aftr_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME ( 022 )

Test Drive Meme #22

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.

In conjunction with our monthly Test Drive Meme, Reserves are now open! Applications will open on April 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.

To Dungeons Deep And Caverns Old
Caves are usually natural structures, though the one you find yourself within shows signs of manual influence. Brackets set into stones hold odd, glowing plants that illuminate the darkness with almost neon tones. Slightly sunken ceilings appear less threatening with the addition of great, wood beams to brace them upright, and traversing the more heavily inclined passages becomes far easier with the addition of roughly carved stairwells, worn smooth by the passage of many feet that have passed this way before you.

If it weren't for the way the ground tremors and rumbles underfoot, it would be a strange but otherwise pleasant scene. As it stands, that clamorous shaking only worsens the longer you stand here, rumbles like thunder vibrating through the stone in dense waves. An earthquake? A volcanic eruption?

...a cave-in?

Regardless of the cause, that final option is becoming more likely to occur in your general vicinity, the longer these tremors continue. It's time to go - and quickly, before that option is lost to you entirely. To the left, or right? Up, or down? If you look up, if you really squint, a few shimmering rays of sunlight glimmer far, far above your head from a natural skylight, if you think you can survive whatever's happening on the surface. Or you can keep forging your way downward, deeper, and hope that there's a stable little alcove set somewhere in the stone where you can wait this whole thing out. There really are innumerable options in this labyrinthian underground - and what awaits you around the next corner could be your salvation or your downfall.

Your very long downfall. So watch your step.

What's My Age Again?
Last month, adventurers found themselves dealing with the aftermath of a volcanic eruption... and the odd, transformative effects the volcanic ash seemed to have upon them. Ever curious of what occurs in the waking world, Mu has once again sought to emulate this oddity, reshaping its visitors to fit the images of their past - or even their potential future.

Waking up in your preteen body is the nightmare of many, but hardly the greatest oddity one might come across in a dream. Fifteen years younger, thirty years older - either way, you seem to be a tad displaced from who you are in the now. Those aware of this may find it something of a challenge, with vocal chords cracking for the first time in years, or creaking bones that don't move quite as fast as they used to. For others, however, nothing appears to be amiss at all; mentally or physically. Your memories may have leapt up to follow suit with these radical changes...or maybe you're an adult mind trying to cope with a toddler's body.

Perhaps this dream is precisely the chance you've been looking for. It's time to relive your childhood, or experience your golden years in peace. The calm, resort-like beachfront you find yourself upon will hinder neither. You could always go looking for answers - where you are, why this is happening to you - but there's no guarantee you'll be successful in locating any.

Maybe you'll get lucky, though, and find someone who believes you.

Worth A Thousand Words
The Chamber of Glyphs is a unique feature to LifeAftr, resting on the border between the waking world and Mu itself. An immense room of seemingly infinite length and height, every space, wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, is occupied by images scratched into stone with chalk and charcoal.

The drawings themselves also appear to be- unique. Beams of light from a chalked-in sun mingle with illustrations raindrops to create a shimmering rainbow. Roughly drawn animals leap away from those who approach, startled out of stillness, and ancient battles play out in never-ending loops upon the floor. Everywhere one looks, drawings seem to shift upon the walls, disappearing and reappearing elsewhere, or mingling with images that had not been there prior.

A basin of endless chalk sits next to a firepit in the center of the room, ripe for the inspired artist to take to whatever blank canvas is available in the architecture - and there is always space available. If you're bored of watching the charcoal rabbits leap away to hide in green, chalky grass, perhaps there's a drawing of your own that's ready to come to life, a permanent fixture to the walls about you.

Or not. Take care with just what you decide to draw, as some images may not be content staying glued to flat surfaces. Outliners are perhaps exactly what one would expect them to be, and exactly what they sound like: something that's both out of bounds and out of line. Rogue outlines of chalk, charcoal, and paint, they break away from the surface upon which they were initially spawned to shamble after the living with often awkward shambling. Very few have been given the gift of depth, a fact that leaves most paper thin and prone to crumpling into scribbled heaps.

Though not the greatest of threats, it's best not to let them touch you. Those without depth or dimension may be quite eager to steal yours - and once you find yourself drawn into the two-dimensional spaces across the walls and floor, returning to normal will prove near impossible.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You did what you were told because it got you what you wanted, and damn whoever got in your way.

[They had always been opposites; black and white. How fitting, then, that Ardyn's own voice burned with rage barely masking a more genuine hurt beneath it.]

How very selfless of you, to use others as a shield when it serves your purpose. May the gods forbid one of them dare cough near you, else you'll have to burn the entire cavern alive and yourself with it.

And you never did know when to stop spouting nonsense.

[ Somnus scowls--and he hears the hurt. Really, he does. He just chooses to ignore it. ]

Don't tell me you're so blinded by your own rage that you'd cause a disaster. Then again, you always created more problems than solved them. I can hardly be surprised.

