The aquamarine tide laps up at the soft white sand, and those who test the temperature of the shallows will discover that they are pleasantly warm.

And at the center of it all, a cheerful bonfire that kicks up hot flares of sparks into the warm, rich blue of the sky. What a peaceful sight! What a jovial celebration!

Better enjoy it while it's here.

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

Comments

river tam ( firefly )

[brainleak]

I. CITY SLICKER

Too bright, too loud, speak when spoken to, be a good little girl...

[River happens to be sharing a hiding space, through circumstance, with you. Maybe you're tucked into an alley, maybe you've climbed onto a rooftop, maybe you're behind a dumpster. But you might not be for long, with how the girl continues to talk, whimpering to herself as she sits, legs splayed out, fidgeting and rocking her torso back and forth with each couple words.]

Not my dress, said it wasn't my dress, inappropriate, knuckles cracked and bleeding, blistered from the ruler, detained, not going home, miss the bus shuttle...

[She shakes and shudders, and she's about to blow your cover, because militia are marching down the nearby street at this very moment.]

II. SKY ISLANDS, OR SKYLANDS

River sits, curled into a ball, in the center of a meadow on the floating isle. Her eyes are closed, she breathes softly, and she seems to be at a rare moment of peace.

Slowly, around her, flowers shift and start to emit exhaust, twisting into propulsion nozzles. The grass melts away and hardens into pocked metal grating. The trees that surround the edge stretch their branches into iron, Brutalist gates that pierce the sky imposingly.

The grating in front of her explodes forth into a pair of tall structures, deliberately cracked in the center, interlocking through negative space. Then a blink, and another structure appears haphazardly clipped through the first.

River knits her brow in sudden distress and slowly raises a hand to her head. A piece of the architecture cracks and crumbles. Her eyes snap open and she gasps for air, as if she were surfacing from under water.

III. KICK BACK, RELAX

[It's a party on the beach. People are tanning on towels, sipping margaritas, partaking of smoked oysters, splashing in the ocean, and dancing around the bonfire.

River, meanwhile, is making extensive calculations in the sand with a piece of driftwood, mumbling to herself.]

Must measure an adequate sample of local observations showing response at frequencies of the generating force, in amplitude and phase... Derive coefficients and phrase angles... Recombine constants, different components of generating forces, at each of a sequence of future dates and times, collect all elements...

[She writes an extremely complex formula, and then starts graphing it in the sand, just off the edge of the tide.]