» 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

[luciformis]

[ Humans always held questions.

About themselves, about others — about the shapes and forms of realities that they could not articulate with their teeth or tongues. For Ryo Asuka, his "truth" began and ended with Akira Fudo, but that truth would be hard won. While Ryo had always known that there had been no other that held such impact in the pale, emotional canvas of his life — he would not be able place in his vocabulary the name of it until struck with it from an outside source. And so Akira is Akira, who understands Ryo as much as Ryo understands him. Akira, to Ryo, had always been not unlike the gravity that kept the moon about the Earth. No matter how alone and separated Ryo had been, Akira had always held out his hand to him. He'd always welcomed Ryo in, when others could not tolerate him. When, in the end, Ryo would think it was proper and right to perhaps hate him after all. But, there is no such understanding of the future now. It would come when it did.

But, to Ryo, that sentiment was a tacit echo. Life without Akira was and would be unimaginable. The absence of Akira, in totality, would and will be a future Ryo doesn't entertain at all.

Still, despite the discomfiture that sits between them, Akira looks to Ryo as Ryo has always looked to him. That vulnerability that Akira wears for him is plain in its cast and Ryo feels the words of reassurance catch in his throat: it's okay.

It's okay, he wants to say. But, in the inability to discern where they were at all, it would be difficult to promise that. It might not be. However, there are some things that Ryo would be able to guarantee. Guarantee or die trying, just as though they were back home amidst the dawning panic. ]

I'll gather all the information I can, [ he says, voice rounded with a particular softness and surety that he reserves only for Akira in moments like these. Stepping in closer, that semblance of distance between still sits heavy between them. He minds it, toes against the line that's been carefully drawn there. His gaze neither shifts nor wavers as he continues on. ] There has to be a reason why we're here. [ He lifts a hand to rest against his own chest, against the steady hum of his heart. ] We'll find out that truth together. [ Just like before, he needn't add. The implication is there. ] I intend to keep my promise.

[ To protect you. That, too, likely needs to be said. Akira has seen that occur time and again. By now, it was as predictable as the patterns of the moon, both in structure and phases. Of course he intended to keep it. ]

[dvmn]

[Even in spending ten years apart, he'd still felt some sort of estranged, distant connection. Much like the pains of a phantom limb after the real one had been removed, Akira had so clear of an impression of Ryo and who he was that he'd practically half-imagined his reaction and response to nearly every event, either momentous or largely irrelevant, that'd studded the road he'd traveled all of his life. But not even this projected version of his friend could stand up to what he'd learned he'd become - a professor by age sixteen, hosting a webshow which featured star-studded guests and international renown. Ever since his mom had texted him with a link to the recording of one, accompanied with the question, isn't this your little friend from years ago?, he'd found that he'd sold Ryo short. No matter what others thought or perceived, Ryo had always been incredible and exemplary to him, and he'd clung to a kind of personal ownership over his friend's fame while watching bits and pieces of his webshow from time to time, regardless of whether or not he understood anything else about it.

It wasn't perfect, though. It'd never been, and sixteen years on planet Earth was long enough for anyone (hopefully) to find out that sailing was never perfectly smooth, that there would be rolling waves and oppressive storms and unexpected obstacles no matter which relationship it was. From minute instances when they were kids to when he'd determinedly pointed a gun at Miki to what'd happened in the track arena, he was occasionally reminded that regardless of how often their plans and goals intertwined, there were often parts that diverged to sometimes explosive degrees.

Then it was simply about finding a way to get back to a path that they could walk together.

He isn't sure if it's necessary yet. The aggravation and vague feeling of hurt within him might be something that scabbed over rather than fester. He'd just have to wait and see.

Akira nods. In that promise, he places implicit trust. There's no one else on the planet that could use the same amount of energy and discover more than what Ryo could, if given similar means and an identical timeframe. It also takes a weight off of Akira's shoulders; a detective he was not, and he'd prefer to wait until he was called in when needed.

His eyes follow Ryo as he steps closer, peering down at him through his eyelashes. He doesn't need to be reminded of what that promise is, though the reaffirmation makes him smile, a single huff of a laugh catching in his throat.] With what we could get done back home, I'm sure getting to the bottom of this will be no problem.

[The faint shade of levity fades after a moment, though, and Akira's tone settles back into something that stands to be just about as serious as he could stand to be.]

Just know how much you can handle on your own. Call me in as soon as you need me.

[Or as soon as you need him to crack a skull or seventeen.]