» 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

[oorah]

[ he swallows, watching hawkeye's hand move over his with a detached (drunk) gaze. it is like a doctor's touch, and the advice cements what the man had said before. but frank had never been one for listening when it came to taking care of himself, especially physically. he shrugs, drawing his hand back when the other man lets go at last and not a second before. ]

Won't kill me. [ a lot worse things didn't seem to, anyway. he pats the front of his jumpsuit with his other hand as if checking to make sure his dog tags are still there, and when he does his touch rolls over the knotted scar just over his heart. he blows out a breath and drops both hands to the bartop, palms up. he's still thinking about the draft, honestly, and it's fucking him up even more than he already was. ] I enlisted at seventeen. Couldn't fucking wait for basic, then for getting shipped out. I loved that shit -- I was made for it.

[ but he doesn't sound fond. he sounds bitter because he is. all he wanted was to serve his country and it did him dirty when it counted. ]

[swill]

["Won't kill me" and everything else gets practically ignored. Hawkeye scoffs.] Wouldn't that be simple. And suddenly there would be a lot less for us both to worry about. [Blunt; he doesn't want to do this. He can imagine Margaret hissing at him to grow a brain and not-so-gently swatting his arm, in that way she does that makes him think she's part cat. He carries on.] You know, that's the problem with you people? [He's not sure which "you people" he's meaning right now, and deep inside himself he hates that he's using that phrase at all. That's--

Oh, Christ. No wonder Margaret hisses and swats at him all the damn time.] You think because it doesn't bother you, it doesn't mean anything. How silly of me, I got fucked over by med school and its payment arrangements when I could have just let this bright line of thinking take care of everything for me. I'd've told that to the draft board [Because they're making a sport out of feeling sorry for themselves.] and I would have gotten off scot-free. Do you know what they do to a bunch'a dumb doctors in basic? None of us knew what the hell we were doing. A sentiment, by the way, that ages nicely and carries over to the war and doesn't ever really fade. I don't know-- I really don't know how else we're supposed to feel when we knit a kid together just to get him blown up again. [He reaches for his drink. Shrugs.] Times a hundred-thousand. [And it's a light-bulb moment.

Iraq.

Oh.

There's a reason he hadn't taken a swig in a good, long while, y'know? His throat is very vehemently screaming "No" at the rest of his body. Hawkeye drinks up, anyway. It's more of a clumsy little sip. He's a chicken, okay?] You were made for this? [Open curiosity mixes with an unintelligent desperation and. Well, for God's sake, man. Don't take the next dry words seriously. Or do. He's not your mother.] Then consider it an order. Unless you're above me. In which case, please do be gentle with me. I'm very enthusiastic about that particular proposal but I am delicate. I wasn't lyin' when I said I'm a screamer and you've a cute body. [Put two and two together and. It's almost fun. Like he's daring the universe to shut him up. What's the worst that can happen? (A lot.)]

[oorah]

[ you people earns a gritty snort, caught between amused and offended. yeah, marines are their own breed, he knows, but he wasn't really a marine. he's definitely not now. when hawkeye goes on about the draft, he forces himself to sit up though it's a true struggle to do so. every veteran deserves his respect, even an army boy. he shakes his head once to try protesting the gist of where hawkeye is going with his diatribe, but in the end his silence wins out and he lets the other man finish (what a gentleman, huh?)

he has to duck his head at the mention of putting kids back together again, thinking of curtis. thinking of that kid he got killed because he was too naive to understand the stakes just yet. he never made that mistake again, but curt lost his leg for his fuck up. he'll never forgive himself for that. frank reaches for his bottle again, checking to see if the structural integrity of it is safe to drink from. it wouldn't be the first time he'd swallowed glass, right? he doesn't try, though, he just wants something to hold onto, and the coolness feels nice against his cut which is finally starting to clot. ]

What was your rank? I'll tell you - if I was above you or not. [ he glances over, just in time to catch the tail end of cute body. he shakes his head, but the look he gives pierce now is soft, almost reverent. he feels for the other man and regrets ever putting them in the same category. ]

You're right. That's bullshit. You got the shit end of the stick so dickbags like me could romanticize the service. I loved it til the second I saw it for what it really was. Guess that makes me the dumb jarhead you think I am, huh?

[swill]

[He squares his jaw, tries not to fall for the rouse of soft eyes. He used to love reading Hemingway, back when war was just a hell of a good story and a way to make a name and] It's like nobody knows how to read. [It's not Frank his voice grows tight at the idea of.

The jarhead can punish himself for-- it's not Hawkeye's place. He hates everything about the game, but not the idiot men who never learned from their teachers to never pick up a history book in their lives. It's not even a war; Korea was a police action.

It's like nobody knows how to read and nobody will learn how, because no-one is going to teach them what they don't know themselves. It's infuriating enough that Hawkeye wants to give up on everything all over again. He isn't sure what he'll win if he doesn't. He breaks first- glances guiltily off to the shelves of booze and seems subdued and even a shade short of shy as he continues.] Captain. It doesn't matter. They just give us the bars in hopes some kids from the Midwest won't question us. It usually works.

[oorah]

[ all frank ever did was read. he knows it doesn't suit his (outward) personality, but he always wanted to escape. poetry, novels, anything that could get him away was welcome. and then later music-- he breathes heavily out through his nose and though he agrees with hawkeye, it doesn't matter, but it does. not to him, but in a nebulous way. he straightens up even more, at attention even, and brings his injured hand to his face in a perfect salute. guess who was a lieutenant? ]

[swill]

[Well.

There's a "fuck you" to his face if he's ever had one.] Oh, blow it out your ear!

[There are a million and one ways to answer this.] If anyone knows I tried to pull rank on you, I'd be ostracized by my peers. [As opposed to] If I ever hear a "sir" outta you, you'd better have a cute collar. [Please be enough to end this, is what it means.] Now cut that out. Jesus, it's like you- you really don't listen, do you?

[oorah]

[ he deteriorates into a laugh, though his salute goes down straight in respect. it's a harsh bark of a thing, but it's sincere, and soon his shoulders are jumping with peels of riotous laughter to follow. yeah, he's drunk. ]

You pulled rank on a devildog, son. What did you expect? [ but he winks and turns to slump back against the bar like it never happened. see, he can follow instructions, captain. ]