aftr_ooc | TE̬ST DR̢̹̪̿I̲͈̰̣ͭ̌͜VE MEM̦̭E̬ ( ͣ͛0͓̝̙ͮ̈̑ͯ25̮̘̝̟̞̲̌ͪ ̭̜ͭͣ̐͟)̣͈͖̻̗͓̬ͩͪ

Entry tags:

*test drive meme

TE̬ST DR̢̹̪̿I̲͈̰̣ͭ̌͜VE MEM̦̭E̬ ( ͣ͛0͓̝̙ͮ̈̑ͯ25̮̘̝̟̞̲̌ͪ ̭̜ͭͣ̐͟)̣͈͖̻̗͓̬ͩͪ

Test Drive Meme #25

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 July 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.

3. Are you. Still there?
Why?

If You Close Your Eyes
The island of Umui is strikingly beautiful, particularly for those with a love for flowers. Past the ruins of villages long since emptied, the island plays host to an immense variety of flora. No matter where one's eyes turn, flowers will be in full bloom, regardless of climate, region, or time of year. You will find a seemingly endless and contradictory carpeting of multicolored blooms peppering the rolling, grassy hillsides: daisies nestle aside carnations, cactus flowers aside crocuses, and plenty more besides. Whether these flowers be tropical, rare, or seasonal seems to have no bearing on the fact that all of them are blooming at once in a gorgeous tapestry of unfurled petals.

Unfortunately for you, these flowers are a solemn indication that you're walking on a gravesite. The people here perished from an affliction they termed the Overgrowth, an illness that now runs in your veins as well. You can probably guess what it does, based on the name alone.

If you can't, don't worry. You'll soon see for yourself.

Overgrowth takes over the body in various stages, none of which are pleasant. It's very likely that you'll advance to the second stage rapidly - coughing up lumps of petals as buds break your skin from within, drenching you in a rash of color. Whether you're sprouting buttercups or marigolds or irises or birds of paradise, it will become very clear that, unless you do something, these flowers will swallow you whole. Don't stop the affliction in time, and you'll learn firsthand how painful Overgrowth symptoms can be - your limbs will start to stiffen, you might lose feeling in your nerves, you'll start coughing up blood and plant matter, among others. You can try picking the petals off, or burning them, but you'll find that this solution is a very painful one in addition to wholly temporary. There is only one known cure to the Overgrowth:

Honesty. That is to say, emotional honesty - you must be open and honest about who you are, what you fear, what you regret...you know. All those terrible, ugly things that you to never think about!

Overgrowth takes root in those with repressed emotions and deep secrets. In order to be free of it, the cure is fairly simple, logically. Is there something you need to get off your chest? Some confession that's aching to be made? Some guilt or regret that you've repressed, that's been dragging you down for years? Some admission to which you've never come to terms?

It's time to tell someone. Or...not tell someone, and bear with the consequences of that. Either way, you'd best make a decision soon. The flowers are spreading quickly.

And they're determined to outlive you.

It Always Feels Like
This island destination is pleasant enough at first glance: beaches of white sand, crystalline waters, and the curve of two large mountains narrowing down into a delightfully fertile valley running through the very heart of the land. It might be tempting to go roaming through that valley in search of something of note. If you do, you'll be rewarded with a lush farm full of all sorts of freshly grown produce - peppers, sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, snap beans, corn, melons of every shape and size...basically what you'd expect to find growing in lush farmland in the middle of summer.

There are certainly signs that this place is populated, due to the structures built into the walls of the mountains and the fact that the farm seems to have been so carefully tended to, but whoever may live here is nowhere to be seen. So you might as well take what you like from the farmland, right? No one's here to stop you.

The telltale rumbling from above is suggestive of why that might be. You, dear adventurer, are currently on Mu's best approximation of the island of Cahypdo, which is home to a very large and very active volcano.

Honestly. When it's not the flowers, it's the rocks.

