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

[cantseame]

You're a clever one yourself for realizing my pun. After all, perception is quay!

[He smiles at the mention of her name, ah, what a familiar call from home.]

Tonn Beag, hm? Then we're both of the ocean! I'm Farraige, and my daemon is Alvind.

[Alvind responds with a happy little spin while Farraige extends his finger to Titimd, gently shaking its tentacle in greeting.]

[whitedevilofthesea]

Ohhhhh, another one!! [ She likes you, Kelphead. ] You do this a lot, don't you?

Farraige! Oh, what a good name. [ Then, airily: ] It explains your hair!!

[ She means it in a nice way, really. ] And Alvind, was it? Hello there, friend! [ She spins right 'round in return, then curtseys. ]

[cantseame]

I do. Some people consider them pun-ishments, but they're still laughing all the same.

[He grins, running a hand through his hair.]

Moss, kelp, grass, it's been called all sorts of things.

[He nods.]

Yeah, Alvind is named after someone very special to me.

[whitedevilofthesea]

[ Excuse her while she stifles a very not-girly snort. ] Oh, blast it! You rattle them off with such little effort!!

[ Colour her interested, Farraige. ] Would you be willing to share? I'd understand if not, however.

[cantseame]

I've had decades of practice, you just need to use the right bait to reel 'em in.

[Okay, that laugh is adorable.]

It's named after someone who taught me magic. There's my spells to control the elements, and then the magic to make friends.

[He reaches behind her ear, and with a flick of his wrist pulls his hand back, holding a small sea shell in his hand, gently pressing it into hers.]

Found that in your ear, but I do believe it belongs to you!

[whitedevilofthesea]

[ E X C U S E ???? ]

[ HOW DID HE—??? ]

[ tonn.exe has encountered an error, please contact your system administrator— ]

[ Meanwhile, Titimd makes grabby tentacles at the shell that rests in Tonn's palm, slowly (and bravely) making its way down her arm. ]

I... You... [ Have a doofy smile, Kelphead. ] This is amazing!!

[cantseame]

I would think that --

[And he pauses, for a bit of dramatic posing and showmanship. Definitely Alvin's influence shining through.]

I would argue my best magic trick isn't to make things appear, but...

[He taps the ground with his staff, the sea shells almost seem to jingle a little song all their own, whistling in the wind.]

It's to make good people smile.

[whitedevilofthesea]

[ A laugh bubbles up from Tonn as he shows off, threatening to shake Titimd from her arm just as it reaches her wrist. Whoops, sorry cuttlebuddy, she didn't mean that! ]

Oh, you! You're too good a person, you know. [ And here she — finally — gives the little cuttledaemon the shell, which it holds over its head happily. Success. ]

So! What do you do around here, anyway? Are you a magician? Do you perform?

[cantseame]

I don't exactly have a place to perform, most of my time is spent doing research and experimentation by myself. It doesn't bother me overmuch, gives me time to practice for festivals too. That's when I can go all out.

[He shrugs, raising his empty hand before her and conjuring a ball of water that bobs just above his hand. The moisture to form it seems to swirl from outside his palm, as if gathered from the air itself.]

But when things get scary, I can defend people. I can heal them too.

[whitedevilofthesea]

[ You're just full of surprises, aren't you Seaweed Guy? ]

Does... does that take a lot of work? Learning something like that, I mean.

[ Don't mind the pale tentacles that sort of. Slither out from behind her and pokes at the water ball. ... It's fun, okay? ]

Because I'd like to learn something like that too! Helping people is what I've always wanted to do!