» 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

3

[tumang]

[ Amos has been drinking which, really, is kind of his favored way of drinking. He's not much for small talk.

But if someone speaks to him first, he'll answer. Guess Lydia did teach him some manners after all. His hand around the bottle he's been drinking, Amos turns his head to the girl - who looks way too young to be in a bar like this one. He can imagine her on Ceres, and he almost winces. Too pretty. The Belt would have hurt her. ]

Nothing. [ It's an honest answer, but he still leans up over the bar to grab another dusty glass, pouring the girl a drink, and passing it to her, sliding it along the bartop. ] It's no Ganymede gin, for sure.

[creatio]

( She's more relieved then she'd like to admit when he doesn't question her age, tipping her head in thanks when he passes her a glass. Her gaze is curious, vaguely assessing, but her eyes are friendly. )

The moon?

( While he definitely looks like the silent and brooding type, Clary isn't. He's probably going to be a victim of that. If she's honest, she's just glad to be using her voice right now. Everything is too strange, too unreal, and this is as normal as she can get.

Taking a quick swallow of the liquor, Clary immediately regrets the decision, coughing at the harsh taste. The glass finds the bartop so that she can thump her fist against her chest. )

Oh wow. That's something.

[tumang]

[ if he's surprised she even knows what Ganymede is, he doesn't show it. He's met a number of people so far that didn't even come from the same system, and at this point, it feels like anything is possible. ]

Yeah, the very one.

[ He tips his own glass to his lips, looking ahead instead of the girl for a moment, just thinking of Ganymede gin and how now the moon had collapsed. ]

They made the best gin in the system.

[ He can't help his smirk as she coughs. ]

Yeah, that shit'll put hairs on your chest.

[creatio]

Seriously?

( Clary's surprise is a strange thing. Part of her is still trapped on Earth, at a time where people didn't even know if there was life out there. The rest has just seen a sky she isn't familiar with spread beyond a window close enough to touch.

She's fascinated, she can't help it. )

That's so cool.

( Except, it's reminding her she's definitely out of her depth. )

Are you from here? Uh, the ship? This ship.

[tumang]

[ Amos turns back to her, holding his glass between three fingers, looking a lot more delicate than he actually is. ]

One question: wherever you come from. It doesn't have space travel, does it? A colony on Mars?

[ That's two questions, Amos. ]

No. I'm from a ship, but not this one. This isn't even a ship, anyway.

[ Learn the differences between a spaceship and a space station, Clary, gooood. ]

[creatio]

We've sent a robot to Mars, I think. A rover robot, not like an A.I. or anything. We're still not quite there yet. Mostly we just have space pictures. And arguments about whether or not the moon landing was faked.

( How is she supposed to know the difference. It's a thing. In space. )

It's not? ( Scrunching up her nose. Oh yeah, station. They have one. ) So I take it you're from a place where space travel is legit? I was kind of wondering why we had jumpsuits and no helmets.

[tumang]

It wasn't.

[ Faked.

Amos takes another sip of his drink. ]

Ships move. This is stationary. [ Hence, a station. ] It's too big to be a ship, it would make fuel consumption way inefficient. It probably doesn't even have a drive.

[ Puts down his glass again. It clicks against the bartop. It's weird to talk this much. ]

We don't need helmets here, there's a perfectly breathable atmosphere, somehow. But there are spacesuits by the airlocks. You can't go into space wearing this, kid. [ He motions for their jumpsuits, still looking ahead as he does. ]

And yeah, it's legit. [ He's been doing it a while, after all. ]

[creatio]

Cool. So we'll have someone who knows what they're doing at least.

( She flashes him a grin because what else can she do. Clary is halfway to terrified already, and that's before she considered how little she knew about space and space travel and stations versus ships. She's already had to adjust to one new world, and it was harder than it had any right to be, now this?

She's going to do her best, but she's not sure if it's because she thinks she'll be of any use, or that stopping for even a second will let the grief and fear and rage in. )

I don't think I'm ready to even attempt going out. So don't worry. I promise not to suffocate or freeze to death. I'll stay where there's some great oxygen, thanks.

( She takes a sip of her drink, looking over at him. )

I'm Clary.

