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TEST DRIVE / JAN '25 / BETA.
| Test drive. Welcome to AFTER LIFE, a game based in the world of Severance! This test drive serves as a place to help you figure out what characters you'd like to bring into the game. Some details (housing, etc.) may require further out of character conversation; please refer to the OOC meet and greet! These prompts are all relatively low-stakes as a reflection of the nature of the game: slice-of-life until character and player interaction bring out the more psychological horror/thriller aspects of the setting. If none tickle your fancy, feel free to provide wildcard prompts of your own. The test drive is open to anyone. We encourage messing around here to figure out exactly how you'd like to port your character into Kier! Threads may also be considered game canon if you so wish. Got any questions? Check the FAQ or ask in the comments.  outies: deals all the way down. There's a sale on at Lindt's Groceries! Discounts on pretty much anything you could imagine! The store is a middle-sized, relatively bougie, locally-owned grocery, with aisles stocked full of food and general necessities, as well as a small counter for deli meats and fish, and another two across the shop stocked with hot food (rotisserie chicken, sandwiches, sides) and a very limited selection of sushi (some sashimi, some hand rolls). And right now, there's a 20% discount on anything in the shop (supposedly to celebrate someone's birthday, though whose, you have no idea). Are you browsing the aisles? Are you working a shift? Are you checking out?  outies: rain, rain, go away. It's a grey and cloudy day, and as the cherry on top of the gloomy day cake, it's started to rain. The closest place to get out of the downpour is We Love Books, the local bookstore. Like Lindt's, it's not huge — it's not so big as a Barnes & Noble — but it's big enough, and obviously well-maintained. Maybe there's a book you've been meaning to pick up? Or maybe you're really just waiting out the rain. Or you could stop at Leaves of Grass, the cafe next door, and get a coffee, tea, or hot chocolate to help warm up the cold day. Or maybe the rain doesn't bother you at all, and you're totally willing to keep on trucking. Are you brave enough to ask someone for a spare umbrella?  outies: neighborly fun. You've been invited to a night of board games and conversation by a neighbor — or maybe just a friend of a friend. Either way, you're in a stranger's (nice, midcentury) house with a bunch of people you've never met before. There's wine, there's charcuterie, there's seltzer — bits and bobs for consumption until the games begin in earnest. (You've heard that some people at the party might be Severed — are you?) Why not say hi to the person standing next to you? Or remain a wallflower and see if a more enterprising guest will decide to bestow you with a conversation starter.  innies: another day in paradise. The elevator doors open, and another normal day at work begins. You know the way to your office, and don't see anyone else on the way there. What's your routine to get settled when a day starts? Do you like your coworkers? Do you like the work you do? Have you been doing it for a million years, or is this your first day? Maybe you're a manager making sure everything is running smoothly?  innies: waiting for wellness. For one reason or another, you've been given the opportunity to visit the Wellness Center for a session. Except someone seems to have made a scheduling mistake — as you sit in the waiting room, you hear footsteps coming from the hallway. You've never run into anyone from another department before; in fact, the idea of fraternization has been expressly discouraged. Maybe they're coming into the Wellness Center's waiting room, too, or maybe they're just passing by. Either way, this might be your only chance to see who else works on the Severed floor — or maybe it's just one of your usual coworkers. Will you get up, or let them go by? |
matt jamison, original
[ Matt's button-up is rolled past his elbows, unbuttoned at the throat. His hair is dark and tousled. The nametag on his dark-green apron says MATT (he/him). And he's peering at you from behind the sushi counter like a concerned dog, slightly fretful over what he seems to take as either indecision or disappointment at the meager selection. ]
The normal sushi person's out sick, [ he explains. ] But I do a lot of the flower arrangements, and the fundamental principles aren't, you know, that different … it's all katas. Repeated actions that set a standard. [ If you look closely, you'll see that his hands are smooth, with neat nails. What repeated actions does he take? ] So, uh, maybe the tuna sashimi? The reverse caterpillar roll is good too.
[ Or perhaps you'll encounter Matt ringing you up. ]
All right, well, with our birthday special, that's gonna be 20% off. [ He smiles at you sincerely, the corners of his eyes crinkling. ] Lucky you.
