TEST DRIVE MEME (8)

[trainmasters]

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
Whether you've just arrived or whether you've been a longstanding resident of the Aurora Express, you are asleep in your bed when it happens. A flash of light-- and then the sound of tiny objects hitting and bouncing off the roof of the train, abrupt and more solid than rain. Hail? Except it begins and ends too quickly to be hail. It's almost as if the sky opened up and dropped marbles on everything below. Weird.
Whether you wake up in the middle of the night or later on during real person hours, when you step outside... you will find hundreds of tiny star-like objects reminiscent of candy littering the ground. If you touch one you may feel a lingering sense of longing... as if this is something that "belongs" to you, but somehow is out of your reach. An emotion perhaps, or something that you buried deep inside... someone you love, something you covet. Whatever it is, the feeling consumes you until you decide to do the inadvisable.

Should you decide to consume the mysterious sky candy you just found on the ground the feeling that drew you in washes over you like a warm blanket... or a cold one, depending on the flavor of the candy.

Pink: Affection. The desire to love and be loved, or simply the desire to be close to someone. It feels like soft bubbling warmth or a burning need.
Orange: Anger. You've been wronged somehow. Who wronged you, do you remember? It feels like poison that bubbles just beneath the skin or a burst of fire that threatens anyone that comes near.
Yellow: Happiness. Inexplicable and bright, nothing can bring you down and everything is exciting. It feels like a burst of sunlight on a cloudy day, or a rush of energy that can't sit still.
Green: Covetousness. Jealousy and envy, what they have belongs to you, or at least it should. It feels like a painful longing that twists your stomach, or a fidgety itch in your fingers.
Blue: Sorrow. You can only be strong for so long, sometimes you need to break. It feels like a sharp stab in your chest, or a well of emotions that threatens to burst.
White: Wildcard. Go wild?

How long these effects last is up to you... or up to how much candy you eat. Let this be a lesson to you; do not eat things you find on the ground.

☆ 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 June 8! In the meantime you're free to join us on Discord.

Comments

[hiddensun]

Several. Three in the head, a couple of artful dodgers...I was hoping you'd be the first to get it in the mouth, but you're the third to just catch it.

[purrtylittlewires]

Yeah, kind of surprised me too. Guess I have good reflexes. What's with the candy anyway?

[hiddensun]

[ Ah, so he's one of the amnesiac types. Fog wonders to himself if the reflexes are natural or trained. ]

Rained from the sky overnight, I believe.

[purrtylittlewires]

[He's certainly got a number of scars. So coild be potentially either, but he's making good use of them.]

Really? I wonder if that means the water here has a high....sugar content? I know some planets could rain glass, this might be like that.

[hiddensun]

I'm not sure if sugar water falling from the sky would rain as...confectionaries and not just sugar water. Maybe the work of sorcery.

[ Though honestly, he wouldn't know for sure. All the science and sorcery was left up to more bookish and scholarly types; he learned on a need-to-know basis. ]

-- Wait, 'planets'?

[ It's not the mention of glass rain that catches his attention (see: eh, probably sorcery), but the hell are planets? (Fun fact, where Fog comes from outer space is straight up a concept that doesn't exist.) ]

[purrtylittlewires]

The sugar could condense to fall first, though I would think it'd be followed by rain. Kind of depends on the balances of gases in the atmosphere, I think.

...maybe sorcery. [He's gotten the whole little run down, and there's still part of him that wants to go 'magic isn't real,' but another part that's like 'eh, okay.']

[This is what happens when you're primarily sci-fi, with some real bullshit sci-fi involved, but also been neck deep in the magic for A While now.]

Yeah, planets. Like. Some of the stars that move weird?

[hiddensun]

[ Fog likes to think he has a good poker face. Most of the time he's right about that; when he tried he could be pretty damn good at it. It was kind of required in his line of work.

On the other hand, most of the time he's not trying to figure out concepts he has little reference for. His brows knit together in concentration as he tries to wrap his mind around this. Stars that move. He guesses that's not that weird. Technically those exist back home? ]

...And you call them 'planets'?

[purrtylittlewires]

Yeah? Is this....I guess if this is a multiverse thing, then time travel is just part of that...

What do you think the lights in the night sky are?

[hiddensun]

Stars? Just stars and the moon. The ones that move are the Maidens.

[ Well, it's not about himself so he's fine with sharing that. ]

[purrtylittlewires]

Are the maidens just the points of light that move differently from the majority of stars, or are they lights that streak across the sky?

[hiddensun]

The former.

[purrtylittlewires]

Yeah, okay. Those would be planets.

Most stars are consistent because those are super far away, it takes them moving a ridiculous amount to notice if they've changed spots. Planets are a whole lot closer. Still far enough to appear small, but it's far easier to see their movement.

The far away stars are basically other suns that are really far away, which is why people can see the light. Generally, planets don't have their own light, but they reflect the light from your own sun so you can still see them. Like how you can see the moon. And if you were on those planets, you could see your native....world? The place where you live, reflecting light in the night sky too.

[hiddensun]

[ Puma's explanation is perfectly reasonable and logical. If it were any world other than Creation, it would actually be correct and true, most likely.

Unfortunately, Exalted has a ridiculous setting and Creation is a flat world. I am sorry.]

...I don't imagine any of the Maidens would tolerate anyone standing on them.

[ He says, like they're....people, not celestial bodies. ]

[purrtylittlewires]

... [He wants to say planets don't feel things, but another part of him goes why not because again, his life is a ridiculous mess at this point.]

[Why any of this.]

[It could just be how people in the past see mythology as real. WHAT IF SOMEHOW LEGIT?]

[Uuuuugh.]

Well, it was more for reference. There's usually limited places someone can survive in a solar system anyway.

[hiddensun]

[ It is actually legit, so Puma was right that it's a ridiculous mess. ]

I don't imagine most mortals can survive the heavens, no. [ He...guesses that's what 'solar system' is referring to? ] But I'm guessing that's how it works where you're from?

[purrtylittlewires]

...I think so?

Space travel sounds normal.

[hiddensun]

[ He manages to catch himself from saying something stupid because 'space' here sounds more like a proper noun (????). Or rather, different idea of space than what he's thinking of. ]

Huh. Guess they weren't kidding about picking a...wide variety of heroes.

[purrtylittlewires]

Certainly seems the case.

Probably unavoidable with the whole multiverse thing. If planets can be wildly different, why not whole other realms of existence?