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

[definitely yanked with the other man, but he regains his feet. if awkwardly.]

Come inside, now. [starts coughing himself, but tugs at his sleeve again.]

I-I'm trying to, this damnable--

[He is coughing again, but he is at least now staggering in the right direction for all the good that it is doing him. Say, wouldn't it be absolutely criminal if these two bumped shoulders enough for real contact to happen here while he lumbers toward the entrance to the train cart.]

[still trying to at least guide him in the proper direction. wouldn't it be a shame, and it's a brief contact, but long enough.

the memory Lucien gets is of his mystery savior sitting enthroned behind an elaborate screen, as court is in session. Four people - an older woman, plain and scarred, an Extremely Beautiful young man (and there's a feeling of love in the memory whenever he looks at him), a young woman with no expression on her face who looks like his twin, and a very short person, hair still growing back from a monk's tonsure- stand close, all of them armed.

The various petitions are primarily directed at each of the four people, who confer with the young man sitting behind the screen to find out his thoughts and will, and who speak for him. It's an entire day of this, with the man's attention fully on what is happening and how to solve these various problems. Or carefully turn down the proposal. Until an absolutely inane argument loudly breaks out among the courtiers: the older woman moves to quell it, but not before the young man gets up, exasperated, and pulls open the screen. He doesn't even say anything, yet.

Immediately everything goes silent.]

...Hm.

[hm indeed.]

[For his part, his vision is quite different: Lucien sits in the study of a grand building, one that he recognizes as a formal manor home for the royal family attached to a local fort. Across from him, his elder brother, who for all the world would be identical to Lucien were it not for the missing eye and scarring on his face. Between them, an ornate chess board, clearly a display piece, that the two had pulled down that evening. Lucien's mind is wracked with frustration that, even after two years of training at the academy, his brother could still best them as though he was a child.

"Do you really not get it, Luci?" the older man chides him, smirking in a way that makes the pit of Lucien's stomach get hot and then cold with irritation.

"I-- I concede that you really are a brilliant mind, still. I just don't know how you manage every time!" The words sting on his lips and the back of his throat.

"Ah, Luci, Luci... I'll tell you, then, as a graduation gift. It's the same trick I've been playing since we were boys. You've always been so into paying attention to your surroundings, so willing to jump up at a moment's notice, that you never notice when I palm and move a piece." The other man laughs and gestures at two pawns. "A moment ago, that was a square back. Useless in its position then; but you caught movement on the grounds and that second was all I needed."

"Oh. I see. How... simple." Lucien found himself not quite readily responding or in full control of his facilities at that revelation. Then, his brother laughed, and after a moment to register the sound, Lucien threw the board and the table aside and jumped from his seat, across the space between them, already throwing the first blow.]

...Haaah. My thanks.

[takes a moment to shake his head to clear it. that was...quite different, yes.]

You're welcome.

[will try to ensure that Lucien goes through the doorway first, if possible.]

[His breathing is still labored and pained, but he does seem to be more just plainly exhausted rather than sapped by the miasma. How long had he been out in that fog for such a reaction? Nevertheless, he will enter and immediately pull himself flat against the doorway, holding it open for the rescuer.]

Please, this way.

[comes stumbling in himself a moment later and braces himself against the wall with one slender, graceful hand. trying to catch his breath.]

Thank you for holding the door.

You're a clever man, to realize the train would still be safe.

[He is still holding himself somewhat steady upon furniture and such, but he seems to be shaking this off at a decent clip.]

And even so harried your carry yourself like a ruler. I am impressed.

To be calm is to be an anchor for others. [after a beat. also very dry.] ...and it helped to not think about breathing.

Ah, right. To make yourself strong when others are weak is the mark of a wise leader; your own weakness can come when there is nothing at stake.

[He nods.]

So wise, as well.

I tried to be, anyway.

You have a fortitude about you as well.

You are kind to say so. I do not recall much, stranger, but I do know that in another lifetime, another world, I was a crown prince, on my path to ascension as ruler of my people. It seems that not all of those habits have left me just yet.

Even with our memories mostly lost to us, some core habits remain.

TEST DRIVE MEME (4)

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