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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Comments

[vagabone]

[That doesn't make a lick of sense to him. He puts a few more steps between the maniac and himself, hands out, placating. Nobody wants their skull blasted into a million pieces for asking an honest question.]

Listen, you don't need to... to do anything with your grenades. I'm sure when we find whoever is in charge here, they'll be very reasonable! There's no reason to blow up them up!

[Violence isn't always the answer okay!]

[hot_handed]

You wanna put your well-being to risk on the chance that they might listen? Murder is the best option. [But he pauses for a second, frowning.]

You got any memories before ending up here?

[vagabone]

Yes! No! It's the worst option. Who do you know who's actually killed someone?

[Why doesn't he have a good argument for not killing people?! ...but then why is it a thing that needs arguing on the spot like this?!]

We can find another way out. [A beat.] Of course. Don't you?

[hot_handed]

[All teeth, he grins maliciously like some kind of murderous villain, daydreaming about all the violence and blood. No one bleeds here.

Then his eye twitches at all the questions and he ends up scowling.] Dumbass! Why would I be asking you if you did if I could remember?! I'd probably ask you something more useful, like how to get the fuck out!!!

[Ugh. He needs to punch someone. He's certain if he tries to punch this guy, he'd collapse into a pile of bones.]

[vagabone]

[Boy, someone needs to be locked up, pronto.]

Well, if I knew that I wouldn't still be here! [Okay, he's got to lower his volume. Take some deep phantom breaths.] You don't remember anything or you don't remember how you came here?

[hot_handed]

[Fair point. It gets him to calm down a little, his temper barely restrained. He hisses.] Did I fuckin stutter? I don't remember anything... What do you remember, Scrawny?

[vagabone]

Alright, alright, I get it. You lost your memories. And I went to sleep, I woke up in one of these houses, that's all I know.

[He couldn't even say which one, they all look identical down to the cars in the driveways. Maybe leaving a trail of things on fire (instead of breadcrumbs) isn't the worst idea after all.]

What about your name, do you remember that? Any idea who you are, Gordito?

[Yeah, if he has to put up with Scrawny... not that Katsuki's wrong.]

[hot_handed]

[Growling, with his hair standing up on its end.] My name's...Ka- Ka...

Katsplosion. [He thinks. He doesn't ask him his name! Scrawny is easier to remember.]

[vagabone]

[...Why does he feel like he should have expected that.]

Kats... Katsboom. [Haha.] I'm Héctor, Katsboom.