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

[miss_brilliant]

Should I start calling you Noah. then? [she says, trying to laugh although it really doesn't work, even if she does smile at her Eevee going over to the dog. It's not afraid, despite the difference in size. She still doesn't understand the small creature, really, but she is so glad it's safe. That Kavinsky and some of his people--people she only remembers in passing--are safe.

While there are some people she would try to comfort--Nick, Arthur--Kavinsky isn't one of them. In part because he's him, and in part because, despite what she's tried to make everyone believe, including herself, she is actually pretty good at hiding and repressing negative emotions. It's the only way she'd been able to survive adolescence with any part of the self she wanted to be intact, which is...probably not very healthy, but it's what's letting her keep from falling to pieces right now.

So instead of reaching out when he sniffs, she listens to him and laughs, although 'nerd girl' stings some part of her she hadn't even realized was there, as she remembers calling Eli 'math boy'. Eli. Eli is a genius, the one who solved the mystery of the ninth chevron, he must have found a way to get them out, him and Rush and all the others together…

She forces all of that down, to a place where she can deal with it when it's just her and her Eevee again, and makes herself smile]

Believe it or not, this is just as new to me as it is to you. Just because I've been on an alien spaceship and swapped bodies doesn't mean I've seen everything the multiverse has to offer. [she sighs, looking around for a moment to hide her own misted gaze] That said, I sincerely doubt that anything we wear or consume could create localized black holes. Not just because I think that would take something much bigger, but from what I'm gathering, that's not how this virus is wreaking its particular havoc. But I definitely had the time or...focus to dig very deep yet. [the only concession she'll let herself make aloud, to the fact she's terrified] Maybe once I get a roof over my head I can start...trying to figure out how the hell this program is working, instead of just taking it at face value.

[or finally have a total emotional breakdown. That's more likely, really]

[pillz]

Yeah, if you buy that we're all fucking pixels now-- [kavinsky listens to her talk, his attention drifting slightly. in that shocky way that people do when they've been recently traumatized. she has her way of dealing with it, and so does he. if you squint a little, maybe you'll notice there are certain strange similarities between their respective methods. neither of them are much one for breaking down in front of other people, soliciting comfort in the obvious ways that they tell you to do in books. hug. say feeling words.

he can tell she's feeling emotional, and the mercy he thinks to grant her is that he looks away. eyeing his dog. pretending not to notice.]

Hey. [and then the idea gets him randomly-- a spark in the mire. kind of like supposedly you can start fires with the methane gas farts from bogs and marshes? inspiration of this stanky boot nature.

kavinsky straightens slightly, his skinny arms crossed over his chest. it's random as fuck. it's a bad idea. she can't stand him, not really; most people can't. he says it anyway:] We should live together, 'Manda. You and me. Come on. There's a shitton of real estate. [he gestures up at the buildings around them, their empty-eyed fronts. apartments. no doubt there are houses, somewhere further out.] You'll stay outta my shit. I'll dream you some shit of your own.

[miss_brilliant]

[Amanda isn't exactly sure what she expected--really she's never been at all sure what to expect with him, and maybe that ridiculous novelty is part of why she kept associating with him by choice--but him proposing the two of them living together definitely wasn't among any possibility she would have thought of. She can't hide the fact she's taken aback, eyes widening and jaw dropping just a little.

It would be easy to tell him that idea is insane, which it absoultely is. Even if she'd been reliant on another person for everything before Eudio, having an aide wasn't anything like having a roommate. She'd been alone since she was seventeen, in basically every sense. She'd never had to figure out how to deal with another person's eccentricities in a shared space. And really, now would be the most ridiculous time to change that. Especially with him of all people.

But on the other hand, being alone...well, it had stopped being novel sometime ago in Eudio. And he's still, somehow, the person who knows the most of her little secrets. Of all the insane things in her life, that's one she's pretty sure she'll never find any answer for.

She's quiet for another moment, before shaking her head and letting out a laugh that's very short but actually genuine]

Uh...well, I can't say it's something that would have otherwise crossed my mind but...[a long breath leaves her lungs, but she's smiling] What the hell, sure.