» 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

[ryuji]

[Paranoid little shi---





Huh. That does actually start to sound suspicious. Ryuji's still not about to say he's right, though.]

Did you go up to the observation deck cause there are two moons and yeah I saw that shit, it was trippy as hell

[uragiru]

Yes, it's quite the view.

I'd like to see if there are any other windows on this station... If the Observation Deck is merely an image on a screen, rather than a real window, then the illusion might not hold up under careful scrutiny.

[ryuji]

[If only Futaba were here...

She'd smack him upside the head for talking to Akechi to begin with, and THEN proceed to scan the station for that sort of visual distortion. If anything, though, who would've ever thought the detective class was really filled with detectives. Huh.]

Ohhh... I getcha

You think we're in some kinda green screen or somethin

Man, whoever is setting this shit up is touched in the goddamn head

Okay. I'll do it. I'll see if I can find any other windows.

[uragiru]

[ he actually kind of expected to have to do it himself or cajole Ryuji into helping, but. as straightforward as ever, even now. ]

I'll go to the lowest deck I can find and start from there. Keep an eye out for anything else of note, will you? Like signs of previous residents.

[ryuji]

[Part of it is just that he doesn't want to sit still when there's a lead he could follow. This isn't really cooperation nearly as much as it is the fickle urge to not stay put in one place.]

I'll start below the Observation deck and head downward

[Subtle subtext: >i>don't meet me in the middle, I ain't ready for a confrontation with you yet.]

There were definitely people here before us. Did you get your watch username on your first try?

[uragiru]

No, I actually tried to use my surname and a few variations thereof. "Crow" was a last resort.

[ he didn't want to have to go by his old codename for... obvious reasons. ]

If whatever brought us here knows our names, however, it could be that the block on those usernames is a deliberate attempt to unnerve us.

[ryuji]

I understand you and Joker bein here and all if this is some grand scheme and shit but like




Why me



Let's pretend that all this bullshit is real though. You heard the message too... they fucked up. Someone seriously is gonna put the fate of the universe in my hands?

[uragiru]

It does seem rather a poor choice, doesn't it?

[ ha ha. why are you more concerned about it being in your hands than Akechi's hands, Ryuji. ]

Hmm. Going by the assumption that it's somehow real, and each of us was deliberately chosen, wouldn't it be because of your involvement in the Phantom Thieves? You are the righteous heroes, after all.

[ he'd have more thoughts on this if he'd been alive to find out about Yaldabaoth and his grand design, but he doesn't know about any of that yet. ]