TEST DRIVE MEME ( 030 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #30

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.

Reserves and Applications are always open, and are processed every weekend.

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.

Polar Opposites
Adventurers in the waking world have had to contend with the temperamental island of Monsun, which has recently undergone some rather drastic changes. These changes have now become all the more evident in Mu. You see, upon waking here, you're likely to end up on one of two sides.

The east side is a frozen wasteland, rife with glaciers and beasts that you could expect to see in an ice age - woolly mammoths, sabre-toothed tigers, and dozens of others besides. While they're not innately hostile creatures, you should probably keep your distance...unless your idea of a good time is getting into a brisk fight with one or more of these beasts. Nothing like a good brawl to warm up the blood, after all!

What's more is that your body may also begin to reflect physical properties inherent to the region. This can be as simple as a thin layer of semi-permanent frost that settles over you, and as complex as sprouting icicle horns and spines all over your body. These changes can be slow to emerge or extremely painful, or relatively painless and immediate. If you get the odd ice-based power to shoot icicles out of your hands or slick the ground beneath you with frost on top of it, well...that's just a bonus, isn't it? On the other hand, you could wake up on the western side of this recreation of Monsun. Things here are just as dangerous, but in a rather different sense. This place is a blasted, scorched wasteland of volcanic corruption. The parts of the land still traversable are little more than seared patches of coal and rock. All around you, rivers of magma seethe in haphazard, highly volatile tributaries. At irregular points, parts of the land detach seemingly at random and drift into the air, as though decoupled from the island's gravity. Heavy chunks of charred rock hover in midair, though it's not clear how it is they remain suspended. The land is periodically rocked with earthquakes that spurt fountains of lava into the air in burning arcs and further fracture what little solid ground you have, causing more of it to break away from the ground and bob listlessly in the empty air.

You can also expect to be pursued by the odd monstrous entity on top of these environmental hazards - so tread carefully!

There are benefits to this, however. Just like with the east side, sticking around on the heat-blasted part of this world may cause your body to reflect physical properties inherent to the region. Whether it's a fiery shimmer bathing your silhouette, your skin becoming blackened and veined with magma, or any other variation besides, is up to you. These changes can be slow to emerge or extremely painful, or relatively painless and immediate. And, of course, if you pick up a fire-based power or two in the interim, that's just a bonus. Maybe you can shoot fire from your hands now, or make whips of lava out of thin air. Pretty badass, right? Totally makes this potentially traumatic transformation worth it, right?

Well, we thought so.

Can't Let It Go
It is in the thick of winter, and while the tropical islands on LifeAftr are only intermittently reflecting this, the dreamworld of Mu is the exception here. You'll have to be careful when braving these thick, high-piled snowdrifts, however. You might see the occasional lump of snow that looks like someone nearby has made a couple of snowmen. That's nice, right? A good sign of civilization?

Not so. These are, in fact, creatures known as snowgoons, and they are very much hostile. So not only is it very cold, but you're being hunted by terrifying snowmen on top of it. They are intrinsically hostile, incredibly lethal, and what's more? They are relentless. It'd be bad enough if these things only wanted to rip you limb from limb, but they don't. What they really want to do is turn you into one of them. They primarily accomplish this by stalking you and hounding you more or less nonstop until you essentially collapse from exhaustion or no longer have any means to fighting them off, and then packing snow around you. Assuming you don't freeze to death, you can still get free as long as they don't get to your head. Once they've covered your face, there's no coming back.

The best way to deal with these creatures is to keep them at a distance as much as possible; snowgoons are only really effective at close range. They can be picked off fairly easily from a distance, though we recommend figuring out some kind of way of generating heat to keep them at bay. These things, true to their appearance, despise fire and heat.

Hope you brought a flamethrower!

Mistletoe? More Like Mistlefoe
Ah, mistletoe. A long-standing wintertime tradition, often used to facilitate all sorts of romantical shenanigans throughout history. This isn't necessarily requisite, or forced, fortunately. In this wintery wonderland, most mistletoe is in its uncut, untendered state - little more than a parasitic fuzz clinging to the branches of the trees overhead.

