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]

Jesus, that's what happens when you put Caboose in charge of anything. Oh, man, did--did he try to convince Epsilon it was his best friend? Probably left Tucker out completely.

So nothing even got done. Everything we did--everything we--I--of course the plan would get fucked up. Nothing ever goes to plan. You know that by now. Why the fuck did I ever let you talk me into something that was obviously gonna fail, because we can't get a fucking win to save our asses.

[counterblows]

[Let him go off for a while. Let him ramble. It buys time to think about what to say next. They used Epsilon to replace you, and then they used Washington himself to replace Epsilon, and then...]

[Where do you even start?]

You're here now, aren't you?

[motherfucking_ghost]

I don't even know what that means. We're dead but this is supposed to convince me we're not?

Wash, neither of us knows how we got here, and none of this makes sense, and none of this...feels...right. I don't know what being here now even means if I don't know where 'here' is and I don't know when 'now' is!

[counterblows]

I know where I am. I just don't know where you are. If that makes any sense.

[It probably doesn't. Cryptic motherfucker. Stop being cryptic, motherfucker.]

A couple months ago, I wake up on these...islands. And sometimes stuff like this happens on them. Dreams where you end up in someone else's head. [But he's spent enough time in other people's heads to be used to it. To not find it as inherently bizarre as, maybe, he should.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

You're not in my head, what the fuck are you talking about!

[He's back on his feet, hands wild, because none of this makes sense, and Wash, for all his apologizing and truth-telling, is still Wash, to the point and cryptic and seriously messed up.]

I wouldn't dream about a place like this, and you can't get into anyone's head, and unless I'm in your head, then this place! Is just! Bullshit! And you're bullshit! Am I dead? I'm just literally dead, aren't I? I literally died for nothing because you had a stupid fucking vendetta that I didn't even want a part of! And now I'm in your stupid fucking purgatory hellscape dreamworld!

[counterblows]

Calm down.

[He snaps it with less alacrity than the situation maybe warrants, but he has no idea if these things hunt by sound and he doesn't want to find out.]

I don't know how to explain this in a way that makes sense, okay? I went in there with three things that needed doing, and I didn't end up doing any of them, and I didn't even begin to start figuring out why until years after.

[motherfucking_ghost]

You took care of all the AI, that's something you did. All the AI that didn't remember, so they couldn't prove anything. All the ones who weren't the key.

[He stomps across the room, away from Wash. See, now he's thinking about it. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to think about being the Alpha, because if he does, then he has to think about everything he was told about the Alpha, and all the things that implies, and the tightness in his chest is bound to just implode him until he's nothing. Because he's a shell. Something that was whole and now is not and now will never be again.]

I should scout ahead. [He says it, growls it really, to the wall.] They can't catch what they can't physically hold onto, right? Can't catch a ghost.

[counterblows]

[Took care of the A.I. Not the Meta. The Meta would linger, and he'd order around the pulverized shell of his best friend until the day on Sidewinder when he came up against the barrier of his own assumptions, the default-baseline of instinct that was really, really, really, really fucking stupid when it came down to it. As if any part of him still existed in there, as if the Meta would have been easy to stop just by wiping all the computers from their head, as if there was any part of Maine still in there - ]

[The exhaustion is evident in the slow incline of his helmet, the slump of his shoulders. The way he looks away.]

...sure. Just...be careful.

[Don't get yourself killed like I did, right?]

[motherfucking_ghost]

What do you care, anyway?

[The body goes very still, though the fingers are still curled, head still angled down. With a flicker of light, Church, the ghost, makes himself appear, hovering in midair.]

Don't tell me I'm the one doing the guilting this time. You got out alive, whether you liked it or not, and got rid of me. I caused all of this, didn't I?

[He wishes he could shove the words back into his mouth, or vocal processor, or whatever he has. He hangs there awkwardly, just as the moment does, his phantom form giving a flicker of anxiety. And then he disappears through one of the solid walls.

Definitely not running away or anything.

He still wants his body after all.]

[counterblows]

Because it's like you said. I dragged you into my vendetta. You didn't have any reason to believe me, or...

[Was that complacency on his part? Or just the calm self-assurance that none of it would ever be a problem? That he wouldn't have to think about apologies or forgivenesses?]

[Three things. Three things, three things, three things. Bring down Freelancer. Bring down the Meta. Die with his name clear.]

So I guess I owe you.