reveriance | » TEST DRIVE #001

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Uh okay.

When her mind's made up it's even harder to stop Makoto from doing something potentially ill-advised than Ryuji, so really Ren never stood a chance outside of slapping the Highly Questionable Food out of her hands. Being that he couldn't say whether or not she was making too bold of a decision, well. Now he feels bad for not using his iron stomach to take this weird smelling bullet.

Would have could have should have, he's lifting his arm to accommodate his senpai's sudden snuggle-need. So things can't be all bad. ]

That's unlike you. [ Best not to freak out about it, though. Ren handles the most pressing issues first before tackling the bigger scale problems; you can't do homework if you're out of coffee beans first, right?

Then his palm easily swallows the breath of her forehead, Ren frowning down at her as politely as a human being can when beating back the nerves from being kidnapped and beamed to a spooky dead seeming space station while his team mate is out of character. ] Are you sure you're feeling all right, Makoto?

[If anything, the fact that Ren lets her in close confirms to her that everything's fine and normal. Which it very much is not. As soon as this weird affection affliction clears up, she'll avoid him like the plague for a year, conservatively, because who does this? Who just touches people?]

[Lots of people, that's who. But not Makoto. Makoto would never allow her temperature to be taken by anyone, usually. Today, though, she obediently closes her eyes and allows this, although--]

You can't get an accurate reading that way.

[Some things never change.]

I feel fine. [Opening one eye, then the other, she considers her answer, then nods and confirms.] Not sick. Nothing's wrong. Just good. Why?

[What Could He Possibly Be Worried About]

[ Measuring the respective levels of impropriety might produce unintended results when using Mr. Unflappable as the watermark, just saying. Thus far in the last six months he has been involved in not one, but two fake boyfriend gambits and both have gone off without a hitch sooo. ]

That wasn't really - never mind.

[ Makoto let him and more or less leaned in and that's giving him a lot of information and also questions about where her head is at right now. She feels warm and all, but not noticeably feverish at least.

So. Ren is. Um. Subtly tucking his chin in to steal some breathing room back while his mind races for a plan of attack, pausing to push his glasses up a tad. ]

Nothing really. The food fabricators seemed kinda off so I was wondering if there were any... adverse effects? If you wanted to go lie down I think the crew quarters aren't too far away.

[ Shoulder nudge. It's not exactly IC for you to suddenly use your fearless leader as a nice pillow, Queen, please. ]

» TEST DRIVE #001

iii bc i'm trash

we're both trash and we're both valid

no subject