TEST DRIVE MEME ( 017 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #17

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 November 17th, and Applications on November 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.

Is Anyone There?
What initially promises to be a relaxing island getaway is anything but. The tropical backdrop is all there - swaying palms, crystalline shores, white sand beaches, the whole hog. It's as idyllic as Ensō ever gets in the real world, the waters sparkling just that much more with a polish of dream-shine.

The real problem here is that you're not alone.

While they might be little more than a misted, formless shape at first, they'll rapidly take a more solid form as time goes on: a specter of a single person of great emotional significance. Whoever you might be seeing, they're here to rouse some aspect of your life that was not fully resolved. Someone you did not mourn, someone you did not grieve, someone you loved, someone you cut ties with unkindly, someone who represents a chapter in your life that you have thus far sought to repress. Tailing you relentlessly, refusing to be ignored or brushed aside or forgotten, this specter is hungry for your attention to the exclusion of all else. They will bring every painful association to light and rub those wounds raw, to a terrifyingly parasitic extent. They crave your attention, your love, your devotion, your fear. They are tethered to you, and cannot tolerate the thought that you might pay attention to anyone or anything else.

However they might have been in life, however fondly or not you may remember them, this shadow of them is merely that: a shadow. Desperate for your attention, and likely to grow jealous if you dare direct it anywhere else. They can't live without you. Why should you get to live without them?

In fact...why should you get to live at all? If you don't give them the attention they crave, they might start to demand it a shade more vigorously. They're only going to grow more solid as time wears on - and while no one but you can see them, they have the power to affect you very physically if they so choose.

Choose Your Own Adventure
What you have before you, dear traveler, is a very linear path forward. Deep, tropical woodland, jungle-like in texture and evening-dark, and a well-trodden path that stretches onward in a seemingly infinite, winding road. There is no way to go but backwards or forwards. Or, for the particularly brave...well, you could try moving off the beaten path, but we wouldn't recommend it. As it happens, the surrounding vegetation in this area is mostly comprised of a very irritating sort of foe.

As it happens, most traditional mimics take the form of wooden chests to befuddle and then snack upon any intrepid explorers foolish enough to open a container without checking for teeth first. Such is not always the case, however! Mimicries are what we will tentatively dub...distant cousins of your more conventional mimic. In the waking world, most of them prefer to assume the form of bushes, waiting for an unsuspecting traveler to tread upon the roots that will then snap around their ankles and reel them in, leaves parting to reveal a row of very nasty, very pointed jaws. Tonight, on Mu, their aptitude at blending into the vegetation to prey on the absent-minded explorer is out in full force.

While mimicries are very skilled at impersonating their surroundings, there are plenty of holes in their disguise for those keen of eye. An alert enough traveler may glimpse a pair of yellow, reptilian eyes blinking out from the vegetation before they fade just as fast. Mimicries are highly hostile, prone to attacking once they feel you've drawn close enough for them to take a good chomp, and don't tend to let go of their prey until either it is dead or they are. Armed with spiny teeth and a terrier-like refusal of relinquish their grip under any circumstances, mimicries can vary from genuine danger to outright irritant.

The good news is that, despite their number, mimicries are terribly vulnerable to fire. Happy hunting!

Caught in the Rainbow Current
On the more peaceful side of things, you're also liable to wake on a much quieter island destination - and this time, neither ghosts from your past nor RPG-styled foes will be there to spoil your stay!

Instead, you can take heart in the drifting, multicolored lights that shimmer off the seafoam and flotsam. A bale of kaleidoshells are passing through this region, and they're certainly taking their time in doing so. Resembling a cross between turtles and dugongs, kaleidoshells are so named for their distinctive radiance. Their scales and rainbow-colored shells can get as large as six feet across. The shifting colors on their backs are both bright and reflective. A vast enough number of kaleidoshells can allow for the illusion of an underwater aurora borealis, which is precisely what is occurring now. Kaleidoshells are placid and peaceable creatures by nature in addition to being unfailingly pretty to look at. As they are largely sea-dwelling, their presence in the archipelago is usually seasonal. However, despite the autumn season, Mu has elected to make an exception. Kaleidoshells are particularly slow and unwieldy on land, and thus not much of a threat, but you're probably better off not trying to poach their eggs. They do, however, make a very fine sight around the waters of Mu, especially in this artificial evening. Luminescent, their rainbow patterns glow underwater with the dim pulse of drifting mood lights.

