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

[hasitsthorns]

[ It was awful. Until they found each other here. There's a large amount of affection in her voice at the way she says, ] Yeah, we are. Safe and sound and together.

[ And this was the woman afraid of love. ]

No problem, dude! Trust me, once we find a place and get settled in my dogs are getting so many, of the cuddles. They're being good, brave boys right now but I can tell they're really uneasy.

[ He'll have to excuse Rose's amusement at that face he pulls. If only because she probably had a similar one herself. ] I feel you. We're gonna work on it, definitely.

[hasitsthorns]

[ Well. Considering both her packmates are here, Rosie isn't certainly inclined to complain anytime soon.

Also, her boyfriend being here means she's still going to get consistently laid so. That always helps any situation. ]

Oh, uhm! Vanyel found a little house that seems like it should be good after some cleaning up. Enough room for the animals, too, which was the biggest thing.

[ So, yes. They are. Apparently. And Rose didn't even have to ask! ]

[hasitsthorns]

[ Magnus (and Alec, by proxy, as his ma- er, boyfriend) and Vanyel! So technically three packmates, she supposes, but...

Also, Rosie uh. Didn't think it needed cleaning up, that was Vanyel. She thought it was perfectly fine as it was until he said something. ]

Aaron too, huh? [ That seems like it has the potential to be... awkward. ]

But I'd be happy to have more familiar faces around! I'm sure Vanyel wouldn't mind either.

[hasitsthorns]

[ Funny enough, there isn't much Rose is worried about anymore. She has the people most important to her here and safe. The uncertainty and fast-pacedness of this new world is already actually a bit more familiar than Eudio had been. It practically felt stagnant compared to home.

She sees this as all one big adventure going forward. And adventure was something she definitely missed that Eudio couldn't offer in the same ways as home (or here) was able to. ]

Mm, yeah, I can understand why it'd be pretty worrying for mortals. [ Another reason, perhaps, that she's so lax. Eudio may have softened her a bit, but you can't take the fight out of a fighter. Loathe as she is to admit it, that will actually come in handy here. ]

Stuff trying to kill me on a regular basis? I feel right at home, dude.

cw: attempted suicide

[hasitsthorns]

[ Rose isn't afraid to die. She even tried to once. The scars on her back, however, are a lesson learned: she doesn't get to decide when it's her time. That's not her choice. While she learned it the harshest way possible, it ensured that she won't ever take that course of action again.

Even if she still sometimes does have a bit of reckless abandon with her own life. ]

This place reminds me too much of home. Well. My original home. I lived among humans for about thirty or so years, but before that I was in the Makai.

Not a pretty place.

[hasitsthorns]

Yes. It translates to 'hell.' [ Which probably says a lot of what it was like in and of itself. ]

My kind, yokai, also translates to 'demons.' [ Basically. There's other definitions. Apparitions is one but they're corporeal. Most of the time. There's some who can kind of wibble wobble between here and not her thanks to their ki, but... She isn't one of them. ]

Safe to say, I'm not like most of my kind.

[hasitsthorns]

My kind are specifically the okuri inu. Sending-off wolves. We're carnivorous, especially fond of humans. Eat them if they trip on mountain passes at night.

I ain't about that life.

[ Obviously. ]

But yeah, I was born this. [ Didn't ask to be. But that sounds super angsty and she already went through that phase as a teen. ] And... I'm starting to learn I can be what I am without it defining me or whatever. Eudio was good when it came to that.

[hasitsthorns]

In three hundred years, I've only met one other yokai like me. And considering there's a world of us, I'd probably say yeah.

[ Her parents reaction to her being 'abnormal' notwithstanding, too.

She was also cast out of her pack and lived alone for about a century and a half, give or take. So. Unbelievably lonely. ]

It's pretty unusual.

[hasitsthorns]

[ It's still strange for people to respond with sympathy, honestly. Even the yokai like her - Charlie, her cat's namesake - had been a monster in his own way. ]

I know a lot of people that would disagree with you, but. Thanks, dude. I try.

[ It's all she really can do anymore. ]

[hasitsthorns]

[ Thankfully, Eudio was a very understanding environment. Way more home, anyway, where the mention of being anything but human (and especially a yokai) meant you'd have hunters after you in a heartbeat. ]

Oh my gosh, you have seen me at my worst... So, dang, you are probably qualified to tell people about my best.

I mean. That's not how the saying goes. Humans have such weird sayings though.

[hasitsthorns]

[ Honestly, hunters in her world are vastly outnumbered. But they have the tools to make up for the difference. ]

Amen to that, dude. [ Speaking of 'current' language, Rose can't say anything because she's stuck in the 90s with her slang. At least she makes up for it with all her witty pop culture references. Though those have dwindled down a bit since realizing different worlds means different pop culture, which means she isn't half as funny anymore. ]

I get what you mean. I'm... really glad so many of us made the journey, honestly. I uh. I got issues with losing people, so.

[ Abandonment issues. She probably would have been a lot worse off had Vanyel not made it here. ]

[hasitsthorns]

I haven't cared about many, but the ones I have I lost.

[ Funny how that works, huh? Also explains why she might be so afraid of getting close to people in the first place, like with her 'love panic' in Eudio. ]

Andrew was the first one to really catch your eye in a while? [ There's a hint of why in there, too, but she's not about to actually question his taste in men. ]