» TEST DRIVE #001

[reveriemod]

TEST DRIVE #001

( 0 0 1 ) » WAKE UP

Were you asleep or were you unconscious? It doesn't matter: when you come to, there's an odd taste in your mouth and there's a low-level mechanical hum in the air. Your head hurts and you feel nauseous. You aren't anywhere you know: everything around you is metal, from the floor you lie on all the way to the ceiling. You are dressed in a jumpsuit you definitely weren't wearing before.

"We tried to save the world. I think— I think we did the opposite."

The message repeats on a loop. If you look for its source, you find a comms device on the floor next to you. The logo on its wallpaper says REVERIE TERMINAL. Upon closer inspection, you find the same logo on your jumpsuit.

Welcome to your new home. What choice do you have but to explore your surroundings?

( 0 0 1 . 1 ) » WAKE UP WHERE?

When you wake up, you find that you're not alone. But more importantly, you find that you're in a closet. An empty closet, bar you and your new companion. It's small, cramped, and there is no door that you can see. The ceiling is low, there is barely any lights, only some coming from the tiny flashlight clipped to your suit's shoulder. You cannot be sure that there is any air coming in to the room.

Are these grooves in the wall supposed to mean something?

( 0 0 2 ) » OBSERVATION DECK

There were no windows in the corridor you woke up in and no windows in any of the crew quarters you might have checked for occupants — but there are plenty of windows on the uppermost level of the station, deck 1. In fact, there are windows from floor to ceiling all along the circumference of the station's circular deck, and it's possible to walk along it all. What it shows is a strange solar system you've never seen before and a planet that might resemble one you know, but certainly isn't the same.

You're in space. You don't know where you are. Neither does anyone else.

( 0 0 3 ) » BAR

On deck 3, you find the bar. Tucked away from the crew quarters, it's dimly lit, there are bar stools thrown down on the floor and what looks like some very old drink spills, crusty and dark against the bar top. But there is alcohol here, or at least, what you think is alcohol, in bottles with faded labels, most of them indecipherable. Take a drink, get drunk, start a fight, or start a party? You're stuck on this station, might as well make the most of it, right?

( 0 0 3 . 1 ) » VIRTUAL

But the alcohol isn't even the most interesting part of your discovery (depending on who you are, of course). No, what catches your interest is a second, smaller room off from the main bar room, which looks to be some kind of arcade. There are a few VR sets lined up against one of the walls, and surely, they can't be working, right? Nothing is on this rust bucket. And yet, if you put it on, the display comes to life.

It's a pretty simple HUD, and when you move around in reality, you move around in the virtual world you've just entered. It's a luxurious world, full of brightly, saturated colors, making it just a little obvious that it isn't real. Ahead, there is a jungle, a temple, and a city. You can play around, slay some monsters, have some fun, but you can feel yourself growing hot, like the VR helmet is burning your forehead.

And when you try to take it off, you find that you can't. The HUD glitches, the sound cuts off to a blaring alarm, and an error message appears, in glowing, blinking red letters: FINISH THE MISSION. Will you, despite not knowing what the mission even is, or will you fight to get the helmet off?

( 0 0 4 ) » MALFUNCTIONS

(cw: body horror, bodily functions, gore, blood, death)

The fabricators function well enough, until they don't. One day, one moment, everything's all right — the food doesn't generally taste amazing and sometimes downright awful, but it's nourishing and filling no matter what your dietary needs — and the next, things go a little haywire.

In short, the fabricators are malfunctioning.

Oh, they're still producing food that looks and tastes much the same as before, but now there are some unexpected side effects.

NB: Characters may experience any of the following side effects: nausea ranging from slight to debilitating, the sensation of being happily and affectionately — but not overwhelmingly — drunk, bone-deep exhaustion and weariness that makes it hard to move, or repeated hallucinations of loved ones screaming for help, reaching out to characters and leading them down abandoned corridors or being killed by unseen forces.

The extent to which characters are affected is up to players, as is whether you'd prefer to play this more lightheartedly or tackling more serious themes. If the latter, please provide warnings in subject lines where necessary.

( 0 0 5 ) » NETWORK

The comms device you found next to you when waking up connects to a station-wide network, REVERIE NET. You have the option to post video, voice or text messages.

What will you share?

( 0 0 5 . 1 ) » NETWORK USERNAME

When you first turn on your communication device, it requests for you to pick a username to identify you on the network. It can be anything you want. However, as you try to input a username in your wristband to access the network, you get the following message, along with a small, but irritating, warming sound:

this username is already in use.

What does this mean? Is there other people around? Were there other people around?

( 0 0 6 ) » WILDCARD

The station features a variety of locations, from sleeping quarters free for the claiming to a dirty swimming pool and a bar that still holds alcohol (though some of the bottles seem to have been opened a while ago).

