TEST DRIVE MEME ( 026 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #26

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 August 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.

Under the Sea
Whilst each island of the archipelago offers a variety of landscapes to explore, nothing contains as much mystery as the ocean itself. In a world that is composed predominantly of water, there is plenty that remains out of reach of any adventure. Rather regrettably, no one truly has a story long enough to uncover it all.

At the least, there's always an opportunity to enjoy what you can. Below the waves, far down on smooth sandbars and coral reefs lit up under the warming light of the sun, silence meets the ears of those who awaken. Buoyancy appears to have no effect on you whatsoever; standing comes as easily as it would on the shoreline, and breathing is surprisingly easy, as if any water that enters your mouth and nostrils simply disperses into air by the time it hits your throat. Those who attempt to swim will find the motions come as easily as if you were floating on air. And the view, of course, is nothing short of splendid.

If you happen to have picked up a few aquatic attributes - gills, scales, fins, or even a mermaid-like fishtail in exchange for legs - that wouldn't be so out of place, would it? It's really quite extraordinary. The transformation is entirely seamless in addition to painless, and can vary quite wildly. Whether it's a shift in complexion, some new tentacle appendages, or webbed feet, you'll find that your body has...shifted to accommodate your new surroundings. Even inorganic or machine-like entities will find that their machinery is now more suited for underwater exploration. The extent of this transformation will vary, as will individual appearance - the only limit is your imagination. Better yet is the utter lack of restriction in exploring this underwater playground. Brightly colored reefs hide caves and passages leading to long lost cargo, and even sunken treasure. Is that a shipwreck in the distance? Quite possibly. While this structure's descent was surely not as comfortable as your own, these ancient ruins have long since settled, ready for searching hands and eyes to uncover their secrets.

Though attempting to speak will do nothing more than produce a series of useless bubbles, venturing forth with a companion may prove very wise. Encountering a sea creature or five is simply par for the course. Most encounters are likely to be of the more peaceful persuasion, such as schools of tropical fish and kaleidoshells...but some are less pleasant.

And hungry. Be careful where you choose to linger, adventurer. Certain predators such as tigersharks are happy to make a meal of anyone who strays into their waters, and certain caves are surely home to some very large Hydrac. Free in motion as you may be, this is their home, not yours - and they will take full advantage of the ease with which they navigate their turf.

Whiskers on Kittens
The mysteries of the sea are only reflected in the vast landscapes of the archipelago proper, where thick forests hide many creatures from searching eyes for months, or even years. To those with a greater understanding of large ecosystems, the idea of creatures unknown probably isn't at all surprising - after all, there are still so many unanswered questions in regards to the creatures you do know about.

Take the fustercluck, for example. What is a fustercluck? How did it come to be? Can it truly be classified as an animal? Is it sentient, or mindless? Can it make friends? Can it breed?

Can it breed with species completely outside of its own kingdom?

Can a fustercluck produce an unholy amalgamation of cat hair and all-consuming slime?

The answer, unfortunately, is the Myancat. It appears that one of the island's resident fusterclucks has taken a liking to the player-introduced domestic cats, and the unlikely pair is, unfortunately, very compatible. Too compatible. On the plus side, this probably answers some of the questions people may have had regarding the fustercluck's sentience and status as a classifiable animal.

Less fortunately, they've had a litter of eight.

When hungry, these rotund mounds of cat faces and mewling limbs are exceptionally fierce, exhibiting all the qualities of their larger parental unit. Nothing appears to hurt them, be it sword, flame, or magic, and much unlike your standard fusterclucks, they seem to have no issues in roaming the island of Mu in search of what they want.

Luckily, what they want isn't flesh, though they'll take their unsatisfying fill of it if need be. What they truly want comes from you, deep inside, waiting to be spilled from your lips.

What they crave, above all else, is humor.

Knock knock jokes? Delightful. Puns? Keep 'em coming. A meme or two will certainly appease even the hungriest of Myans, and with every bite of humor bestowed upon them, these bulging felines will slowly shrink down, until they take on the form of a very normal, very happy cat. So put on your clown shoes and step on as many rakes as you can find, because these kitties are starving, and only you can satisfy them.

And for those wondering if these delightful creatures can be tamed...

A roll of 15 or higher will gain you a companion that will last until the dream's end.

I'd Like To Get Off This Wild Ride
On the blissful, bright island of Io, adventurers were given the opportunity to relax and enjoy themselves with a multitude of attractions designed to evoke calm, delight, and even fun. Toward the end of that island's tenure, a sprawling circus covered a significant portion of the landscape.

