TEST DRIVE MEME ( 001 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #1

Hello, and welcome to our very first test drive! 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.

Remember that Reserves will open on July 17th and that Applications will open on July 24th, in preparation for the game’s official opening on August 3rd!

But first, two important notes!

1. The island of Mu 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.

Shipwrecked
The white sand of the beach ridges the island’s edge, even if the clear water soon becomes murky the further out you look across the horizon until the turquoise gleam of the tide disappears in a coil of surrounding fog. Indeed, your best prospects may very well be to strike out among the trees or the crags looming out over the foam-capped waves. There’s lumber to be found and made from the palm-like trees, potentially fruit or edible tubers of some kind if you forage about some. The further you travel, however, the more of your surroundings will reveal themselves in a steady unspooling of curiosities.

One corner of Mu’s current construct drops away into a sheer cliff, initially too dangerous to brave for all but the more daredevilish, but if one starts to scan the sharp rocks below, you might catch sight of what appears to be sodden planks of wood - a wreckage tossed up against the rocks. And a little further...a bobbing, shattered wreck of a lifeboat’s remains, potentially bearing supplies that might yet be salvageable.

Fashion what you can from the wood and stone around you or scavenge from the ruin of the land, if you like. But you can’t simply stand around and wait forever. It’s going to get dark sometime - and if a creature of unknown terror doesn’t catch you, the elements surely will.

Storytime

There’s a sense of camaraderie in this cove, you think. As the sun hangs low over the horizon, the world cast into orange hues, long shadows dispersed by roaring fires that dot across the beach.

That’s right, folks: it’s storytime.

There’s no one to preside over this meeting of the minds in Mu. Call it a vague recreation of things to come, if you like, some vaguely fatidic dreamlike state where you may find yourself drawn to the heat and company that awaits you by the fire. And from there, compelled to default to that old instinct that most of intelligent civilization has revered since they were advanced enough to paint geometric shapes on cave walls.

You tell a story.

Perhaps it’s a tragedy, a tale of woe and of personal loss. Perhaps it’s the sort of thing you’d break out after a few rounds of your alcoholic beverage of choice, clapping hands to your knees as you try to bite back your mirth long enough to spill the punchline. Perhaps it’s an adventure of some sort, some unbelievable rendition of your past exploits. The only common thread to be had, as those gathered around the fire share their tales, is the fundamental rule of a ritualistic sharing of stories such as this: its truth.

But how one chooses to define "truth" is, in its own way, another story entirely...

Dance, Sucker, Dance!
The beat of your heart in your chest is difficult to ignore. It judders with a pulsing, rhythmic quality. If you’re one of those that lacks a heart, the beat is still omnipresent and all-encompassing, until your entire body is unwittingly bobbing in time to a metronomic tune that seems ingrained into your very soul. It’s inescapable. You can’t seem to move unless it’s in time to the rhythm that’s now singing in every atom of your being.

But rest assured, you’re not alone in this musical curse. Everything, from the swaying trees to the waves against the beach, jumps in time to the music. And so do the monsters approaching you, that - wait a minute.

Monsters?

Oh, yes. Did we mention those?


It seems you’ve encountered the wrath of the Boogieman, who curses you to only dance to his infernal beat. If you wish to best him, you’ll have to either evade or destroy the blobs of greenish slime that serve as his minions, all in time to the hard beat of the tune in your head. Clear the radius of his curse or risk an open confrontation, if you dare. Don’t worry if you look foolish; chances are anyone else caught in the Boogieman’s thrall feels just the same.

Mu isn’t pulling any punches to start with. It is a flighty creation, after all, and seems to revel in displacing people into new and uncomfortable situations.

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

i've missed uuuuuu

[postictal]

[Fascist dicks. He'd ask if the guy's familiar with Ozuma in practice or in theory, but if he's honest with himself, "fascist dicks" could honestly mean anyone.

Whoever his new companion in shipwrecked confusion is, he's already proving that he's what Tim would call distractible. There's something almost Jay-like in his devotion to an object that's both inanimate and uncaring as to its sentimental value.

He snaps those thoughts away, a hard lateral jerk. Thinking of Jay never gets him anywhere.]

Might be a way to make a fire or something. Or, uh - here.

[Yes, thank fuck. He still has it. It takes a moment, but he manages to extricate the silver prism of his lighter from his pocket, offering it out with a hesitant lift to his eyebrows.]

Might help dry it off.

BOO I'VE MISSED U TOO

[fortunefavored]

[Being lost in his own world already, Newt's head jerks up, startled, when Tim offers him the lighter. He blinks at it, before frowning a little, attention tilting up to Tim's face]

Um...unless that's some sort of magic fire, dude, it's just gonna burn it.

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

[postictal]

[Right. Yeah. His frustration flickers pretty clearly across his face as Tim thrusts the thing back into his pocket. Obvious. Real stupid and obvious.]

I dunno. I just thought... [Thought you could help for once? Yeah, okay. 'Cause that's worked out so wellgood at.

Helping.]

Never mind. At least it's sunny out.

[fortunefavored]

[Sorry Tim, Newt's already turned his attention back to the newt as the lighter disappears] Hey, at least it'll probably dry that way, as long as I'm careful with it. [he frowns, glancing up from it again] At least with that thing, you can start a fire if it gets cold or whatever.

