Test Drive #16

[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 October 25th–November 1st, but for once we’re breaking with tradition and instead of an upcoming Jaunt, we have a special, upcoming, multi-week Liminal Space event called Welcome to the World Series, which heralds the end of Phase Two and the start of Phase Three of the game of Synodiporia. Having chosen their Champions in Phase Two, the mysterious entities known as the Trumps are divvying up the rest of the Travelers--and in Phase Three they’re playing for keeps.

Prompt #43 is set in an agricultural-themed liminal space—with a bit of fabrics and crafts thrown in.

Prompt #44 is set in the dreaming realm known as Questing Country. Here, with the aid of their Animal Companions, young lucid dreamers from a variety of species (crystalline Hecatites, long-lived Elves, aquatic Vodyanoi, bone-spurred and four-armed Spartoi, scaled Gorgons with their petrifying abilities and tentacled hair, and your bog-standard humans) fight together as Champions against the monsters that arise from the collective unconscious of their species… for now, anyway. At least until they grow up, burn out, or go wrong.

Prompt #43

Right now, Liminal Space is a patchwork of farmland--a literal patchwork, as the ground under the Travelers’ feet is printed fabric, sewn together as if it were a quilt. One patch has a field of lettuce, another a printed field of corn and so on and so forth. Just about every crop is represented in quilted form, including ones that aren’t exactly… standard. Or legal.

Crocheted farm animals roam atop the fields, making needle-clicking sounds whenever they open their mouths, beaks, and snouts. Here and there lie irons, face down, luckily not at all hot. If you climb on top of one, it should be possible to ride it around like a tractor.

As for the farmhouse, barn, and silo? Travelers might be able to see the plush shape of them on the horizon, but no matter how long they travel in that direction, they’ll never get any closer.


Prompt #44

Whether Fire Mushrooms from Nuclear Winter, Men-in-Black from Conspiracy Country, Plague Vectors from the Softened Caverns, Horned Masters from the Stealing Ships, or any of the manifold Nightmares that haunt Questing Country and cause it to summon its Champions, there is one thing all these enemies have in common: they arise from the fears and worries of their world.

Some of these Nightmares are seasonal.

It’s Exam Season again on Hecate, the annual time during its longer-than-Earth year when the young people of that planet take the tests that will determine both their future careers and their very right to be regarded as adults in Hecatite society--as well as the annual practice exams to ready them for it. To be young and Hecatite during Exam Season is to be in a very stressful situation, no matter your capabilities. So much is riding on the results.

So it’s really not surprising that the twenty-foot-tall Test Proctors from the Hallowed Halls of Education positively swarm from the time that the tests begin until the day the results are posted. The Proctors work to corner any young person they can find, essaying volley after volley of exam questions at them until they fail or give up or attack the Proctor--and that’s when the Proctors get nasty.

Comments

Gabrielle | Xena: Warrior Princess

[battling_bard]

Gabrielle had expected to burn up when she hit the bottom of the pit and its molten waves of lava. She expected the last sounds she ever heard to be screams, hers and Hope's, mother and daughter together one last time.

Instead, she hits solid ground. And nearby, she hears a very familiar, very welcome voice.

"Xena!"

[ayiyiyi]

Gabrielle? So she was in this dreamland too...and unfortunately, Xena wasn't the only one to hear her call. The Proctor had also noticed as well. With a dreaded, accusing finger, he points at Gabrielle. "Which sedimentary rock forms when clay-sized grains are cemented together?" he demands.

"Don't listen to him Gabrielle," Xena calls, twisting her sword from side to side as she circles around the Proctor. "These guys don't play nice."

[battling_bard]

Okay. Think, Gabrielle. Maybe if she tried to answer the question, she could distract this creature long enough for Xena to take him down. And if that didn't work, well, she always had her staff.

"I don't really know much about rock, can I get a different question?"

[ayiyiyi]

"No!" the Proctor bellowed. He attempted to lunge towards Gabrielle, furiously intoning all the while; "You fail! You fail! You fail!"

But Xena was there, blocking his way. With a furious yell she charges, her sword flashing as she parries the strikes of his examiner's stick.

[battling_bard]

"Well, it was worth a shot."

Gabrielle shifts away from Xena, then swings her staff hard at the creature's leg. It's too large for her to knock over by herself, but at least she can try and throw him off-balance.

