synodiporia_ooc | Test Drive #1

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test drive

Test Drive #1

Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cut there are four new prompts, and here are the four original prompts, which you’re still welcome to use here. 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!

Prompt #5 takes a look at an event in the game’s recent handwaved backstory; #6 goes a little further back, exploring what it’s like for characters to wake up and think they’re someone else, #7 is a survival-horror exploradora continuation of Prompt #3 on the previous testdrive (by popular demand), and Prompt #8 shows what helping an idled character back into the game will look like!

Before you start, we’d like you to please take a quick look at the game’s Concept, its Rules, and the Liminal Space & Previous Universes pages, just to give you the background info you’ll need for some of these prompts And if you’re looking for more information, the Directory is here and the Reserves page is here.

Prompts:

Prompt #5: The Belljar Riots
You can hear the crowd, maybe three streets over, like a stormfront breaking. Shouts, shattering glass, drumming footsteps, it all blends together into white noise. They’re coming for you, and you know it - and to make it worse, they don’t even know who ‘you’ are. Belljar Island has trapped all sorts of interdimensional wanderers, not just Fellow Travelers, but the people who lived in this world all along have had enough. They’re coming for all of you.

Behind you looms the Hotel California in all its faded grandeur, spiral stairs twining up to balconies that run the length of the building in all its weird Victorian folly. It’s where every unwanted visitor to Belljar gets room and board - you won’t be safe there, but it’s where all your things are, where all your friends are. You can face the mob, try to run, try to hide elsewhere in the neighborhood… but whatever you do, you’d better do it soon.

Prompt #6: Spark Infiltrators
The Spark is a chrome disk sixteen kilometers in diameter, floating like a leaf on the solar wind through the isolation of space, and home to all sixty-two million surviving members of the human race. Nine fusion reactors provide more power than you’ll ever need - more power than planet Earth ever had, if there really was an Earth - and nano-assemblers can snare the castoff plasma and shape it into anything you can dream of, if you’d like to bother with the material. Most people don’t. They spend their lives plugged into the Virtu, a computer network that thinks at the speed of light, responsive to its users’ every whim, shaping fairytales and whims that can, thanks to direct access to your nervous system, literally feel more real than reality. When Virtu bores them, they have the vats that grow their food build them tailored bodies they can project their consciousness into, experiencing reality as a custom-grown alien.

This is the life you were born to. All your needs are met. Only one thing matters: staving off boredom. Whether you’ve done that by shaping reality to your liking, or devoted it to scholarship or some other course, you live in a world of endless novelty where few things are strange.

Seeing a group of people whose Virtu ID-strings all begin with 63, however, most certainly qualifies. The ID-string is an 11-digit fingerprint… and there’s no need for those first digits to ever rise above 62.

Prompt #7: Outside the Morgue at Moebius
No-one has found any real clues to how you all woke up as scarred amnesiacs in the morgue. No-one knows why there’s a warning etched on the door, pleading with you to stay in. And no-one knows who’s sobbing quietly in the distance, or what it is that’s frightened or hurt them.

But not everyone is patient enough to wait for the answers. At almost the same time, someone blows the front door open in a rain of makeshift doorstops, while another impatient party bursts through the back wall, giving you an alternate route. A cool breeze floods into the room as the pressure equalizes, but already people are fighting the wind, picking one route or another and plunging out into the night. If there’s safety in numbers, it won’t be safe to stay waiting here for long.

As for what characters find outside? An arid, windy forest in the middle of the night; with gravel roads stretching off under the sharp-edged shadows of the trees. It's all but impossible to tell what direction the distant sobbing comes from. There's a thick scent of rotting vegetation on the air, dark and vivid... and it's a scent that seems to get into people's heads. For most, it does nothing but heighten adrenaline - fear is scarier, anger fiercer, paranoia keener. But for perhaps one out of every five people who smell it, it will lead suddenly, after a few minutes' time, to violent madness.

Prompt #8: A Dungeon Rescue
The paper-walled palace seems to stretch on endlessly in all directions, doors and screens folding back to reveal more doors and screens, floors covered in tatami mats and all but identical, save that sometimes they burst into song when stepped on.

