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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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

Comments

[determinist]

[ His eyebrows lower, but he's still coiled, ready to defend himself from attack. ]

It appears my reputation precedes me. What do you know of what is 'wrong' with me, young man?

[burninglight]

First: my name is Ardyn and ‘young’ doesn’t even begin to describe me.

[Weird, considering he looked somewhere around mid-30s, but okay]

Secondly, I know far more of you than I wish I did. Some of it from your charming Counselor, the rest from someone far more deserving of your name than you are. So let me rephrase my question: what kind of sheer lunatic creates an AI just to break him?!

[It was a bit pot and kettle when it came to Ardyn of all people calling someone insane, but on the other hand he was something of an expert when it came to the kind of madness one had to possess in order to play games like that.]

[determinist]

Leonard's expression becomes hard and shrewd, and now he does stand, despite the difficulty he has in doing so.

"There was more to that decision than someone without my expertise and experience in that field can understand," he replies, his voice tense with anger. "And I do not like to be confronted by some upstart who has only learned of what happened secondhand."

[burninglight]

I’m not a fight you want to pick, Director.

[Ardyn’s tone was cold and almost forcibly stedy, whole body tense but unmoving as though he were constantly trying to talk himself out of picking that fight himself.]

Quite frankly it’s a miracle that I’m asking you this instead of snapping your legs on the spot, so why don’t you explain to me what was so important that you simply had to do something like that? I want to know, from you firsthand, what made you think any of that was acceptable.

i am good at noticing what format we're in

[determinist]

[ Leonard scoffs, deep in his throat. ]

It's absolutely incredible the lengths you'll go to when you realize your entire species is on the verge of being exterminated, Ardyn. When you have the foresight to see you may be one of the only people who can do something to solve the issue. When you have evidence someone who should be on the side of your race is betraying them, and you can do something to stop them. All of these things weigh heavily on your mind and can cause you to go to extremes to stop it.

it happens!

[burninglight]

[That got a derisive snort of laughter, Ardyn folding his arms.]

You don’t even know what human extinction looks like, mortal as you are and surely ever have been. But go on, how exactly does something like that factor in here?

[determinist]

[ Leonard's brows narrow in confusion. ]

Why, that was the point. The point of all of it. What did you think I founded the Project for?

[burninglight]

...You shattered an AI copy of yourself into fragments because you thought humanity was going extinct.

Either you’re more insane than i am, or I missed a step in this grand plan

[determinist]

If the person who told you what happened omitted the fact that we'd been at war for over thirty years, I don't know what to tell you. That was the point. Project Freelancer was a last-ditch attempt at finding a way to bring the war to a victorious close. And yes, things were close—I didn't know how close until after I had started the Project and was then allowed to see some of the intelligence coming from the front lines. And yes, it was that bad.

[burninglight]

Hm—ah, my foolish memory, I do recall some mention of a widespread conflict coming up.

[Ardyn frowned slightly, appearing for a moment to give this serious thought. Then:]

It’s funny, actually. I was involved in a war lasting about that long myself. And the Niflheim empire’s research chief, when I joined the division he was overcome with the hopelessness of losing so many good soldiers to the horrors of combat. So he set himself to creating artificial ones—in fact, they were human clones made from his own genetics and infused with a supernatural force too dark to be comprehended. He went quite mad in the years it took to decide that was a worthwhile army to create, as I’m sure you can tell.

[Perhaps alarmingly, that all came in a pleasant conversational voice, with a smile that didn’t reach yellow eyes.]

And the punchline is that it meant nothing at all. He was murdered quite justifiably by one such clone that he had created, and the empire fell as a direct result of the very research he’d done.

You remind me quite a lot of him. In fact, you’re almost exactly alike. Harboring grand delusions of saving the world when all you are is one more atrocity within it. Humans like you are the greatest argument for the complete cessation of mortal life, and what you created is by sheer chance one of the greatest arguments in favor of its existence.

[determinist]

[ Leonard's eyes narrow when Ardyn smiles so insincerely. When the man finishes speaking, Leonard shakes his head. ]

History will be my judge. I can do nothing about that. But I will not let hindsight interfere in how I regard what I've done. I did what I believed was necessary.

[ Leonard gestures slightly at his chair. ]

If you don't mind, I'll return to what I was doing now.

[burninglight]

Oh, gods forbid I stop you from that. You really aren’t worth the bloodstains you’d leave on my sword.

[ardyn is a very sane and stable person, said no one ever]

So glad to see you haven’t even the decency for regret, so I’ll simply get blackout drunk elsewhere so I can forget I ever saw you.

[determinist]

[ Leonard shakes his head. ]

Do that. Don't bother me again.

[ He returns to the Adirondack chair, sitting down with as much dignity as he can. ]