![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Test Drive Meme #1 (cw vehicular crash, moderate injury)
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
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
- 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.
- But like OOCly ask permission ofc.
no subject
I'm trained in combat and I narrowly escaped. [ slight exaggeration. for caution. ] They're not just malicious, they're murderous. Or hungry. [ didn't stick around to find out which.
his eyes look over adam, scrawny looking, obviously not trained to fight. he looks back in the direction adam was heading, trying to spot any movement, ready to push adam out of the way if he sees anything. ]
I suggest you get your bearings elsewhere.
no subject
It would have made all of this much easier. ]
I don't think something made out of rocks could be considered murderous. [ It's mild, but Adam takes a step away from certain doom anyway. ] Nature is instinctive. People are the only things that kill for the enjoyment of it.
[ His daemon follows, even though he'd rather it didn't. ] How do you know there's not someone like that in the camp?
no subject
I know what I'm talking about. [ or maybe he's completely wrong and it only wanted to play, but that doesn't make it any less dangerous. and even if adam has a point, alec has one to counter. ]
Might be. At least then there'd be a group of you against one.
[ he crosses his arms. ] I'm just telling you not to go that way if you don't want to run for your life. That's it.
no subject
Are you a soldier?
[ The 'trained in combat' has sent Adam on a very specific kind of thought trail. It would make sense. He's only met this man and he can see him in a stiff and unforgiving uniform, following orders. At one point in his teen years, he'd even considered the military for himself. It would have been a way to escape, an aid for education, but then he'd realised he'd have to remain cool around unending violence and the bubble had burst.
It might help to have people like that around though. ]
But you're not from here, right? You've been sent like the rest of us.
no subject
Essentially.
[ he gestures for adam to follow him, starting to turn back to walk toward the camp. ]
Yeah, got here like everyone else. I haven't met anyone that's actually from here.
no subject
I wonder if there are any people here.
[ Because he's been thinking about that since he landed, concern ticking away in the back of his skull. ] It's pretty hard to miss a bunch of strangers crashing down on a beach, but maybe the trees cut off the view. Fires in the woods, though? You can see the smoke. So where are they?
[ It's not an easy thought to consider, but he always does. ]
no subject
We don't know how big this world is.
[ could be huge. if it's as big as earth, there could be an entire civilization and they could never know. ]
The priority is getting everyone shelter and food. And keeping people from wandering into danger. [ pointed look. ]
no subject
[ Which makes sense, but does nothing to allay his concerns. Adam Parrish is a scientist, but an impatient one. He doesn't like too many unknown variables, he'd prefer the answer. ]
The danger could probably come to us, you know. If we're all in the same place making noise and starting fires. I think that's a pretty big sign saying we're all there ready to be eaten.
[ He never was an optimist. ] Wouldn't it be better to try and find a way out of the forest?
no subject
Right, sure. Getting out of the forest. [ he's still walking toward the camp, gesturing around them at the trees. ]
Let's get these people walking in god knows what direction to god knows where for god knows how long, with no rest or food or shelter. That'll work.
[ aka, one step at a time, buddy! people need to rest, and recover, and some are injured and alec won't let anyone be left behind, even if that means personally carrying them on his back. they need to regroup. and people need to know they're taken care of and that if it takes days to leave the forest, they can survive out there. ]
no subject
I didn't say all of us, Jesus.
[ He doesn't exactly know what else to do. If he stops he's going to have to deal with the fact that his friends are probably dead. If he stops it's going to hurt. Adam wants to avoid that for as long as he can. ]
But someone should.
no subject
adam makes it sound simple. it's not. everything they decide out here can have grave consequences.
a pressing question occurs to him, one that will allow him to suss out adam's character quickly and form an opinion of him. ]
Are you volunteering?
no subject
He doesn't exactly like throwing himself at danger. The fact of the matter is that he's still afraid. Of combat, of pain, of suffering. But he also has a stubborn streak a mile wide and for some reason can't sit back and wait when there's something he could be doing. Gansey would probably tell him to stay with people, but then Gansey has told him a lot of things he'd steadfastly ignored.
And Gansey might be dead anyway. ]
Yeah.
[ It's quiet, but not weak. Adam is volunteering. He'll do it, even if nobody else will. ] The daemons can message each other, right? That's what mine said. So I could let people know what was going on.
no subject
so he's not going to make adam do this. ]
Are you trained for this kind of thing? You might have more useful skills for something else.
[ something less potentially dangerous. ]
no subject
[ He isn't trained for anything, really. Good grades aren't the best defence. But Adam has been through a lot and he wouldn't have anyone think he couldn't do something. Even without Cabeswater and the protection that earned him, he still wants to do something and standing around worrying about fire seems like a waste of his time when he can be trying to find them all a way out. ]
Believe me, I wouldn't go charging at anything that looked like it could kill me. But I can be quiet. And I know enough about this kind of thing to not get lost.
[ Does he? Who knows. He could be bullshitting. Or he could have learnt how to orientate himself in the rare moment he wasn't doing one of his 38459432 other obligations. ]
no subject
[ he would flat out think adam had no idea what he's going on about if he hadn't experienced eudio himself before. but knowing it's possible for people to travel from one world or another, it might also have been adam's experience. ]
I'm not saying you can't do it. Just that you might be more useful doing something else.
[ he isn't challenging adam, rather giving him a chance to do his part instead of sending him off to camp. alec has already taken on the responsibility of shepherding people to safety and giving orders, which really no one is obligated to follow. but it's instinct for him.
and this is him saying he thinks adam could be capable enough to help. ]