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.

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

Comments

[counterblows]

I don't know. You're the first... [The first what? The first sim soldier? The first Blue? The first person without inextricable connection to Freelancer? The first - ]

[The ka-bar, it turns out, is not doing a thing against this stuff. Which seems illogical, given that it looks like a child's bored scribble more than it does something that should repel a titanium composite blade, but that's fucking Mu for you.]

People show up from wherever, okay? And from...whenever. [Trying again, and the blade skids harmlessly over the stuff. Christ.] Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me. It's just been me and Carolina here, and...a couple others.

[Those "others" being a) C.T., and b) the Director, but that is a bridge he doesn't feel like crossing right now.]

[lovernotafighter]

Um, not the first if you're here.

[None of that made sense. None. His eyes stared up at him, half ignoring the bonds because a) stabby thing way too close, and b) what the fuck was Wash saying? "Whenever"? What the heck did that even mean? How did someone just show up from "whenever".

Listening to those Locus Level "How To Be Cryptic" audiotapes again, huh?]

I think you're having a stroke, because I could have sworn you said "whenever". [He struggled again, tugging on the restraints only to feel them restrict him more. Come on, man, if anyone could get him out of this, it was you.

Or Carolina. Probably Carolina. Where was she?]

Who else is around? The Reds? Because I don't blame you for ditching them.

[counterblows]

I'm talking other Freelancers, okay?

[Can you feel the glare through the visor? That sort of "don't fucking ask" glare that usually gets wholly ignored, because golden face-shielding tends to cut the power of Washington's glares by a good 30%?]

People who are supposed to be dead and aren't anymore, so you can go ahead and ignore logic, because that's just kind of how this place works.

[There's just no easy way to say "the real C.T., the one who was kind of maybe a little bit attached to the guy Epsilon fried in the desert, is back and so is my old boss, and people don't stay dead here anyway," so he just sticks to the immediate problem. Namely:]

This isn't working. Do you have any...wiggle room? [Dislocate a wrist or something. It's no big.]

[lovernotafighter]

[Other Freelancers. Well, wasn't that just fucking great and shiny and goddamn wonderful? Tucker stopped his struggling, stopped everything; it seemed he didn't need that familiar glare to snag his attention after all.]

Like Tex? Or Wyoming?

[But if it was all dead people...

If it was anyone....

Tucker's eyes grew wide behind the visor, and he could feel his heart start skipping beats. He didn't know if he should be pissed, afraid, or hopeful, because this suddenly got a lot more fucking complicated.]

Or...Felix? [There was a beat, a pause, a click of his throat, and-] Is Church here?!

[Because that was the most important thing, with the wound still fresh, still pained, still--

Okay, backburner that shit; he needed to get out. Now. He wasn't dislocating anything, Wash; he wasn't a Freelancer and he never was able to do any of that crazy stuff (even though he tried yoga for a hot second because he read somewhere once that it could help him go down on himself. Blood Gulch was a boring, lonely time.).]

No! If I did, I'd get out of this. Can you shoot it off or something?

[counterblows]

[Well, Church is here. Not the Church that he or anyone else was thinking of, but a Church. The objectively worst Church! Isn't that great for everybody?]

Not...no, I mean more like...it's complicated, okay?

[God, he does not want to be doing this right now. He doesn't want to explain who C.T. is, or what the Director means and doesn't mean to any of them, and this is not something he ever thought he'd have to reconcile. Thankfully, explanations can be diverted into regarding Tucker with a special sort of incredulity.]

You want me to try shooting some ropes off your wrist. I thought you were attached to your hands, Tucker.