aftr_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME ( 010 )

Test Drive Meme #10

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 April 17th, and Applications on April 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.

Friends on the Other Side
When you open your eyes, it is to a shadow-tinted cityscape. The buildings are clay-built and colorless, plunging seemingly infinitely onward into the sky before disappearing into a dense pool of foglike sky. The silence weighs heavily like a mantle across every inch of this place, and no matter how you squint at them, every structure seems strangely blurred, as though being viewed through distorted telescope lens, or in the reflection of a pool of water.

All told, it's probably obvious from the start that all is not well here.

From the moment you arrive in this strange nether-place, your eyelids have begun to grow heavy. Something about this city and its perpetual, misted darkness leaves you inexplicably drowsy, ready to curl up and fall asleep on the spot.

That wouldn't be a problem, perhaps, if you were alone. Mu does not boast a great deal of flora and fauna, but what it does have is a creature capable of inflicting much in the way of misfortune - clockroach. They occupy this city in swarms of wraith-like wisps, both intangible and curiously amorphous. But when they draw close, they instill a sense of terror like no other, usually igniting one's fight-or-flight response as a result. Sure, they might not be capable of actually hurting you, but why should that matter, when they have a skill for inducing a sense of utter dread in their targets?

Ever try to get some sleep with fresh adrenaline pumping in your veins?

Pretty Fly for a...Fire Guy
With indigo-blue skies, lush fields of green, and miles of rippling grass hills for as far as the eye can see, Mu has cast you into the perfect and picturesque evening. As the imaginary sun lips the very edge of the horizon and the last glow of orange fades to the purple of dusk, the fields come to life with a smattering of bright, wavering lights.

LifeAftr has its fair share of fireflies native to its many regions, but this particular kind is special. They're the size of quarters, very pretty to look at...and incredibly volatile besides. It's hard to interpret what these wondrous little glow-bugs might view as a threat or not, but at least it's remarkably easy to discern as much based on the sight of them alone: they're handily color-coded depending on their moods.

While they glow a contented amber by default, those that fireflies warm to will find themselves bathed in a green-blue glow as those bulbous, organic lanterns tint with a soft, cool turquoise. A few of them might even settle across your arms and in your hair, if they take that much of a shine to you.

Of course, those the fireflies don't warm to will be able to note as such when they light up a blazing crimson, mere seconds before the insects spit a stream of glowing orange, molten-colored acid. It stings and burns in equal measure, just as likely to scald you as it is to set the surrounding fields aflame.

Flower You Doing That?
Adventurers were both wary and relieved to discover that the next island on the horizon, known as Ziziphus, appeared to be a rather vegetation-rich paradise. They were considerably less relieved to learn that this island contained predators just like all the rest of them, despite the rich green backdrop of its meadows and the promise of lush woodland at its heart.

So it is that you, too, will learn that sometimes tufts of ferns are not tufts of ferns at all...but dangerous creatures called spindlanks.

What might initially appear to be a leafy hillock will very quickly prove to be something far more...mobile, if you get close enough. That clump of grass and red ferns will abruptly hoist itself up on six vine-like tendrils, crawling for its prey like a very large, mossy spider. While it's fully capable of swiping at its foes with its massive, leafy arms, the spindlank's favored method of dispatching its prey is simply to scuttle forth until it's positioned directly above you and drop down. If its weight does not crush you and choking on the clods of earth doesn't smother you, don't worry; the spindlank intends to eat you alive with a set of fleshy jaws set deep in its center.

For despite their leafy appearance, spindlanks are very much carnivorous. Their size can vary from anywhere between six and ten feet tall when their appendages unfurl entirely. They burn as easily as any plant matter would, but the size of them can make them quite difficult to topple alone.

And they are almost always hungry.

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Friends on the Other Side
[ Lucas Miller is a Man of Science, and if he were thinking properly through the haze of exhaustion and sheer terror, he'd be pausing to study the weird little insects (or... whatever they are), and the strange, wavering buildings, trying to get a read on his surroundings, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

Instead, he's running for his life, because when given the choice between fight or flight, Lucas will usually choose 'flight'. Every few blocks he stops to catch his breath, doubled over and wheezing a constant stream of "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" to himself before he takes off running again.

He keeps glancing over his shoulder just to make sure that he isn't being pursued, so apologies in advance if a skinny nerd in a labcoat crashes into you! ]

Pretty Fly for a Fire Guy
[ This... this is pretty nice, actually. Lucas isn't an outdoorsy kind of guy, more at home in his floating laboratory than anywhere else, but he can see the appeal of scenically rolling fields and dusky sunsets once in a while. It's even kind of peaceful, and the last few months have not been very peaceful at all for Lucas. He sits himself down at the top of a grassy hill, awkward and a bit stiff with his knees drawn up around his chin, but after a few quiet minutes, he relaxes enough to kick his legs out and lean back on his elbows.

A couple of fireflies gently bob around his head, and the whole scene is so picturesque that it's almost cliche... right up until one of the fireflies lands on Lucas's glasses and he swats it away, prompting the bug to flare up, spit acid at him, and melt a good-sized hole in the sleeve of his labcoat. Lucas bolts upright with an indignant screech. ]

Oh come on!

