TE̬ST DR̢̹̪̿I̲͈̰̣ͭ̌͜VE MEM̦̭E̬ ( ͣ͛0͓̝̙ͮ̈̑ͯ25̮̘̝̟̞̲̌ͪ ̭̜ͭͣ̐͟)̣͈͖̻̗͓̬ͩͪ

[lifeaftr_mods]

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 )