TEST DRIVE MEME 001

[ataraxites]

T E S T   D R I V E   M E M E A R R I V A L You wake up, alone in the dark. There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Through the fog you can see shadows of movement, the muted sound of alarms crying. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're suddenly dropped several feet onto the opposite wall. It takes you several minutes to catch your breath and gather strength in uncooperative limbs; more time still to climb up through the debris to the hole in the outer wall high above. You emerge in bright sunlight, surrounded by an immense jungle. As your vision clears, you realize you stand on the hull of a colossal spaceship, crashed on an alien planet. There's a shout behind you, and as you turn, figures climb over the curve of the ship towards you: your rescue party, weathered and scarred by the efforts necessary for survival. B A S E   C A M P A ramshackle spread of tents and shelters built out of resources salvaged from the ship and gathered from the jungle. Not sleek, not clean, but alive: people coming and going from tent to tent, heading out into the jungle or returning with freshly foraged food. Some are working to build more shelters or improvize working tech out of parts salvaged from the ship; some are cooking; some are just taking shelter from the sun for a while. Whether you find somewhere to help or apply your skills, it's probably a good idea to get to know your neighbors. E X P L O R A T I O N The jungle is dense and green, teeming with life, high calls and cries of strange animals and birds, the low buzz and murmur of insects. There are no paths or notable markings; go too far into the trees and you may not be able to find your way back. Dangers hide in the shadows but there's also food, water - or perhaps you're looking for more, pushing further in a search for answers about this planet you're now living on. Or you can turn your attention to the crashed ship, the huge bulk of it balanced precariously on the edge of a cliff. It creaks and groans in its delicate position, audible from a distant but all the louder should you venture inside. Dark corridors made even more dangerous by the damage to the internal structure, debris and obstacles blocking progress, and any wrong step could cause it to collapse in on you, or send the ship over the cliff. But finding any tech, resources or supplies might just be worth the risk. C H O O S E   Y O U R   O W N . . . Hunt or flee from strange creatures in the jungle, take a try at rock-climbing down the cliff-face, or practise in-game gained abilities. Ataraxion is currently without a network until one is built, but test-driving on a prospective one is also totally fine!

Comments

exploration.

[level3]

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

[ --has nothing to do with collecting firewood, but it's what comes out of Ken's mouth all the same, his eyes gone wide in his startlingly symmetrical face. Said face currently peppered in dots of light shining through the gaps in the makeshift hat he or perhaps someone else has woven -- capless, it basically forms a circling brim, looser edges of fronds sticking from the otherwise sturdy weave. What purpose it serves is anyone's guess, but it does keep the light from his eyes.

He is otherwise carrying an armful of leafy branches for the purposes of replenishing a shelter roof, but all of these fall to the ground as he drops them without preamble. ]

What the fuck are you even doing here, man? You look kind of puffy.

[ This last comment might be lost, because Ken is coming in for the kill, in that he has every intention of roping the look-alike of Magic Mike into an earnest hug, bristling visor leaves bending and jabbing the side of his face. ]

[disruptus]

What, [the Legion's finest asks, with half a mouthful of hat. He automatically holds the spear out of the way, having deduced that this type of attack doesn't. isn't one, in the traditional sense of the term that he tends to favor. If the past few days have taught him anything, it's that some of the cultures that populate this odd camp have a very different sense of propriety and proximity. Among other things. He's also observed that whatever sorcery is responsible for the universality of Latin will hang up here or there, with no perceptible impairment to the flow of conversation, but failing to account for sometimes considerable gaps of knowledge.

He'd turned the words 'space ship' over in his head for a good hour. And now,]

I am no sort of puffy, [but he doesn't mean it unkindly and he doesn't sound like he's angry. His voice is mild, a little at odds with his shoulders, stiff with carefully-controlled discomfort. Already, he can tell that Ken keeps his hands soft and his body perfumed, that he bears no arms. While the particulars of social mores may differ, there were men like this in the Empire.] I'm trying to make weapons to hunt with.

[At least, his assumption is for now that the practical targets would be animals. For consumption. He's gotten the impression that no one has been here very long at all, of the precious few, none name themselves native to this terrain.]