Don't play as though I remain ignorant in all this. I know everything.

[He didn't, and Ardyn knew that. But as far as he was concerned...he knew enough.]

I was ever the Draconian's precious sacrifice; you, he, and even Aera all chose to lie to me instead of refusing such a concept.

Tell me. Did you truly hate me so much that you leapt at the chance to be rid of me from even history itself? Or did it take even the slightest token attempt at convincing for you to choose to murder me?

I did what was best for Lucis!

[ His voice rings out, echoing off the shaking walls. ]

You would have allowed the Scourge to run rampant. Instead of acting as a leader should have, you chose to kill yourself too. Tell me--was it worth it? I see the toll it has taken on you. And you would have called yourself king.

It seems I was right, to confine you on Angelgard. If I hadn't, I can't imagine the state the world would be in.

You did what was best for yourself!

[Ardyn's own voice turned into a gravel-laden snarl--he so rarely raised it even now that the impact alone felt as if it could bring down the cavern itself.]

I did as the gods asked of me! I never wanted that power, I never wanted the throne, but I had both pushed upon me and I accepted it for the people you were murdering!

[His hand tightened on the hilt of the sword, white-knuckled, but steady.]

You could have done anything differently, I would have given you the damn crown if we could only have reached some peaceful resolution. But you chose to take it because Bahamut said I was naught but trash. You locked me away with nothing but my own suffering for company for two thousand years.

...I was your brother, Somnus. Now answer my question.

[ He feels it, down to his bones.

Still, he doesn't falter. ]

You were my brother, Adagium. You have no right to command me to do anything.

Like hell I don't. Do I sound like a mindless daemon to you? Are you such a selfish child that you refuse to think otherwise of your mistakes even in the face of reason?

[What was wrong with him? Ardyn should have cut him down by now, and yet...he didn't. His own blade remained entirely still, every inch of him tense but not about to start a fight. Why? Why didn't he just kill him?]

[What had all this time on these useless islands done to him?]

...Do you truly care nothing for anyone but yourself?

You seem to have forgotten the world doesn't revolve around you.

[ His eyes narrow, but he's not about to mindlessly charge forth. He has no idea of the abilities Ardyn might have--and the walls and floor still shake around and beneath them. ]

My heart is hardly as black as the scourge that runs through your veins. There are things far more important than a single being.

I'm not the one that cast out my own brother, Somnus. You were the monster long before I was, and you're nowhere near enough of an idiot to fail in understanding that.

It didn't revolve around you either, and yet I certainly recall someone making a complete ass of himself in the throne room as if he were literally the gods' gift to mankind. Was family not more important to you? Was anything more important than the throne and whatever recognition you sought?

Why don't you care at all about what you did to me?!

Edited 2019-04-17 05:48 (UTC)

[ He doesn't speak, for a while after that. Somnus stays still, though he turns his head just slightly; he doesn't look at Ardyn. ]

You seem to be under the impression that I had more of a choice than either of you.

...

[Part of him knew that was true. Knew exactly what happened when one tried to argue with Bahamut, and how hopeless such an endeavor was. But at the same time...no. He'd been here long enough to know there were those willing to fight against fate no matter how hopeless the endeavor seemed. Even someone Ardyn himself had tormented had turned around and declared his intent to fight an unfair destiny and the god who laid it out before them.]

[He didn't let go of the sword. But it was lowered, slowly.]

I know too well what the Draconian does with those daring to possess dissenting opinions. But you could have tried instead of accepting such a thing as inevitable and wiping me from existence. You could have told me and I would have sacrificed everything for the kingdom willingly. Had you felt true regret even for an instant in your lifetime, you could have found me again.

You're a coward and a murderer that the world remembers as a savior, and you won't even look at the result of your own actions.

[ Out of all the things for Ardyn to do, that--the simply act of lowering the sword--was not one of them. Somnus hesitates, then lifts his head completely, turns it so he's looking at him.

He shouldn't feel remorse. Does he even have the right to? And yet, some part of Somnus's heart had died when he'd learned of what he'd had to do. It's a shameful thing he did--he'd thrown himself too far into the charade and hadn't looked back. It occurs to him now, staring at Ardyn, that it had been simply a way to keep himself from faltering.

Somnus holds his gaze. ]

... I do not expect you to forgive me, even if I were to apologize. [ He can't ask for Ardyn's forgiveness. He won't. ] I did what I had to.

[ But in his voice, unmistakably, there's regret. ]

You did what you were told, just the same as I did. Don't look at me as though you would continue to justify what you did to me or to Aera.

I might be a monster, Somnus. But I'm the monster you helped create, and there will never be any justification for it.

TEST DRIVE MEME ( 022 )

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whoops here comes the episode ardyn spoilers

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