TEST DRIVE MEME ( 013 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #13

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 July 17th, and Applications on July 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.

Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat
When you wake, it's to the bucking of tumultuous ocean waves and the heavy sluice of rain. The boat you've found yourself on was probably seaworthy at some point, but it's been wind-battered and weatherbeaten to the point where it's begun, quite steadily, to sink into the choppy waves. Looks like you're all in the same, sinking vessel. To make matters worse, it seems that the storm itself has a nasty sense of humor. It seems almost intuitive in its attempts to toss you from your footing on the deck and into the frothing waters below. Gusts of powerful wind try to tear you from the mast if you climb it, and the boat rocks perilously to try and tip you into the churning waves. Oh, and did we mention the lightning? Because there's lightning, and it seems to have a personal interest in incinerating your pitifully wooden little boat on the spot.

That doesn't mean you're completely helpless. There is an island in sight, one that resembles the waking land of Ensō, albeit somewhat far off, its silhouette fuzzy and indistinct from the curtains of rain. But if you can make it...

Well, anywhere's got to be better than here, right?

Gibbon No Quarter
It's been a year since the first adventurers were initially drawn to Mu's shores, and then, later, to Ensō's. And so, in celebration, the dream-island has cribbed only the best bits of the previous year for prospective explorers to sample on their way in.

Take now, for instance. You'll find yourself in a cage of all things, with the pound of drums and excited hoots of hungry simians to greet you upon waking. This particular breed of monkeys was once unique to Ensō, before travelers were forced to more or less thoroughly exterminate them. Devilishly smart and naturally inventive, gun monkeys are so named for their trademark weaponry - coconut guns, naturally - and their generally cunning capacity to craft tools out of very rudimentary resources. And oh, right - they're also very carnivorous. They've set up a smoking bonfire in the center of the jungle clearing that makes up their temporary home, and if you don't figure out a way to come out of your cage (have you been doing just fine, perhaps?), then you're going to be next on the menu.

Think fast, or work with whoever's nearby, and you might have a chance. Or you could always call for help. That always works out, right?

To Be Continued
Stories, stories, stories. Anyone who's hung around the block for any length of time can tell you, dear newcomers, that those little things are of the utmost importance in this neck of the woods. There's no mistaking the purpose behind this inviting scene - log seats set up around a roaring campfire, and even a packet or two of marshmallows if you're feeling hungry.

It almost might be enough to distract you from the fact that there's no fuel for said fire. And what's more, the darkness surrounding the woodland backdrop is so impenetrable that you may as well be an isolated blot of warmth in an otherwise unforgiving void. And within that void, if you listen close, you might hear something - a snarling, an indistinct rumble of massive jaws parting, hungrily, in search of something alive. If that flame burns out...well, something out there isn't fond of fire, and that's the only thing keeping it from claiming everyone seated here for its own enjoyment. But the good news is that there's a very easy way to keep this fire blazing well through the danger. Can you tell where this is going?

It's stories, of course. Regale us with tales of your past exploits, or with fairytales or nursery rhymes you remember from your childhood. Relay your tales of triumph and of grief, of laughter and of agony, of anything you can possibly imagine. As long as a story of some sort is being told, the fire will burn merrily onward, and the blanket of all-consuming darkness will be kept at bay.

Just try not to embellish too much. If your story is too vague, if it is more lies than it is something genuine, the fire might start to gutter dangerously low as a consequence. And that beast, whatever it is - oh, it's hungry.

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

Comments

[scholiast]

(how is he saying this so casually??)

Oh sure, sure, (Lucretia says, as if the man sitting next to her has not just confessed to being an agent of the universe, what,) who... exactly do you work for, then?

No need to apologize at all! And yaaay! /thunderous applause

[liveasmyself]

17. I'll be graduating high school after this year.

[And then... who knows what. Even in their current predicament, her eyebrows still knit together in concern when she thinks about the future after school.

She shakes her head and makes herself focus on Lucretia again. And then does some quick math.]

You look amazing for someone over 63!

[Unless she started this as an infant? Either way, both her traveling and her appearance are remarkable.]

