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

[demonpuppy]

He gets a stronger reaction than perhaps is expected--a jump and startled shout, followed by Chip whirling around in shock. It's hard to tell if they're just on edge from the Stepford landscape they're stuck in, or if they expected a fist to be following those words.

"Wh-what?"

If there was a follow-up to that ever-so-astute response, it doesn't come. Instead Chip gapes in confused awe at the...skeleton? Superficially, maybe, but it looks much more like Muffet or Asgore on a magical level. But that can't--

"Who made you?!"

I RECOGNIZE THAT FACE

[skelepun]

Sorry, kid. That patch hasn't dropped yet.

[The reaction isn't exactly surprising. If anything, there was something passively reassuring about it in a way he didn't quite have the context for. Still, he holds up his hands, a universal gesture for I'm not packing, chill.]

N' you can take it easy. I'm not gonna hurt ya.

what about THIS ONE?

[demonpuppy]

Patch?

[How does that make any sense? They weren't asking about...UGH. Chip's eyes narrow and their hands ball up into fists, shoulders squaring up in an attempt to look intimidating.]

You...you better not! I know how to break bones!

I know them like the back of my hand

[skelepun]

[Don't worry about it, kid]

Sounds like I'm the one that oughta be nervous. [Though for all his smile is as easy as ever, his hands stay up.]. You live here?

oho

[demonpuppy]

No! No, I'm...this isn't real.

[Chip looks around nervously at the cookie-cutter houses and blank-faced people, that nervous and scared expression fading back in.]

It's not real, and we're--we were gonna die if we don't wake up.

[skelepun]

[He was batting .000 on the whole keep calm and maybe the kid'll do the same front. Whatever was going on here was way above his pay grade, but seeing as the only other people around to help were cheerfully passive automatons... well, he couldn't exactly just ditch the kid, could he.

Not that he didn't seriously consider it.]

How do you figure that, bud? Seems pretty safe here.

[demonpuppy]

[Sorry Sans, but trauma just Be Like That.]

That's what...it's what Bliss did. They took us, and Mu changed, and--

[Okay, yeah, they're definitely panicking now. They can feel their nails digging into their skin, but even those pinpricks of pain can't stop the whirling thoughts in their head.]

When I knew before I woke up, but it's not happening this time and they're supposed to be dead, and--

[skelepun]

[Well, he wouldn't know the first thing about that.]

And?

[Telling the kid it was all alright clearly wasn't working. Besides, Sans couldn't be sure he even had that right. Maybe this kid -- or Bliss or My -- knew the real score. Maybe Sans had a lot more to worry about than he bargained for.

... Or, the kid was just freaking out. Either way, letting the panic run its course and offering a concerned ear seemed the only option left. If that netted him some information in the process, all the better.]