Test Drive Meme #1 (cw vehicular crash, moderate injury)

[spoofer]

Test Drive Meme #1

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

You don't need an invite to test
but please remember we're currently invite-only

CRASH LANDING

Exit one dimension, enter the next. It was chaos: pressure against your ears, light bending in an impossible, unimaginable way. The very molecules of your body vibrating against one another. If you have windows, the view outside makes no sense. Even if not, your hands, your face, your feet seem like an uncertain thing. It's the feel of reality itself tearing apart, reshaping, reconnecting, thread by thread.

And suddenly, there's a beach— or ocean, whichever you land in. Smoke. Fire. Salt water churning up, fizzing around.

Maybe you crash, in a ship wrecking into sand. Maybe you merely stumble out of a portal, a ragged wormhole in space. Or maybe you fall off the back of an incredible steed, some creature that carried you into this place. Either way, there's pandemonium around you. Incredibly, severe injuries are far and few between— nobody's screaming about the dead. But you might have to help pull someone free of wreckage, or move quickly to salvage burning belongings from the landing craft. Maybe it's the crafts themselves, that you're trying to salvage.

Likely, you don't know them, these other strangers who arrived here^[1]. Maybe you don't trust them— you just came out of a dying world, after all. But you all have one thing in common: you're here now.

When you get a second to breathe, maybe you'll see it. The brilliant green forest across the sand. Beyond that, the glint of a faraway city.

INTO THE WOODS

Your first night at Xistentia does not feature five-star accommodations, but as the sun begins to set, the forest offers everything you need to survive. By now, you may even have met your daemon, who'll help guide you through this. There is fallen wood to make fires for warmth and cooking, any number of rabbits, deer, and fish if that's what you're into eating. Those very same animals also provide guidance as to what vegetation is edible, including a variety of vine mushrooms, fruits, and flowers. If you're the kind of creature that mostly eats other sentient creatures, well. Technically, there are a lot of those hanging out too^[2]! Now and then, you'll see tiny, winged humanoid creatures the height of a finger dart in and out of view.

A resourceful group, the multiversal refugees have determined ways to create shelters, using wreckage, supplies, and basic survival knowhow. There aren't enough blankets to go around, but the weather is mild and the fires seem to keep out any aggressive creatures.


Things get quiet. This could be a good time to meet the others under less fraught circumstances. Maybe you'll see some familiar faces and reunite with others who fled from your dying world; maybe you'll meet someone new.

Try not to seek out and fight any Rock Trolls. It's still early.

ENTER THE CITY

The city is beautiful, even with the vines covering everything, the streams running down half the streets, the massive white deer leaping off under the highway overpasses. The architecture of the skyscrapers is incredible to look at, modern and sweeping. It's clear that terraced gardens were part of the building design, and some of the greenery that lines the street had been part of the original city plan. This is a city of great potential.

And it knows you're here. As you walk by, beacons like streetlamps begin to emit a gentle glow, registering your presence. No doors are locked, though you might find yourself chasing out nests of silver-winged birds and bug-eyed rabbits.

Here, you can claim empty shops or the clothing and other sales items inside of them. Apartment complexes aren't difficult to find in a range of sizes; nor are standalone homes, brownstones, loft studios. Penthouses may not feel like penthouses when there's a thin layer of dust growing on everything and a flower growing out of the sink, but you know what? Maybe that little bud is gonna be your first roommate.

It's the strangest thing. After a few days, the lights begin to work and the water begins to run, fully operational within the unseen sewer system. At some point, the keys to your house or residence are going to turn up. Your daemon will help you find what you need. F.A.TE.S. welcomes you.

NETWORK

By now you've settled in. You have some time to explore the city, the woods, and your new kit.

Chances are pretty good that your daemon is not a phone or a computer or a wax-sealed piece of parchment or a Howler, nothing with a convenient camera or a keyboard; it probably isn't even a pocket sized. Likelier, it stares at you with eyes that contain the lenses-- or powers-- of a camera, and some part of its body projects a holographic keyboard into the air. For those of us who are not accustomed to manipulating intangible light prisms, it's about as intuitive to type on as shaping a cloud with your fingers.

But here's your network access. Accessible to all your fellow travelers in XISTENTIA.

Misfires, typos, and blurry video footage are likely. Time to feel like a Luddite!

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

hells yeah

Footnotes

1. Some of these can be nameless, plot-device NPCs to facilitate interactions! But even in this case, please avoid gore in describing their current state of being. Anyone dead or catastrophically injured will have disappeared by the time your characters make it to Xistentia. There are no corpses or dying here.
   
   
2. But like OOCly ask permission ofc.

Comments

janus lefevre ⚔ closed

[stabbitystab]

closed to matthew lynch;

[this place would remind janus of florida, if they had at some point been present for a physically comparable catastrophic event in florida. plane crash, seven car pile-up. that sort of thing is always on the news around kissimmee and miami, but janus had never been there to see the panicking children, the gas fires, the broken concrete and metal. janus prefers it to the horror they saw off the shore of portugal, back at mythian academy. janus to prefers it to what they left behind.

at least they know what to do, more or less.

flying over the water is easy. flying in water, they've even had practice with in the past few months, during the boat trips with ezekiel. they can do it, diving like a cormorant into the salt sea, arms out over their head until they break the surface, and then pulling back to pull momentum when their harpy magic begins to gutter, not entirely fading, in the absence of open air. they save an older woman first-- drag her spluttering back to the beach, gasping for air, not in need of cpr. they go back. the second one they find is a boy, barrel-chested and haloed in bright blond ringlets, eyes closed. already unconscious.

it's not a good sign. janus draws him out of the water and brings him back to the beach. folds one hand over his other, on the boy's chest. chest compressions are easy-- they're stronger than they look by far, and the first solid thump against the boy's breastbone reassures them that this creature is certainly no more frail than human.]