No problem! I'm pretty slow too

[proficienciesouttheass]

Hum! About that! [ This is so not the place to have this conversation. To explain all the crazy bullshit of this place- and, by the looks of it, all of the crazy bullshit from their world. Oh lord.]

We should get below deck! Right?!

[deathfindsaway]

[He's kind of forgetting everyone doesn't just know this about him.Plus, it's-- well, a little bit of it is certainly feeling pride about the whole thing.]

I serve my Lady, the Raven Queen, the Goddess of Death and the Natural Order.

[You know, like a normal person.]

I've had many titles over the years, but I think I liked the term the Grim Reaper best.

it was SUCH a good game!! thanks for inspiring me to pick it back up!

[scholiast]

Seventeen...

(She's like a baby in Lucretia's eyes, who feels much older than her body looks; Ray has obviously figured this out. She smiles, a quick quirk of her lips.)

It's complicated. I– my crew and I are trapped in a... a time loop, of sorts. Physically I'm twenty-five, but mentally I'm... eighty-eight? Something to that effect.

sometimes it just be like that

[scholiast]

Who is going to steer if we leave?

(It's probably pretty easy to tell what point of the cycles Lucretia has come here from: a couple decades earlier and she would have happily gone below deck to wait out the storm with him. Experience doesn't stop her from finding the noise of the storm paralyzing, but it has granted her the ability to withstand it.)

C'mon, we have to– try. (She's trying to untangle a rope from around the mast. Looks like it's keeping the sail tightly furled.)

[scholiast]

(Lucretia can't help but stare.)

The– you work for the Raven Queen?

(She didn't even know that was a thing! How do you get a job working for a goddess? And a job ferrying the dead, no less. Lucretia knows her mouth is hanging slightly open, but she can't help it.)

I'm so glad you liked it! :)

[liveasmyself]

Eighty-eight?

Is this--is this all part of your time loop?

[And what would that mean for Ray herself? Selfishly, that's the thing she's most worried about with this new information, if she's just a pawn or side character in someone else's life.

That couldn't be possible, right? She's real, and she knows it. She pokes her thumb with the nail of her forefinger for proof.]

[scholiast]

No, no–

(She holds her hands up to Ray, palms out, trying to think of what to say. This is a little unprecedented of her! They try very hard not to talk about the cycles to anybody they meet while travelling. Lucretia, for the life of her, can't think of why she's being so cavalier.)

The time loop only affects myself and my crew, it's... something to do with our ship. (She's not sure how to explain the bonds engine, so she may... leave it at that.)

[liveasmyself]

[Ray nods slowly; this is a lot to digest, but it could be important beyond her own curiosity.]

And that would be a different ship than the one we came in on, right?

[scholiast]

Oh– yes, of course.

(Get it together, Lucretia! Her brain must be added from the storm still.)

Sorry for all the confusion. I– don't know where the rest of my crew is, so...

[proficienciesouttheass]

What! [ Wait, shit. Magnus, fall in place, you dolt. Be the adventure hero!

He shifts closer and grabs hold of the rope.]

Wait, the-- isn't the sail gonna rip if we drop it?!

[deathfindsaway]

[He puffs up a little at her confusion, knowing he'll have to elaborate for the fire but also really wanting to now that he's getting a positive reaction.]

I do! Well, when I'm not here. She chose me many years ago, and well- she was in need of a task completed, and I was in need of something to do. Or I suppose anything, since I was quite dead at that point.

[And all points thereafter, until pretty recently.]

I do still serve her, of course, even if we may have become... temporarily disconnected. As it were.

[liveasmyself]

Oh, not at all. I'm just... trying to piece all this together. As long as we weren't on your boat, I hope we won't wind up in a loop.

[Is that how it works? She's really not sure.

Ray hadn't considered until Lucretia mentions them that a ship implies a crew--as grateful as she is for Lucretia's company and guidance, there are other people out there who must need her as well.]

How many are there? We can look for them.

[scholiast]

I don't know! I'm playing it by ear!

(This is ridiculous. Lucretia wipes her glasses and stares at the sail and tries to think again.)

Maybe if we– do it together, and slowly. Don't make a sex joke. (funny how decades of living with taako have caused her to automatically tack that last bit on the end, there.)

