TEST DRIVE MEME ( 014 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #14

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 August 17th, and Applications on August 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.

One Magic Night
The waves are aglow. That might not be the first thing you notice when you wake, but it will probably draw your attention at some point: the way the sea foam glistens with an effervescent light as it rinses the beach in a crystalline, deep blue shimmer. Further out, lurid explosions of color ripple soundlessly beneath the waves - an underwater fireworks show. The atmosphere is peaceful, a blissed-out calm to suit the lazy lap of the surf-spray against the sand. Maybe turning around will shed a little more light on the situation. What this is, in fact, is the echo of a celebration that was held on Ensō back in June. Torches and campfires crackle with a merry, companionable blaze, and there is food and drink in abundance - including some of the alcoholic persuasion, for those of you who are over the age of twenty-one.

There is, naturally, all sorts to do in a celebration like this. Friendly sparring matches have sprung up along the shoreline; beach cushions and blankets decorate the party site; coconut shells laden with bioluminscent body paint can be dipped into at will, if you fancy shining like a glowstick throughout the artificial night.

Just because you've got no idea how you got here doesn't mean you can't enjoy a good party while it lasts, right?

Growing Pains
The island you've ended up on today is very, very beautiful, particularly if you're a botanist: it's covered in flowers of all sorts. They grow in rich clumps, seemingly at odds with any sense of convention. Here, you can find common dandelions flowering alongside tropical strelitzias, snowdrops spangled beside water lilies. No matter the impossibility of it, despite the discrepancies of seasons and temperatures in which these specimens should be blooming, you'll find that nearly every species can be found represented, flowering in tandem. It's gorgeous. Breathtaking, even.

There's only one problem.

That problem being that the flowers are growing out of you as well. As might be obvious, this is not exactly a pleasant sensation. There is, in fact, a full list of rather painful symptoms that has been very well-documented of late. All you have to worry about in particular, however, is what has caused these flowers to take root in you in the first place:

Lies.

Is there something you need to get off your chest? Some confession that's aching to be made? Some guilt or regret that you've repressed, that's been dragging you down for years?

Then you'd better get to it. Those flowers aren't leaving unless you spill. And if you'd rather not, well...they're more than happy to fertilize the earth with what's left of you.

Hoo Ha Ha
Stop us if you've heard this one: you and some stranger wake up on a boat. There are no landmasses in sight, and nothing as far as the eye can see but lapping waves and a peaceful, periwinkle, cloudless sky. It's good weather for sailing. Perfect, in fact. There's even a tight breeze that might helpfully guide you along.

The punchline, of course, is the fact that you're surrounded by sharks. Sorry, did we say sharks? We meant tigersharks, of the most literal sort possible. Part fish and part feline, these dual-headed beasts are summarily more naturally carnivorous and more aggressive than your bog standard tigers or sharks. They're wickedly fast in the water, and just as lethal on land.

And they're currently trying to climb aboard; armed with four sharp-clawed legs, they're more than capable of doing exactly that unless you can fend them off.

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Comments

The Director | Red vs. Blue

[determinist]

One Magic Night

Leonard's first thought upon awakening and finding himself surrounded by a party was what a piss-poor afterlife this was for someone who had died under the circumstances he had died under. Not that he didn't begrudge the others here for celebrating, but that simply wasn't where his thoughts were bent. His mind was concentrating on the dark thoughts that had plagued him before his final day. At first he stayed near the shore, but his trousers were getting wet and sandy at the hems, and the glowing algae stuck to the fabric. This was aggravating. He didn't want to pass through this party, but circumstances seemed to be dictating it.

So he wandered up from the shore, past the revelry, past the crackling of campfires and flickering of tiki torches, all the way to where the sand ended and the trees and brush began. Here there were two Adirondack chairs angled toward each other with a standing cooler full of dark-colored bottles between them.

He frowned. He didn't want to sit in that style of chair, but his knee joints were complaining that he'd been on his feet for so long. He hung back for a moment, but looked around—everywhere else were people gathered, and he wanted to be alone. He walked over to the cooler and plucked a bottle out. Sitting down on one of the chairs, he popped the top on the bottle and pulled a drink from it. It was rum, spicy and sweet.

Spiced rum had been Allison's favorite.

Leonard looks at the bottle for a moment, then abruptly throws it into the woods.

Growing Pains

Leonard had fallen asleep in the cleft of a tree near the beach. He awoke in terrible pain. He hadn't noticed the flowers around him when he'd fallen asleep here, but the fact that they seemed to be coming out of his own body now as well wasn't escaping him.

He groaned, sitting up, and started plucking the flower buds off his skin. This did nothing but exacerbate the pain, but he stubbornly persisted.

To his dismay, the snapped stems soon began to bud again very quickly. At this point he makes a loud exclamation of dismay and starts to rush to the shore. He's unsure what he thinks getting in the water will do to help, but at least it'll be something different.

magic | i'm sorry i am compelled to do this for shiggles

[burninglight]

--?!