Go wild, but don't wreck the place. It's your home for the foreseeable future, after all.

Comments

[splinten]

[This is not a question that relates to can cities, Dave.]

[Dirk isn't sure where this is going. But everything feels so tentative and fragile, so uncertain, he doesn't want to risk shattering anything else.]

Yeah. You guys had gotten here.

[oculusriffs]

[he's getting there. he figures knowledge of Sburb would help; Can Town and the mayor's brilliance is better understood with a clear image of him in one's mind: the chess guy build. the mayoral sash. the penchant for high fives, the knack for sensible city planning and the otherwise completely endearing habit of eating weird shit. the mayor is Dave's best friend.]

Oh. I never saw you. [it comes out something like a question, but maybe not a surprised one. his bro had a habit of disappearing to god knows where for completely random stretches of time, he has no reason to think this one wouldn't be the same way.]

[splinten]

[He doesn't fully understand the extent of that comment. He ends up just explaining the situation.]

The Condesce hijacked Jade and teleported me to the edge of the Furthest Ring. I tried to contact you, but you kept glitching out.

[oculusriffs]

That was you?

[shit. Dirk must have seen what happened when he got back, if he wasn't somehow caught up in all the death and glitches, too. Dave is not about to ask — this entire conversation has been incredibly awkward, downright uncomfortable, but not hostile, or genuinely upsetting. he'd rather not take any risk of it going down that road.]

[and deflection is what he does best.]

Well, did you catch anything I said about The Mayor? That's roundabout what all these cans are for.

[splinten]

Yeah.

[He doesn't know if he should say sorry or not. The name of this mysterious democratically elected manager of a polity serves as a sufficient out from all the complications, so he answers with,]

I caught his name, but not much else.

[oculusriffs]

[bragging on the Mayor is a thousand light years ahead of addressing the issues he'd insist he doesn't have to begin with.]

It's too bad you didn't get to meet him. He's basically the best thing this dumb game ever cooked up for us.

[he turns, ready to lead the way back to the observation deck.]

You know those chess guys? He's one of those, with his "completely awesome" stat jacked up off the charts — something like that, at least. He's been hanging out with us for the past three years.

[splinten]

I didn't realize a Carapacian was able to make it out of your game with you. That's pretty cool.

[A pause because he wants to mention Roxy. Has Dave met Roxy? Does Dave even care about Roxy facts? Shit.

The awkward pause is never unpaused. The awkwardness continues, with Dirk looking like he was going to say something (as he follows Dave to the future can town) but not actually figuring out how to say it.]

[oculusriffs]

[Dave would probably make the whole thing even more awkward by his inability to stop referring to Roxy as mom, honestly. maybe just a normal painfully awkward silence is the better option as they walk, until he goes ahead and breaks it with:]

I'm not sure he was supposed to — he was dead when he first got dropped on the meteor. Some random troll in a dream bubble wound up reviving him.

[once they make it to future Can Town, though, he unceremoniously dumps the cans on the floor.]

Rose kept talking about how the way we were crashing our session into yours was unprecedented. I guess bringing the Mayor was another trail we blazed along the way.

[splinten]

That's convenient.

[Regarding dream bubbles. Dirk looks at Dave a moment, and then follows his cue and releases the cans.]

As far as legacies go, breaking this stupid game and saving an apparently awesome Carapacian is a good one.

[oculusriffs]

[oh ... that — that was a compliment, wasn't it? it seems like Dirk's throwing him for a loop pretty much every other sentence, with things he'd never heard his bro say, ever. nice and sincere things.]

[Dave looks almost confused for a minute. he swipes a hand through his hair awkwardly.]

You really think so?

[splinten]

[Fuck. Did he say something weird? He stares back at Dave, eyes wide behind his shades.]

I... Yeah? [He rubs his neck.] Do you... not think so?

[oculusriffs]

No, I do. I just wasn't expecting that you'd feel the same, I guess.

[that's probably the closest Dave is going to get to admitting to what is running through his mind right now: "you're not like him, I don't think. at least, not in the ways that I was dreading."]

[he doesn't say it, because he's still not sure he believes it. or at least, he doesn't feel good enough to let himself believe it.]

[splinten]

Oh.

[He's still staring stupidly at Dave. He can start putting pieces together, he thinks, he probably has enough, but when he looks at them he just gets a weird, confused image. Except... That Dave doesn't think they'd like or value the same things?

The concept is so radically foreign to Dirk's conception of things, to Dirk's life and the things he's dreamed of and aspired to, that he's just left standing there for a moment, a baffled giant above a yet-unbuilt town. He watches him, and eventually says,]

Is... there a reason you wouldn't expect that?

[oculusriffs]

Yeah.