[proficienciesouttheass]

Hah! [ Oh goddamnit, fine. You got him.

However, something tells him this is a bad idea. And Magnus doesn't get that feeling often! Specially not when the idea is by someone like Lucretia.]

I don't think that's gonna work! It's going to break the mast!

[scholiast]

Okay! (Lucretia concedes, frustrated by not knowing what exactly to do,) do you have any ideas, then? Or are you just going to pick at mine?

(They can't even see land, so swimming is out. Magnus wanted to go below the deck before but she just doesn't see how that will help. Letting the ocean carry them where ever it wants until the storm dies out is a little frightening: too unpredictable.)

[scholiast]

Six others. They should be wearing red robes, like the ones I left on the shore.

(Maybe she should go back and get them, dry them out... at least she'd be easily recognisable from a distance in them.)

What about you? (She says after a beat, in an attempt to stop being so distracted by her own problems,) You said you don't live here, but... close? Do you know anybody here?

[scholiast]

Hold on.

(There's so much to parse out here. Lucretia knows this isn't in the spirit of the fire's rules: the flame does flicker in very telltale manner in response to silence, so she tries to think out loud instead.)

You're disconnected from her... here? Because of the location, or because of other circumstances?

(It kinda sounded like the first one! Lucretia has never considered that before. She always figured the likes of the Raven Queen had control that spanned across the planarverse, but it's not like any of them had ever tried to test that theory. Merle can still use his magic, after all. They'd assumed.

Lucretia stares at the fire, thinking hard.)

And... you're dead? Is that why you're disconnected? Am– am I dead?

[liveasmyself]

It sounds like your friends should be easy to spot.

Wei-- [She wants to say he's back at school, which is sort of true, but she stops herself when she remembers. He's dead--beyond their help and beyond helping them.]

--Everyone I know is back on my island. My mom knows what to do in a typhoon, so I don't think she would've been swept away.

[If she did, what are the chances that they could find her?]

[scholiast]

We'll need to find a way to get you back to your island... (Lucretia says, thinking aloud,) perhaps if we find the rest of my crew we can help you back there.

(Davenport will know what to do. He always knows what to do.)

We could take you back in the Starblaster. That's– our ship, not the one we were just on.

[deathfindsaway]

You're probably not dead just on virtue of being here-- this is the furthest thing from the Astral Plane that I can imagine.

[With that cleared up, though, he can move on to what he does know.]

That said, this space is... liminal. It's likely this is all a dream. But it does make connections difficult.

[Is that everything? No, wait, one more question.]

But uhm, yes, I am quite undead on the regular. A servant of death going to and from the Astral Plane can't very well be alive.

[scholiast]

... Okay.

(It seems he knows what he's talking about, but Lucretia is still uncertain. If only the one person in their group who regularly blinks himself into the Astral Plane were here with her. She fidgets in front of the fire, and sighs when it darkly flickers in response to her silence.)

Of course it's a dream, (she says darkly, and glances up, wondering if she should go so far as to pinch herself,) Taako is going to have a field day if I try to ask him about a dream that I've had.

(Maybe she'll skip this one after all.) How long have you been dead?

[deathfindsaway]

[He has a response he was going to say. She agrees, and he thinks he has a follow up, and then she says a Very Specific Word and his whole brain goes down like a train crash. He immediately goes from being more poised to just outright staring at her, eyes wider than they should be, and looking just a little afraid. Oh gods. Oh this is not some stranger most likely, oh no, oh noooooo.]

Y... you... Taako? You know Taako??

[internalscreaming.mp4]

[liveasmyself]

[Ray nods slowly and tries to force a smile. Hopefully this Starblaster ship will be sturdier than the boat they came in on (which is probably matchsticks by now) and hopefully none of that strange timeloop stuff will happen.

...It's a lot of ifs, but optimism is a good thing, right?]

We have a plan; that's a start.

[She looks deep into the fire, reluctant to leave its warmth and light. Momentum has carried her for so long that she's not too eager to get up either, so she's not going to rise even when she asks her next question. Conserving energy and all that jazz.]

Are you ready to start looking? We could take one of these sticks with us for light.