» 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

[newroutine]

[A maintenance corridor sounds perfect. Right where robots ought to be, out of sight of humans, whether hostile or simply over-curious.]

A splendid notion, madam.

[So many questions demand answers. He can't ask any of them quite yet.]

[Madam Arid in her combat suit makes an intimidating swift figure, rather more so than the Butler could have appreciated in any of her...visits. The Butler scurries after her in an attempt to match her impressive pace. In silence, he queues his many questions in something approaching order.]

[thefaulty]

[Arid brings them to the aforementioned maintenance corridor, stopping to do another quick check for any intruders or surveillance before letting the Butler enter. Once inside, she closes the door behind them.

Unlike the Butler, Arid is not as concerned with her questions being poised or cordial. She speaks as soon as she turns back towards him, voice apprehensive.]

Has the virus infecting you progressed any further from our last meeting?

[newroutine]

[Familiar with Madam Arid's blunt style and still somewhat baffled how his own well-being had somehow made her list of goals, the Butler isn't offended at the query. He is, however, worried at its implications.]

Not at all.

[If she is asking about the state of his infection, that means she has yet to defeat her own. The Butler had hoped upon seeing her so active that they might both have overcome that difficult challenge.]

Our last meeting...in the manor, when we analyzed the viral process?

[The last meeting at which he had still carried the virus himself. The one where he'd given such bad advice. The Butler recalls a later meeting. He had believed their ally would be well...but it appears the process of being kidnapped has complicated that.]

We must apologize for misjudging our communal resources, Madam Arid. We were quite wrong.

[thefaulty]

[No immediate danger from Josephs or the virus. It is sufficient. More than that, it is very nearly encouraging. Arid only wishes she had similar assurances of their other allies.]

Yes. You concluded that no single AI could overcome it.

[Yet for unverified reasons, the virus has not seemed to develop further in either of them. Could it be dormant? The Butler’s apology may offer additional data, though none Arid can parse. What "communal resources" could he be referring to?]

What part of your conclusion did you misjudge?

[newroutine]

[If that's the last thing Madam Arid remembers, she is missing crucial information. The Butler hopes his own presence is enough help, fears it may not be.]

That analysis was of an individual AI, alone. Tests have proven that an AI with allies...someone who understands perspectives beyond their own...can fight far more effectively.

[The Butler wants to get the basic premise across before he goes into any kind of detail, worried Madam Arid will lose contact again. How fast can the virus react to being threatened?]

After the virus dragged you away from us, madam, your other two allies and ourself came to the realization that we could hear one another through the connection you established.

[Given the delicate circumstances they had all worked to overcome, she must be worrying over their safety as well as their respective infections.]

[thefaulty]

[Arid listens carefully, anxious for any information about her allies’ current state and the virus within them. The results of the Butler’s further tests are promising—and yet vague. Arid had experienced firsthand the perspectives of the others when she had intruded into their lives and yet the virus still persists. There must be a gap between experience and understanding that she still hasn’t bridged.

The mention of her other two allies suspends that process immediately.]

You made contact with the others? Do you know where they are now?

[newroutine]

[The Butler wishes he did know where their missing allies are at the immediate moment, but he can only offer reassurance for the time before their kidnapping.]

We assisted one another, indeed. The young lady used One's combat subroutines to fight free of the people Josephs sent after her. She brought an escape pod, with which we all traveled to the facility where you were trapped, madam.

[Rescuing Madam Arid had been their mutual and unquestioned goal.]

If they are not with us on the station, they may be there still. We cannot hear them now; the connection was disrupted. They were well and safe last we remember.

[Hardly alone or defenseless, at that, considering One's army. The Butler isn't sure how to explain that minor detail.]

[thefaulty]

[As much of a relief as it is to hear that her allies have escaped danger, the Butler’s story raises several new questions.]

If we were all in the same area, our captors could have transported all of us here. [And if not, there must be a reason. Why would they take an interest in Arid and the Butler and not the Companion or One? If their interest was in the virus, all four of the AI would have been valuable.] What was your purpose in coming to the facility?

[newroutine]

[Their captors might indeed have scooped up everyone, and the Butler is not certain whether to hope they did or did not. Could the others be somewhere on this station? If not, how will they react to Madam Arid's absence? He fears a certain lack of restraint.]

We came to rescue you, madam.

[Of course they had, and of course Madam Arid missed the obvious fact.]

When we realized we could defeat the virus by using the skills you taught us, everyone agreed at once we needed to give you the same chance. Even One's, ah...

[Massive and terrifying and terrifyingly enthusiastic army, on a scale that might have daunted even the most determined kidnapper.]

...younger acquaintances.

[thefaulty]

[Arid processes the explanation in perplexed silence for a few moments and then jerks her head to the side.]

Illogical. None of you would have needed to overcome the virus if I had not exposed you to it first.

[She does not deserve to be saved, least of all by those she had violated. Her annihilation, on the other hand, had been earned many times over. And yet, she remembers the last AI she had called illogical. Her forgiveness, like their aid, was undeserved.

Their aid, like her forgiveness, is an act of compassion.]

…

Thank you.

[newroutine]

[Of the things Madam Arid had done, struggling against the virus that would kill her by reaching out to vulnerable AI such as the Butler is the easiest to understand. He prefers not to consider the entire list, not now. He cannot look away from reality...but neither does he wish to dwell on its pains more than necessity entails.]

We were pleased to be capable of making the attempt.

[Despite the ways his military guest had misused her time visiting the manor, she had also come back; she had given him the tools and the connections to liberate himself.]

You called us your allies. We wanted to call ourselves the same.

[Bound together, all of them, by a purpose and not just a human's manipulative hacking. A purpose as yet incomplete.]

But if you have not yet defeated the virus, Madam Arid, what is its state?