[shit, that flew out of his mouth before he could think twice on it.]

I mean — the reason isn't you specifically, it's just. [you know. you.]

[Dave is blundering bad over here. he just teetered dangerously close to dumping a lot of his crap on a guy he just met who, despite his appearances and his pretty much everything, doesn't ... really seem to deserve it. so he hits the brakes and clams up, suddenly very interested in staring at a spot on the floor several feet from where they're standing.]

[splinten]

It's just....?

[He doesn't know. Him? But he's hanging on every word Dave says, like it means the world and then some.]

[oculusriffs]

[there's just the tiniest hint that he might actually answer that question — he even inhales slightly like he's about to — but that impulse just ends in a sigh instead. Dave can't do it.]

Nah, it's nothing. Don't worry about it, all right? Getting space arrested's probably a big enough problem as it is.

[of course, he'd make that argument even if they were on the beach or something, or anywhere else one might consider "safe enough." like, say, standing among a pile of cans that will one day become a glittering, miniature metropolis.]

[splinten]

[This confuses Dirk. But he can't press Dave on it. Dave is... not a guy you can press, probably. Right?]

Right. We should focus on that for now.

[oculusriffs]

[that's better. he's probably sending some amazing mixed messages, and he'll probably hate himself thinking about that after they part ways, but at least he has his emotions in check again.]

[there is something else he's definitely curious about now, though he's still not about to come out and just ask it. what happened to Dirk in their session? did he get caught up in the fighting? not that it's really his problem anymore, but if Dirk and John, with his weird new windy zappy time powers, could somehow turn around that disaster, at least give those who are still alive a fighting chance, then that's what he should be doing. he shouldn't be space arrested hanging out with a dead guy. right?]

[Dave's already ruled out the possibility of dream bubbles here, too — that would have made escape as easy as chucking a ball of yarn at a dude's head.]

Don't suppose you've gone poking around much, then. [you know, Scooby Doo the shit out of this station. conjure up some theories on how they got here.] I pretty much went straight for the food.

[splinten]

Haven't had a chance yet. I need to get a real assessment of the area sooner. The locked doors are something I want to gather data on before breaking through, in case this is some Alien containment shit going on.

[He likes breaking doors, but he doesn't like falling for obvious movie tropes.]

[oculusriffs]

You kinda make it sound like you have experience in the field of Alien containment shit. [hopefully not of the insane juggalo variety. one of those guys is more than enough.]

What sort of data are you looking for? I might be in the mood to help solve a nystery.

[splinten]

Containing our aliens wasn't really an option. Unless you count fending one off by giving him your soda supply.

[fucking juggalo aliens

He straightens up when Dave mentions he might help. Almost like going Scooby Doo with Dave would actually be amazing to him.]

I want to know what's behind the locked doors and why they were locked.

[oculusriffs]

[and here Dave was thinking that trolls guzzling Faygo like they don't have a pancreas, or an insulin sponge or sack or whatever, was a rare thing. fucking juggalo aliens indeed — the grodie clown problems must be spreading.]

[but he shrugs, at a loss of what to offer.]

Not sure how much help I'd be on that front. Time's more my curse — and I can think of a zillion reasons why using it here would be a bad idea.

What were you thinking of doing?

[splinten]

Trying to get into the computer logs, for once. [Curiously:] Is your time stuff doing okay here? I've been trying to work out if we're still in Paradox Space or not.

[oculusriffs]

[he pauses to think about that — and his understanding of his power is as much thought as it is instinct, as much planning as it is improvisation. if the seconds passing by had a sound, he would certainly hear it, but it's more like a very strong feeling: the uncomfortable notion that it'll keep plodding forward at whatever rhythm suits it, even when he stops, as much as it's also a part of him.]

[visualizing this particular timeline is an instinct, too. he pictures a straight line speeding ahead like the contrails of a jet out in the blackness of space, with tendrils snaking out in all directions, meandering wherever they're inclined, but always snapping back into place at their points of origin.]

[he can see the potential in those time loops. it would be all too easy for him to branch off into one, to maybe shoot back in time to figure out what happened to this space station, or maybe jump forward to figure out where they're going. knowing how to close that meandering loop he'd make comes naturally, too.]

[he could do that, he's pretty sure. he doesn't get the impression that there's anything stopping him. but he won't.]

It's hard to say for sure without actually trying it. [stopping time isn't really his style like it is for other time players. but it might be a safer thing to test, if he's ever inclined to try.]

Same for you? Whatever it is you can do, I mean.

[splinten]

Same issue. I think there might be something, but considering my abilities are basically 'rip out souls' and 'destroy souls,' it feels like the kind of thing you don't test out just for fun.

[So he'll hope it's there in an emergency, and otherwise leave it alone.]