TEST DRIVE MEME ( 015 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #15

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 September 17th, and Applications on September 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.

Drawn to You
The forest is dark, silent but for the snap-buzz of cricket song. Nearby, the soft babble of running water threads its way between the rough-barked trunks, though the origin of said water is difficult, at first, to pinpoint.

Granted, you probably aren't paying much attention to the forest, or the water, or the darkness. You're probably more concerned about the creatures flitting to and fro in sparse groups, most of them quite small. They tend to vary in appearance - some look to be totally benign, while others considerably less so - but all belong to the same species.

Scribblets are wily beasts, dream-haunters by nature, and they seem to revel in the idle torment they inflict upon those who cross their paths. You, dear travelers, are no exception. And while they are quite easily crushed into dust once caught, they are exceedingly slippery, agile creatures that are most difficult to pin down. If you're not careful enough, the scribblets will fasten a peculiar tether to you. It looks very much like it is made of the same materials they, resembling a sketchy line of crayon, drawn into the third dimension. Their intent, tonight, is to tie you to something that will make your life difficult - binding you to a tree trunk or to a branch far above the ground, tying your hands together...or even tying you to someone else. These bonds will only grow progressively denser and heavier the more you struggle against them.

Fortunately, the solution here is very simple. Like any drawing, it can be washed away if you find water. You'd simply better hope that you're able to collaborate with whoever you must in order to access said water, whether it's working alongside whoever you might be tied to, or convincing someone to lend you a hand.

You'd better hope the scribblets don't go after them either, by the way.

Quarantine Breached
Whatever this place once was, nature has long since claimed it for its own. A darkened, secluded laboratory now nearly swallowed by thick snarls of overgrowth is probably not your ideal vacation spot, particularly since there's a dearth of any decent lighting sources here. Drenched in shadow as this place was, it might have been helpful if you had thought to bring a light.

Fortunately, that problem is soon to be solved! Twin smoldering points of light abruptly ignite several yards away from you, paired with the pitched mechanical hum of engaging circuits. Another pair of lights immediately spritzes to life just beside it, and another pair, and another...and another...and...

Well, there seems to be a lot of them, doesn't there? "Attention," chimes a pitched, automated voice, doubtless issuing from one of the many automatons that have begun to stir awake, one by one. "Potential host sighted. Quarantine breached."

You must understand, traveler: the island of Umui was nothing like this. The guardian units there were conscious nurse-bots, charged with caring for the sick and dying populace of a hospice island. Most did so with as much care as they were capable. But in the initial days of Umui's exploration, a great deal of explorers' anxieties revolved around these fallen automatons, and what possible purpose they may have served.

We invite you to imagine a scenario in which this went horribly wrong.

Consider these automatons to be shadowy, overzealous mirrors of their long-dead, real-world equivalents. They have learned to become hyper-devoted to their task of keeping their patients safe; so devoted, it seems, that nothing will stop them from fulfilling those obligations. They intend to catch and sedate you so that you can be...returned...to a place of safety.

Unfortunately, this place of safety probably entails an inescapable four-walled room or a hospital bed, and it's doubtful, to say in the least, that enough of their programming remains for them to remember to care for and feed you once you've been returned to whatever passes for a quarantine zone. In a decrepit, dilapidated building like this, it's probably not pleasant.

Our advice is to simply not get caught. If this means doing some inevitable destruction to all this complex hardware in the process, well...at least there's no chance you'll be billed for damages.

The New Farm Simulator Looks Great!
It is possible that you vaguely recall being asked to take watch this evening. By whom? Oh, please, that doesn't matter! With the pleasant hum of crickets in the air, and a backdrop of paddocks and grain fields around you, there are plenty of worse ways to spend your evening than this. All you have to do is keep an eye on passive livestock. The farmer's life is a simple one, where your biggest problem is trying not to fall asleep before your shift is over.

In theory, anyway. While the scenery of the quiet countryside may be ideal, the state of the farm's buildings and and fences is far from it. For the curious creatures such as popo, there really isn't much to keep them in one place for long, wide stretches of fenceline ruined by fallen sections. Meaning that these massive, shaggy creatures can simply step over the crushed regions and start plowing their way contentedly in the direction of the fields of grain - fields that were certainly not intended to end up in some silly beast's stomach.

For others, sweet grains aren't as appealing as that sweet, sweet taste of freedom. A word of advice: once the popo are over those hills, you won't be seeing them again. And they might not be terribly fast on their own, but in a herd, they can get to be as dangerous as a stampede.

Hope you weren't expecting an easy night, because in LifeAftr, there's no CJB cheats menu to save you.

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Comments

[godandvoid]

[Not a reflection of reality. Perhaps for others but dreams have long since become reality for the Pale King, a sleep that would last eternally. Yet something was able to touch him in a world he had bent to his will long ago.

Curious.

But from Legion's preservative the news that this is merely a dream does not seem to affect the Pale King at all. Although he is incapable of emoting, if emotions were ever a thing he could feel.]

Umui?

[Elaborate on that too.]

[forwearemany]

(Legion themselves is not hugely expressive, and their capacity to understand such expressions is limited.)

Umui is an island formerly inhabited by victims of a plague and their robotic caretakers.

(They look at the remains that the Pale King is currently dismantling.)

The caretakers were mostly destroyed. The one that remained was not hostile.

[godandvoid]

[Victims of a plague. If the Pale King was capable of emotions he would be able to understand the irony of him entering such a dream.

The Pale King draws the shapes of the parts he removed from the robot in their hollowed out chest. A dream, an island that once held the infected and their caretakers. All but one have been destroyed but they are alive here. No sights of reprogramming.]

The one that remained. Like these ones?

[The answer will confirm what kind of dream this is.]

[forwearemany]

(They watch curiously. They do not, however, come any closer. Though willing to help they definitely do not trust the pale king.)

Though physically similar, they were thoroughly damaged, likely due to infection, and completely nonhostile. They assisted us and others that came to Umui to the best of their ability.

[godandvoid]

[He absorbs the information and comes to a conclusion. Machines created to be purely helpful, although here they acted on it in a hostile manner. The ruin of the laboratory, eroding of time.

A failure to protect, a failure to contain.

A dream powerful enough to drag the Pale King into it.]

A nightmare....the living flame.

[And there is only one being the Pale King knows is capable of such a thing. But why the Nightmare King would drag him into such a useless dream is beyond him, unless after all these eons that God's sense of humor has not changed.

The Pale King finally stands and turns to face Legion.]

God of Nightmares, Terror of Sleep. He is here...

[forwearemany]

Perhaps.

(Legion of course, does not know who he is talking about. But even without that knowledge, they wouldn't be surprised if there was a god of nightmares somewhere on those islands.)

A more likely explanation: dreams such as this often precede arrival on Umui, Enso, other similar islands.

[godandvoid]

[The likes of the Nightmare King or the Radiance were the only ones the Pale King knew with the power to pull him into a dream, the only ones would would dare try.

If these islands were also capable of such a thing as Legion is suggesting then he needed to look at their hearts and take it apart. Not out of a desire for survival but because he wanted to know how they worked.]

How many?

[Are there.]

[forwearemany]

Uncertain.

(It's true. They could also tell him that only certain islands are accessible at certain times, or that this appears to be controlled by the Storyteller, but they do not always volunteer information readily to those they dislike.

And even if the Pale King hasn't become hostile, that stare earlier definitely put them off. They now understand the organic concept of "creepy".)