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

CHRIS!?!

[monologue]

UN: DAHLIAD

Gesundheit or whatever.

You okay over there?

[ wherever over there is. ]

shh I was trying to be sneaky

[bombshelled]

[ Lana's swearing up a storm at her stupid daemon, but she texts back, ]

it wasn't supposed to send that. stupid spider bitch.

that's not sneaky u were the only lana at eudio

[monologue]

[ l m f a o ]

Well good luck telling it that, they like to do whatever the hell they want.

Spiders are way cooler than peacocks at least. Less mess.

[bombshelled]

you got a fucking peacock? wtf kind of weird ass other world is this? can't even get their act together and give us actual phones.

[monologue]

I know right? It's like hey, I've got a comms unit that I've been using for ten-plus years, I don't need an upgrade.

It's like at least give me something more low-maintenance. I've got more white feathers lying around than I know what to do with. I could be a showgirl at the rate we're going here.

[bombshelled]

[ Between the showgirl comment and the flowery username, Lana's just gonna nbd assume she's talking to a chick. ]

it's insane! I mean, I'm glad to not be dead or whatever, but the last time I went to a different world they were at least prepared for me.

[monologue]

[ she's not wrong. ]

Wait you've done this kind of crap before?

[bombshelled]

yeah, twice. well. the same place two times. and then the world ended but I ended up on basically the same world except some of the history and the people were different. but I was still in New York.

but with Eudio they invited me. with this place, I just sort of... crashed into it.

[monologue]

Kind of unsettling to know there are more places like this out there. I just wanna go back to Mars already.

At least that other place knows how to ask permission.

[bombshelled]

ok wait back the fuck up.

MARS????

[monologue]

Yeah. Mars. You know.

Red, kinda dusty, okay place to live, I guess.

[bombshelled]

if you're matt damon, maybe.

so you're like an astronaut or something?

[monologue]

[ juno's bad at old world movies. sure. matt damon. sure. peter would know who matt damon was maybe............. or rita. ]

Nope. I'm a private eye. Like my feet planted right here on the ground, thanks.

[bombshelled]

ok but like..... you LIVE on MARS?

what year was it, for you?

[monologue]

No I'm just there for vacation. Really????





Yes, I live on Mars in the year [ kev and sophie never told us but it's literally 10k years in the future so here's some impressive number. ] We've got take out and everything.

[bombshelled]

fuck. ok.

never met anyone from as far in the future as you.
it was 2017 for me.

glad to know take out's still a thing, I guess.

[monologue]

Humanity: still alive after all this time.

Most of the stuff is cloned produce, but it's not too bad.

[bombshelled]

ok so like- this is probably a weird question, but...
civilization and cities and crap are still around, right?
I mean you said you were a PI. I assume you're not investigating like... tribes of hunter gatherers.

[monologue]

Yeah, in fact I live in one. Hyperion City. It's one of the first places Earth terraformed. Buildings tall enough to give you the worst neck cramp of your life if you try to see the top.

Just like any other city.

You know. With take out.

[bombshelled]

sounds like New York.

...is New York still a thing or did Earth just like... nuke the fuck out of itself and that's why we moved to space?

/shuffles thru scripts

[monologue]

Probably, I don't make it a point to travel off Mars, but I hear it's a thing?

the trouble of playing in an audio medium orz

[bombshelled]

alright. cool.

well, uh... congrats on being from space?

the worst when they're literally from the year 10,000 or some shit

[monologue]

It's not that special, I promise, but I'll take the congrats where I can get it.



So what's with all the colorful language before?

[bombshelled]

oh, I fell down. my legs are like... broken or some shit.

[ If he's asking why she swears so much... She doesn't have an answer for that that's just what she does. #YOLO. ]

[monologue]

[ nah. he figures you're just a sailor or something. ]

Do you need help or something? Crutches? Uhh a healing bed?