[dreamkid]

[ The last thing Matthew remembers of his world is Cabeswater, and his mother, folding her arms around him (but by then he couldn't feel them; why couldn't he feel her, no matter how desperately he tried to cling back?) Everything, fractured, shaking itself apart, pulling itself back together, the blinding glare of light on water rushing up towards him, hitting that water like it was a solid thing, and then, well. Unfortunately, after that he's pretty sure he drowned.

It's been a rough day. Matthew, thankfully, has a certain resiliency that comes by way of being a human-like person made out of non-human stuff and there's no long drawn-out scene of Janus having to exhaust themself on their resuscitation efforts. After a few compressions Matthew jerks back to consciousness, and most of the seawater exits his lungs and mouth with a splashy sort of "glup", allowing him to suck in an enormous breath. Which burns, causing him to cough again, a few more times. ]

What--

[ Nope, still too early to talk, too early to sit up, which he was also attempting to do. Cough, hack, shudder, lying back down, staring up at Janus with impossibly round eyes. The heaving of his chest slowly settles, but his heart rate is still way up there. ]

Did I die?

[ It definitely seems like he stopped being alive at some point in all this. If he is dead though: 1) heaven is a lot saltier than he expected, 2) Jesus looks a lot more like Joseph Kavinsky than he expected, and 3) why does everything hurt? ]

[stabbitystab]

[janus rocks back on their heels, getting their head out of the way before anything concerning happens, like what if the boy would have accidentally knocked their skulls together. safely out of clunking range, they watch as matthew splutters and seems to recover, their eyes dark for a moment, then brightening again with satisfaction when he manages a full sentence. sure, it's only three words long, but it's a good sentence. as a general rule, janus is a hunter of few words.]

No. You're not even close. [they administer three sharp knocks of their had to the boy's back, between his broad shoulderblades. the better to assist the remaining dregs of seawater evacuating out of matthew's lungs. in the meantine, janus looks around over the top of the boy's blond head. it would not appear that anyone else is in dire distress. the vehicle fires, the salvage, all of that is going well-- and if janus were to be totally honest with themself, and they do try to be, it's not like they really have much in the way of relevant skills. magic, they can do. but none of the magic back home looked like

spaceships. not the ones that janus knew, anyway.] Your vitals seem very stable. You're a resilient person, whoever you happen to be.

[they wait until matthew's eyes seem to be in focus, before presenting a hand to shake. sand scudded around their tattooed knuckles. they've learned many social skills since attending mythian academy, and here they are, bringing those incredible abilities to bear.]

[dreamkid]

[ Matthew would breathe a sigh of relief, if he didn't need someone slapping him on the back to help him breathe. He isn't dead. Heaven is still out there, likely not this salty. ]

Matthew. [ He grabs the hand, giving it a good Aglionby shake. Up and then back down, once. He may still be dazed, but good manners and introductions are practically automatic. And despite the weird visual similarities between this person and Kavinksy, they seem very different in personality. ] Lynch.

Thanks for helping me. [ No, not just "helping". Matthew remembers hitting the water. ] Saving me. [ He pushes the wet curls out of his face, processing everything in bits and pieces as well as he can. His heart still feels strange in his chest. ]

Have you seen-- I was with my mom.

[ If she's here, too... oh no. Oh no. He's just gonna borrow your shoulder, Janus, put a hand there and use it to help himself up to his feet. Sorry if that's rude; he's just realized something quite alarming. ]

I've gotta find her.

[stabbitystab]

[a few dozen feet away, something explodes. throws smoke and large-- if largely harmless pieces of metal out across the beach. janus looks up sharply. suddenly, they're on their feet, upright, staring out like an arrow poised for flight, light on their feet despite their waterlogged clothes. but they don't go anywhere.

and then just as abruptly, they switch tracks back to matthew, as suddenly as a cat shifts attention. they help the dream child up to his feet. janus is stronger than they look for sure, better-than-human strength rooted in their skinny joseph 'such a cokehead' kavinsky frame.] I have seen many women here, [they say, after a moment. blinking clear droplets off their eyelashes.] I saw no dead or injured near you, so she might be here somewhere.

What does she look like? [janus reaches up to wring some of the water out of their hair.] I could take you up and we could look for her. If your constitution can handle that.

[dreamkid]

[ The explosions and whatnot are enough to distract Matthew from the lack of introduction on his savior's part, and it doesn't bother him. The introduction bit, that is. The explosion, on the other hand, that's unnerving. ]

Umm. [ He tears his eyes away from the chunks of hot metal, smoking in the sand. His shoe (only one, the other must be having a grand time floating around in the ocean somewhere) is full of water, and makes a weird squelchy noise when his weight, with Janus's help, shifts to his feet. ] Take me up? [ Yeah he doesn't know what that means, but he also doesn't actually care. Matthew isn't a picky boy, especially when someone is offering to help his family. ]

I've gotta find her, [ he says again, earnestness bordering on insistence, and that tone will serve as the answer about his constitution. (Luckily, his constitution is in fact capable of handling a great deal.) ]

She's got on a blue dress, and her hair's like mine but long, and she wears roses in it.

[ Minor detail, probably not worth mentioning, but if/when they find her, she will almost certainly be unconscious and unwakeable. Hence Matthew's urgency. ]