[postictal]

Guess so.

[It's fine. It's fine. Everyone's got their priorities, and he doesn't have the time or capacity to be frustrated when he's not actually sure if he's died or not.]

If it even matters. We could be dead for all we know.

[fortunefavored]

[Newt blinks at that...and then briefly presses two fingers to his neck, right over his pulse]

....nope. Not dead.

[and then he shrugs, plopping down on the sand and setting the newt gently in his lap, before starting to shrug off his leather jacket]

Besides, death is always a construct at best in these places.

[postictal]

[He'd be surprised, but he's...not surprised at all, really, to hear something like that. Death is a slap on the wrist. A painful, protracted slap on the wrist, but little more than a stumbling block in the road nonetheless.]

Then we'd better hope there's no shadows when we do die.

[He's still waiting for his, honestly. He got stabbed. Not even in the chest, but more like...in the soul. That's nothing if not fatal.]

[fortunefavored]

[You're gonna get an arched eyebrow for that statement, dude] IIIIIIII'm guessing that's something from your world? Because that sounded like "shadows" with a capital "s".

[postictal]

Not my world. Castle I ended up in not too long ago.

[Shadows with a capital "s," yeah. Sounds like this guy knows what's up, seeing as neither of them have to explain the concept of other worlds to each other.]

[fortunefavored]

[Newt sits up a bit at that, now very interested] Yeah? [the corner of his mouth twists into something that would be a smile, were it not tinged with a healthy amount of dry, brittle humor] This isn't your first rodeo either, huh?

[postictal]

Nope.

[Which is its own blessing, in a way - even if, given that Tim's threshold for the weird was worn to nonexistence to begin with, learning the vocabulary of other worlds just gave him one more thing to be world-weary about.]

I'm gonna call it now, actually: at least once a month, something terrible is gonna start happening, and we're not gonna be able to do a thing to stop it.

[fortunefavored]

[Oh god. Newt chokes on a laugh, because he can't help it.] Dude. Totally. And some omnipotent being, like some gods or an evil corporation or something is gonna just start being like "oooo yes, you are trapped here, mostly for our own benefit though we might try and make it look like it's for your benefit," and 90% of the garbage that we have to deal with is all their fault because they're grade A assholes.

[postictal]

[He snorts at that, a faint huff of air that almost approximates a laugh. A little too on the nose, if you ask him, but when has that ever been an obstacle of note?]

If it's not demonic shadows of all our deepest, darkest secrets, it's gonna be monsters trying to bite our heads off.

[fortunefavored]

Or a psycho with a pyramid for a head who likes to rip people's skin off. Or dragons. Or zombies. Or fuckin' spirals that drive you crazy. [he can't help it, though, he's grinning slightly. There's a twist to it--because fuck if this isn't morbid--but joking about it, well...it helps] Or demonic shadow zombie dragons that will try and bit our heads off. I wouldn't put it past them.

[postictal]

[Jesus. And he thought the Castle was bad. It's not without sympathy that Tim lifts his eyebrows, but mostly it's out of, bizarrely enough, a weary solidarity he can't quite shake.]

I'm guessing you're not just pulling examples out of your ass there.

[fortunefavored]

[Newt sits back then, leaning back on his hands] Dude, this isn't my first rodeo either. And it's the same old shit every time.

[postictal]

[Figures.]

Can't say I'm surprised. Seems pretty par for the course around here. [Raising the question:] What was your last, uh..."rodeo" like, anyway?

[fortunefavored]

The most recent one? Trapped in an underground cave with some so-called "Gods" that fed off our emotions, and some sort of unstable door that brought people through.

You?

[postictal]

Castle in the Mist. Some kind of...war between shadow and light, only there wasn't a whole lot of war to be had.

[That fact hadn't escaped him any, particularly since it seemed more likely that it was the people trying to engage the shadows to finish the war than any impetus brought about by Ozuma's hand.]

Just a Queen jerking us around.

[fortunefavored]

[Newt wrinkles his nose] Ugh. That sounds like garbage. Was she one of the 'cooperate with me' ones or one of the 'you are under my control' ones? [because he's dealt with both l o l]

[postictal]

Mostly the latter. I guess we also had this, uh...god of light who was supposed to be on our side, but he didn't seem to do much.

[Flaky support and devoted antagonists. Par for the course as far as Tim's concerned.]

[fortunefavored]

[Newt can't help but snort at that] Yeah, they never do, do they? The ones that are always like 'ooooh we're going to help!' [yeah that was totally dry and mocking]

[postictal]

[This guy. This guy knows what's up. It's refreshing, in a world-weary sort of way.]

So I dunno about you, but I'm not real interested in letting that happen a second time. Or...a third.

[fortunefavored]

[this is so cathartic, just to be able to kvetch a bit]

I'd definitely like to avoid that, if possible. I've had enough of these assholes.

[postictal]

[Great, so has Tim. He feels around his pockets for the phone the Castle issued him, and...yeah, no dice. Must've lost it after Chara gutted him. That's great.]

Well, we're already down some sort of...electronic hub. Is that typical where you come from too?