[tumang]

[ Maybe one day he'll explain the whole ship vs boat thing. Maybe, It's the kind of thing that's self-explanatory to him, but he's lived with it his whole life. ]

Don't make promises you can't keep, kid.

[ Because she can't. One tiny hole in the hull of this barge, and they'd all be toast. One small impact from some big speck of dust, and it could all be over.

Life in space. ]

Amos.

[creatio]

( He's definitely got that vibe about it. The grouchy action hero thing. Clary's used to that, mostly everyone in her life thinks they're a badass. But she's not going to call him on it, because she's not the one who apparently already lived in space. )

Can I at least say I'll do my best?

( Because she doesn't want to die in space. Even in her darkest moments, Clary needs to keep going. Stopping isn't an option. Thankfully, her arrival here has given her enough of a distraction. )

I don't get why though. Like, why bring all these people to an abandoned space station? Most of us have never seen anything like this, so they can't want us to help man the place. Have you heard of anything like this happening before?

[tumang]

[ Amos is most definitely no hero. He's no badass, either, just... surviving.

Right now, it's the same thing. The Churn. He's learning the new rules. Amos presses his thumb against the rim of his glass. ]

Sure, whatever keeps you going.

[ He doesn't care, it doesn't change anything for him. As long as she doesn't actively try to kill them all, it's no skin off his nose. ]

No. It doesn't make any sense, bringing a bunch of Earthers that have never seen space here. It's asking for trouble. But I don't know how it happened, it's not technology I've ever seen before.

[ Kinda like the protomolecule. ]

Need to get into engineering, and then we might get some answers.

[creatio]

( Not for the first time today, Clary wishes she had her stele. It would be so easy to use a rune, unlock a door, get them answers. But it hadn't been on her when she woke up and she's not sure where to start looking. She also just can't blurt out what she needs to relative strangers, at least not yet. )

Where would engineering be? Have you tried to get in?

( Maybe they could force the door. )

[tumang]

[ Amos puts his glass down. He gets that the questions are just that, but he can't help the way his jaw ticks anyway. ]

'Course I've tried. If it's anywhere, it's at the bottom of the station, and I've gone as low as I could. There's a hatch that probably leads to it, but it's locked.

[ He turns his eyes to look ahead again, refilling his glass. It's shitty alcohol, but it's alcohol. He won't say no. ]

We don't know what's on the other side. Could be depressurized, so forcing it open is not exactly a good idea. It felt like it might give on the hinges, with enough pressure, but again, we could vent the station. If we lock in the hatch above and create an airlock, I'd try to break through. We'd need vac suits first, though.

[creatio]

( She swears under her breath, lifting a hand to rub at her tired eyes. There's so much to consider, so many different variables that Clary didn't or wouldn't know about. She's used to acting, and now here she is, feeling rudderless and without purpose. Because there's nothing she can do. Nothing to fight. No one to hunt. )

This is definitely going to take some getting used to.

( She drains her ridiculously disgusting drink, wipes the back of her mouth. She can't just sit here anymore. )

Listen, if you do find anything, can you let me know? I might be able to help.

( She still has runes that haven't burnt out yet after all. )

[tumang]

[ Amos nods. If he was anyone else, he might feel some sympathy for the girl, and how destabilizing this all must be for her. But he is himself, and all his energy right now is focused on one thing: get drunk, get some sleep, start over tomorrow. ]

How?

[ It's a genuine question, with no inflection behind it. He doesn't think she's lying in any way, shape, or form. He's just curious to know. ]

[creatio]

I'm much stronger than I look.

( It's not boastful. She doesn't have it in her to be proud of that right now. It's just the truth. )

And I may not not a lot about space, but I'm not going to sit around while everyone else tries to save the day. I'd rather be useful.

[tumang]

Hm.

[ Amos turns to Clary again, nodding. Better to have someone willing to help than breaking everything around them. ]

Alright, kid. I can teach you some of the ropes, at least. This place isn't exactly like what I'm used to, but I can still give you some tips. How good a mechanic are you?

[creatio]

( By the look on her face she is definitely not a mechanic. But --. )

I'm a quick study?

( This isn't her first rodeo. )

[tumang]

[ Amos rubs a hand over his face, before nodding. ]

Alright. We'll see about that. Come down to the bottom deck tomorrow. We can start there.