[Ardyn ducked out of the way of the flying bottle, turning on the Director with a glare from gold eyes.]

What do you think you're doing?!

[determinist]

[ Okay, so maybe he hadn't quite aimed for the treeline.

Maybe he'd sort of thrown it directly across from him instead.

He never had been the best at aiming.

His response comes out in his most congenial Southern drawl. ]

I do apologize. I had not seen you there.

[burninglight]

[...That was a vaguely familiar sort of cadence, but he couldn't quite place it.]

Fine--suppose it didn't hit me, so it isn't as though there's much harm done.

[determinist]

[ Leonard gestures beside him. ]

I can offer you a drink in apology. This cooler appears to be stocked with several bottles of good spiced rum.

[burninglight]

Can't see much reason to refuse that much.

[Yet.]

Sure, why not.

[determinist]

Come, then.

[ Leonard reaches into the cooler, pulls out a bottle, and holds it out to Ardyn. ]

Ah...this one is vanilla. Do you have a preference?

magic night - i am so sorry for this

[mylittlesniperrifle]

Well, shit. This. This isn't where Epsilon thought he'd end up. He wasn't supposed to be anywhere, just gone. Yet that didn't seem to be the way as water splashed at his armor and left smears of bright colored algae on him. Hopefully that would wash out...

He hears the bottle be tossed even from here and turns to see what's up. Who did it.

And it's not someone he ever thought he'd see again. "Holy shit- Aren't you supposed to be dead?!" What a greeting...

[determinist]

That voice is immediately recognizable to him. What's less apparent is why Alpha would know him to be dead, but he can work out what's happening as he goes.

"Sorry to disappoint you, my dear Alpha, but I believe you've arrived at a place you didn't expect to be." He clasps his hands in front of him. "Rather unpleasant to discover you yourself may have died, I know."

[mylittlesniperrifle]

"I'm not Alpha." That's the first thing that has to be corrected. Make them be on the same page, even if it's already confusing that the Director is not dead. If Carolina was here, she'd corroborate, but he doesn't know where in the universe she was at the moment. If she was even alive...

"It's Epsilon. And I know you're dead. So since we're both here, this has got to be hell. Which... I admit, I probably deserve to be here."

[determinist]

"I don't believe this fits into our paradigm of what the afterlife should look like, Epsilon," he says, smoothly shifting gears without being fazed. "If it were hell, I don't believe we'd be seeing such revelry."

[mylittlesniperrifle]

"I'm not supposed to have an afterlife. I'm just supposed to stop existing." This was all too much. Like someone had taken his programming and somehow restored it. "This has to be hell. You're here."

[determinist]

"Indeed," he says, a wry turn to his mouth. "Nevertheless, this is where we are." He gazed at the blue-armored form for a moment before continuing by asking, "Is that a robot, Epsilon?"

not a magical night

[uptightness]

She had learned to loosen the reins a little, although Carolina was still far from carefree. It was a work in progress, or it had been before she had found herself here. Even with 'training', being lazy or idle wasn't something that came naturally to her. Her armor was a second skin, as much a part of her as any other piece of her flesh.

It was mix-matched attire- a dark t-shirt which may well be worn inside out, aqua pants and a pair of boots- that she found herself in tonight. That she was out of her armor was something that didn't happen too often since arriving here, but one of the issues with this place was the lack of technology.

The surprise was there when the bottle clipped her shoulder, the tang of spice and alcohol in the air as it soaked down the side of her pants. It's that flash of anger, bending down to the pick up the bottle before moving out of the dim forest. "You don't just throw your crap in to-"

Yet she froze the moment her face caught sight of who it was. Dumbfounded would be putting it nicely and it was for several heart beats that a myriad of emotions shifted across her face before settling in a tense closed-lip stance. No. It couldn't be.

[determinist]

He hadn't noticed the color of her hair until she turned, seeing as how it was dark on the beach, but a lick of firelight caught it just then in a way that allowed him to see its bright-red hue for an instant. Of course, he would know that voice and body language anywhere—the glimpse of red hair only served to confirm it.

It's not been long, according to his perspective, since she'd recently spared his life, in a manner of speaking anyway, and his momentary shock gives way to a wearied expression of resignation, thin-lipped, his eyes downcast.

If she chooses to walk away now, he won't stop her again, either.

[uptightness]

Ghosts. Always ghosts. She'd been one herself for a time, not quite the shell that her father had turned in to, but she'd been dead to the world. A misnomer, but one that she had allowed to perpetuate. That York had had faith in her- she'd never be able to tell him the truth of it, even if it was Texas all those years ago that had been stirring up trouble and not her.

"When did you get here?" That clipped tone. There's not much change to her, perhaps a few lines erased from her features but that was hard to tell at the moment given the hawk-like precision that those mirrored green eyes gave. Yet unlike him, Carolina didn't turn her gaze away, rather continued with that challenging expression.

