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

What!? No fucking way.

[On cue, Klaus is always here to make things awful. Where Five sees a calm, tropical paradise, Klaus sees an opportunity.

As penance for making a Fight Club reference, I will now self-flagellate thrice for every subscription to my Twitch channel.

Anyway. The point is, Klaus is not deterred by the promise of life imprisonment. Life is already a prison, man!!!!! He immediately resumes trying to light the brush, but it's, well, not the driest piece of flora around, considering it's literally a few feet away from the ocean.]

You only get life in prison if you kill someone. Which... almost all of us have done.

[Klaus falters in his arson attempts for a second, thinking about. Murder. You know, kid stuff.

Luckily, dear old dad's rich and powerful enough that he can get away with training kids to engage heavily in vigilantism. But, like, he's still a child who's killed people, which is very cool.]

Well. Our records will get trashed when we turn 18, at least.

[And with that altogether uninformed and naive thought, Klaus returns to fussing with his flint. Listen, Klaus isn't here to know laws, he's here to uphold them. While simultaneously breaking them.]

[Shockingly, Klaus has like half of a point about their body count, though Five is just about to miss the height of the Academy's crime fighting days. He gives a conceding little shrug that probably still manages to be condescending somehow. He just wasn't expecting Klaus to know a single true thing about laws. Or, you know, anything really.]

Right, because Dad can't show us off like trained monkeys if you guys are all stuck in jail. [Because obviously jail isn't of any concern to him. He rolls his eyes and nods over towards some driftwood further away from the ocean.]

Try that one, it's been in the sun longer.

[That's the nice thing about Klaus - he's stupid in a way that makes him easily led. Five doesn't even have to get his own hands dirty. Not that he usually gets caught, he's too smart for that, but it's just even easier with his brother around.]

[Klaus knows basically just enough to know how to not get immediately arrested and dragged home to be turned in to dear old dad by cops. Which, in Klaus' humble opinion, is infinitely worse than life imprisonment.

But yeah, obviously that's not a problem for Five. He could just... teleport away from cops or prison or anything. No big deal. Klaus is so used to accepting that Five is (mostly) above consequences that he just doesn't comment on it. He just makes a little noise of acknowledgement.

But then, when his brother points out the better target...]

I knew we kept you around for a reason.

[He flashes his brother a grin, the teasing good-natured, of course. It's obvious Klaus is the less useful one in this equation.

Especially since he is now rushing over to the dried driftwood with full intent to start the world's least secured campfire.]

Edited 2019-04-29 00:55 (UTC)

TEST DRIVE MEME ( 022 )

pretend i didn't already take up all 100 of my slots and totally have kid icons

i just realized they get along bc they're the only chaotic neutral fuckers in this family

OH TRUE