TEST DRIVE MEME ( 022 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

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.

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[whosamacallit]

I didn't say I wanna encounter it. [ She's confused there, not sassy. ] It's starting to sound like superstition.

[ But hey, she too looks up, squinting at the endless walls, the unseen ceiling. ]

It might go on for infinity—we're not exactly in the realm of reality. [ And to her, reality is extremely mundane and devoid of magic. ] Is 'the Vast' what you call outer space?

[ Seems appropriately mythological. ]

[the_archivist]

That's for the best.

[He doesn't want to encounter it but somehow he's sure that he isn't going to have a choice at some point in the future.]

We're in a dream. Is superstition really that much of a problem?

[Dreams expose so very much and he thinks... no, he knows that some of them are not always his own.]

No, we call that outer space too. Although it most likely comes under the domain of- Have you ever looked up at the sky, or at the ocean, so wide and open and fathomless, and felt like it could swallow you?

[whosamacallit]

[ Well, put like that— ] No.

[ She still wouldn't write on another culture's artifacts, though.

His answer, while not much of an actual answer, is evocative enough that she can imagine what he means. Stargazing with her mother is a clear memory, less bitter now, sweeter, because she knows more about what happened and why. ]

Yeah. [ She pauses. ] Vast is a good word for those things. We're so miniscule in the grand scheme of things.

[ It makes her want to explore, ask questions, study. Her passion is forensic anthropology, but she follows developments in other science fields. Aka she's a huge nerd. ]

[the_archivist]

Well now imagine that but but as fear. How tiny you are, how insignificant. That's the Vast.

[Not one of his personal fears, but he'd never thought he'd be afraid of clowns and mannequins until he had to face the Stranger and stop the Unknowing.

He assumes the Unknowing was stopped. He doubts he would be here in any capacity if the ritual had been completed.]

You like to learn things.

[He doesn't mean to pry but it just... comes to him, a drip of knowledge around the edges of a door pressed tight shut against an ocean. And perhaps it comes easily because it calls to his... his... patron.]

[whosamacallit]

That sounds like something out of how myths are born. I like it.

[ She likes to think she's not afraid of anything or anyone—not the Salvadoran drug lord who locked her up for three days and tried to convince her she'd never be found, not the murderers she helps catch, not Booth with his alpha male swagger and his obeisance to outdated social mores—but then... things changed when Booth came back into her life. She feared she didn't know who she was, she feared being killed and fed to dogs, she feared being killed by a murderer who knew that Brennan could find them. She feared losing one of the most important people in her life, and she fears, still fears, that she has. That she failed him.

The Vast doesn't compare to Zack Addy confessing to murder in the name of the Gormogon tradition.

Luckily, this man with his mythological leanings changes the subject, and Brennan, who lbr here is quite proud and used to talking about herself, takes the opportunity immediately. ]

I do. I'm a scientist. The best forensic anthropologist in the world. [ She says it casually, because it's a fact. Forgive her. ] You strike me as... a folklorist, maybe. Either as a professional or an amateur.

[the_archivist]

I suppose. In a way. But myths are less likely crush you.

[He counts them off in his head as she speaks - The Buried, The Hunt, The End, The Lonely.

The Beholding, all your secrets laid bare and exposed, the scrutiny, and he doesn't want to See it, but that part of him is hungry for it. Feed your god, before it starts to feed on you.

He should really see if he can find a statement. Apparently this dream world isn't enough to keep that at bay.]

I'm the Archivist.

[The words slip out easy as breathing. Easier actually since he has the distinct impression that if he stopped breathing it might not matter anymore. It takes him a few moments to realise what he's said and his lips twist in unhidden irritation. Really? Can he at least pretend that part of him isn't being swallowed whole?]

Jonathan Sims. The Archivist. Jon is fine Doctor Brennan.

[And there it is again, that drip drip drip of Knowing and that- great.]

[whosamacallit]

[ She can deal with 'The Archivist' - though in her world, someone with a 'the' in front of their name tends to be a murderer. Maybe he comes from a small town, and he's the town archivist. It happens.

Then, as she's taking in a breath to introduce herself, he says her name, and sure, this is a dream, but it doesn't stop her feeling a chill go down her spine. A figurative chill, a warning sign from her instincts to the rest of her: danger, get ready to run or to fight. In a dream, she could win or fail at either of those. ]

You must be an archivist from the future. [ Neither fight nor flight, not yet. She'll stall. Stalling has saved her life before. ] I'm sure my work will be studied in forensic anthropology courses and journals for decades, maybe even centuries.

