Test Drive Meme #6 (tw violence)

[spoofer]

Test Drive Meme #6

I want neither revenge nor relief.

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.

BATTLE WITH D.E.S.T.I.N.Y.

November has barely begun, when chaos strikes again^[2]. Perhaps you've had weeks to settle in, finding yourself a new home and getting accustomed to the neighborhoods... or maybe you've had no time at all. Your daemon warns you of a massive invasion coming from the West, the ocean where you first arrived.

The enemy has come for you again. D.E.S.T.I.N.Y., the cosmic threat to not only your homeworld but the entire Multiverse.

When the violence makes land, it's shockingly similar to the exit from your original world, yet mashed in with the experiences and genres and world details of other refugees— soldiers in red armor wielding weapons of all kinds, both advanced and rudimentary; airships, bizarre monsters; firestorms and quakes that seem sentient in the way that they move, pursuing people through the beach and the forest. You see the injured and the dead, and people running in panic. Heat and gunfire break up the ordinary peace of wilderness, driving animals into stampedes and filling the sky with panicking birds.

There are children and doctors and engineers among the many refugees of Xistentia, and not everyone can fight back— but maybe you're one of those who can.

Think fast— that's a crimson spear launching at your head now.


The city's defenses are buckling too. While ordinarily, the civlization possesses unnatural physics that subvert violence, the onslaught starts to wear agains them. The only safe place is the Temple. Here, civilians and injured combatants are banding together to try and boost morale... which coincidentally also can boost the defenses of the land by with the energy collected from emotional connectivity. For better or worse, there is plenty of negative feeling to go around, the air thick with fear.

Whether you're recovering from injury or afraid to fight, you can still contribute here. Tell a story, sing a song, make a meal out of one of the cookfires started in the hallway, or even help with medicine. One thing is for certain: we're in this together.

NETWORK

Today, it's peace time. By now, the city of Xistentia has a population of over 500 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 notification, that reads:

TEXT MESSAGE SENT

It would appear that your daemon accidentally sent a text message misfire.

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. This is connected to the war plot, coming up in November. Please read the announcement for more information! Features include good, old-fashioned violence, hurt/comfort, and "drift compatibility."

Comments

[money]

( i don't believe you is his surprising first thought, the spite in it something that makes his eyebrows wrinkle, confused. it's not an especially confusing topic, having your heart broken, but -- even still. why should he have faith if he shows juno his back, that the detective will still be there when he turns back around? as with all things there's no certainty on anything, peter certainly knows that better than most. but,

peter's trust in juno isn't there just because it's unquestionable, or relentless, or because he's in love with him. it's also necessary. you can pick who you trust, of course, but you have to trust someone.

so peter trusts him, then, believes he'll watch his back. even if he doesn't, it won't matter much -- a new alias and a new story, something different and something boring to not draw too much attention to himself. peter has lived a handsome life of luxury and finance, but there were early years bathed in poverty, eating one crumb after the other. there are down times between jobs when nothing gathers his interest. he knows how to rough it, how to live on the edge as easily as how he knows how to kick back and let fake credits and stolen good speak for themselves. if juno betrayed him, it wouldn't be the worst thing. it wouldn't be the first time.

turning his head once juno begins fumbling around, he grants him some privacy in returning to the console, shaking his head at junod when she feathers up to follow after him. ) Stay down, you're comfortable. I'll just be here.

( even still, he knows it's pretty useless to try. he's more pickpocket than hacker, and this isn't a technology he's familiar with. if there were a passcode he could figure out the ways to get it, but he can't find a space to type anything in -- no stolen pincodes, no funny spaces for puns. regardless, he tries. turns the chessboard, tries it from a different angle, but the game's the same and any way he turns it, he's still fucked.

upon losing gusto, he turns back to face juno, a distance away from him now. there are many things he could say, but instead of saying any of them, he sighs in frustration, clicking his heel once. )

No dice. It's fine, ( vaguely, he waves. ) I'll figure something out. More importantly, are you sure you're alright? Now's no time for heroes, Juno, there are healing beds further in.

[monologue]

[ if there's one thing that juno wouldn't blame peter for it's not trusting him. not after how after all they'd been through, everything that'd been said and done and heard and shared... he'd left. juno steel tries not to break promises, and that's one that couldn't have been avoided. he wasn't good enough to keep it, good enough to promise nureyev a lifetime of hopping from star to star, planet to planet...

he squeezes his eyes shut and leans his head back as peter turns to him, half-listening, half squeezing the crumpled material of his shirt in his hands, too soaked with blood for now to warrant putting back on just yet without making him feel sick again. instead, he drops it between his knees, shaking his head. ]

Fine. Like I said... most of it's not mine.

[ like he has to make himself sure of it too, though there's probably a laser graze he's missed, something he scraped in a bad fall torn open, but peter nureyev is like a healing balm, just looking at him.

one that makes him ache just as badly. he opens his mouth like he wants to apologize, but closes it. no. no, fuck, no. dahliad moves with a regal slowness to her steps, pressing herself in close to juno and nureyev's jacket. she looks like she might settle, but instead she stretches her long neck up and grabs a piece of juno's hair in her beak, tugging sharply down. ]

Ow--fuck!

[ a wince as his hand flies up and grabs hold of his hair, dahliad's voice ringing out softly: ]

Hairline fracture on your fourth rib. Another on your clavicle. I've yet to scan for further internal injuries. And you need a bath.

[ juno hesitates before glancing up. stupid weird robot program thing. man, fuck technology sometimes. he swallows a little. ]

Could do with a lay down.