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aftr_ooc2019-02-13 08:47 pm
lifeaftr_mods) wrote in aftr_ooc2019-02-13 08:47 pm
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TEST DRIVE MEME ( 020 )
Test Drive Meme #20
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.
Due to the shortness of the month, both Reserves AND Applications will open on February 17th!
Two important notes:
Due to the shortness of the month, both Reserves AND Applications will open on February 17th!
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.
Hell's Fury Burns the Heart
Back in December, the island of Maati treated travelers to unique Trials, tailored to their own unique sins and vices. Of the seven possible trials for adventurers to undergo, the Trial of the Forgiving, the trial laser-focused to exploit those most predisposed to be wrathful and violent, was among the simplest. Unlike the other trials, there were very few puzzles and mazes. The Trial of the Forgiving was largely, in essence, a trial of temptation.
This Trial takes the shape of a stone-walled spiral, with trial-goers starting at the outermost point and working their way steadily to the exit at the center. The torches lining the hall as it stretches infinitely onward paints the walls with a warm amber tint, giving the entire place a much more welcoming ambiance than will eventually become evident.
Your task is simple: make it to the end in one piece. All you have to do is withstand the constant harassment from the very, very familiar faces that will stalk you throughout the entirety of this gauntlet. Each specter that appears will be one with which you hold a significant grievance - be it a personal antagonist, a long-standing nemesis, a foe you once faced, or even yourself, if your self-hatred runs that deep.
They want you to attack them. They want you to lash out. In part because all damage you attempt to deal to them will be rebounded back onto you - and whoever might be accompanying you - instead. A poorly-timed attack or well-placed insult might very well be enough to one-shot you, or your companions, into oblivion.
It's a good thing you have, potentially, innumerable chances. Every time you're struck down, you'll simply reappear at the very start of the Trial...and have to start making your way to the end all over again.
The Weakest Link
Once again, Mu has reformatted one of Maati's Trials for its own purposes. This one is based off of the Trial of the Trusting, which focused on building bonds and connections between its victi - er, between its trial-goers. For those prone to paranoia, distrust, or simply being emotionally closed off, this would be the challenge laid out to them: a sequence of puzzles and traps requiring teamwork and faith in one another, at least in the situational sense.
Fortunately - or, perhaps, unfortunately - things here are going to be a little simpler, though you'll still be waking in a tunnel lined with dark green stone, intermittently lit by the odd, irregularly spaced torch. This Trial will make its intentions quite clear from the beginning, for, you see, you're going to be waking up with a friend.
One that happens to be chained, that is. To you.
The path that is open to the pair of you is fairly linear. Its difficulty largely stems from the back that you'll be traversing it as a permanently linked pair. Obstacles present will always be surmountable as a team - switches and levers that might involve two people to reach, doors that require dual switches or buttons to be held down, puzzles that require passing of information between the both of you to expedite progress, and so on. There's also the matter of the Rarriers - ogre-like creatures of large stature and a territorial nature. Those under the keen gaze of a Rarrier will find them impossible to attack; their front hide is as tough as steel, and attacks tend to simply glance off. Their backs and sides are of a much more vulnerable nature, however. If only you could reach...or get someone else to do it for you.
Assuming you're not both sick of each other by the time you reach the exit, you'll be rewarded with the breaking of the cuffs that connect you, symbolizing that a friendship forged is stronger than any iron! Though, by the end...maybe "friendship" isn't the word we'd use.
Well Met
This place is hot, dry, and arid - but at least it's brightly lit! The peach-colored swell of dunes seems to be limitless, in nearly every direction, with the stretch of sand fading seemingly infinitely into the dark, purple line of the horizon. The sun overhead is relentless and sweltering; if you're the sort of person who needs to self-regulate, temperature wise, you might be in for a bit of a problem the longer you're stuck out here. Could be a rough time.
