TEST DRIVE MEME ( 005 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #5

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.

Remember that Reserves will open on November 17th and that Applications will open on November 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.

All That Glitters
The caves deep beneath the island's surface are not dimly lit; in fact, they practically sparkle with a strange, unearthly greenish light. Blame it on the crystalline growths that protrude plentifully from every nook and cranny, stalactites and stalagmites alike.

Their glow might be soothing to some, and viscerally terrifying to others, but one thing remains absolutely certain: based on the creaking, groaning noises of shifting rock and the high-pitched tinkle of breaking shards of crystal...

You aren't alone down here. The deeper in you venture, the more the thicker clusters of the things begin to move. And eventually, it will become plain to you that it isn't the crystal at all that's moving, but rather the thing inside of it - something vaguely humanoid shaped, bipedal, with arms and legs and the dull, pale glimmers in the region of what might almost pass for a face.

Formed entirely from crystal.

Upon spotting a living creature, each of them will begin to lurch closer and closer, arms outstretched. Every one is slow and cumbersome and even fragile enough to be smashed, if you dare venture close enough. But once they've trapped you, there is no escaping whatever fate they have in store for you.

And rest assured, it is not a pleasant one.

[The above prompt is a version of our Crystal Clear event from October! Feel free to give the event write-up a read for more information.]

It's High Tide
When you initially wake on the beaches of this strange island with its bleeding, dreamlike edges, you might notice that something seems deeply amiss...something like the fact that you're lying in a whole mess of seawater. Assuming you're not thoroughly soaked already, you'd better figure out a way to get to high ground, because the water level is rising very rapidly. Pretty soon, there might not be anywhere safe to go besides the trees, and even those might not be safe the longer this goes on.

Fortunately for you, if you can find them quickly enough, the island of Mu has helpfully provided some assistance for those who don't feel like doggy-paddling for the duration of the dream. Better hurry and hang onto them before you drown! Unless you'd rather doggy-paddle the whole way out, that is. In which case, we're sure the water feels great.

A Crappy Endeavor
In your travels on this strange new land, you might start to notice something following you. Something...oddly shaped, like a lot of dirt and clay that's consolidated into one great awkward moving lump of a creature. What lies beneath is far more like the common beetle...just much, much larger. And unfortunately for everyone involved, they have a very specific appetite:

Your poop.

Mu has produced a very close approximation of the creatures known as f'rshaymes, animals that go beyond merely being useful for disposing of all that nasty waste. Doiing so comes with significant benefits, as the combined process of mud and excrement as it goes through a F'rshayme's digestive system leaves behind pure clay for the...brave.

Often found in small herds of six to eight individuals, f'rshaymes are extremely docile and would be very easy to turn into a herd of your very own. How nice!

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[ungrieved]

Take it back?

[Well, it's equal opportunity meltdown central over here, apparently! Gabe tries surging to his feet before the abrupt spike of motion nearly tips him into the rising waves. Instead, he can only brace his knees against the knobbled wood and stare at the kid screaming his lungs into the ether like he's lost his mind.]

[Maybe they all have, in a way.]

You got to live, and you didn't even want it? You got to live your whole life, and this is what you do with it - throw it right away again?

[He sounds - not just disbelieving, but utterly furious.]

You wasted it. You wasted the years I should have had!

[yourattention]

[Once he recognizes he's being yelled at, Connor gets angry too. That's - he knows how to be angry. He's good at being angry, at deflecting from the empty void where his ability to function normally would have gone if he wasn't missing it.

If he gets angry, people get afraid and then they avoid him. That way they can't let him down. That way he doesn't have to see the disappointment in their eyes when he fails at some test he doesn't even know the questions for.]

Of course I wasted them! Why wouldn't they be wasted when I can't do anything right? I fucking - I tried! I got good grades, I played baseball even though I hated it, I earned my stupid merit badges and you fucking know what? It was never enough!

[They're gonna tip the raft over at this rate, which is kind of the fatal flaw in Connor's plan to get angry and push someone away while on a raft in the ocean. It's fine. He can probably swim back to shore?]

So, yeah. I wasted my life, because I'm eighteen and I've never done some remarkable thing! If you want it so badly, then fucking take it!

[ungrieved]

You got to play baseball! [On the contrary, that simply incenses him further. Look at all this - this perfect shit he got to have, and he's griping and complaining and tearing it all away? All this, that Gabe would have given everything for?]

You got to wear merit badges! You got to have a life at all, instead of dying before you could do any of it because your parents had no idea how to raise a child, and spent the rest of their lives pretending I never existed!

[Whoops.]

[Plot twist.]

[yourattention]

[We're back to slight hysteria? We're back to slight hysteria. This is the funniest shit he's ever heard, sorry.]

Congratu-fucking-lations, Mr. Disappointment! You won the fucking jackpot, as far as I'm concerned. I lived through everyone pretending like I didn't exist. Like one day, I just wasn't Connor anymore. Gone. [He snaps his fingers.] Just. Like. That. Like what they thought was missing wasn't just a sad invention - like I wasn't just pretending I was something better than this mess I am.

[No, I lied. He's not hysterical. He's just sad. He's just sad, and he's crying. Good job, Gabe. You ruined a perfectly good friend. Look at him, he's got anxiety.]

[ungrieved]

[>implying Connor did not already have anxiety]

I'll tell you something about death, Connor. It's not fun. It's not great for anybody. You don't get to happily skip off to a world where you can be free!

[Maybe that's the real cruelty here. The lack of peace with death, because no one would leave his memory be. Or maybe he was just too desperate to be remembered.]

You? You just get to linger. You get to see how much better off everyone else is without you, and you get to listen to them talk to you, and you try to remind them that you're there and they never hear!