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

[aberth]

[ They're so new. He can't help but think about that as he lets Ronan's lips press to his fist. They're so new, and they needed time to learn how to be themselves after all that happened.

And yet here they are.

Adam is careful when he presses himself to Ronan's side, soft when he feels rough, sweet when he's anxious. He runs his knuckles against the vulnerable length of Ronan's throat and presses his dead ear to his chest as though if he wished hard enough he could hear Ronan's heartbeat through it. ]

We'll be okay. I'm here.

[ He doesn't know when he and Ronan became a two-headed monster, but he's glad, so glad, that they aren't facing this alone. ]

[fiachdubh]

[ Ronan wraps an arm around Adam's middle as they shift a little, staring at the ceiling for a moment. All of it feels so surreal, even more than Cabeswater, than Adam being magic, than Glendower and Gwenllian and Artemus and Persephone and the Unmaker and everything, everything.

This is another world entirely.

But Adam's here. Ronan cups his ear, knowing it's the good one. Like it could be enough to protect him. His thumb traces the shell of it, gently. There's a part of him that just wants to keep touching Adam, keep kissing Adam. ]

Tomorrow, we can check with the daemons if they have a list of refugees, and you'll scry. Maybe I can see if I can dream. Get something to track Gansey. Again.

[aberth]

I'm putting a leash on him.

[ Ronan touches him, gently, so fucking gently and it makes Adam feel hysterical with how much he wishes they were safe somewhere else. He doesn't want to watch grief tear through the other boy again, he doesn't want to feel impotent again. ]

Or, I don't know, a microchip.

[ He closes his eyes and when he does he sees the mayhem on the beach again, feels claustrophobic. He has to open them and instead focus on a splash of ink peeking from Ronan's collar. ]

Blue too.

[ A pause. ]

Henry, I guess. They'd be mad if they lost him.

[fiachdubh]

Hm. D'you think Cheng is here?

[ Fucking Henry Cheng, barging in. Ronan was still getting accustomed to his constant presence, like he was part of them. It still made him itch under his skin, sometimes.

He lets out a loud breath, free hand reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, the bed creaking slightly under him when he moves. ]

I just want to know they're safe.

[aberth]

Well, he is everywhere.

[ He says it without thinking and then winces. ] No, that's not fair. He's one of us, right? And I have to think they're here, so he will be too.

[ He has to not be so bitter. ]

We'll find them, you know we will. How could we not? We've been through too much already.

[fiachdubh]

[ One of us. Ronan isn't sure he'll ever think of Cheng that way, but he used to think he wouldn't feel like Blue was part of them, too, and now he has a hard imagining his life without her in it.

Instead of replying, because what is the point really, of the two of them just repeating the same thing over and over, Ronan pulls Adam up until they're face to face again, nose to nose. ]

Tomorrow, we find them. Do you want to sleep, now?

[aberth]

[ He wishes he were better at this.

At giving comfort, being someone who knew how. The exhaustion and worry on Ronan's face echoes of the days after Aurora and it makes Adam's stomach twist unhappily. He feels as useless now as he did then. He needs for the others to have made it, he needs for this to not be their luck running out. ]

Tomorrow.

[ The question makes him huff. ]

I don't know. How do you sleep after you crash into another world and almost drown? How do you sleep after you get a computer that looks like an animal? [ He casts a glance at the daemons, a knot of worry between his brows. ] I don't even dream shit like this.

[ He misses Cabeswater, he misses Gansey and Blue. Adam sighs, presses their foreheads together. ] I'll be here if you want to, though.

[fiachdubh]

[ Ronan stares at the ceiling, the vines remaining there, climbing up from the windowsill. ]

I don't know if I can, either. I'm exhausted, but at the same time, wired up. [ He's been feeling that way since the moment they crashed. Looking for people, getting himself back up, running around trying to make sense of where they were, what they had to do. Find Adam. Ronan feels like he's a car that's been running on fumes for hours, and yet he can't seem to find it in himself to keep his eyes closed.

He reaches out when he looks back down at Adam, smoothing the worry off of his brow with his thumb. He feels guilty, how much he wants to lean in and kiss Adam, when everything is falling apart between them. Ronan wants to cling to the one thing he's got left. He wonders how much of it shows in his eyes when he looks at Adam. ]

[aberth]

[ The thumb against his brow is so startlingly sweet that Adam has to pull in a breath, pause long enough to recenter himself. Then he reaches up, curls his fingers around Ronan's wrist, own thumb against his pulsepoint. ]

Hey.

[ His voice is soft, and he tugs a little so that Ronan's hand comes away. But instead of putting space between them, Adam just leans in to press his lips to the other boy's palm like a benediction. ]

You've got me.

[ He knows that they can work it out, because there's nothing that can stop them beyond each other. ]

[fiachdubh]

[ Ronan pulls in a deep, sharp breath, before nodding. He closes his eyes for a moment, looking at Adam almost painful - how much he wants him and how terrible that is, all things considered. There are so many more important things happening. ]

Okay. Yeah.

[ Maybe he'll be able to sleep, after all. ]

[aberth]

Here.

[ Adam shifts, until they're pressed against each other, until he can curl up around Ronan like a protective barrier, his arm over his waist and one foot curled around his own. He doesn't know how to fix what's happened, but he can do his best to stop it from getting worse and if that means being present for this, then he can do that. He lets his head fall on the pillow, silently tracing the outline of Ronan's face with his eyes. ]

Try to sleep. I'll wake you up if anything happens.