Mu has chosen to recreate that particular phenomenon today. Beneath the star-studded sky, sprawled out across the beaches of this dream-island, lies a deliriously colorful carnival. Massive tents of all sizes and patterns rear up into the night, illuminated with beads of brightly glowing strings of lights. All manner of amusements can be found here - from rides to games to fabulously sugary food, you're bound to find something of interest.

Be wary, however. Some of these particular attractions are more than what they appear to be. It's not all bad, of course, but it can be a dangerous roulette to play, when you end up somewhere strange and new. You could enter the House of Mirrors, for example, which initially proves to be a relatively simple, boxy maze of glassy, reflective surfaces that might, perhaps, astound children between the ages of three and five, but not much else. The further in you go, the more abstract your own reflection gets, and the larger this labyrinth seems to become. It's only when you step out the other side that you'll discover that you've drastically grown or shrank in size. You can be as tall as nine feet, or as short as a pencil's length. Proportions may or may not follow suit.

Or perhaps you end up entering the Tunnel of Love, cheap and flimsy as it appears to be. You're going to have to steer yourself through on your own in one of those battered wooden rowboats, along with whoever's unlucky enough to be your partner for this ride. You'll soon find that it's less a tunnel of love and more a tunnel of learning to depend on each other or die; the waters in this ride are infested with carnivorous eels that love to leap out and try and take a bite out of the boat's passengers. Either smuggle your own weapons onto the ride or learn how to give these foes a hearty whack with an oar - either way, you're better off watching the back of whoever's stuck on this boat with you.

If heights are more your thing, you could always strap yourself into the Ferris Wheel. Given the fact that it looks like any other ferris wheel, you wouldn't be blamed for thinking that it's an ordinary ride like any other. But once you're in one of those passenger cars and the ride starts up properly, something very, very strange will become apparent: the ride only goes up. Despite being decidedly circular, you'll find that you only ever see yourself moving higher, and never once descending to the ground. The air up here is getting rather thin, too, isn't it? You should probably find a way down, because either this ride spirals infinitely into the heavens or it breaks down and sends everyone plummeting to their deaths - and you probably don't want to find out which one it is.

Thrillseekers and daredevils might want to try their luck with the massive Roller Coaster that curls and spirals in some truly awe-inspiring twists and contortions, threaded through much of the carnival itself. It skates high into the air, features gut-wrenching drops and loop-the-loops, and operates at a truly breakneck speed. It is also, unlike pretty much any other of its kind, plagued with pests. If you've ever seen rats chewing on cables and nibbling holes in walls, these are a little bit like that - only these ones are a good deal larger, and happen to be capable of gnawing through the steel beams and supports that are keeping this wild ride together. Rodents of Unusual Size apparently exist in this reality, so you'd better either find a way to get off the coaster or clear these darn R.O.U.S.'s off your tracks, because if left unchecked, they'll put a stop to the ride for you...prematurely.

All that being said, there's nothing preventing you from just outright avoiding all those lures. You could settle for playing a probably rigged game of darts, or trying to win a giant stuffed animal in a claw machine, or plain making yourself sick on fair food. That's probably safer than risking any of those deadly contraptions, right?

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

i want it known i would die for him personally

[oispaceman]

[ She actually doesn't look at him at first. Donna instead takes a moment to bask in the solidarity of knowing that, alright, good, it's not just her seeing this thing or thinking that it's really gross.

As she's starting to edge back away from the myan cat a bit, she offers a casual: ]

I reckon anything's overkill once it gets more heads than a bloody Cerberus.

[ And then she does the looking, and then she goes through the routine practice of startled, wordless shouting. Of the many, often disturbing, things that she's seen in her travels, walking talking skeletons is weirdly not on the list.

On the bright side, the cat monster supreme seems to think that's pretty funny, so it shrinks down a little bit. Also on the bright side is that there's enough dreamlike-quality polish on this ordeal to keep Donna from trying to throw a punch. She does immediately get cross, though. ]

Oi, bone-bag! If someone's gonna look up and see a talking skeleton after they just met one of these things, you might wanna give 'em a warning!

[ She does jab a thumb towards the cats for posterity. They are the "these things" in question. ]

[on_thin_ice]

[ his eyes narrow. ]

Been there, done that.

[oispaceman]

[ Hm.

He does raise a good point. Not with the string of actual gibberish. Nor, in her personal opinion (all of her opinions are very personal), with his first two human sentences. Once he's geared himself up to human words and all that.

But he's got her on the last bit. Eldritch cat monster is probably up there in terms of worst ways to go out. ]

There you have it. If I was trying to get eaten, I'd be throwing myself at something with one big mouth instead. It's not like I came out here to play a game of wildlife roulette!

