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

[rekt]

What, you didn't dig the crash landing on an abandoned planet thing? After barely surviving an apocalypse? It's cozy, starting to feel like home already. [ he smirks, letting out a short, amused snort, because that is home for him, and the irony is the sort of 'i laugh to keep from crying' sort of brand. thus - ]

And that would be the sarcastic kind of fun.

[ meaning, not fun at all. anyway, nonsense aside, it's nice to see someone he'd known in eudio, and more over, she'd seemed like someone smart and capable. two things you need in a place like this. ]

Katniss, right. I'm Murphy.

[hangingtree]

[ Katniss lets out an amused huff; she'd already felt like they were bonding over their fairly equally shitty homeworlds but his sarcasm now makes her like Murphy even more. ]

I think I'd rather be in the mines digging coal. [ Which... probably makes little sense, him not knowing that's what people did in District 12 to make a living. But whatever. ]

You're the first familiar face I've seen. [ Which is Katniss speak for "It's nice to see you." ] Have you come across anyone else from Eudio?

[rekt]

Could always just sit on the beach and refuse to acknowledge all the rest of this place. [ murphy shrugs. its a tropical paradise, so long as you don't look at any of the wreckage. ]

Pretend you're vacationing.

[ there's a small smirk, murphy's way of saying "hey, i'm glad you're alive too", and then he nods - yeah, he's seen them. not the entire city, but there's some. ]

A few. Kavinsky, Aric, Rafa. Not many. A lot of strangers.

[hangingtree]

I'm not a big fan of beaches. [ At least not enough to hang out on them and pretend like everything's shiny and good. The expression on her face makes it pretty clear that vacationing isn't something Katniss has ever done in her entire life. ] I'm not very good at sitting still, either. I'd rather be doing something productive.

[ Like finding something to eat, or something to use for protection. Or, better yet, a way home.

There's a brief nod on her end, although the only name that's actually familiar in that list is Rafa. She's glad to hear he made it out of Eudio alright, even if it means ending up here. ] I wonder how many of us there are. [ And if it means anything. ]

[rekt]

Ah, yeah, I know some like that. You didn't happen to lead anyone anywhere or into anything back home did you? [ clarke griffin is not the worst person to be like, by fair, but katniss already has a one up on her by being suspicious and sensible. there's still a lot he doesn't know about katniss, but he's finding himself wanting to see more. ]

Not everyone, I don't think. [ there's still more to find, probably, but it didn't seem like nearly enough people to be all of eudio. ]

Unless we really scattered in the landing. Like, all across the planet kinds of scattered. [ which, in a place with limited tech like this, it'll be really hard to find them. ]

[hangingtree]

Not intentionally. [ At least not at first. And, really, she would argue that she didn't lead anyone into the rebellion; she tried to save her life and Peeta's life, as Claudius had said would be allowed. She didn't intend to start an uprising across Panem, nor she did ever want to be the face of the rebellion and the war until it was already well under way. ] I'm not really what most would consider a good leader. [ Leading takes people skills, after all, and she doesn't have a lot of those.

She nods slightly, but the idea clearly doesn't sit well with her, if the way she presses her lips together is any indication. Cinnad pipes up, however: ] There's very little room for scattering of any magnitude. Your people would have landed in roughly the same location as you two.

[rekt]

Good. It's always the leaders that get offed.

[ well, sort of. it's always the leaders that try to self-sacrifice, or are the ones that get targeted most. clarke's just been extremely lucky thus far.

and then the daemon speaks up, and murphy levels the screen with a flat look. ]

Hey, thanks for that little gem of optimism, we really needed that.

[hangingtree]

[ Something flickers across Katniss's face in reaction to his words but it's difficult to put a name to it, especially since it's gone almost as quick as it came. Even if she hadn't intentionally been a leader, she still had a target on her back and knew that if she didn't kill President Snow, he'd probably never stop coming after her. Before she'd even accepted - officially - the role as Mockingjay, he had wanted to get rid of her.

But the words either wouldn't or couldn't come out, leaving Katniss maybe a fraction paler than before.

Murphy's response to Cinnad has the corner of her mouth twitching slightly in amusement, though. ] At least he actually told us something useful.