It’s as disorienting as a house of mirrors. The doors open and shut on their own, and shadows flit behind them, distant lights bobbing crazily and sharply changing the angle and depth of the shade. Sometimes those shadows are nothing. Sometimes, they’re allies, separated by the fragile mobile labyrinth. And of course, sometimes they’re creatures with glittering teeth and cat-pupiled green eyes, attacking with a sound like a rush of wind and flitting away around the nearest corner after a single swipe.

Your whiskers twitch and your ears flutter nervously - everyone has those traits here, as if you were all mice. You try not to think about the tails.

Somewhere, down one of these dim corridors, a lost friend is waiting for you. Once or twice, you’ve had shouted conversations that echoed and shivered down the halls, only to fade into the distance, whether you moved or not.

Ahead of you, the one visible hallway has gone impenetrably black, as if there’s a cloud of ink filling it. But it should be easy enough to sidestep whatever it is but opening a door or simply tearing open a wall.

Threaded | Flat

Remy is second out the door, cards tucked defensively between his fingers like paper claws. There's a smile flickering on his lips, sharp-edged and unamused.

Open terrain. If anything is watching from the forest, they'll be easy pickings. And where he goes next... well, that depends on something simple. A group of people this large can't be kept together in the forest. If he wants to hide, get himself out safely, he'll head that way, alone, fast. If, on the other hand, he wants to stick near to the whole merry troupe? Then the road is the only option.

Either way, he's not looking forward to it much.

00-5674-50971 notes the 63-stringers the moment their numbers come up on his infogoggles. Retrotechnology has always been one of his interests, and these people are crawling with it, including a handful of items the goggles don't have indexed, which is a second thing that's never happened before. That's too much novelty to ignore, so he does three things in quick succession - blinks, a gesture his blue-lensed glasses interpret as take a picture of this and post it where my friends will see it over Virtu. Second, he scrolls in visually, trying to make a quick run at their metadata - only to find it's either locked or erased.

Well. 50971's a funny kid; and he actually enjoys doing things the old-fashioned way. He selects one of the 63-stringers who's giving him a funny, almost stricken look, walks up, and holds out a hand.

"Hi. Nice to meet you."

Edited 2014-02-22 06:00 (UTC)

That scent was irritating to the senses -- Kirara probably would have wanted to do something about that if it weren't for the fact that there were more pressing issues right now. Following the voice could be a clue, or it could be a trap. Either way, the voice could be coming from any direction, and in this kind of situation, wandering into the forest was begging to get yourself lost until the group had some idea of landmarks.

Instead, she focused on what could be done, repeating the conclusions she had come to before.

"Remember everyone, that warning looked like it was from one of us, so it's likely that there are other notes from ourselves lying around. If we can find those, we should be able to get a better idea about what's going on here."

She paused a moment, before adding an addendum to her statement.

"We're looking for our fellow Travelers including the Infiltrators that are probably hidden somewhere around here. But don't forget to look for supplies, too -- Food, clean water, and medical supplies will be a big help. Anything we can use to make notes will be important, too. Since we don't know if and when we'll lose our memories again, we can't be too careful.

We might be able to use the telepathic network to pass information between each other, but it's important not to depend on it. You can never tell when it's going to out."

It didn't actually say anything new, but it was always good to remind people of what they were doing at the start, especially with the confusion going on.

Edited 2014-02-22 06:19 (UTC)

Adachi had to admit, ever since he found out his little place in reality being a massive anomaly, he was curious about what other worlds were like out there. Sure, he wouldn't have minded seeing one or two, and being dragged into... whatever it was -- the corridor between worlds? -- was kinda cool really. He didn't mind taking on a job or two either; hey, he was a detective and a badass Persona user too. Anything he could do to help, right?

This... wasn't really what he had in mind.

He pulled absently on an ear, the large things he had been given when arrived on this one flopped over and messy, almost like his hair was normally. His other hand was clutching his gun, and his good old sword Saki had bought him a year ago was close at hand as he quietly slipped down the hallways. He needed to go save someone; that was it, that was the job. He didn't know who he needed to find or why, but it didn't sound so bad -- old hat, really, after the last year -- but the sudden darkness he found himself confronted with was a little too disquieting for his tastes. And then there were the creatures stalking around...

