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.

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

Comments

No worries.

[prettypurpleparlor]

A pleasure to meet you, circumstances aside.

[Fortunately, she has enough experience with Sans' good old 'pull my finger hey look it came right off' prank to avoid taking any extra body parts with her when she finishes shaking his hand. Living in the Underground can provide one with valuable life skills, apparently.]

It's bit difficult to be certain, but it seems that we're in some sort of dream world. This place around us isn't quite real, nor are most of these people, though we might run into the occasional fellow lost traveler. Where exactly we'll end up when we eventually make our way out of here... that I can't be entirely certain of.

[vagabone]

[One can only hope he's sleeping peacefully back where he belongs, and he hasn't gone and disappeared on those people important to him again. What a way to blow to blow his second chance that would be!

Unhappy thoughts or no unhappy thoughts, he's grinning now.]

I don't know about you, but I've walked far enough already. And if we're the only ones who are real, it isn't stealing.

[Yes. He's eyeballing the nearest car. ...Please don't let him drive.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

[The good news about that is that time doesn't work the same way here. The bad news about that is it means they're going to have to deal with this themselves, instead of waiting for someone to come and get them back.]

[Muffet smiles slowly, her expression just a bit too mischievous to be entirely innocent.]

I suppose it would be much faster to drive, while looking for a way out.

[Surprisingly, she actually does have a driver's license thanks to being on the Surface for a while. Go figure. She doesn't know how to hotwire a car, but she's always willing to learn new life skills...]

[vagabone]

Exactly! We'll be out of here in no time!

[The good news is that the first car he peers into has keys still in the ignition. The bad news is that he's sliding into the driver's seat, not her. Forgive him for assuming he'll be the driver--he's the only one here who isn't a spider. His toothy grin is about as innocent as her smile and that can't be good.

Step one: start the engine. Step two: ignore the seatbelt. Step three: wave for her to get in. Step four: test out all the buttons and fancy things as he tries to refresh his memory... his one and only Great Minivan Adventure was decades ago.

(That poor van is still underwater, isn't it.)]

[prettypurpleparlor]

[Muffet sits neatly in the passenger side and puts on the seatbelt without any trouble, then observes him fiddling with the buttons with an expression of increasing skepticism.]

Precisely how familiar are you with driving, may I ask?

[vagabone]

It's fine! I've done this before!

[It lurches forward once he gets it out of park, and then again when he finds the gas petal. Nothing to worry about! The street is all theirs! Surely he can manage going in a straight line! And if not... there are other cars and this is an excellent first try.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

And... how many times before, exactly?

[Yeah, she's dubious. She'll give him a little longer to prove he can handle it, but if he looks like he's going to crash into something she's taking over.]

[vagabone]

Ah... twice?

[So far so good! He'll just stay right in the center of the road and everything will be fine.]

But you don't have to worry, I had a very good teacher.

[prettypurpleparlor]

In that case, I have substantially more experience than you do, and would recommend that you allow me to drive instead.

[Luckily none of these dream people seem inclined to drive this way, yet...]

[vagabone]

[He's a little too heavy on the brakes, here. No big deal. One thing he's not doing is speeding.]

...Where does a spider learn to drive? [It's her turn to get a skeptical look.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

[Deadpan:]

Driving school.

[Yes, she actually went to human driving school. And then had to deal with the DMV. Meditate on this image.]

It was a useful thing to learn, once we started living among humans.

[vagabone]

[The driver's seat is all hers, so. What does he have to lose, really? He's already a shambling mess of broken bones.

Hold on a second...]

Wait. Are you an alien?

[prettypurpleparlor]

[Muffet appreciates him handing over the driver's seat and slips into it smoothly, going through the motions of starting the car with much more practiced ease- although maybe it's just simpler for her to do, since she has the extra hands to work with.]

[She gives a soft little laugh at his question.]

No, I'm not from anywhere beyond the Earth. Rather the opposite, in fact- my people lived underground, for a very long time.

[vagabone]

[He still isn't putting on a seatbelt, once he's in the passenger's seat. Who cares.

Of course there are more spider people. Underground, because spiders like dark places. She's obviously telling the truth, she's a spiderlady. That's all the proof anyone needs.]

What made you come up from... wherever you were?

[prettypurpleparlor]

Do put on a seatbelt, dearie. Safety first~

[What do you want to do, die again?]

[As for explaining monsterkind's whole... situation, here... She'll just try to go for the short and tactful version, this guy looks worried enough as it is.]

Well, an entire civilization can only stay packed in under the same mountain for so long, really- there's just not enough space. Besides, it isn't as though we'd always lived down there. Humanity sealed us away a long time ago, we'd always intended to return.

[vagabone]

I'm dead, arañita. I didn't just wake up and forget to put my skin on this morning.

[A momentary grin at his own dumb joke, before she goes on. You call him dearie, you get your own cutesy little nickname.]

...we trapped a bunch of spider people under a mountain?

[How much what the heck is going to be thrown at him today.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

[That's interesting enough to note, although she has met more than one person here on the island who was dead back in their own world, so she doesn't consider it too much of a stretch.]

[She won't object to the nickname, it sounds inoffensive enough that it's not worth bothering.]

If you're physical enough to drive a car, I assume you're physical enough that a crash would do you no good. Or do you want to be dead and have a broken rib?

[Does Hector remember having ever been a small child, being politely but sternly lectured by a schoolteacher for doing something stupid? Because somehow, this spider lady has managed to produce that exact same tone. It's almost eerie.]

Monsters of all sorts, really. I should add that at home we say 'monster' to mean 'nonhuman magical person', not 'vicious or dangerous creature'- I know other people seem to use the latter definition.

[vagabone]

[It's Héctor. Something would be very very wrong with the fabric of the universe if he went more than a day without being lectured in that tone of voice. It has him rolling his eyes, tugging his raggedy vest to cover his ribs a little better and then fumbling with the stupid seatbelt.

And also not asking questions for a whole five seconds.]

Happy now? Come on, let's go.

[prettypurpleparlor]

Ecstatic, thank you.

[Muffet's reply is dry but reasonably amiable- as long as he put the damn seatbelt on, she's not going to complain further.]

[She puts the car in drive and continues on down the roads. She's definitely driving a lot more smoothly and skillfully than he was, and they're making good progress.]

[vagabone]

[Good, good. He couldn't have kept on walking much farther without a nice long rest... which he is now getting and it's not even slowing him down. Also a plus: these fancy modern car seats are really comfortable.

He can't take silence for very long.]

So... where is 'home' for you?

[prettypurpleparlor]

[Muffet smiles wryly, answering as she maneuvers their car deftly through the unsettling empty streets.]

Philosophically speaking, wherever my loved ones are. Practically speaking, above my bakery in a little town near Mt. Ebott.

[vagabone]

[The spider runs a bakery. And has loved ones. And is a much better driver than he is.

How weirdly normal.]

I'd hate to be stuck in a car with someone who wouldn't say they loved their family.

[prettypurpleparlor]

I suppose some people might be a bit too embarrassed to say it out loud- there's always a few stoic types who don't like to talk about what they're feeling.

[She gives a cheerfully wicked little smile, and adds:]

It makes it awfully fun to tease them, though.

[vagabone]

[It's possible she can hear his grin without having to take her eyes off the road.]

Almost as fun as tricking them into saying it in front of witnesses.

[prettypurpleparlor]

[She absolutely can. Her multitude of hands also means that when she delicately covers her mouth and giggles mischievously, she still has two hands on the wheel.]

My favorite part is when they get so flustered they start making little sputtering noises.