test drive meme 21

[savmods]

NOTE: The locations in this test drive are placeholders and do not fit with current game events. Due to ongoing changes as we shift to arc 3, contents of this test drive as they related to specific areas or activities are unfortunately not able to be incorporated as game canon, though if it is possible for a particular thread, you may assume conversations took place similarly in a different setting once the changeover happens ICly. Test drive threads may of course still be used for application samples!

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Ingress travel can be disorienting, but there’s no need to worry! All side effects are temporary and lessen with each trip. Your body may experience several sensations at once: being pushed forward as if a hand is resting on your back, momentary and startling blindness, a gentle ringing in your head. You may have difficulty discerning whether it is hot or cold, but where you have been prodded is noticeably warmer than the rest of you. Some may suffer from dizziness while others are perfectly fine. You notice that the area you are in is filled with a soft cerulean light and feels slightly humid and dark despite the glow around you. Regardless of your current state, however, the stress of initial Ingress travel forces your body into unconsciousness.

Waking up is another story. Or maybe it isn’t.

You find yourself in a nondescript room; sometimes with others who have found themselves in the same situation, sometimes alone. A robotic medical tech is always present to explain what’s happened in a rote fashion, though his programming does not permit him to answer specific questions. He provides some clothing, a TAB, and a guide that explains the basics of Ingress travel and why you are here. Outside the room, you'll find you're on a space station that is staffed only by other robots; the only other organics there are those who recently arrived with you, or perhaps your predecessors, who are strolling the halls in search of an observation deck or the tech they've been sent here to fix. Why not introduce yourself and say hello?

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phanos

* The planet Phanos is not as it was during the last visit there. Storms of dark energy swirl across the sections of the world, though they do not yet overwhelm it. The temperature is cooler now, but sandstorms still kick up with great frequency, making cooperation an important part of survival as groups make their way across the landscape, investigating the changes. The pyramid forest remains, but the griffins who live there now venture farther down from their nests, and around a third of them have been twisted by the storms' energies into even more aggressive, monstrous versions of what they once were. Do not take one on alone, or it may be your last mistake.

* Inside one of the tallest pyramids, the lab remains intact, and rumors speak of a locked chamber in its heart that contains valuable material—but is that in the technological sense, or does it hold something monetarily precious in the right market? Maybe you don't care and you're just nosy. Either way, the vault is sealed away behind a series of complicated sliding puzzles that have just one catch—they are not possible to solve without two people operating the locking station. Are you here with a friend? If not, better hope the next guy to come along has a sharp mind for this stuff.

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OUT OF CHARACTER INFO

FAQ | LOCATIONS | RESERVES | APPLICATIONS | NAVIGATION

Comments

[skelepun]

[Watch what you say, kid, he was briefly married to one of your moms and went on a few dates with the other one.]

Haven't you heard? I ran off with a whole ship. Someone's gotta keep the crew in animal crackers and Dramamine.

[inconsequence]

[Like they said: gross.]

You never particularly struck me as the nurturing type.

Did standing idly by and watching them fall like ninepins get to be too tiring?

[skelepun]

[It's only the space of a moment, that Sans' face remains fixed and rigid and silent, but it's enough time for someone who knows the ins and outs of his mannerisms as Chara did.

That one landed.]

The rules are different here, or haven't you figured that out yet?

[inconsequence]

[Hilarious, is it not? It's not the same as reading into the subtle twitches at the corners of lips and the pinching of eyes, the kind of careful deduction that requires skin to decipher. The kind of plastic smile they wear, the kind of stoic flatness that Frisk perfected into a mask out of necessity.]

[It's different with bone. But there are little tells you learn to look for.]

I see. [They do see - with entirely too much clarity, and with the even-toned finality reminiscent of a different tone altogether - perhaps one more appropriate to an exchange held in The Corridor.]

It must be awfully nice, to feel that you can pick and choose which rules you would prefer to follow.

[Such as the ones that allow you to bow out at your own discretion.]

[Nothing left but us ghosts.]

[skelepun]

Sure is. Once you sub out L, Y, N, I, C, and E, anyway.

[As quick as the moment is there, it passes again. Sans slumps back against the wall, hands plunged deep into his jacket pockets as he lets his sockets fall shut.]

Don't you have anything better to do, kid?

[inconsequence]

[You must have misunderstood.]

[Not everyone, Sans, has that luxury. Not everyone can choose to break the rules and be a dirty hacker when they so choose. Not everyone can simply depart the story, no matter how hard they tried.]

[This world does not want them dead. For reasons beyond them.]

[Or maybe that's just what hell tastes like.]

[That's funny; maybe someone told him that too. Or maybe he just sunk his bony little phalanges into the walls of the world, tore up its skin, picked at the numbers just like how he could read the hot gurgle of LOVE in someone else's chest, until he learned what he would about one very specific child.]

[Don't you have anything better to do?]

Not particularly.

[As always, it all cycles back to the script.]

[It's a good script.]

I just wanted to see you suffer.

[skelepun]

[It's amazing, how simple the world could be when you looked at it only through your own eye sockets. It was a comforting fiction, one that he indulged in plenty. Self-righteousness was a decent balm to your own powerlessness.

Couldn't judge the kid for that, could he.]

Alright. [He nods, pulling his hood up to block out what little light shown from the torch lined hallways. Another nap sounded nice.] Hope you got what you were looking for.

[inconsequence]

I think you know how this story ends, Sans.

[He said it himself, after all.]

I'm the type of person who won't EVER be happy.

[skelepun]

[zzzzzzz]

[inconsequence]

[So that's what timeline after timeline of internalized garbage flung out by someone with a pitted lack of self-esteem to rival their own counts for?]



[Well. They can't say they're surprised.]

[Enjoy your nap.]