[ How else would he know? It's the only logical explanation, even if time travel is strictly theoretical at best where she comes from. ]

[the_archivist]

[Jon sighs and reaches up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. Really? Is this how things are going to be from now on? He hadn't even noticed until he'd said it and he hadn't pulled it from her head, at least he doesn't think so. He'd just known it, like, in retrospect, he'd known that Gerard - Gerry - had been working with Gertrude before his death.]

The future? No. I don't think so. It's... 2017. I think.

[How long since the Unknowing had taken place? That apparently is something he can't know.

He shakes his head and gives a sheepish smile.]

Sorry. I don't really have much control over it yet. It's a bit... sporadic about what I can Know.

[whosamacallit]

I don't understand. [ Plain and simple. There's no shame in admitting that. ] i don't think I'm supposed to, since this is a dream, but...

It's 2008, from what I remember. No one can control history, but I also can't "turn off" my brain. I can't control it that I can learn so much just from looking at bones. What you're saying sounds different.

[the_archivist]

No it's-

[Jon shakes his head and tries to think of a way to explain it that isn't utterly horrifying. Unfortunately his entire life is utterly horrifying and it doesn't look like it's going to get better anytime soon.]

I'm... the Archivist. I sometimes just know things, knowledge that I have no way of really knowing. It's just drips right now, but there's an ocean of it, barely held back.

[whosamacallit]

[ Okay. She's going to try here. ]

If I accept that you are... some... figure out of myth, then I can begin to understand.

[ YouTried.jog, Brennan. ]

Should we get out of here? You said I wouldn't like whatever's behind this.

[the_archivist]

[Jon makes a face at that, although possibly it's not entirely inaccurate.]

I'm not a mythological figure. I'm not... Cu Chulainn or Perseus. I'm just Jon. It's more like... I have a patron. And I'm it's... avatar. It's all sort of a mess really.

[Getting out of here does sound good though. It reminds him of Mike making him fall and fall through endless sky not knowing if he was going to be allowed to stop before he hit the ground.]

That would not be a bad idea. I had a not so pleasant encounter with the Vast recently and I'm not keen to repeat it.

[whosamacallit]

[ It's the best she can do right now. Poor Jon. At least she gets those referrnces. She knows those names. It helps a little, especially the part about it being a mess. It's not the most precise descriptor, but it's easy to grasp and agree with. ]

And I'm not in the mood to be buried alive again.

[ With a glance that says "let's go" (nonverbal cues aren't always difficult for her) she starts for the exit. She's not someone who believes in "feeling the creeps" brennan oh my god it's "it gives me the creeps" or something like it but there is... a strange prickling at the back of her neck. Coincidence. It's just a dream. Never mind the dancing drawings all around them. ]

This is the third time in recent memory I'm glad to see the sky.

[ She's gonna catch you, Gravedigger. ]

[the_archivist]

[John shivers at that reference. Buried alive. Too-Close-I-Cannot-Breathe. He remembers Daisy's tale, of a coffin and stairs heading down into it, crushing dark and earth.]

No. The Buried is not something I want to deal with either.

[Why does he feel like there's probably an encounter in his future?

He doesn't take much persuading and follows after her towards the exit. If there is an exit. Dream logic is strange at the best of times and he's becoming more and more familiar with things that warp reality.

He'd be sorry about the prickling, if he knew. It's probably going to be a problem around him now that he is coming into what he is. But he's focussing very hard on not Knowing right now.

He bites his lip, because there's a story there, a statement, and he could ask but she hasn't come to him for that and it feels rude to force it.]

I have to admit, I agree. Coming out of a dark place is cathartic.

[whosamacallit]

[ It's better that he doesn't know about the prickling. She attributes it to prehistoric instincts.

His remark about being outside again makes her nod, thoughtful. ]

So many cultures celebrate festivals of light during the winter. We were diurnal hunters-gatherers for a long time. We need the light. We depend on it.

[ And air... god. Yes, it's good that he doesn't ask for the story. Stories, in fact. Those are far too personal. ]

[the_archivist]

[He takes in a deep breath when they finally reach the outside, and closes his eyes. It feels nice. He hasn't had much time to really breathe since- since the Unknowing, and no, six months in a coma or- or dead or whatever state he'd been in didn't count as a rest.]

I suppose so. I've never had much chance to study... history? Anthropology? [He thinks it's one of those, maybe both.] I guess it's why the dark is such a big fear.