[ayiyiyi]

The Proctor stumbles, and Xena doesn't fail to press the advantage. She elbows him violently in the face, and the creature promptly drops to the ground, unmoving.

"Thanks," Xena says, sheathing her sword. "They've been doing this all over. They target young people, asking them all these questions, and then when they can't answer..."

[battling_bard]

Gabrielle frowns. Something strange is going on but Xena doesn't even seem to notice. "Xena, what is this place? How did I get here?"

If this was supposed to be the Elysian Fields, they definitely weren't what she'd been expecting. It didn't even look like the stories she'd heard about Asphodel.

[ayiyiyi]

"Some kind of dream land, I think," Xena says, looking up and peering out over the horizon. "Maybe that's how we're here. Fallen asleep lately?"

[battling_bard]

Gabrielle was pretty sure she hadn't, though it was possible she hit her head and was knocked unconscious. Xena didn't seem to remember what had happened in the temple of Dahak and Gabrielle didn't intend to remind.

"I guess so," she said finally. "Do we know what these monsters want? Why they're asking these questions?"

[ayiyiyi]

"They're called Proctors; I know that much," Xena says. She starts walking, trekking out over the landscape in search of more of the creatures. "I think they're some kind of nightmare."

[battling_bard]

The word "proctor" sounds Roman. In general, Gabrielle isn't a huge fan of Romans.

She walks beside Xena, keeping her eyes peeled. In the back of her mind, she hears her own voice telling her that this isn't where she's supposed to be. She knows its true, she isn't, but she'll stay by Xena's side for as long as she's able to.

"How long have you been here?"

[ayiyiyi]

"Not long. Only a few hours," Xena says. And naturally that's all Xena had needed to find trouble and start defending the innocent.

She smiles down at Gabrielle, her expression fond and gentle. "But it's good to have you here with me now. Whatever this place is, we can face it together."

[battling_bard]

Gabrielle smiles back. "Where else would I be?"

She suddenly hears a booming voice coming from somewhere ahead of them, asking about something called the theory of relativity. "Sounds like another one."

[ayiyiyi]

"Still awake, I imagine."

Then she pauses, hearing the same booming voice as Gabrielle. She grins at her. "That it does. So why don't we go and find a way to ruin his day?"

[battling_bard]

"Sounds like a plan."

When they find the proctor, it has cornered a young girl, who is in tears as she tries to answer the question. Gabrielle hurries to stand between her and the creature, gripping her staff tight.

[ayiyiyi]

"Gabrielle, you take care of her," Xena calls as she rushes in. "I'll deal with him. Ayiyiyiyiyiy!"

And with that she summersaults into the air, and punches the Proctor in the face.

[battling_bard]

Gabrielle turns slightly to face the girl, while still keeping an eye on Xena and the proctor. "It's going to be alright," she says in a calming voice. Where Xena had fighting skills, Gabrille had people skills.

[ayiyiyi]

Xena's voice is less calming. Loud, full-throated battle cries usually aren't the most relaxing things.

The punch to the face is followed up by a second, and then a punishing series of jabs to the chest. The Proctor makes one, final attempt to start asking another question - when Xena delivers the finishing blow.

She looms over his now motionless body. "Do I pass?" she asks.

[battling_bard]

Gabrielle's efforts, not to mention the fact that the Proctor is now either unconscious or dead, are able to get the girl to calm down enough that she is able to explain what exactly is going on.

"I'm sure you'll pass with flying colours," Gabrielle tells her, before the girl runs off to return to her studying.

Gabrielle walks over to Xena. "Apparently this is all some sort of test of the students. Except the Proctors are getting a little overenthusiastic, to say the least."

[ayiyiyi]

"A little?" Xena repeats, dumbfounded. "They're not even warriors! If you ask me, attacking anyone who gets a question wrong doesn't seem like the best way to learn."

[battling_bard]

"Hey, no arguments here." Gabrielle likes knowing why this was all happening though. Unfortunately, she doesn't really see a way out of it, other than Xena's way.

[ayiyiyi]

"Come on then," Xena says, with a jerk of her head. "Let's go find some more, shall we?"


[[Wrap up here, perhaps?]]

[battling_bard]

Gabrielle smiles. "I'm right behind you."




[[Sounds good to me.]]