[ She was just sort of. Here. And then so was it. This is a stupid dream.

The cat-ball rolls forward. Donna takes measured steps back to maintain the distance.

Normal cats are moderately reasonable. Click of the tongue, pat on the leg, outstretched hand, plenty of them will be friendly enough. Or they'll go on minding their own business, offended by the very nerve of someone encroaching on it. Not much of a pet person, her, but she respects that.

There's a whole different air to this shambling mess. Not! That she cares! Or feels sorry for this horrific escaped experiment! Except that she does, and that it did pause for a moment back there. Like it was waiting for something. ]

Have you actually seen one of these things eat somebody?

[oispaceman]

Oh, wow.

Hats off to this guy for being the tallest humanoid Donna's ever actually encountered. Like it wasn't bad enough realizing how lanky the Doctor is every other day or so. Now there's this.

His glance back will confirm that Donna is, in fact, also running. There's something to be said for someone showing up who seems to know what they're doing (or anything about where they are and what's going on in general), who then opt to open on 'run' with little to no hesitation. It's one of those things where she figures, yeah, better listen to that if that's how it is.

"Can't go to one new place without having to run for my life!"

The universe? Supremely dumb sometimes.

[boogerman]

It's their deaths that you fear. I'm not the one to blame, I won't be the killer today, but... fear is fear.

[on_thin_ice]

[ jack scowls. ]

I'll get them down. On my own.

[demonicmiracle]

[To be fair to Adam, going on a roller coaster is, generally, a pretty great idea.]

Couple of 'em did, but you couldn't pay anyone to go on those, it was like driving a car into a wall. The rest were just sort of wooden tracks and carts going up and down. Exciting at the time, for humans, but you'd barely get a kick out of it now.

[Back in the days before easy airline travel and fast cars and fancy video games, when a simple track coaster was actually pretty exiting.

Crowley does not miss it.]

He listens to you that easily, does he?

[Logically, that's how it's supposed to work, but Crowley's seen Hell-hounds in action. It's not pretty.]

[demonicmiracle]

[Once or twice, Crowley's been known to make a half-decent point about something or rather, so long as it's his turn with the braincell that he and Aziraphale share.]

Oh, I dunno, Jonah never had good things to say about that whole business.

[Has Crowley actually met Jonah, of and the whale fame, or is he just being a bit of a bastard? Can two things be true at once? Tune in next tag to find out.]

Not yet, but if you'd like to be the first sacrifice to the weird cat-god, be my guest.

[wanderingdoctorfaust]

"Oh, don't I know the half of it! Last time I was here, a sentient pseudo-organic elevator was flying around trying to eat us instead! It was horrible! I'm called Faust, by the way - you'll forgive me if I'm unable to perform proper introductions at the moment!"

Outside of the brief pauses for air between each sentence, the good doctor seems relatively unfazed by the entire situation, almost as if he's merely enjoying a spot of afternoon jogging with his new acquaintance.
And to be fair, that is essentially what is currently happening - minus the rapid stomping of the monstrous feline blob in hot pursuit of fresh prey. If this thing is faster than the two of them...problems might begin arising.

"I don't wish to alarm you ma'am, but I'm as clueless as you are about this creature! I do not think we can run forever, but I am also incredibly unconvinced of our odds if we try to fight it! Any good ideas on your end?"

He's pretty sure dying here doesn't mean death in the waking world - but not sure enough to inform his ally of this theory, lest they then think to welcome the sweet embrace of furry oblivion in an ill-fated attempt to return home...

donna is still my favorite

[vagabone]

What?? [How dare she, for shame, now he's offended!!] Hey! Don't compare me to that thing! Look at it, it's got no bones at all! It's nothing but wobbly... flesh. And... and cat hair.

[Judging by the way he says that dreaded f-word, you'd think flesh was the most disgusting thing in the universe. Which it is, pretty much. He can't stand to look at the catpile again.]

What do you expect me to do, walk around yelling I'm a skeleton? Come on, I don't need to try harder to be a pest!

[boogerman]

...Oh, is that what this is about? You wanted me to help get them down?

[on_thin_ice]

You're not very smart, Pitch.

If people die, where are you gonna get your fear from?

[boogerman]

Pot, kettle.

[And an eyeroll, for good measure.]

What do you propose I do? I can't touch them with my bare hands, nor can I carry them down through the shadows. And do you know whose fault that is?

[on_thin_ice]

Your dust still effects things around, right? Just use that.