[determinist]

He raises his eyes to look at her. If she's going to address him, he's not going to shy away from answering back.

"Not long ago. Perhaps half an hour."

He does not rise from his position in the beach chair. Her tone is almost accusatory, as though he had chosen to come here rather than showing up here against his own will.

"And yourself?"

[uptightness]

"Longer." Not by much, but longer. It's an open ended answer, she knows, but she can say that she doesn't really care. He doesn't seem... quite like he had the last time that she had seen him, locked away, watching that same video over and over and over...

Not that he's exactly looking much better right now either. Then again, they haven't exactly had a family relationship in years, now since her mother passed... It's few and far between that Carolina can recall those memories. "Might want to find someone to explain this place."

breaking this combo with gROWING PAINS

[counterblows]

His helmet is thick with the scent of flowers. It's rosemary spooling up into his helmet's filtration systems, blue petals that burn their heady scent into his nostrils. Someone told him that rosemary is used to help the memory, used to sharpen one's ability to recollect. He doesn't remember who. He just finds it to be the bitterest fucking irony imaginable, which is probably why it's these particular flowers choking him out, sucking the blood from his veins, draining him dry.

It's memory that's killing him, and memory that sharpens his mind. Catches the shadow of a man with eyes of a familiar animal green, and Wash tastes iron in his throat.

"Director."

He stands, stiff, no weapon in his hands but there's a sidearm at his side that he's wondering if he should be drawing right about now (it was your sidearm Carolina handed to him, wasn't it?), and he hopes to god that he's the premonition of the Director's own death ghosting into his very fucking soul, taking root, reminding him of just how many times he attempted to put Wash down in one way or another.

[determinist]

He hadn't perceived anyone else being nearby. He's in far too much discomfort to care otherwise. Leonard has to turn to see who's addressing him, and the sight of the gray and yellow armor seems to jar something in his mind. He's holding one side of his head, but he shakes it to see if he can concentrate on communicating.

"Washington," he says. "I am sorry, this is—"

He tries to shake it off, behave normally, stand at a normal, unhunched posture. It's hard to do. He sort of jerks, trying to avoid rubbing his own arms to alleviate the pain.

"Something's happening," he adds, as though that's some kind of explanation. "It's a bit distracting."

[counterblows]

There are a million and one things he can and should say to that. He bites his tongue, nearly bites through it, tastes copper and he's going to fucking hate the smell of rosemary for the rest of his life, he knows that he really is.

"You're growing flowers," says Wash, clipped. Wondering, idly, what point he's from. Wondering if he's blown out his brains with Wash's sidearm yet. Wondering if he's tried calling him David. Wondering if he remembers Alpha. Texas. C.T. The Twins.

The Meta.

It's funny how easy you can forget it: that hatred has a taste, and it's not fucking rosemary.

"No one tell you how this works, did they?"

[determinist]

"No," Leonard said. "It started, and then you were here."

He rubs at his arms, trying not to tear into his own flesh with his fingernails. The buds seem to be swelling, as though coming to more maturity. He's feeling the sensations more deeply in his body, but he tries to ignore it. He gives Washington a more quizzical look.

"'How this works'?"

[counterblows]

"They don't grow from nothing. The flowers." He was never given the opportunity, never fucking allowed the chance to dance around things the way the Director did, and he has the time and the leverage now so he executes to the fullest extent that it's possible and he lets himself be the cryptic motherfucker that can look at the man who dropped the memory of flaying his own digital soul alive straight into Washington's skull, really look at him, and feel his veins run molten.

He wonders if the Director can hear the bitter smirk, so uneven that it hurts the side of his mouth.

"They grow from lies. Things you don't tell other people."

growing pains ;)

[whosthemonsternow]

After trying to pull flowers out of her skin, and trying to trim them off, she's likewise taken to the water. She's standing knee deep, hunched over and desperately trying to scrub them off of her arm. It's only making them hurt worse, and another crops up as she examines her work to see if it's done any good. Of course it hasn't.

She tenses immediately when someone else rushes into the water, straightening up and touching a hand to her hip, where her gun should be- but it's not. Her frustration pauses a second when she sees who the fuck it is, staring at him in disbelief and rage. The flowers are temporarily forgotten as she glares at him. Maybe she'll drown him. Or pick up a sea rock and bash his fucking skull in.

She can't say anything, uncharacteristically silent for far too long before she lets out, "So it's hell I'm in, got it." Because what the fuck else can she say?

[determinist]

Leonard had seen her but not paid attention until she spoke. The water had not helped his pain, and the buds on his skin are beginning to swell with ripeness. They're nearly ready to bloom. But he stops rubbing at his skin to look at her.

"And I suppose that would be the sentiment of many of the others if they saw me here," he says.

For his own part, he's not entirely sure. He rubs his arms again, stripping various flower buds away with his vigorous motions. The buds drop into the water and new ones begin to grow to take their place—again.

"On second thought," he mutters.