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

delirium: the sandman

[inbetweens]

arrival.
[ she is floating and not floating because the ooey-gooey water is holding her up. gentle hands of a thousand fingers and she would laugh except the sound does not travel. sound wants to stay right where it is, in her breast and throat. have you ever wondered where sound lives? sound must have a home.

then she realizes that the door is locked and that's why sound can't travel! silly, silly. ooey-gooey is moving, though, being set free. bye bye. delirium is sad. the ooey-gooey held her up. it was her friend. quiet friend. they had naptime. everything is draining down, where does it go? she is right here, she thinks. she does not always know. she knows other things, things you do not know. she tries to tell you. sometimes. she does not know how.

everything hurts and she thinks it is from the loss of her friend, though she can no longer remember why she liked the friend. she is sticky. she is a jelly doughnut, full of filling. vitreous humor. that's what it's called.

eventually, she crawls up out of the little hole. (a hole, a hole! just like a doughnut.) she shouts. she is shouting red and blue and green and yellow, allowing the sound to move, watching the colors puff and fly and whirl. ]

Can you tell me where my friend is? Or who they are? Because I'm reeeeally messy, so I probably shouldn't see my friend without a bath, right?

exploration.
[ delirium lies flat on her back, gazing at the sky through the leaves. she makes up a number for each leaf. grenty-nope. ickloo. thile-quark. she needed to make up new numbers, you see, because there were so many.

she hears feet, and there are only two of those. two move over and over again. two feet, four steps, then eight. steps are growing. are the feet growing? she needs to know. she rolls onto her belly and waves at the figure. ]

How many feet do you have? I have two, most of the time, but one time, I had seven. A foot for me and my brothers and my sisters.