Test Drive #13.

[powersthatbe]

Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cuts there are two new prompts, and here are the prompts from previous test-drives, which you’re still welcome to use in this post. When you comment, be sure you specify what prompt you want to play with, and please put up your own threadstarter - it makes for a much more friendly environment that a forest of bare toplevels! OCs are especially welcome! Please take a quick look at our Directory & familiarize yourself with the concept and setting of the game before you jump in.

Our upcoming app round runs December 18th-31st. Our next Jaunt, Escape from Junkworld, is a space opera romp where humans, aliens, and androids work together on mysterious scavenged, malfunctioning ships to outrun an interstellar disaster. Our next Walkabout (a more casual alternative event, for those not interested in the Jaunt) will revisit Heartbreak Academy, a shoujo anime setting where high-schoolers use Social Technology to bring shoujo special effects to life, from glitter to roses, transformation sequences to sad rainclouds, these cartoony powers are at the height of education for those who want a career in media or diplomacy, or some other means of big-stage self-expression. Both Jaunt & Walkabout will begin January 7th & run for approximately six weeks.

Prompt #37 is set in the Escape from Junkworld jaunt, as an advance taste of the fun available there.

Prompt #38 is set in a created landscape within the Telepathic Network all Travelers can access, and features characters facing their inner demons and traumatic memories together.


Prompt #37

The Coronation's coolant system has sprung a leak somewhere in its kilometers of pressurized tubing - near enough to the diagnostic centers to short out the readouts, meaning half the crew is up to their elbows in the decking, ceramic floor plates scattered along the corridors like loose shingles, making traveling between workstations like a game of holy grail hopscotch between the tiles and the potholes they left.

Besides that, the leak leaves the entirety of the ship smelling like a cross between pond scum and burned espresso, and set the radiation alarms to a distracting buzz - not enough for klaxons, just a constant, low-level warning that set the teeth on edge.

In the ship’s simulator chambers, anyone visored and gloved to work in virtual space can ignore it - but the computer environment may experience glitches in its programs, whether functional or recreational. On the bridge, other systems are experiencing occasional failures - from sensor shadows hinting at unreal pursuit and activating automated combat routines, to the translators in the comm system shorting out and creating a momentary babel.

Meanwhile, between evacuating irradiated areas, crawling through the conduits looking for the problem to fix, or quietly shooing smuggler-snails full of contraband out of the way of the search parties, there’s something for everyone to be doing...


Prompt #38


Sometimes someone’s issues lead to them being swallowed by a dungeon in Liminal Space and forced to confront their darker side, their repressed issues - but you can’t always wait for an arbitrary interdimensional force to kidnap you. Here in the Mind Palace, the world is simply a vast, blank white space, and glittering glass cubes float in the air, each holding within it a freeze-framed memory of a traumatic moment, something you’ve chosen to face here together with your companions. Maybe only one of you is going through this gauntlet, or maybe you’ve opted to face your fears together, but whatever this captive image is, you’ll have to explain it or let it play out, and come to grips with what it means to you - whether a happy memory you’ve lost, something that makes you sad or afraid or angry, or even a piece of your past that had been buried or forgotten until now - there it is, in front of you, waiting.

What happens next?

Comments

Liminal

[bluejade]

Jade had been drawn by the scent of tea. She wouldn't mind a cup of it herself, preferably one that wouldn't vanish when she set it down, so she had followed the scent to a groundling male. "Good morning," she said politely. You couldn't just go over to a stranger and ask them to trade you something.

[virtuedlight]

Cecil looks up as soon as he is spoken to - there is the momentary flash of surprise as he takes in her appearance, but he quickly composes himself and shuffles a little away in case she wanted to sit down or have some space.

"Good morning." He returns the greeting quietly. "Can I help you with anything?"

[bluejade]

"Is that real tea?" Jade asked. "If it is, and there's more, I would like a cup."

[virtuedlight]

Making tea. It wasn't a difficult request.

"It is. Please wait here."

Cecil searches the cupboards for a few moment and produces a cup, which he brings to the table and fills with the teapot already on it. He then puts it within Jade's reach - not too close, but not too far.

"Here. I hope you like it."

[bluejade]

"Thank you," Jade said. "May I sit down?"

[virtuedlight]

"Of course."

Cecil shuffled a little to give her enough space, watching her out of the corner of his eye. She was an interesting person, mostly by virtue of her appearance.

[bluejade]

Jade sat down, and took her cup of tea. "Have you been here long?" she asked, waving a hand to try to indicate the whole setup, not just the liminal space.

[virtuedlight]

"No." Cecil shakes his head slightly. "I just came here recently."

He hasn't been on a Jaunt yet, and it gave him quite a bit of nerves.

[bluejade]

"Me neither. And here I was going to ask you for advice." Jade had travelled some, but what she knew of groundlings made them often confusing. Cecil at least looked like he was from what appeared to be the dominant race among this group.

[virtuedlight]

He gives her a slightly sheepish smile. They're about in the same situation, then.

"Sorry. I don't have much to give."

He is curious about how she looks, so he quickly changes the subject. "Could I have your name?"

[bluejade]

"I'm Jade, sister-queen of Indigo Cloud. What about you?"

[virtuedlight]

He had been talking to royalty...! Well, wasn't that one breach of conduct he'd inadvertently made.

"Ah, my apologies. I had no idea, Your Grace." He hopes he got the term of address right. "My name is Cecil Lewis Solastrus. I come from Eden."

[bluejade]

It was sometimes hard to tell confusion on other species; Jade did look a bit nonplussed at the sudden title, but it passed quickly.

"Eden... what kind of a place is that?" It wasn't one she'd heard of, but she wasn't surprised by that.

[virtuedlight]

"It's a city in a dimension of its own. I'd suppose it would be called part of Earth, the planet it is attached to. But it exists in a separate space and can only be reached with special devices."

He doesn't really give a good explanation because he isn't specialized in that kind of things.

"I don't suppose we come from the same world, though. My people only know of humans."

[bluejade]

Jade filed it under 'magic'. The mentors back home would no doubt be interested, but it wasn't important to understand how that worked.

"I don't think we do, unless you're from a very isolated part of the Three Worlds. Most groundlings I've heard about have trade relations with other races. Or at least see travelers from them. Even in the Forest Reaches, we get trade from other places. Your race are humans? There's certainly a lot of you."

[virtuedlight]

Cecil figured that 'grounding' meant that she wasn't a 'ground' race. How... strange. He wouldn't have considered this possible.

"Mm. There was about eight billion of us before... but much less now." He says this quietly, looking into his cup. "A disaster happened. I'm not sure how many of us there are now."

It wasn't exactly a disaster, rather more of a war. But at least it had ended.

"What race are you, Your Grace?"

[bluejade]

"Eight... billion?" Jade said, not sure she'd heard the number correctly. She'd been in a city or two that might have thousands of people, but that would mean millions of such cities were on Earth. How did one feed everyone, when a hundred or a few hundred Raksura had to be careful about over-hunting?

Well, that would be a disaster, albeit a preventable one if one kept births in mind.

"I'm a Raksura." Not that she expected him to have heard of it, since he'd said his own race was the only one he knew about.