Test Drive Meme #5

[spoofer]

Test Drive Meme #5

You wouldn’t wake; i couldn’t sleep for years.

INTRODUCTION ⇄ FAQ ⇄ APPLICATIONS

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.

THE RAIN

Here comes the rain. Trickling down the rafters and tinkling down the trees, it starts as a drizzle and steadily increases to a downpour. Maybe it catches you by surprise, chasing you indoors or to share the umbrella of a friendly stranger. There's something oddly elaborate about the gutters of Xistentia's city-- it clearly carries the water toward the temple in the East, a storm system that causes the lamps to pulsate without threatening to shut down.


You'll notice too that you're prone to nostalgia which even infiltrate your dreams, memories sad or happy. This is easily a private experience, but you might find yourself wandering the city to get away from old ghosts or feeling invincible in the glow of memories. More oddly, whether or not you're an artist, you might be inspired to draw on the windows with your finger in the condensation.

Personal symbols, detailed illustrations, these inextricably lead back to the nostalgia. Whatever it is, it might pull someone to ask.

NETWORK

By now, the city of Xistentia has a population of over 400 people. Shops line the streets of downtown, and increasingly well-trodden paths will take you into the agricultural zones nearer to the forest or even down to the beach. There are still distinctive animal presences around— careful with that— but the most common critters you'll see are birds crapping on your stuff outside and tiny winged hairless people creeping your food.

One afternoon, you are taken from whatever you’re doing - taking a walk through the city, sunning yourself on the beach, running around in the forest shoring up defenses - by a message, appearing on your Daemon’s network screen. It’s a simple line of text, that reads:

PHOTO SENT

It would appear that your daemon accidentally sent a picture, perhaps one from your photo roll or instagram, or a random shot of you or your surroundings. Wait. Was that a public network post? Wait—

IMAGE CODE TEMPLATE
<center><img src="URL HERE"></center>

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

crash;

[disbands]

[That's a good question. Barclay himself is in no immediate danger— he didn't crash just recently, he's lived here for months. But he lives specifically in a lighthouse that overlooks the ocean and the beach— look to the right and you'll see it, tall in the sunshine. He tends to use that vantage point for good, watching when the crash happens, then hike on down to help. Best he can.

Sometimes, his best isn't good enough.] Yes, [he twists his head around to look at the young man standing there. He looks-- contemporary. That's nothing new. Barclay is from the 18th century, but these days, it barely gives him pause when people talk about pizza or robots or 'guyliner.' And help is help, even though the young man looks to be no stronger than he is himself. Pirate. Perfectly human pirate.

He's trying to help a woman get her foot out from under the broken hull of a small aircraft.] Can you try and lift that up so that I can pull her free?

[turncoin]

Yeah, no problem.

[While he definitely looked more capable than your average 16 year old, nothing about him seemed to hint that he was at all extraordinary. But even when he wasn't 'in uniform' his connection to the grid gave him enough extra strength that he didn't see himself having any problem here.

He came around to the side they were on giving the mess a quick glance to make sure of what would be the best way to go about this. The broken wing would be easy enough to get purchase on, and he paused only to dig his feet down until he felt the soles of his sneakers digging into the perpetually wet layer under the loose dry sand to make sure he wouldn't skid.]

Alright ma'am, you're going to want to relax as much as you can and we'll get you out in just a second.

[He leaned to drop a shoulder under the edge of the wing as close to the body of the plane as he could get, one hand going farther under to support the weight, the other grabbing the edge before he pushed, the frame of the broken plane creaking as it was slowly tipped, inch by inch in the other direction. While he was more focused on keeping a grip on the smooth plating, he still kept some attention on the others, making sure that nothing new was wrong, waiting to see when the stranger would be able to pull her free.]

[disbands]

[Barclay's smiling encouragingly at the woman. He doesn't actually think this will work, but he's fairly confident that the sight of them trying to push the aircraft will get others to help. He estimates they need maybe seven more people. It's not too bad, it's just that the sand is slippery. He knows all about it, what with being a pirate. Former pirate.] There are machines in the city that'll get your foot sorted properly, and you won't even remember this happened.

But we might need some sort of lever, [he says, thoughtfully, the moment... before... the entire hull of the ship tilts, crunching gently, the shadow of it saying, moving off the woman's prone form. Barclay blinks sharply. A figurative array of question-marks over his head.

And then he pulls, quick as he can. Yanks her free, a jolt of movement, her foot popping right out from under the machine. It looks discolored. Internal damages, maybe. But she's all right. She's immediately shouting thanks to the sixteen-year-old, as Barclay starts to tuck his arms underneath hre.] You're a rather exceptional young man, [he calls over.] Not human, I take it?

[turncoin]

[Only once the pair were clear did Tommy let things settle again, lowering it as carefully as he could, so nothing would roll or break off and potentially harm one of them in the process. He couldn't help the low hiss of relief to get the weight off of himself, rolling his shoulders as he offered an almost bemused sort of smile at the praise.]

Just glad I could help.

[Only to redden a bit at Barclay's question, shaking his head as he shook sand from his sneakers. In his zeal to help, he hadn't thought to keep to more feasible things. He should have gotten a lever, collected some help. Oh well. The woman was safe, and for being pinned relatively unharmed, and that was the important part.] Oh no, I'm human.

[disbands]

[Barclay lifts the woman with easy grace. Which would be an impressive feat of athletic ability, if Tommy here hadn't just totally upstaged him by shifting half an aircraft on his lonesome. Oh well. Barclay isn't jealous. He's helping, and also— this lad suddenly looks uncomfortable with his observation. It makes sense, for someone who's new here.] You shouldn't worry, [the pirate tells him.] There are quite a lot of individuals with magic and psychic abilities and other shapes to shift into here.

Werewolves, vampires, warlocks, the fae. That sort of thing. We're getting along quite well. No one will judge or mark you for it. [He bundles her up higher on his chest. It then occurs to him-- reflex, really. That maybe he should add a small footnote of warning. That all this is contingent on the superhumans minding themselves. But in the end, he knows this to be paranoid. After all, Tommy had just helped, hadn't he? Barclay has learned trust, since Eudio.]

Come. There are vehicles that will take us to the city.