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

[pleasereset]

[A castle with a lot of kids in it? No he... he would've remembered that. There weren't a lot of kids in Nyoi-cho. He wished there were, but really all there was were kids like Lemmy and Sandy. And even then, they were a years older than him.

There was no Tim he could remember. But Tim clearly remembers him, and it makes him uneasy. He would've known if he disappeared to a castle. He couldn't possibly forget something like that.]

I don't... remember anything like that.

[He sounds confused, a little unhappy as he feels his stomach knot.]

Did the Asriel you talked to have something like this?

[He probably shouldn't show this off, but he holds up a ring on his finger with a purple gemstone in the center of it.]

[postictal]

[A ring with a purple gemstone. After a moment's scrutiny, Tim starts to shake his head. Was it...was it just some other kid entirely? Is that even possible?

(Is that even possible, he asks himself, fully aware of the fact that he's already accepted the impossibility for what it is. It's just another one of those things he can add to the list. Inexplicable, but present nonetheless.)]

No. I guess...so you're just...you're him. But another version of him...?

[Existentialism 101. You know, for kids.]

[pleasereset]

[Asriel's not really sure he understands. He guesses another him could be possible? Timeline fuckery was weird like that, but...]

Uhm. Maybe. I really don't remember any castles.

...

What was he like? The Asriel you know about?

[postictal]

[Is there a right answer to that? Is there a right answer to any of this? He cupped a soul with its thinning fingers of white-hot light in his mind's eye, and watched a million timelines unspool across the backs of eyelids.

A boy with a body count. A boy steeped in the dust of his own kind. Tangled up in the memories and matter of another child, whose soul had been crimson and inescapable as it seeped into him. Impossible to extricate from the man he is.

He has a hard time seeing that as anything but an improvement. But Chara, of course, would see that differently. He can't blame them.

Would Asriel?

Unconsciously, one of Tim's hands has fallen to rest atop his chest. The place where the soul resides, he's learned.]

...sad.

[Maybe that's unfair. But it's not exactly wrong.]

Not all the time, but -

Sometimes.