» 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]

"Up for the view, or down for the better chance at a grand floor exit?"

She asks him, standing still. On this point, she's ready to take input. Jasnah has no frame of reference here, can't guess up from down, can't feel if they're below ground, sense any kind of sun. It's deeply, miserably disorienting.

[dvmn]

He hums thoughtfully as he weighs the options, his arms crossing over his chest.

"I say up." He points an index finger upwards as he does so. "Even if we end up on the top floor or roof or whatever, we'll at least get an idea of where we are. And how many floors we gotta go down to get to the exit."

It's probably one of the most well-thought out things he's ever said.

And as long as Jasnah is on board, he'll start making his way towards the stairwell heading up.

[veristitalian]

She steps along with him, without objection, looking up ahead of them.

"I've never seen any kind of architecture like this."

Jasnah feels like she should be able to name the culture, but there are no hints. No one on Roshar should even have this much metal, or the ability to work it into thin sheets like this, into the very walls.

Part of her wonders if she's dead, honestly. If someone came for her in her sleep and these are the Tranquiline Halls. She knows the Heralds haven't led the charge there, after all.

[dvmn]

There are a lot of stairs. They seem to stretch on and on, doubling back on themselves. He's got enough endurance to go the distance of wherever they need to for answers, but he makes sure to keep an eye on her, not allowing his pace to outmatch her own.

"Architecture?" He isn't even really sure that's what he'd call a lot of it. It mostly just seemed kinda... plain, utilitarian. There hadn't been much design in a lot of it besides flat, metallic surfaces. "Hm... I guess if you put it that way, yeah, I haven't really either. Seems kinda futuristic I guess? But not really fancy."

'Futuristic' isn't a type of architecture but he doesn't necessarily know that.

It's definitely not heaven, though. Too many devils around here for something like that.

They round around the turn for another flight of stairs. "It's definitely big." Even as much as they've been climbing, Akira doesn't seem very winded. "We've been climbing for a while and haven't even reached the next floor yet. Where the hell would they put a huge metal building as tall as this, anyway?"

Out in the desert or something? Because he gets the feeling that when they get to a window, they're not gonna see the skyline of Tokyo.

[veristitalian]

"It could be a tower."

Jasnah's been living in Urithiru, which is stories upon stories high. She can't say she exactly understands why or how the great city was made, but it's as least as large as the one they're in now, if not larger.

"There's absolutely no indication why it's here though. It doesn't seem like a habitat."

And, finally, she comes upon a doorway. It's the observation deck- Jasnah freezes.

[dvmn]

"Oh."

He'd been thinking something like a skyscraper, like a really tall hotel (still thinking about that long corridor of identical rooms), but the fact that they hadn't come across any identical floors after so many flights of stairs killed off that particular guess. A tower... it makes sense, even though he isn't sure where on Earth they'd find a tower like this.

Maybe because the answer is that it isn't on Earth.

"Yeah, maybe. But it does seem like people're supposed to stay here, though. Don't know what those rooms would've been for, otherwise." Usually stuff like that was for people to either live in, recover from illness in, or work in, right?

He's about to voice another thought when they finally arrive to the top of the stairs, and then whatever stupid thought it'd been, it dies somewhere in his throat.

"...What the fuck?"

Akira walks, very slowly, into the bay of the observation deck. His eyes are wide, fixated on the wide array of windows that open out into... nothing. Well, not nothing. It's space. It's a vast tapestry of stars and, as he walks closer, he can see something spread out beneath them: the scape of a planet, and one that wasn't Earth.

He feels a sickening rush of vertigo. His head feels a little light, swimming, and he repeats somewhat breathlessly, "What the -"

[veristitalian]

Jasnah goes extremely still. She's had so many shocks in the last few years, but this is one for the ages. Nothing about this is right.

"This is a world."

An entire planet, seen from so far above it's actually unfathomable. She takes a step forward, then another, then does not allow her knees to shake.

"Where are we?"

And how is this possible?

[dvmn]

Akira reaches the glass, placing one of his hands against its surface. It's cold, but not so much that he'd think that a few inches beyond there was the perfect cold of space. He's got answers, or at least pieces of them, but what's an answer if it doesn't make any sense? If it's completely impossible to what you know?

