» 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

[veristitalian]

"An artist."

She says, stopping dead in her work and flat out staring for a second, before she catches herself. Something about her expression conveys a kind of reserved approval. Jasnah likes anyone who spits in the face of convention, though she suspects it may be more of a matter of cultural differences.

"Men don't practice art among my people, unless they've become Ardents. Were you in a Devotary, or are your customs very different from ours?"

[unshielding]

"I think they must be different." Steve picks up on the sudden pause and stops working himself to look at her. "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what any of that means. There are plenty of male artists where I'm from, but it's not considered much of a conventional path for anyone."

It's really the least of what Steve had been teased about, though. He'd been a laundry list of everything a bully looks for in a target.

[veristitalian]

"It's a religious calling. If a man is born who wants to read, write, become a mathematician, researcher, or any other women's work, he would join the ardentia. Find a Devotary and pledge himself to it. Give up his right to own possessions, grow a beard."

She finishes the last bottle, barely containing an amused smile, now.

"I'm a confirmed heretic and a knight, certainly a supposed man's role, so I'm not one to cast judgement. I haven't found anything here, have you?"

[unshielding]

Steve returns the smile. Back in the 40s, it had been hard for a lot of women to be taken seriously and even now he sees the struggle hasn't completely finished. He's always admired the woman who didn't let anything stop them. That's something he'd loved about Peggy.

"Nothing but uniform levels of dust on these. I think we might be the first people here in a long time."

[veristitalian]

"The new inhabitants of the world that couldn't be saved."

Muses Jasnah, straightening up, and turning her gaze back to the room around them. There's something so incongruous about this.

"How can something be powerful enough to bring us all here, in perfect unison, from worlds so far apart that the laws of nature themselves are different? Why would they do such a thing, only to leave us abandoned in the ruined husk of a dead city?"

[unshielding]

"I don't know, but it can't be good." Steve shakes his head, voice grave. Whatever brought them here, it can't be a coincidence and it can't be good. Things like this just don't happen because everyone's going to be given a free puppy and sent on their way. Whatever's brought them here, it did it for a reason.

"We're going to have to figure out what it is and make sure everyone is safe."

[veristitalian]

Jasnah makes a surprised sound, mostly at his optimism. Figuring this out isn't going to make anyone safe. It's just going to mean that they know who they're going to have to fight.

Doesn't matter.

"We're going to die of thirst first, hunger second, unless we find something newer than these bottles." Time to abandon intellectual pursuits and focus on putting one foot in front of another. "You haven't found anything like a soulcaster?"

[unshielding]

"I don't know what that is, but if people were living here, there must be some food and water somewhere. Even if they took some of it, there have to be some sort of rations they left behind."

Maybe it's a foolishly optimistic thought, but he'd been through enough abandoned areas in the war to know that things always got left behind. They would slip through the cracks or whoever was evacuating would run out of time. There's always something.

[veristitalian]

"And hopefully those won't be in the state the bottles are in."

But, despite this somewhat grim proclamation;

"I don't think someone would expend the energy to bring each of us here, all at once like this, just to watch us starve to death." So it's just a matter of finding what solution they're supposed to uncover. "There's no rationale for that that makes any sense."

Even if they're sadists, there's just so many easier ways to enjoy watching that kind of mayhem.


[[ooc: sorry for the late reply on this, the notif got burried for me. I'm happy to continue, or jump to the intro post, whatever you prefer?]]

[unshielding]

[ ooc: I think we can end it there and jump into some newer stuff if that's cool :D ]

[veristitalian]

[ooc: Awesome! Sounds good.]