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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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[spaghettimonster]

Real life... with dead people...?

[Papyrus continues squinting at the ex-king. His bafflement levels are shooting up with every comment.[

I'm confused. This isn't where the river Styx ends. Or anything like that?

[journalname]

Gosh, no! There are very many living people here! Why -

[Why would Papyrus think otherwise, when Hector is the only dead person that's come up - but then, Asgore knows an answer to that.]

- oh.

[All his friends from Beacon know that he has died. But he's never had to face one of his own people who did. Muffet, Frisk...Chara...they all seemed to come from worlds where he had somehow survived. Where the Barrier was miraculously broken without any further death.

He can't imagine that future.

When he died, he couldn't have imagined this one either. He's not sure what to say.]

[spaghettimonster]

[Asgore's sudden, solemn silence takes Papyrus aback.]

...Oh no. Did. Did you not remember until I said??

[That would be just about the worst feeling in the world, to remind a dead person that they're dead. Or at least one of the worst feelings that Papyrus is ever likely to inflict on another.]

[journalname]

[Asgore chuckles faintly.]

No, no, I remembered. But I did not expect that you would know. No one else has seemed to...the times I have met others from our world.

[spaghettimonster]

Phew.

[His eyesockets widen further.]

That is! I'm.... relieved... that you know. And a little confused why others wouldn't... Not even, uh, Frisk?

[Listen. He doesn't want to accuse his first human friend of killing the king. But they went to the castle, and then the king was dead and they were gone. There's not many other suspects.]

[journalname]

People often come from different times, or different...possibilities, I suppose. As if it were all a story that could have ended another way.

[He doesn't sound terribly wistful about it. What happened was the only good ending he saw - this business with the Barrier is a little too fantastical to wish for. And yet, not quite enough. If there are worlds where miracles can simply take place...

Well.]

Frisk is not to blame for anything, at any rate. [He had figured that monsters would blame the human for what happened. It's unfortunate, but it also hadn't seemed to matter too much - it's not as though such rumors could follow Frisk to the Surface.]

[spaghettimonster]

Y-yeah.

[It sounds to him like, Frisk did the deed, but Asgore takes responsibility for it, as it was his decision to fight that put them in that position. Papyrus nods along, accepting his assumption. Self-defense seems a perfectly good explanation how his friend didn't do a murder.]

That's... really nice to hear. I know I wish it could've gone differently. Maybe, somewhere, it did...?

[He's heard Doctor Alphys ramble about alternate universes a time or three, after all.]

And, I'm happy to report! That your flowers! Have been doing great in my care.

[journalname]

[If he's honest with himself, Asgore knows that's the impression he's probably giving. Maybe it's cowardly of him. But...even if that were true, Frisk would still be blameless. There's nothing they could have done to change that. So no good could come from revealing the truth...right?

His gloomy introspection is probably written all over his face. Asgore has never been good at hiding his feelings. But luckily, it's quickly washed away by surprise.]

You have been taking care of the garden?

[spaghettimonster]

Oh, yeah! I finally got in the Royal Guard, but... The war is over. So! My responsibilities are other things. Like tending to the flowers.

[Not what he ever expected, not the kind of glory and fame he hoped for... But his friends and family are doing well, and he hangs out with the underground's ruler regularly. It's not so bad, except...]

You know. Like a Royal Gard...ener. Queen Toriel thinks she's funny.

[Papyrus sighs and moves his head like he's rolling invisible eyes. So caught up in grousing about the more terrible punsters in his life, he neglects to think how this comment might affect Asgore.]