So relax, take in the sights...or wade in to swim alongside them, if you like. They won't mind the company, and there's something singularly enchanting about getting to swim in the tide of a rainbow.

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

Comments

[hurricane_clown]

...... honk?

[Karako looks absolutely flabbergasted. Just gobsmacked. Blank as a fresh canvas, totally dumbstruck.

He doesn't know what to say to that at all.

He... likes Faygo, yeah! He fuckin loves it.

It's also such a staple of his faith, his native caste religion, that he has never once imagined that it might exist divorced from such a thing. Faygo is the devotional draught of the church of miracles, the blessed beverage of the mirthful messiahs, the most righteous libation of the literal motherfucking clown church, his faith to which he is wearing all over his motherfucking face and horns.

But this is an alien he's talking to. And it just now hits him that she doesn't know.

She has no idea! This is so overwhelming to him that he really just short-circuits there in the sand, and he lets out one weak little honk, slightly bereft.]

.... honk........

1/2

[flower_of_innocence]

[Oh dear...what a reaction...Lillie starts to stutter out an apology, but isn't sure what she's apologizing for and instead makes a soft, confused noise. Has she...offended him? Reminded him of something sad? Frightened him again? Her eyes flit back and forth between the put-out clown and the soda in her hands before she makes the split second decision to just. Try it. Maybe that's what he's upset about - it might have come across that she doesn't like these (The can says "Faygo"??) and perhaps that was offensive or upsetting.

If this small clown friend likes them, they can't be too bad, right?]

2/2

[flower_of_innocence]

[Oh. Oh? OH.

The instant the liquid hits her tongue, Lillie is struck by the sweetest, most sugary, most aggressively fruity flavor she has ever tasted. It is the exact flavor of a peach orchard inside of a greenhouse on a hot summer day, where the fruit is ripe and full and ready to be picked, and the scent of their juices hangs thick and heavy in the dense, heated air. It is the exact intensity of a garden hose spraying that very specific scent down her throat at full blast, even though she's only taken a small sip. This is an experience. A good one? A bad one? She has no idea???

But really, once the shock of the sugar and intensity of flavor wears off, it's...not bad. It leaves an aftertaste a bit like peachy bubblegum, and while it coats her tongue and lingers past its welcome, she's willing to brave a second sip just to prove to Karako that her next words aren't purely fictional.]

Whoa...this is really something different! I don't think we have anything like this back in Alola. Thank you for sharing with me!

[hurricane_clown]

[Literally no one but clowns drinks Faygo on Alternia, mostly because it's just soda pop, albeit cheap soda pop... cheap soda pop with connotations. Connotations of shittiness and clownliness.

Which is why Karako was pretty happy to have to his offering of one of the better flavours accepted--not that he's in the habit of just giving the stuff away (it can be a bit difficult for him to get ahold of), but this is a dream, right? A really... weird dream.

And as if to prove, she drinks it! She drinks it, and she likes it, and if that isn't the wildest thing Karako's ever seen with his own two eyes. His whole face lights up with excitement and delight--]

HONK!!

[flower_of_innocence]

[With a laugh caught somewhere between polite and genuine, Lillie holds the can up a little in a "cheers" motion.

Honestly, she's content to just sit here and drink this extremely sugary (but not necessarily bad) beverage with this strange clown creature. They'll wake up soon, surely, and perhaps that will herald the arrival of new folks and she can repay him with some of Guzma's cooking if he arrives. She didn't think it was that time already, but Mu only opened up for Storytelling or drawing people to the islands, according to Guzma.

And this was definitely not Storytelling.]