[ It occurs to him that he doesn't actually know whose birthday it's supposed to be. Shouldn't that have been posted in the back? Or at least sent out as a text message. ]
ii. outies: rain, rain
[ By the time Matt gets off his shift at Lindt's, the gray day has gloomed into evening, and the rain he'd bet wouldn't come is bucketing down. He steps sputtering into We Love Books, his nest of dark hair plastered to his head and his clothes soaked. Matt huffs and puffs, blinks the water from his eyes–
And, careful not to touch anything or anyone, he sidles towards the table marked New Releases. ]
Oh God, [ he mutters, as one of the hardcovers in particular catches his attention. ] How'd he write another one so fast?
[ The book in question is glossy and comic-book bright. Its author is one Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, PhD. ]
iii. outies: neighborly fun
[ Matt lasts about five minutes with the drinks and the charcuterie. I shouldn't, he says politely when he's offered wine, plucking up a glass of seltzer instead. Then he asks where the bathroom is. And from there …
Look, he doesn't mean to snoop around in a stranger's house. He's just feeling a bit overwhelmed, finding himself in a hardcore commingling environment with so many people he doesn't know. Doesn't know well, at least–familiar faces from around the neighborhood, maybe the store, but that's all. Trying to move soundlessly, Matt turns the knob to a door in the hallway. It probably goes to a study or something, and a study might have books, or a spot he could sit without everyone else here having a line of sight on him.
Do you catch him wandering?
Maybe not. Maybe instead, you spot him pacing outside, mid-phone call. ]
No mother, I haven't made manager yet. I mean, we don't really have review cycles as such. I guess I could ask at our quarterly all-hands, but I don't … uh-huh. Yeah, I'm at the neighbors'. Lowkey thing, board games and cheeseboards and wine and stuff. [ A pause. He listens. And his eyes tighten at the corners, set of his jaw stiffening. ] Yes. I am. Don't worry so much.
Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Yes, I'll let you know if I make a friend. Tell dad I say hi.
Yes. Okay.
Bye.
[ ooc: Please feel free to wildcard me! Are you Matt's wife? You could be his wife! Does your character want to run into him elsewhere in the grocery store? Go for it, delivering an excellent customer experience is his job! Or find him elsewhere in Kier.
Outie prompts only for now, but other than that, go wild. PM this journal or ping
deals.
Katas? [ is the first thing she picks up on, though he explains what he means almost immediately after as she looks first to him and then back — well, more like finally — at the contents of the case. (Faintly, she thinks to herself that it'd be rude, now, to walk away without buying anything. It doesn't occur to her — another sign of how out of it she is — that she hasn't even picked up a basket or cart.) ]
Oh, um—
[ She blinks as though to renew her focus, her brow pinching as she attempts to identify both items he's named. Her fingers pick at her sleeves, at the loose braid that hangs over her shoulder. ]
—which one's the reverse caterpillar?
no subject
Oh--it's this one. [ He points towards a hand roll that appears to be topped with barbecued eel. ] Normally a caterpillar roll would have avocado on top and the eel inside, but the reverse one does it the other way around. I guess we could call it something that honors the placement of the "caterpillar" part, like a cocoon roll or a chrysalis roll, but I didn't pick the name, so.
[ Matt lifts his gaze from the sushi to the shopper's face. He's a little worried he's talking too much, and perhaps has put her off sushi altogether. Or maybe she's just tired. Or maybe she's allergic to avocado.
... He takes a moment to breathe.
One of the only actually useful things that came out of his stint in rehab was those yoga classes. The meditation on the body, miracle that it is. Prana and in the beginning. Matt inhales, holding it at the top; lets it out one, two, three, four. He feels easier at the end of it, more relaxed. His smile comes more fluidly as he regards her. ]
really thought the link was gonna go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbLZgmoNnEk
If she's being honest, she's thinking about work. The silence of the Board, the mandate to continue work on the Severed Floor. (She's been told, more than once, that she's speaking to them directly. Only once has she mustered up the courage to ask why they never speak.)
Distraction accounts for the words that leave her mouth next: ] They should have little feet.
[ The sentiment seems to startle her as soon as she expresses it out loud. It's more like the kind of thing she'd say to her brother — her poor brother — when he'd still been alive, a childish thought hardly suited to her current work. ]
Sorry, I— it's silly.