[ Michael learned very early in this bizarro dream experience that these fireflies are whack. So he's basically resigned himself to laying on the ground, literally covered in them, until he wakes up or something.

At least that was the plan. Now he's kind of freaking a little. Because as soon as Lucas shouted, the bugs on Michael started getting antsy. Which can't bode well. Michael hisses through gritted teeth; ]

Dude, calm down or they'll just get angrier.

[ BE CALM AND COOL AND CHILL, LUCAS. ]

[ HE DOES NOT KNOW THE MEANING OF ANY OF THOSE WORDS.

Well, ok, obviously he does, he's a literal genius, but HE DOES NOT IMPLEMENT THEM VERY OFTEN!

Lucas whips around to yell at the sudden voice, and... oh, man. Dude is buried under a temperamental blanket of fireflies, no wonder he seems to have such a personal stake in this. He leans forward, one hand cupped around his mouth, and whisper-hisses: ]

Since when do fireflies spit acid?!

Since...now? I don't know, this whole place is weird!

[ Michael returns the whisper-hiss, but because he's worked up he goes to gesture pointedly---and freezes when a few of the bugs start to get agitated. Which means not only is he laying on his back, but now his forearms are just sticking straight up like he's going to start karate-chopping the air or something. Cool! Awesome. What a dream.

Why does he have to talk with his hands? ]

Okay, great, weirdness firmly established, the fireflies are angry as hell and spit acid for some reason, that's a thing I guess! Who cares about biology!

[ He's very worked up about this, but at least Lucas isn't yelling, he's still just... whisper-hissing. ]

Look, maybe if you just... lower your arms really, really slowly? They can't be too sensitive to movement, otherwise they'd be spitting acid nonstop.

[ Michael is grateful Lucas is maintaining a whisper-hiss-like tone. He's also right there with him. Michael's never been a science nerd, sure, but he's definitely pretty peeved about the unnatural makeup of these stupid fireflies.

He groans. ]

Yeah, okay. If I get third-degree acid burns I'm blaming you, though.

[ He takes a deep breath and slowly, slowly lowers his arms. So far so good. ]

So, any ideas on how to...get them off me?

Blame me all you like, at least I have basic medical training and some idea of how to treat acid burns.

[ Granted, he has no idea where to find medical equipment on a deserted island, but he knows what he's doing! In theory! ]

Hang on a sec, I have... I've got an idea. Hold tight.

[ Slowly, carefully, Lucas tears a clod of dirt out of the ground and lobs it into the distance. It doesn't get far, considering that Lucas is built like a spaghetti noodle and lacking in athletic prowess, but maybe the sound of the dirt clod thumping to the ground a few feet away from Michael will be distracting enough for the bugs to either disperse or investigate. ]

[Exhaustion and terror is about right, and what makes it easier to bump into someone even when you could probably smell the reek of old cigarette smoke on his clothes half a block away. Kasai himself had the soggy old remains of one cigarette hanging out of his mouth -- no matches he'd found here, not yet. Nope, only the dread feeling of death lurking behind every corner.

It's hard to keep up what composure he has with the sweat of terror cold on the back of his neck, and shoves Lucas back away from him.]

Watch where you're going, fella!

[Wait, this is just some kinda egghead, from the looks of things? There's nothing to fear here... he just has to keep telling himself that.]

[ Lucas, who has lots of experience with getting on the bad side of people who are much bigger than him, stumbles backwards with a strangled yelp and almost falls over. From Kasai's perspective, running into the lanky scientist probably felt like colliding with a bag of pointy coat-hangers. ]

Sh-shit! Sorry, sorry, I-I just... I'm trying to get out of here!

[ And then, because Lucas may be kind of a weenie, but he's also a contrary little shit: ]

You weren't exactly watching where you were going either!

Ah... yeah, okay, I'll give you that one. [Look, he's really trying to take it easy in life, and attempts a kind of skeezy half-smile, but it really falls flat considering he's practically drenched in fear-sweat.] Kinda hard to focus on anything with this atmosphere. Hey, you got a light? [This soggy nub of a cigarette isn't much but he'd kill for a smoke right now, no exaggeration necessary.]

[ It's ok, they're both probably drenched in fear-sweat at this point, this is a very stressful situation! Lucas tugs the pockets of his labcoat inside-out, there's nothing there unless Kasai is interested in lint, or an old candy bar wrapper. ]

Sorry, no. I, I work in a lab, I don't keep lighters on me, open flame near any of my equipment or projects is just asking for disastrous explosions.

[Kasai makes a small frustrated 'tch' noise. He's got matches, but guess what, they're just as waterlogged as his poor cigarettes.]

You don't say? [Look as much as he's real keen on access to explosive substances and would love to ask more questions... he glances up and down the street, but if this guy came from that way, and he himself came down the street from over there... well shit, how do you get out of here anyway?] I'm guessing it's not anywhere around here. Get the feeling we ought to keep moving, too.

Edited 2018-05-01 00:51 (UTC)

TEST DRIVE MEME ( 010 )

Lucas Miller / The Adventure Zone

Pretty Fly

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Friends

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