aftr_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME ( 012 )

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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[Morrigan only narrows her eyes at the woman's eagerness.]

And what would you know of Thedas? Your armor is certainly not Fereldan.

[Or like any other culture in Thedas she knows anything of. That's part of why she was currently running with the theory that they were elsewhere -- this woman screams alien.

And Morrigan would hate to admit it, but the shock and hope in the woman's eyes catch her off guard. Certainly not the reaction she expected.]

[ It's true. She'd hoped it was true, she thought she might even have believed it was true, and yet when the woman (mage) doesn't blink at the name Thedas, when she says Fereldan - CT has to fight not to cry, or scream with relief, or run up and throw her arms around her.

Somehow, she has a feeling that none of those reactions would go over well.

Instead, she stays where she is, breath hitching slightly as her heart leaps and she fights to keep herself under control. ]

I...I visited - lived there, for a while. [ She swallows. ] In - In Kirkwall.

[Alright. Consider Morrigan intrigued. She'd officially like to know everything about this person. There should not be a person in Thedas who could surprise her, but lo and behold, this strange woman from Kirkwall with the alien armor has done it.]

...Where are you from, stranger? Before Kirkwall.

[ Her first instinct is to say it doesn't matter. Who cares? Who cares about her old life, all the lies, the trauma, the dying. She'd tried her best to put it all behind her when Varric had brought her to Thedas. It hadn't worked, in the end, but she'd tried. ]

A long way away. A different world. [ Of course, the mage had already guessed that much. She wrinkles her nose. ]

It's - hard to explain.

Do your best. I'm listening.

[After all, nothing interests Morrigan more than the existence of other worlds out there. Places far beyond. To travel between them is no small feat, and... even if she can't use the same methods, she'd be very glad to learn more about this strange woman.

Pride aside.]

My name is Morrigan.

Y -

[ Her brain stutters to a halt, her stumbling attempts to tell her own story forgotten. That can wait, because her eyes are open wide and she's looking the mage over in an entirely new light. This isn't just some mage from Ferelden, someone who might share a frame of reference and nothing more. This is someone she knows, or at least, knows of. Someone familiar - if only in the second degree. ]

You're Morrigan?

[Morrigan falters. She's certainly been notorious as "a Witch of the Wilds", but not under her own name.]

Well, well. Wherever have you heard that name?

[After all, from Morrigan's perspective, the Inquisition is not even a whisper yet. She's still with child, just barely. She hasn't had a chance to make much of a name for herself apart from within the few companions she kept on the journey to end the Blight.]

[ She hesitates, wondering, briefly, if this is a good idea. After all, from everything she knows of Morrigan, the witch isn't exactly trustworthy. But...well, she'd always been on the right side in the end, hadn't she?

Besides, what else is CT going to say to convince her? ]

I heard it from Varric. V-Varric Tethras.

[ As if it could possibly be any other Varric. Still. That should explain everything, right? ]

[Morrigan searches the woman's face for any particular insight to her answer, and whether it's a deceptive one. She could be naming any old person. After all...]

That name means nothing to me.

[Which is somewhat alarming.]

Is this a name you've pulled from a hat, or does "Varric Tethras" hold some information on me I'm unaware of?

[This is now an interrogation, apparently.]

[ Of all the possible reactions she might have anticipated, Morrigan not knowing Varric was never on the list. CT gapes for a moment, at a loss. ]

N-no, he - it's Varric. The author? [ They have to know each other well enough that she wouldn't have forgotten his name, right? ] Hard in Hightown? The Tale of the Champion?

[See, Morrigan may be interested to know an author, only those titles sound much different than her usual reading materials.]

I read books of merit, not fantasy tales. I still don't know him. And you'll explain how he knows me.

[ That settles that, then. CT may not know the exact extent of Varric and Morrigan's relationship, but even if his name had momentarily slipped her mind, the titles of his books should certainly be enough to bring it back.

But she doesn't know either, apparently. At least...not yet. CT shakes her head, slowly, and unconsciously takes a step back. That last was a demand, and she doesn't have an answer the mage will like. ]

...I...I must have the wrong person.

TEST DRIVE MEME ( 012 )

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