So that idyllic scene soon erupts, quite literally, into its polar opposite. Lava and ash start spewing from the mountain top as it forcibly detonates, and molten ribbons of magma begin pouring sluggishly down the sloping crags.

You're now faced with a choice, adventurer: you can either try and outrun the natural disaster, and make for the waves, for all the good that'll do you - who knows? Maybe you'll find an abandoned boat and be faced with the fun task of trying to row away as quickly as possible! - or you can run for the other mountain, where the mouth of a cave appears to be visible. The local tunnels will certainly shield you from the worst of the smoke and heat, at least until the eruption calms down some. There is always a threat of collapse in the tunnels, of course...among other things.

Maybe you should chance the waves instead, actually. The caves are poorly lit, and the rumbling overhead occasionally shakes trails of dust from the ceiling. These tunnels don't feel very sturdy at all...

But wait, just ahead - something seems to be illuminating the way. A peculiar, greenish cast. In fact, it's moving...toward you?

As it happens, these caves are populated by roaming, humanoid masses of living crystal: Quartzacoatl.

The lumbering, person-shaped, eight foot tall mass of crystal approaching you isn't what you should be scared of, no. It's just the product of something that ravaged the body of what was once a living thing, converting flesh into a greenish, crystalline growth. They may have been living creatures themselves, once, but they are now merely hosts to the parasitic crystals that have consumed them, driven by the constant need to spread. All it takes is one touch to transmit the virus, leaving behind shards of glasslike crystal beading on your flesh. You do have a little bit of time to potentially amputate the affected area before the crystalline virus hits your bloodstream...if you can stomach it.

Quartzalcoatls can be shattered with enough force, though it's best to take care not to breathe in any of those shards of crystal they shed if you succeed. Otherwise...your best strategy is to either hide or find some way to turn the environment against them. Quartzalcoatls don't have the best eyesight, trusting their crystal protrusions to light the way for them. But the cave ceilings are notably unstable, and can be potentially collapsed inward with enough force, as long as you don't mind risking your own neck.

So where's safe, then? On the surface, where burning rocks still fall from the sky? Across the sea, boiling from the heat of the lava ribboning into it? Or under the ground, where if tremors don't cause the earth to swallow you whole, something much, much worse may do so instead?

That's a question only you can answer.

Nothing Changed At All
Deep, deep beneath the waves, on the ocean floor, the remains of a sunken city litter the sand and coral reefs with portions of broken buildings and ancient, barnacle-encrusted suggestions of a civilization that dwelled here, long before you came along. It very much resembles the one travelers recently got the opportunity to explore, sunken just off the coast of Ensō.

In the waking world, it's still an underwater wreck to be perused and picked over by adventurers, untold years past its destruction.

Here, though? In the dreaming land of Mu, you get to witness firsthand what this city was like, because now you're in a proper version of this ancient city - a version that's clean, dry, and populated. The buildings are simple cuts of wood and stone, utilitarian and to the point. The streets are lit by braziers fixed to the exterior of buildings, and the roads flip between paved and dirt. The people are dressed in clothes of an equally simple nature as they move briskly through the streets and in and out of buildings. It is, all in all, a very far cry from the modern age, more akin to humanity's earliest recorded civilizations than anything particularly advanced.

The longer you're here, however, the more you'll realize something rather important about this city. Namely, you'll realize that the people will not acknowledge you. In fact, if you try and stand in their way, they'll even walk right on through you. It's as though you're a ghost. As though you're not even there. You can't move through any of the buildings, but attempting to interact with any of the civilians in this strange city will yield nothing, save for the possibility of the unsettling feeling that you're not really there.

They're not the only things walking these streets. The longer you roam this place, the more you'll start to hear it: the soft, whispery sound of something...behind you. The appearance of these pursuers will vary, from feathers and fur to scales, but one thing they all have in common is that ethereal, almost wisp-like texture.