You have a roughly equal chance of running into two different types of mistletoe. There is, of course, the conventional mistletoe, wherein you will more or less immediately experience the urge to express affection to whoever else is nearest. This can translate to romantic, familial, or platonic affection - cuddling, kissing, hand-holding, hugging, or just plain being nice to them, as per your comfort level. This may be a mutual affection...or it might not.

There is also the other type of mistletoe. Instead of a one true soulmate, this type will select your one true foemate. Upon crossing paths with this type of mistletoe, you will be seized with the immediate and overwhelming desire to fight whoever else is nearest. This sensation might be mutual, or it might be wholly one-sided. This can translate to an unthinkable, murderous bloodlust that obscures all other reason, or it might relate to a polite request for a formal duel. This parasitic plant has selected your government-assigned nemesis; are you really going to run from that?

Unfortunately for you, these two types of mistletoe are virtually indistinguishable from one another. It's entirely possible for one person to be affected by the former and another person to be affected by the latter simultaneously.

Good luck.

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( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[postictal]

[Maybe if he hadn't seen them a few times already - if he hadn't seen them and known that they weren't real, known that they couldn't be, he'd be more ready to accept it. But even if they are, there's no guarantee that this will...last.]

[That they'll be there when he wakes up.]

[That plateau of no hope whatsoever is easier to manage, overall, than the spike and trough of allowing himself to believe in something impossible. Even for a moment. Even if they are impossible, even if they do impossible things by nature, by rote.]

No. I've been taking care of it, just...y'know, in case you come back.

[achievementhunter]

[They shouldn't be surprised- but there's a moment where they turn their head away, biting back their...biting back something. He's done such things for them before.

He's the only one who's done such things for them. Surprise feels too much like doubt.]

Good. [Chara manages, clearing their throat.] Then you'll know where Ren put that rock she painted. Orange cat face.

Three knives are buried beneath it, wrapped in a tarp. Considering no one else has that knowledge but me, then it proves I am real, does it not?

[A little late for the current conversation, but perhaps it would foster some sense of...relief, in the near future.]

You have my permission to dig for them. If you're careful.

[Dig up too many flowers in the process and they'll have your head, Tim.]

[postictal]

...

[He doesn't want to do this. Not again. Don't give me hope. It feels like he should argue, push back, insist - but if he says the wrong thing and it all shuts away (or oh god if he says the wrong thing and it's really them shouldn't he have been more careful if that was the case they don't take well to being pushed away and dismissed and treated as though they're not real oh god) or if he says the wrong thing and he doesn't get a chance to fix it, then what?]

[What choice does he really have but to agree?]

Yeah. I know where the rock is. I...

[Maybe they could have told him before they left? Or...]

[Or he's losing it. Again. Even more than before.]

Sorry. For...this. [A loose gesture at himself. For his doubt, for his inability to parse reality, for his refusal to understand what should be real and what shouldn't be.]

[achievementhunter]

[Looks enthusiastic, doesn't he? Tim has never been much in the way of facial expressions, but there's a difference between relaxed neutrality and the reluctant purse of his lips.

Time is hardly linear in their world. He knows that. Reality is hardly solid in Tim's. They know that, too.]

You can pay me back later.

[Don't worry, Tim. They're not angry.

But they'll hold it against him regardless- a sleight he can make up for. That's just how they work.

He knows that, too.]

Tell me...

Did they leave, too?

[They. Frisk.

Their Partner.]

[postictal]

'Course.

[It sounds like them. Is it? Oh god, but he can't permit himself to hope.]

[He ducks his head. Stares at the ground for a moment as he tries to marshal his thoughts, tries to respond safely in turn, because he's managed to somehow consistently say the wrong thing (is there ever a right thing? If there is, he never finds it) and it's bad enough that he's giving them more problems.]

Nothing ever could separate you two for long.