» 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

katarina eranas | original

[spinals]

( 0 0 1 . 1 ) » WAKE UP WHERE?

[ kat has a headache when she wakes up. that's not entirely unusual, but it hasn't happened in a while — and she didn't overdo it with training yesterday, did she? and she didn't get into any tight space and she doesn't remember falling asleep at all and —

kat sucks in a deep breath. it's fine. it's all right. (it's not all right, but she can't focus on that right now, so she doesn't.)

there's someone in here with her. another breath, eyes opened wide though it doesn't really help make out any more details in the dim light of the room (?). ] Hi.

[ kat musters a smile. ] Are you all right?

( 0 0 4 ) » MALFUNCTIONS (cw: drunkenness, affection)

[ kat knows what it feels like to be drunk, but you can't really get drunk from toast and beans, or what passes for beans when coming out of the replicator. toast and beans does not contain alcohol. it didn't taste like it contained alcohol, anyway? but she still feels drunk. she feels almost as drunk as she had that time she'd snuck out a bottle from the bar and shared it with dana and eyal on the cliff overlooking the dock. not quite, but almost. ]

Do you think it's possible to get drunk off beans? [ she asks when someone sits down on the other end of the table with their own meal. then she giggles. ] No, I know that's silly. But I think I did?

[ a beat during which she thinks hard. then: ] Sorry.

( 0 0 5 ) » NETWORK (un: mag)

so this is all super weird right? i'm not the only one who thinks it's all super weird? or who misses their home??

does anyone know where the food in the mess hall comes from? is there enough to last us? how many is "us" anyway?

anyway. hi. i'm kat.

network; un: tokumei

[neuralnet]

Hello, kat.

[ He pointedly does not give a name of his own. ]

I think this is very weird too. I've spoken to about a half dozen people so far, but this place is so big, I'm sure there's more I haven't seen yet.

[spinals]

half a dozen isn't really many
i mean there's so many rooms around here this place has got to have housed at least a hundred people at some point right??
whenever "at some point" was

[neuralnet]

I think so too. But however many people were once housed here, they all left a long, long time ago.

[spinals]

yeah that's what it looks like
but what made them leave?
i mean
i guess you don't know the answer to that either i'm just wondering

[neuralnet]

I just hope they left, and not

[ Well... ]

I hope they didn't die here.

[spinals]

i hope so too

[ but for all that she's an optimist, she's not willfully blind. ]

if they left, they left a lot of things behind.
like all the alcohol in the bar??

[neuralnet]

I noticed that... Probably best not to touch it.

[spinals]

yeahhhh i wasn't planning on it
how long have you been awake? have you looked around yet?

i'm kat by the way
or kata or katarina take your pick

[neuralnet]

A few hours. I've looked around a bit. There are sleeping quarters on deck 3 that I found.

Call me Hideki.

[ That's not his name but it's what he's telling people. ]

[spinals]

i think there are sleeping quarters on every deck except the top one? have you gone there yet? it's a view
not a familiar one but wow

[neuralnet]

I have.
I thought it was fake, at first.

[spinals]

oh
why?

4.

[dumbstruck]

[ Well that's one way to ruin a meal.

Or not? When he'd first found the bar he hadn't wasted a lot of time breaking into the bottles there, but then again that was when he'd first woken up, and he needed some way to cope badly with the situation he'd found himself in.

Still, he wasn't looking to get drunk tonight, and as he picks a seat at random and gets comfortable, he's forced to stop before chowing down himself. The beans made her drunk?

Hyunseok grimaces as he pokes tentatively at his own with a fork. ]

Did you put like... alcohol in yours?

[ That's a dumb question. Wouldn't she know if she had done something like that, and what's more wouldn't she be able to figure out that's probably why she was drunk? ]

[spinals]

No!

[ if it comes out a little indignant, that's because kat is. of course she didn't put alcohol in her beans. who would do that? that sounds disgusting and also she hadn't been trying to get drunk. at all.

but she still feels drunk. sleepier than usual, too. ]

Of course not.

[dumbstruck]

[ It does sound pretty gross, but if she's feeling drunk off of beans then there has to be something a little more than just beans in that mix, right? It's the only explanation he can think of.

Well, that or... ]

Did someone else put alcohol in them?

[ He leans towards her and almost whispers that, like there's something strangely conspiratorial about what he's saying, and he doesn't want anyone overhearing his accusation. ]

[spinals]

I don't think so.

[ does she know for sure, though? for a moment, kat chews on her lower lip, brows drawn together. then she brightens visibly when an idea comes to mind: ]

Maybe someone put alcohol into the food dispenser?

[dumbstruck]

[ Hyunseok pulls back from her, looking skeptical, before leaning down towards his own tray and taking a sniff.

If there is alcohol in the food, he can't smell it. It does smell weird, but all the food here smells weird to him, so that doesn't say much. ]

Did it taste weird?

[spinals]

No?

[ kat pokes at the beans with her fork. ] I mean. It didn't taste great? But it didn't taste like alcohol. The food here isn't great, is it?

[dumbstruck]

No, it's always pretty terrible... but not usually spiked with anything.

[ He's pretty sure. Right? He's got a decent tolerance for alcohol, but it can't be so good he wouldn't notice heavily alcoholic food before this point. ]

[spinals]

I've never noticed it before, at least. [ kat pronounces the words carefully and then sets her fork onto her plate and pushes the plate further toward the middle of the table. freeing space for her to cross her arms and prop her chin onto them. ]

It's not even the fun drunk.

[dumbstruck]

There's another kind?

[ Well, besides the fun kind that has then become less fun, because you drank too much, and now you're throwing up. He's had that kind before, and is not a fan.

He does, however, put down his own spoon. He's not sure he's that hungry if this is going to make him feel terrible. ]

[spinals]

Yeah? I guess.

( another pause in which kat thinks hard, or at least seems to think hard. she's trying to think hard. it isn't really working, her thoughts sliding away from her. )

Like the pukey kind. Or the tired kind. Or the sad or angry kind.

004.

[retund]

[ ripley sees her and thinks she ought walk past without a word, but she finds herself seated across from the girl all too quickly. she's young, not as young as poor newt when she'd been torn from her family, or her own daughter amanda had been when ripley said her goodbyes, but young enough to make the pit in her chest ache — to warrant her attention, as she notes the clean, blonde curls, so unlike newt's own tattered waves.

she settles in with only a mug of what might be coffee. upon closer inspection, the tinge of the liquid is off, more grey than brown. seems like the fabricators are shoddy. figures everything here went to shit, huh?

then the girl starts rambling, and ripley's brows lift in reply as she sips her drink. ]

It's fine. [ thinking she's drunk, being drunk, whatever it may be. she's a goddamn kid. ] Are you sure that's all you had?

[spinals]

[ kat doesn't mind the company. kat doesn't mind the company at all, especially when the woman tells her that it's fine. when she sounds almost worried. that's nice—

no, wait. no. that's bad. she doesn't want to worry anyone! she's fine. it's just being drunk, right? ]

Yeah, I'm sure. But it's fine. I've been drunk before. It'll pass, right? Right.