The people here won't acknowledge you, but the creatures known only as clockroaches will. Like you, they seem to be in a phase removed from the city; the citizens don't seem to notice them, and the clockroaches don't seem to care to stalk any of them, either. But they seem to have picked up on the fact that you don't belong here - that you are a thing out of place.

They're coming for you. At first it will be one or two, then half a dozen, and then more. You're drawing them like moths to a flame, just by being here. If you turn around quickly enough, you'll catch glimpses of them, rustling like sheaves of paper, or dead leaves over the ground. Looking like shadows, looking like half-formed echoes of something you can't place...or looking like something you fear.

There is no way out of this city. The only way to drive these creatures away is to get them to manifest, to get them to come close enough to you to become solid. Even then, this won't kill them - but doing something to spook them will ensure that they don't bother you for a little while. Attacking them, shouting at them, doing something unexpected, whatever it may be, will only work once they feel that you are in a position that they can take advantage of: whether that be paralyzed with fear or completely unaware. Then, and only then, can you strike.

If you don't try and scare them away...they'll prey on your paranoia, your fear, and any other negative emotion they can inspire. They will work you into a state of hysteria, if they must. They will gather around you, more and more and more of them, until you can't see the city walls or the sky or even the sun at all.

They will feed, and they will feed well.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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I. If You Close Your Eyes
The things I said were unkind. Untoward. I regret them now.

[ He tries to flex the numbness from his fingers. It still comes and goes, even after so many years. A cold tingle spreads busily up his right arm. Odd, he thinks, that he does not feel the left side more strongly, as usual. You should not be here, he thinks as well, and the plain fields of South Reach flash before his eyes. Flash. Fade. Vanish. Only a dream, nothing more. Cullen clears his throat and keeps walking. ]

What are those called again? Windflower?

[ He mumbles it quietly, does not truly ask, not with nobody around to answer. The plant bends with his touch, and springs back when he pulls his finger away from the flower. The one next to it he does not recognise at all, nor the one blooming behind it. A sickly shiver runs down his spine, and he finds himself swaying. That sensation he recognises well, even if it should- it should not trouble him so badly anymore. Cullen coughs, hard enough to feel it in his chest. He looks around. He ought to-- go back, but go back to where?

He coughs again loudly, stifles the racket with his hand. When he pulls it away it drips blood. When he pulls it away it- aches, and itches, and at the back of it a strange, cream-coloured shimmer breaks through. Like elderflowers, his last idle thought goes, before the next cough wrecks him. This time the blood drips from his lips freely, and clusters of white blossoms fall with it.

This time he thinks he sees somebody in the corner of his eyes. ]

--Stay away! [ he calls out, heaving for breath. ] Stay. Stay away, I'm not well.

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II. It Always Feels Like
But whoever it might have been, whoever's son or daughter, they were lost to us, swallowed by corruption and lies.

a.

Hello? Is anybody--

[ --home, he nearly called out in front of the window, none too urgently. The lush gardens and fields spoke of a conscientious owner, one Cullen had hoped to meet in order to make sense of his surroundings.

Of course, that was two seconds before his surroundings ever so helpfully transformed into a scene much more familiar to the commander: Complete and utter disaster.

Smoke billows up into the air, the grey ash on the wind a near-forgotten echo of Lowtown's foundries. Heat drifting down from the red-hot lava in the distance, a sight like nothing he's ever encountered on the surface before. It does not take familiarity to know that its approach does not bode well at all... ]

Is anyone there? [ He calls out again, this time urgently. This time stepping up to the door carelessly, a ripe tomato plant meeting its end under his boots. Cullen knocks forcefully. ] You all need to leave immediately!

b.

[ Why green? Cullen presses his back against the stone pillar, and risks another glance at the shambling mass nearby. Maker, what is this? He sought cover the second he saw its silhouette in the dark, but the familiar red glow never appeared. He could still swear he was looking at one of the monstrous Behemoth, if it was not for the colour, for something that could not be made from the corrupted lyrium he knows...

