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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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

Comments

[motherfucking_ghost]

Yeah, I should fucking think so. Look, I'm not supposed to...be here. It sounds very quaint, and I use that word as a way to sound polite, but this isn't my idea of a vacation.

[tuskenlancer]

It's not a vacation. And none of us are supposed to be here.

Wherever you think you are, whatever you think happened...[ If he'd paused to wonder about that at all. ] It didn't. We were all just brought here, and there's no...going back, to your base, or your team, or any of it. Not that anyone can control.

We're all stuck here. I'm sorry.

[motherfucking_ghost]

...So we're dead and this is the afterlife that nobody predicted.

[tuskenlancer]

No.

[ Okay, she should have seen that coming. ]

I mean...

[ They are, but... ]

This isn't the afterlife. We're not...we're not dead. [ Anymore. ] That's not what this is about.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Are you sure, because I'm pretty sure--I think I'd know if I-- [He really doesn't want to say 'pretty sure I'm straight up dead yo'.] I mean it sounds like a stupid purgatory afterlife sort of thing.

[tuskenlancer]

[ She watches closely, waiting for him to say more. Maybe he does remember.

But he doesn't say anything outright, and she's not about to say it for him. Yes, it happened. Yes, you died. You were erased.

Instead, she shakes her head. ]

I know, but it's not. It's just some - [ A short laugh, some of the bitterness seeping through. ] Some - impossible island, that we all got kidnapped to, because apparently we're not allowed to just live our own lives, ever.

...If you were dead, you're not anymore. Not here.

[motherfucking_ghost]

I was also a ghost in a robot body before I ended up here, so, like, do you think that means...?

[He hasn't thought to take his armor off. He hasn't needed to. He's been a robot for a long time.] I mean technically speaking.

[tuskenlancer]

I -

[ She knows about the mission, knows about the EMP, knows everything in the Alpha's file and the Director's entire sad, twisted life story. She knows about Tucker and Caboose and Tex and Blood Gulch. She knows things about Church he himself doesn't know, an entire life and a family and a love story he'd never lived.

She doesn't know about the ghost thing. ]

Wait, what?

[motherfucking_ghost]

Look, I know, it kind of ruins the picturesque image of me flexing in the sunlight looking manly and heroic, but my actual body's been dead for a while, and I've just been inhabiting robot bodies meantime.

It's a long story. It'd probably take like six seasons to tell it.

[tuskenlancer]

[ She just stares at him. It's not the stare of someone mourning the loss of a mental image that involves Church flexing heroically in the sunlight.

It's the stare of someone evaluating the pros and cons of just walking away. ]

...Right.

I don't -

You're not a ghost. You're a -

You're not a ghost.

[motherfucking_ghost]

I can walk through walls, disappear, and fly--well, no, I can't do that last one, but I'm super ghostly. I can even possess people. Don't worry, I only do it to the bad guys when a distraction's needed.

[tuskenlancer]

[ Is this really happening? This can't be happening.

The Church she'd known had been - well, intense is one word for it. Hyperactive is another.

But he'd also known who he was. What he was. He'd been a leader, whether he wanted to be or not. He'd gotten engaged, and then married. He'd had his shit together.

He hadn't been talking complete nonsense about being a ghost and having a robot body and - possessing people?

Oh, God. ]

What do you mean possessing people.

[ There's no inflection, just pure flat apprehension. That can't mean what she thinks it means. ]

[motherfucking_ghost]

I mean hop into their heads and take control of their bodies? Y'know, that kind of possession. Oooooooooo, I'm a scary ghooooooost!

[tuskenlancer]

[ She actually takes a step back. Not that she really thinks Church is about to hop into her head, but - ]

- What, without being implanted?

How - you can't - you can't do that!

[ He can't because it's impossible, first of all. The initial implantation process had taken hours, and even if Maine had done what Wash said he had done, collecting fragment after fragment, he'd had the chip to begin with. AI just can't hop into anyone's heads at whim.

But he also can't because he can't. Because he wouldn't. Because Epsilon and his memories had nearly killed Wash, had stolen his sanity away from him, and he'd been prepped for it -

And Epsilon hadn't even been in control. ]

What the hell, Church!