» 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

2a BUSTS IN

[mapsio]

I don't think that would be the right thing to assume, but, you never know what a small and dark crawlspace may hold Ryuji-kun.

[She's not laughing AT YOU, she's laughing WITH YOU.]

Besides, don't you think that we could take care of aliens the same way we do Shadows?

[Someone is a LITTLE TOO EXCITED about that thought.]

[ryuji]

[Shit.]

Sh...it...

[There will never be a day where Haru doesn't scare the living daylights out of him, either by her sweet-happy-go-lucky-then-murder-everything-in-sight-disposition, or her ease at which she accepts the worst and takes it with the best goddamn stride anyone could have.

He honestly admired the second half immensely, not that he ever knew how to tell her that. And definitely not while she got him thinking that there's an alien probably behind them this very moment.

Ryuji turns his head.




Y'know. To make sure that they weren't going in circles.

Riiiight.]

Aw man, what if they have families?

[mapsio]

[She tosses a glance behind them as well. Nothing was behind them, but it never hurt to check, right? Right. Though she also gets the feeling that Ryuji was being overly cautious just as anyone else would in their situation.

She lets it pass.]

Asking the tough questions now?

[She hums in thought, ah! She's got it. Sorry for the pro-ax murderer in her Ryuji.]

Then we would have asked ourselves the same thing about the shadows. What if that Ooze had an Ooze wife and Ooze children? Would we have let that Ooze continue to attack us if it meant we had to die in the process?

Though, I could be completely wrong. The aliens may come in peace.

[♥]

[ryuji]

Yeah. Tough guys ask tough questions.

[Keep deceiving yourself, Ryuji.

He follows her logic for a few moments, nodding as she starts to question the existential implications of an ooze family (what... the hell), but in the end it just confuses the hell out of him. He sucks in air through his teeth, not knowing exactly where this logic is going.]

Nah, I mean. They're shadows. Shadows gotta be dealt with, yeah? You just pound one and another pops up and takes its place. I---I don't wanna think about that shit! If they had families... god that's so MESSED UP. We made so many orphans.

[A moment of silence for all the dead Maras and their heathen offspring.]

Alright, whatever. This is too difficult to think about. If there are aliens, let's bash their effin' brains in and figure out what the hell they're doin' to us! You in!?

[mapsio]

[Well okay Ryuji, she will let you tell yourself that. But she won't go and tell him otherwise for now.

But really he should have expected this. He brings up that their captors (totally Aliens) may have a family. Which leads her to compare them to the shadows. It's simple really. The Ooze family was the only way to go here.]

If you think about trivial things like this too hard, this is what happens Ryuji-kun.

[He bounces back quickly, which in all cases is good news.]

You don't need to ask twice. We will have to teach our captors a lesson!

[Again, sounding a little too excited for that.]

[ryuji]

[Good lord, Mona created a monster when he raised Haru up into the score of the Phantom Thieves. Ryuji is so proud, so scared, and hopes that nobody he ever cares about double crosses her.]

Uh... y-yeah! But like, real talk, how do you know that they're not gonna evaporate us on contact.

[Ryuji cracks his neck- this is all too much worrying and not enough punching for his taste.]

Wait, we need weapons. See any spare ship piping around?

[Ryuji, no....]

[mapsio]

[He took a refined girl and showed her the way of thievery. She found the murderous and savage side on incident. Pray for anyone or anything that crosses Haru wrong.]

That would be troublesome.

[First rule is always to find supplies, right?]

We should look for things like that! Let's go?