aurorastation | TEST DRIVE MEME (4)

test drive meme

Your character wakes up in a neat bedroom in their team carriage, in nondescript underwear. They might be missing their memories, or their special abilities, or they may just feel a little queasy. Next to them is what seems to be a smartphone, which they know how to use even if they never had before, even if they don't know if they have before. On the screen is a simple message:

Welcome aboard the Aurora!

You have been selected by the Star Prince as a potential hero, tasked with saving the universe from Malice. As a passenger I, your Construct and Conductor, will attempt to provide you with quality lodgings and safety. In return, we ask that you join your fellows in making bonds and doing your utmost to bring joy back to the Stars.

Due to the process of restoring your body, you may find some things are missing. We apologise for the inconvenience and hope to return them to you as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation.

★ One
Upon investigation, you'll find some basic clothes matching your team's theme in the storage provided in your room. Or, perhaps, you're wandering out of the room still undressed. Either way, downstairs you'll find someone has left a tray of cups of hot tea on the living room table. Drinking it may be simply pleasant, or it may cause you to feel a sudden need to warm up to the others in your carriage -- emotionally or physically. Welcome to the team, newbie!

☆ Two
Shortly after your arrival, you find yourself wrapped up in some monster NPC's Game. You're inside what appears to be a stone temple, with a massive golden scale on one wall. Suddenly, on one side, a heavy metal weight is dropped. As the scales tip out of balance, the floor begins to slowly disappear, brick by brick, ready to drop you -- and whoever is with you -- into an abyss. Your only hope comes in the form of an inscription on the altar:

How much do your secrets weigh?

Every secret you tell causes a weight to fall onto the other side of the scale. The bigger the secret, the bigger the weight. If you can collectively tip the scales, the floor will quit dropping bricks and a door will appear to allow you back to the train. If you can't, you'll fall, seemingly forever, til you pass out. When you wake up you'll find yourself unable to lie.

★ Three
You've been in aurora for awhile -- long enough to have recovered a memory/power or two, if you lost any. And it's lucky for you: today, the area around the train has been surrounded in a strange mist that makes you feel dizzy and overly warm. Left alone, your condition will slowly degrade, with increasing lethargy and shortness of breath until you lose consciousness. The cure is easy enough, though -- touch another person and they'll see one of your memories, experiencing it as if it's their own. The effect is mutual -- you now have a piece of eachother, and you're safe from the illness... at least until you take another big breath. Good thing there's no mist inside the train!

☆ Four
Wildcard. Make up your own prompt! Check out the setting and team pages for info on the train. If you have any questions, ask on the q&a page. Otherwise, apps open on February 8! In the meantime you're free to join us on Discord.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The phantom part is figurative, anyway.

[dips his fingers into his pocket, glancing at the ground to check their progress]

I'm running out of secrets. . .

Then I suppose, as someone with memories, it's my responsibility.

[hmmmm... what to say...]

When I was a child, the parents of the current regent had a program of gathering children up in markets to cut them apart and sell their meat to the hungry things in the dark--including themselves. When I was older, I worked to tear those markets apart.

[a bigger sized weight appears. still not very large, since... he doesn't consider it much of a secret, really.]

[yeah okay, good feeling from all of that banter gone]

[Akira's expression immediately darkens with barely constrained shock, which swiftly melds into righteous fury]

-- what? Why?!

[blinks, surprised by the vehemence enough to forget to smile]

Because hungry things in the dark hunger and somehow hungry things became king and queen?

It only makes sense that they'd see us as cattle--though I doubt most people understand what actually was going on. Hungry things of the dark live in the forests or the mountains or the deep waters, not the palace.

[and yet...]

Edited 2019-02-03 03:59 (UTC)

[Angry Teenagers with Ideals, man]

[the vehemence only lasts for a moment, because Akira is pretty good at wrangling it under control. he sags backwards, lifting a hand to push his glasses further up his nose with a small tch]

And yet. . .

[. . .]

Were you the only one fighting to dismantle the monarchy?

Well, the current regent killed her parents, so...

You could say there was a lot going on.

But no, I wasn't alone. Madam--the Matron, that is--was a good patron to the cause. Though, of course, she also took in a number of the orphans for her own purposes.

[hmmm... but not wanting to get into that.]

Fingers also helped. Fingers is a good friend to a number of folk, really.

[. . . . . .]

You seem awfully open about something that's better kept in the shadows.

[tilts his head, genuinely curious]

Is that only because of the trial?

Why would it be something beyond that? I don't want to deal with the troubles that'd come if I let you fall, after all.

[sheesh. . . and here's Akira, keeping most of his biggest secrets to himself]

[he rubs the back of his neck, lets out a small huff, and the continues, voice neutral]

I robbed a bank once.

[A SLIGHTLY LARGER WEIGHT!! because it's definitely a secret, just. . . half of the real secret. instead of all of it]

[le gasp]

The thievery continues!

[a soft snort, and he adjusts his glasses again]

They do say some people start young.

Haha, that's certainly true. I know I did.

[haaa. . .]

I robbed a museum, too.

[another weight]

And a castle.

[and another]

And a pyramid.

[AND ANOTHER]

And a cruise ship.

[and a fourth weight, which means they're getting awfully close to tipping the scales back to where they should be to keep the floor from crumbling away]

[eyebrows lifting steadily with each location until he just kind of tilts his head at the last one.]

"Cruise ship"?

Mmm. It's. . . [how does he explain it?]

When rich people pay a lot of money to get on a giant ship that cruises out in the ocean for fun.

... I've never heard of something like that where I'm from. Too many people are terrified of the mer to go too far from shore.

There are no mer to be afraid of where I come from.

[mer. assuming. . . mermaids? mermen? mer. . . folk?]

Really?

... huh. A world without mer or Ravanges or hungry ghosts...

It must sound pretty strange.

[tilts his head back, eyes slipping shut]

But it's a world with its own kind of monsters. They just don't all hide in the dark.

Oh, we have plenty of that type, also.

... we even have Creators that are like that, too. Well, one of them. The other one's like a puppy.

[tilts his head again]

Creators?

Worldbuilders, they call themselves.

Well, Kaleb calls himself Character Designer.

They supposedly built up and designed my world and the roles of the people in it, but something went wrong and Kaleb, the Character Designer, was supposedly sent into the world to gather up the key roles to fix things but... turns out the other Worldbuilder Diederik just wanted to trap him on the world before he destroys it?

It's all very dramatically large-scaled. I'm not even sure how I got involved except I'm apparently in the key role of Thief Doomed To Hang Himself And Die Unceremoniously In The Middle Of The Story.

[hey, another big block--still not that much bigger than the last one but...]

[. . . . . . . . whaaaaaat]

[THERE'S SO MUCH THERE. THERE'S LIKE. SO MUCH??? he has so many questions??? so he's going to respond to the first thing he can]

That's a stupid role.

[which is, naturally, the idea that there is anything about Levi's life that is predestined or predetermined. fuck THAT]

Edited 2019-02-03 06:35 (UTC)

It hasn't been so bad.

[lolol]

Better than being the Heroine or the Villainness.

I think you're missing the point.

[folds his arms!! and frowns!!]

You should be the one determining what your role in life is. Not someone else.

(no subject)

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