'Green is friendly, soothing! Maybe all this one wants is a hug!' Hawke's voice suggests helpfully at the back of his mind. Cullen opts to ignore the phantom. He tightens the grip on his sword instead, though even if he had his shield as well, his full armour - it would not be a confrontation he's happy to risk. Better hope he finds the exit before that creature finds him.

--Something else moves in the darkness. Smaller, he thinks, but closer to him. Approaching. Quietly he pulls the sword from its sheath and squints at the darkness ahead. ]

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III. Nothing Changed At All
They're hunting him, following fear. He shouldn't be here.

[ Cullen cannot tell which is more remarkable; the architecture of a city constructed wholly underneath ocean waters, or the profound sense of unease following him asking for directions, and being walked through like a ghost. He does not feel ill. He does not feel different. And yet.

He explores the streets on his own, here and then calling or reaching out, hoping to be perceived after all. Careful what you wish for, that saying still holds true. Some time passes, and still nobody sees. But something watches.

The dread starts in the pit of his stomach, as it always does. It becomes sounds, like far, far distant screams, and nearer whispers. Eventually it grows into shadows or doesn't, into dangers barely just out of sight. He walks faster, turns his head faster, but always- nothing, or shadows which throw shapes at first glance, and show nothing when he looks closer.

In those kind of dreams the dread always keeps a hand around his throat. Squeezes, so he can barely breathe. Right behind you now! he thinks and turns, sword lashing out. A woman walks through his blade; undisturbed, uncaring. A demon's laughter fades away into silence. Just out of sight a pair of white eyes stares at him, hollow in the middle of twisted flesh. He can feel the magic gone wrong, like cold stone in his veins. The shadows around him seem to grow darker. Cullen gasps for air.

This time he walks on without looking, and bumps into something solid. ]

Y- you, [ he stammers, almost disbelieving. Remembers that he might be perceived now, and forces himself to straighten up. ] You're not like them. You can see- you know that I'm here?

[ It is a cautious question. A moot one, if the answer should be 'no'. ]

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IV. Wildcard
No. This is ridiculous.

[ Surprise me! Any other prompt variation goes, just throw me a starter and we'll play. I live at

fishrepairs if you'd like to talk. ]

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Edited 2019-07-18 01:07 (UTC)

[This place has always creeped Jules out, and it feels even worse now than usual. The extra paranoia isn't helping his personality either. Normally he's pretty well stocked on paranoia as it is.

The second he feels something remotely sentient nearby he throws up a shield around himself. It's that, that Cullen bumps into. The instant he does the massive warsword that was strapped to Jules' back comes free and levels at Cullen's throat. Jules has got the whole "attack first, ask questions later" thing down, though thankfully he's doing more threatening than real attacking at the moment. Cullen's confusion is the only thing that saves him.]

No shit I can see you. Knew you were here even before that.

[Because of course he wouldn't be here alone. This place enjoyed it's multi-person games far too much for that. Major pain in the ass.]

[ Crowding him further, crawling from the shadows of the tower walls, behind library shelves and heavy doors, faces twisted to the last sliver of humanity, a glimpse left to mock what they once were-- Cullen gasps for breath. The images recede. Something is still nearby, but a dose of cold steel at your throat does wonders for your focus.

Cullen takes a measured step back, the grip on his own sword strong, though his weapon stays lowered. Escalation is not the first strategy he would choose with no information on his opponent or surroundings at hand. He furrows his brow all the same. Not an ideal greeting, despite the initial relief. Even before, he said? That means something, too. ]

Were you watching, or expecting company?

Cullen Rutherford | Dragon Age | (cw: body horror)

III

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I

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3

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2b

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tomura shigaraki | my hero academia | cw: body horror

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close your eyes

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Nezuko Kamado | Kimetsu no Yaiba

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2B | Nier:Automata

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2