Fortunately for you, there's water. Very nearby, in fact. It's the only deviation from the sea of sand: a dark, circular blot that looks very, very much like a water well. As the only landmark in the vicinity, it seems at the very least worth checking out, right? The closer you get, the less it seems like it might be a mirage, or some other elaborate ruse. It looks like a perfectly normal, unassuming well.
Well mimics are native to the island of Monsun, and they're...well, they're exactly what they sound like. They favor dry, desert-like environments, and hunt by luring travelers and animals alike to the temptingly fresh waters they hold. Mu has been helpful enough to recreate one in vivid detail, just for you.
These creatures are largely tube-shaped animals, buried deep in the sandy earth. They suction fresh water from deep within the earth and hold it in the lowermost parts of themselves. The simple construct that travelers see - the circular, stone shape with the rope and bucket for hauling water - is, in fact, their mouth, carefully adapted to camouflage itself into something that seems perfectly serviceable. Once travelers attempt to grab hold of the rope or bucket, or even the rim of the well itself, they'll discover that the surfaces have all been slicked with a sticky substance that may very well take off a layer of your skin if you attempt to tear away without taking great care.
Once the well mimic has entrapped its prey, the "well" sprouts teeth around its stone rim, lining its rocky gullet all the way to the bottom, as well as a fat red tongue. Rope-like tentacles whip out to seize whatever poor soul has found themselves ensnared. If you don't manage to get free in time, you'll learn just how it feels to be digested over a period of twenty-four hours while your body is broken down into a squishy, delicious mulch for the mimic's consumption.
The best way to kill these creatures is by tricking it into swallowing something lethal - fire, poison, sharp weapons, whatever you have on hand. Well mimics are quite blind and hunt purely by touch, and will seize whatever touches them without any knowledge of what it is. And once it has one victim in hand, it's quite incapable of grabbing hold of another.
( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )
Starflight | Wings of Fire | OTA
Starflight had to admit at this point he was getting sick of both caves and chains. Between growing up trapped in the cave he and his friends had been raised in, plus several stints in various prisons, he felt like he had more than his fair share of both lately. On the plus side, at least he wasn’t chained to the cave, and he wasn’t alone, which would have made the whole thing even more unbearable.
Of course, it was always possible his companion was working for whoever put them here, or there was some sadistic twist at the end. He’d read about a similar ice kingdom ritual one time, where two dragons went into a cave and only one came out. Or when Scarlet threw him in her gladiator arena with one of his friends.
“You don’t think they’re going to make us fight at the end of this, do you?” he asked cautiously, as they came upon another large door, locked of course. He started inspecting his side for any sort of hidden buttons of levers, his claws scraping gently across the stone.
II. Well Met
The middle of the desert, in the middle of the day, was no place for a black dragon. The closest he’d ever been to one was when his friends had skirted the border of the kingdom of sand and the ice kingdom, in the close highland deserts. This was completely different, and Starflight was miserable under the glaring sun. He desperately wished he had Sunny here. He didn’t know if SandWings could navigate deserts better than other dragons, but it didn’t matter. He missed her, and all his friends, terribly right now.
He was flying low over the dunes, the hot air helping him keep aloft, but despite how long he’d been flying he didn’t see anything that would offer shelter from the heat, or water. Gliding lower, he finally spotted the well in the distance and sped up, but seeing another figure nearby he pulled up quickly. Starflight considered landing, but he had no idea if this person was dangerous or not. He circled overhead at a safe distance, likely more ominously than he meant to be, a dark shadow passing over the meager water sources below.
I
"...If they expect us to fight, they have another thing coming," Tsunami muttered darkly as she reared up to run her own talons across the stone in search of some kind of clue. She dug her claws into a crack--then decided that it was just a crack in the stone because no way would a Scavenger make a puzzle that involved large, dangerous talons.
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He kept searching, eventually finding a tiny sigil in the wall. He pressed on it cautiously and heard a satisfactory click.
"Found it!" he announced triumphantly, turning to see where Tsunami was in her search, "Check lower on the wall, about here. Mine has a little symbol on it."
