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

[fratricidio]

[ The boy has kept to himself, for the most part. This is unfamiliar grounds on every level in and beyond the literal sense, in a world he doesn't know, without the safety net of a house and cult to return to. Even the dog by his side - a white samoyed - isn't the one he thought he knew, now calling himself... Dogd. Which sounds a bit too weird. When you're a man-eating, dog whispering demigod with a cult leader for a father and a demoted demon for a mom, deeming something weird is a concern.

If nothing else, the vocal capslock of a demand breaks through the silence (and heavy thoughts) and makes both the boy and his magical tech-dog snap their heads up. ]

Please don't.

[ This is a bad idea. He shouldn't be drawing attention, but... the other guy wins that competition, clearly. ]

[pillz]

DON'T FUCKING WHAT, [says kavinsky. he's searched all the small pockets of his backpack, unnecessarily, their zippers still gaping open as he yanks the thing back onto his narrow shoulders. beside him, moonshined looks slightly querulous. more than slightly. whether or not she actually retains memories from eudio isn't clear, but she's learned to recognize kavinsky's crazy eyes and can feel a pair coming on as he turns, cigarette in hand, a scowl carving down his narrow eyes and too-full mouth.] DON'T F--

[--ucking.

the since hits kavinsky like a stone. he stares at the boy and his dog. the other boy and his dog, that is. he's pale to begin with, but he gets fractionally paler. after a moment, he says,] Holt? [his voice is dry, but it doesn't crack.]

[fratricidio]

[ The inside of his chest goes cold. There's a split second between hearing and processing the last word that comes out of Ye Typical Bully's mouth, a dread that tenses everything inside and shifts his body language from quietly closed off to spilling open in a sloppy attempt to get every single guard up.

The stranger knows his name - his last name. Caleb hasn't told anyone, he hasn't made any ties to where he came from or who his parents are. Not Santiago Holt, not Petra Dodrescu, not any mention of the neighborhood or the other dogs in his personal pack.

Santiago sometimes mentions names of kids that Caleb grew up with, most of them older, that he doesn't remember meeting. They might not have stuck around long enough to register, Caleb might have simply been too young. Whatever the case, if he knows who and what Caleb is, that's a problem. ]

-- shut up. [ It's a hiss, followed by another failure: trying to discreetly search around for anyone who might have heard it. ] You can't call me that.

[pillz]

[in the meantime, kavinsky is working with a very different context. a context where he killed himself some years ago, got transported to a brave new land, and then that brave new land was quite recently summarily destroyed amid many natural disasters! now his ex has come back, looking peaky, and is giving him fresh shit. shit unrelated to the shit that characterized their disasterous not-relationship from before.]

What the fuck is wrong with you? [his eyebrows dig down. a not very friendly combination of hot irritation and cold disdain in kavinsky's face. if they didn't have bigger problems, kavinsky would be being a bigger problem, but he's determined to be at least a small problem right now. what else is a dream thief to do with this impotent rage?] What do you want me to call you instead? Weenie McFuckface? Another joke about how you like fucking your dogs. [he gestures at the apocalypse world around them.

trees poking out of cars, that kind of shit.] You don't think we got bigger issues than your fucking attitude right now? [asks the boy with the best attitude in the whole multiverse.]

[fratricidio]

[ Another fact, another point against him - his dogs, which seem to surround Caleb wherever he goes. The only one left here is Dog(d), throwing his owner a look that's both puzzled and reluctant to share his theories. Best to not interfere, let these to hash it out and step in if things get dire. ]

Stop it! What's wrong with you? Do you want to get me killed?