TEST DRIVE MEME ( 012 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #12

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 June 17th, and Applications on June 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.

There Goes the Neighborhood
Today, you're not merely waking up on an island. Oh, no. You're waking up in the world's most perfect suburb, complete with perfectly-trimmed lawns, white picket fences, and a uniformity that borders on the absurd. Not a fleck of paint is out of place, and not a blade of grass is out of line.

Mu has attempted to imitate the sort of fabricated happiness that adventurers dealt with in the month of May, but without the full power to shape fantasies to the whims of each individuals, has opted instead to attempt for a blanket, painfully generic alternative. It's a cheap attempt to mimic something that was already a falsehood to begin with, rote and uncommitted. Thus, much of this world is patchworked with palpable holes, both visible and otherwise: neighbors are featureless specters performing daily routines with robotic precision, entire swathes of the neighborhood are perfect replicas of the same painfully generic family, and, of course, there's you.

You obviously don't belong here. The framework of the narrative is so structured that it's not hard to realize things are amiss. The more you think about it, the more it seems like this entire fantasy is deeply, deeply amiss.

But then again, maybe not. Maybe you buy into it, completely and utterly. Maybe you're so eager to escape whatever life you lived prior to this one that you're all too eager to live in this Stepford-esque facsimile. The degree to which your character adheres to this structured world, and how much they remember from their true life, is up to you.

Do it for the Vine
This next scenario is far from pleasant, though it is much more real. The thick, tropical woodland might be difficult to traverse at first, but don't worry - it's about to get much harder. Do you like earthquakes? How about massive, twisting vines that swarm out from the undergrowth to attempt to snake up around your ankles and shins and root you in place, perhaps smother you in the dirt? Isn't it fortunate that you're being left to contend with both at once? Mu is compensating for the events of May, it seems; commemorating a god whose demise tore an island apart by mimicking with precision efficiency how that must have felt for everyone to bear dramatic witness.

The good news is that while the vines might be both eerily cunning and vast in number, they still are just plants, and plants can be easily pruned or burned. The subterranean rumbles of the ground as it cracks and ruptures underfoot might be less easy to contend with.

To that, our only suggest is simply to run. Good luck!

Taken for Granite
This particular brand of landscape is striped with cliffs and crags, a lifeless mountain range crooked along the horizon with rock the color of fired clay. And not far off from where you've stirred awake is...a rather eccentric rock formation.

By "eccentric", of course, we mean "moving". And by "moving" we mean "it is extricating itself from the ground like some unholy tectonic zombie and it's coming right at you RUN".

Formed entirely from an amalgamation of earth, rocks, ore, and valuable gems, the earth golem is surprisingly territorial for a glorified lump of mud. Approximately fifteen feet tall and half as wide, this lumbering creature has only one concern: the eradication of anything that steps into its territory. It is sensitive to vibrations in the ground, and is thus very difficult to hide from for those moving on foot. However, it is nearly blind and very stupid, preferring to wallop anything within reach using its massive, boulder-sized fists rather than employ any sort of strategy. Still, unless you're looking to travel to the other side of the area via the Golem Express, avoiding this creature's warpath may be a wise choice. Especially given its talent at re-assembling itself upon destruction.

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

Comments

[sunsound]

The roar is unlike any pokemon he's ever heard, but that's not what gets Ray's attention first. Wherever he is, whatever this bizarre forested land has to offer, the sound of someone - something - in distress tugs at a deep instinct to help. And so he sends out his companions, Decidueye and (Alolan) Raichu, to search for the source of the sound.

It's not hard for them to locate the dragon. Alexstrasza may be confused when a 5'3'' tall leafy owl lands on her snout to examine the vines before darting off into the canopy at an alarming speed, but just a few minutes after it disappears from sight, a small boy emerges from the brush with Raichu floating by his side.

"Wh-whoa..." He'd compare her to a Charizard, but she eclipses even the largest ones he's seen. "D-Don't worry! We'll get you loose, just stay still!"

With all three of them tearing, pecking, and gnawing at the vines around her muzzle, they've got to make some progress, right?

[lifeblossom]

Decidueye's appearance is surprising but no cause for alarm. Even trapped a red dragon poses a considerable threat. Her barbed tail is still free to thrash though it is calm in the presence of new arrivals. Alexstrasza follows the human's guidance and stills her panicked muscles. The vines pinning her snout shut gradually fall away beneath her saviors' slicing until her constraints weaken enough that she can break them herself.

The dragon parts her scaly maw to first test the vines that still control her. Sensing their fragility, she tosses her great head into the air, chucking strings of vines in different directions. Newly unfettered, Alexstrasza takes a moment to lick her chops and stretch her jaw. A long, low rumbling and vibrations beneath them reminds her of their perilous predicament and the lives that have just risked theirs to help her.

Expression softening, Alexstrasza carefully lowers her head to greet Ray and his companions with grateful eyes. When she speaks, it is with a robust and regal voice one would never expect from a normal dragon. "Thank you for your help, mortals. Were it not for your kindness, I might have perished here. Watch your feet; this jungle may trap you too!"

[sunsound]

Ray has to duck out of the way of the vines as they explode outward, but he's sincerely glad to see the noble creature freed. He beams up at her as she speaks, impressed by everything from her strength to her voice. He's not used to non-humanoid creatures being able to articulate actual sentences. Decidueye and Raichu exchange looks of "whoa, pokemon-shaped creature with a human voice".

(Don't be offended that they'll be mistaking you for an undiscovered pokemon for the rest of forever, Alexstraza. If anything, they think more highly of you for it.)

"Oh wow, you can talk, too! That's so gr-...!" The rumbling of the earth beneath them cuts him off and he shakes his head. Gushing about how cool she is will have to wait. "It'll have a harder time doing that if we keep moving. You're not hurt or anything, right?"

[lifeblossom]

Alexstrasza takes quick stock of her condition. She is woefully still bound to the earth by the vines but with her maw liberated, she can turn the circumstances in her favor. Nodding, the dragon raises her head to a more comfortable position and replies.

"No, thanks to you. I am, however, still trapped." She jerks a front foot to demonstrate. It hardly budges. The ground trembles yet again and not by her actions. "Worry not; I will "take care" of this. Then we will be on our way." Her horned nose flicks in the direction behind Ray. "Please stand back. I do not want my fire to burn you."

[sunsound]

"Alright!"

Ray fumbles at his belt for a moment, producing two pokeballs to recall Decidueye and Raichu into. With his companions secured, he darts into the woods a decent distance away, hunkering down behind a tree where he can watch without being in the warpath, as it were. There's a part of him that wonders if fire in a forest, even artfully controlled, is a good idea. But they don't have time to gnaw through every vine and chances are high that they'll regrow faster than they can cut them. So fire it is, for better or worse.

He gives the dragon a thumbs up to indicate he's ready when she is.