"Space." The word is dull, dropping from his mouth like a piece of lead. He blinks. "I guess."

There's no other explanation, is there? He doesn't see anything else. Nothing familiar (not that he would be able to recognize any constellations or anything like that).

Just this planet.

"That's... not Earth." Indicating the planet below.

[veristitalian]

"What's Earth?"

She wants to know, but it makes sense. It's not Roshar, either, so why does that mean they should be from the same world.

Jasnah is much, much further from home than she originally thought. Luckily, there's a few seats here, for viewing the window, because she sits down in it quite suddenly and heavily.

She has faced things. She has travelled to Shadesmar. She has already had her world fundamentally heaved over once already in her lifetime. Again?

[dvmn]

"Uhhh."

He shoots her a weird, sidelong look, expression already a little dazed by what's spread out in front of them on the other side of the glass, so this is kinda the icing on the cake. He gets the sense she's not fucking with him. He gets the sense from her that she doesn't really fuck with anyone.

"The planet, Earth? The planet humans are from?"

Well, it's not the only one, so he's going to have to get caught up to that.

Akira decides to remain standing; he stands with one corner up next to the glass, looking to where Jasnah sat in one of the chairs. "So, uh. You... not from Earth, or something?"

Weird. It's super weird. But they're also in space so it could get in line.

[veristitalian]

"I'm from Roshar."

She answers, gripping the edge of the seat she's on, looking out over the view again and drawing in a determined breath.

"Where humans are an invading force. Perhaps it's Earth we came from originally."

But if so, Jasnah doesn't know it.

[dvmn]

"Ro...shar, huh." He pauses a moment, then shakes his head. "I've never heard of it."

It's a bit much for him to swallow all at once, too. Not only being out in space but the fact that she's from a completely different planet from Earth? Even if humans had come there from Earth originally (he can't say it's out-of-character for humans, in the end), but who knows.

There's way too many unknowns right now. He's starting to feel a little antsy.

"Well." He jerks his thumb over his shoulder, out to the planet slowly rotating outside the window. "If neither of us know what that is, I guess it doesn't matter where we're from. We were all brought here regardless." He frowns. "I'm guessing the 'why' is the question we're gonna have to try to answer... after, uh." His shoulders sink as he breathes out, emptying his lungs. "All'a this sinks in."

Because he's still thinking he's about to wake up from this weird dream.

[veristitalian]

"When is it going to sink in?"

She asks, hand reaching up to brush her hair back. This would be easier if Ivory were here. She long to ask him what he makes of this. She wishes she had the shardblade. More than the one bit of stormlight.

"If we're from such different worlds, why are we both here?"

[dvmn]

"Fuck if I know."

To both questions, unfortunately.

He lifts a hand to his face, pinching at the top of the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. It's washing him over now, the immutable fact that he is separated from everyone back home, from the growing conflict that threatened to consume them all. He wasn't any goddamn use to anyone here...

"I don't know, like..." He's... trying his best to think, but unfortunately his only source material is shitty sci-fi flicks. "We haven't seen anyone else around here. Even up here. Maybe we're supposed to run this place or something?"

His hand drops. "We gotta figure out if there's anyone else around here."

[veristitalian]

She draws in a shaking breath, and glances behind her. She doesn't speak right away, but just because she's listening closely.

Jasnah glances back over at him, because;

"I think there might be voices behind us."

[dvmn]

"Oh, shit. Really?"

Akira's hearing isn't as great like this as it is when he's taking on a slightly more demonic form. He listens carefully and, sure enough, there seem to be voices coming from... somewhere. The stairwell? He isn't quite sure.

"We should probably go see who it is, yeah? They might have answers or somethin'."

Except Jasnah's still looking pretty bowled-over by everything that they'd just realized. He'd been about to move, but he pauses, looking on with some concern. "Or maybe you should stay behind a while? You shouldn't push yourself."

Not everyone's as big an idiot as Akira, so willing to roll with whatever ridiculous game-changing revelations are thrown at him.