[sparkour]

[ Everyone press F to pay respects to Washington's non-nauseous lifestyle. Over too soon. ]

It's kind of a rope thing? Like, it'll stick up here and I can slide us down to the ground. I didn't have time to ask anyone exactly how it works, I just know how to use it.

[ He almost reiterates his splat-free stance, but then he remembers he already said that, so he runs out of steam a little. It's always time to be worried on main. Miles is never out of space for that. This is a Citizen. He can't bail on a Citizen. He literally only just got started on the superhero thing. ]

And not to freak you out, but I think the other option is hanging out up here until we run out of air or fly into the sun. So I'll be real, the rope thing is looking really good to me right now.

[counterblows]

[This is a civvie, and a kid on top of it. He'd be considerably more skeptical of this if he hadn't spent a year on a chain of islands where, more often than not, the kids came fully prepared to take action. At least, they were the ones with the high-grade military explosives.]

You sure you can...carry us both?

[So let's concentrate on the part of this that has Wash most concerned at present: logistics.]

grabby hands

[sparkour]

Hi. Also-also again. [ Step one: try to look kinda cool and not immediately perk right the heck up about Gwen hanging out in this dream.

Fail step one. Miles looks super glad to see her. He has to detour his way into defending his honor, sure, but that doesn't take away from the overall brightening of his expression. It's not a crime to miss the Spider-Fam. The Spider......... Friend. ]

Look, if anyone's subconscious would've given me a mask, I'd have it on. I like the mask. I put a lot of work into the mask. [ To make it look individualized and hype. ] Things just... get pretty optional when you don't have any other options and a ferris wheel wants to kill people.

[ Does that make sense? He likes to think so. This dream is stacked against him. ]

[sparkour]

[ Hmmm. Not ideal.

He feels like he's seen movies that went like this. It isn't very encouraging.

Miles makes an executive decision to stand very still. The spider sense thing is not being useful in the slightest, because when a person is very tiny, pretty much everything in a knowable radius has an active capacity for being dangerous. All big danger, all the time. All big animals with sharp teeth and bad breath.

He can probably get out of this uneaten, right? That's gotta be like Superheroing 101, right? So what if he's literally never thought about being in this situation before and doesn't know what to do? Mere details. ]

Good... dog? [ Is this a wolf? Are there wolves that look like this? Is this what coyotes look like???/ Why can he not remember what dangerous wild animals look like when he really needs to?! ] Please be a good dog.

[mamaterasu]

[A bark gets stopped in her throat, coming out like a sort of hoarse, half-grunt. Yikes, if she barked at him now, from this distance, Ammy may very well blow this poor boy's eardrums entirely. Best avoid any loud sounds or sudden movements, though her lips pull up at their corners into a happy smile and her tail wags a little faster.

Slowly, almost meticulously, Ammy's nose moves closer to Miles, hanging under his feet just enough that he could drop down on her wet, leathery snoot if he so wanted to. She's pretty used to small folk climbing on her, so Ammy can promise she won't sneeze, or drop him. Issun's balance was probably way better, but she'll be as careful as she can be, and she's a good enough ride to keep the kid safe from harm while she figures out how to, uh...fix this. Maybe the new god here will have answers. M-Maybe... Hopefully.

Only one way to find out though, and that's not standing around here.]

[sparkour]

[ I'm glad they're both here to be going "this is a regular-ass person what's even happening anymore".

Miles actually finds some real confidence rattling around in here somewhere. It exists. He's done it! Having spider-muscles reigns supreme. This is the weirdest dream he's literally ever had. ]

Man, that's one of the only things happening here that I'm sure about. I've got you.

[sparkour]

[ !!!

It's a good dog after all! Good wolf. Not a coyote, probably. Maybe a service dog? He lives in Brooklyn, okay. What matters is it's better to run into a dog than a pack of rats.

Miles drops a hand onto her nose first, and gives it a couple of pats for good measure. It takes a little bit of flexibility and twisting to do this, but it's worth it. When she doesn't seem to change her mind about this enterprise, he shifts into full "I Will hang out with this cool dog while I figure out how to get back to normal" gear and drops down. At least he's still got climbing on his side. ]

Thanks. If you think you're gonna try to eat me later, maybe give me a heads up.

[ He offers this in the tone any person uses with pets who they know probably don't understand them. Talking helps him feel a little better. ]

[counterblows]

[Oh boy. Well, the worst that happens is that he falls to his death and splits his skull open on the ground, which was likely to happen anyway because this ride just isn't sustainable. So Wash breathes out with a resigned whoosh of air and rolls his shoulders back in preparation.]

All right. Fine. Let's do it. Let's...get off this thing.