He scratched a larger version of it onto the wall with his claw for her to see and stepped aside, standing as far aside as he could while still pressing the button and giving her as much slack on the chain as possible.
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"I can't find it--" Starlight was scratching out the sigil for her at this point and that helped. She lowered her gaze and then--
"AH! Gotcha!" She pressed with her claw and grinned at the 'click'followed by the rumble of grinding stone as the gate shifted open to allow the pair on their way.
"I dunno what I'd do without your brain to help me out," Tsunami said with a wry little smile as she started through the gate. She had to remind herself to keep up a slower pace so she didn't yank Starflight along too quickly for him to manage.
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"I'm sure you'd manage without me," he said, stumbling a little as she dashed ahead of him and the chain pulled on his arm. He scrambled to catch up, settling into an awkward 3-legged gait to keep up with her without having his arm pulled out from under him again.
"I wonder how many more of these there are. It seems like an awful lot of effort."
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"Right? What's the whole point of this kinda thing?" She sighs and shakes her head.
"It feels like... what's the point? Not like we aren't friends already!"
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"I get the feeling we weren't the ones it was meant for? And it was supposed to be more difficult?" He didn't sound entirely certain as he followed after her.
"It would be hard to do with someone you weren't friends with. I wouldn't want to be here with Fierceteeth. Or Peril." Being trapped in here with Peril sounded deadly.
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"Maybe it's meant for Scavengers. It sure feels like it," Tsunami grumbles as she moves onwards, wings folded as tight as possible to avoid catching them on anything.
"Oh, no. Nonono. No one wants to be chained to Peril. Not even Peril." Tsunami made a face.
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Starflight squinted into the darkness ahead, then nudged Tsunami's shoulder.
"I think the next puzzle is coming up."
Ahead of them was a square pillar in the center of the cavern, with a large iron gate behind it. It looked like there was something on the opposite sides of the pillar, so if you were on one side you couldn't see the other.
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"Oh. Geeze. Why can't these be simple..." She started to circle the pillar, squinting as she tried to get a look at what was on the opposite side.
"Do you see anything?"
I
Maybe that'd be more convincing if Deathbringer wasn't trying to play it cool through all of this or, you know, wasn't a trained Nightwing assassin. Not many points in his favor there. Still, he's doing his part to inspect the other side of the door, almost impressed with how conveniently dragon-sized this all seems to be.
"Personally, that feels too easy. Taking a few dragons this far away from Pyrrhia, putting them in a test of friendship and then making them fight? Little too convoluted."
Granted, he's using Scarlet as an example. No one with patience as short as hers would put something like this together.
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...Scarlet might not have the patience, but there was a dragon who might. And there was a very, very good chance, at that point, that Deathbringer was here on orders to test him. It wouldn’t be the first time. Starflight paused in his search. The chain going slack between then, watching Deathbringer critically.
“What makes you think this is a test of friendship?”
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Maybe even a few romance stories, but Deathbringer would prefer being tied to a completely different dragon for that. He scratches his chin.
"Which means if I'm the muscle here, then you're definitely the brains...so what's that big brain of yours saying about all of this, Starflight?"
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He took a deep, calming breath, before moving towards the door. "We should probably check that there aren't any clues on the door itself first. Otherwise I'd guess it will be another hidden switch, or something like that. A hidden panel, maybe."
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Deathbringer certainly isn't under any orders right now, but he has to admit: there's a part of him who wants to see Starflight in action. He missed a good chunk of that in prison; casting another glance down at the chains binding him to the younger nightwing, he can't help smirking a little.
Still, there's a door to investigate and reconnaissance is always important. He gets right to work on that, sweeping away some of the overgrown plant life for anything underneath. Nothing so far.
"A lot of my tasks had me out and about, you know. Well away from the volcano. You can learn a whole lot from back home, studying scrolls or from training lessons...really puts what you've learned to the test, don't you think?"