Adachi paused, glancing around; there wasn't a door immediately here, though there were others down the hall he had just come from. It was either that, or cut through a wall and make it even more obvious someone was here that shouldn't be.

"What the hell..." he muttered to himself, swapping his gun for his sword and hacking his way through.

Joscelin has only once turned down an invitation to step through a dungeon portal, although in truth, he knows he isn't the most useful Traveler in situations such s this. He's no tracker or telepath, he hasn't mastered the skills needed to feel out the shape of a dungeon with his mind, and he doesn't claim any great understanding of his companions, to guess at where they'd be.

But he's not without certain advantages, either. Half a dozen translucent corpses scatter the mats around him, cracked and empty like shed skins, and he stands above them, daggers in hand, untouched and scarcely breathing hard.

"Travelers, to me! Before the next wave comes!"

There will be a next wave. He's sure of that. Betimes he's impatient or frustrated by this - rounding up the lost strays, people he's given no pledge to, owes nothing to. He's not always sure he's doing the lost ones any favors by pulling them back in to the cycle of Jaunts and Investigations. But he still chooses to come, time and again, and he knows he's unlikely to rethink that choice any time soon.

This idiot, of course, has planted himself squarely in the middle of the street outside the hotel, maneuver gear marking him as plainly out of place, a ready target. Inside, he has friends - grabbing supplies, rallying other Travelers, and maybe, if he's lucky, working on a plan. It's his job to be look-out, and to delay things if it comes down to a truly desperate moment.

"They're getting close!" he shouts, doing little more than stating the obvious and drawing even more attention to himself.

Edited 2014-02-22 06:19 (UTC)

He was too damn old for this shit.

Ace was at his side, ever watchful, as they slunk through the city. He wasn't as flexible or spry as he used to be, and his hearing wasn't what it used to be; but the great dane mix that stalked at his side helped with that. He was his partner, now, after everyone else was gone.

Slinking along, he put a hand to the wall, waiting as part of the mob ran by, thrumming with rage. All they needed was victims, now. Someone to vent their rage on. He couldn't blame them for their frustration -- but he didn't feel like being their sacrificial lamb, either. Waiting for the herd to pass, he clung to the shadows, watching from the dark.

Just like the good old days...

There was always a certain rhythm to riots. The breaking of things, places and people. It was the kind of 'gentle' thrum that he couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic over. The ebb and flow of chaos, partnered with the mix of desires (oh, yes, he wasn't sure exactly what they wanted, but people in these situations only had so many options).

"Well, well, isn't this quite the mess..." Hazama lifts a hand to adjust his hat, making sure it was firmly seated on his head. In his experience, varied as it was, hats had a bad habit of getting lost in the shuffle. "Shall we...?" Said to no one in particular.

He did what any concerned person would do, taking steps towards the hotel.

For once, she was grateful that most of her belongings have stayed packed away in her traveling bag. Because when the riots begin and the hotel becomes surrounded by the locals, she was all ready to go, even if this particular brand of resistance was one she didn't want to encounter. The bag was lashed to her dog, a big and burly thing that's almost as large as she is, and she made her way down to the front steps with the few people who were already willing to fight or to simply defend, and she would join her numbers until the very last of them left the hotel.

Surana withdrew her staff and quickly cast some supporting spells, a faint white glow emanating around her feet as she connected with her power. One hand reached out and the earth came to her call, coating her feet and hands with solid stone to form armor enough that she was intimidating to behold. Beyond that, she did not make any effort to draw further spell power, content to simply act as a buffer and support. She didn't want to hurt innocents.

"Stay away. We just want to leave."

As her feet crunch on the gravel, Lydia thinks sourly that this is probably appropriately fairy-tale.

She is no little girl lost in the woods, though, although the instinct to succumb to helplessness is there. She has made her way out into the woods, deliberately not thinking about her scars or where they came from. Just trying to get to fresh air.

It smells like mulch out here, old dead rotting things, and she's - not afraid, not exactly. But it seems like she's beginning to hear things as her heels sink into the loose stones, whispers in the distance, the dead and the dying calling to her . . .

If there's anyone - or anything - watching for them to leave, the front door is a logical place for them to stake out first, and so Hijikata joins the group slipping out the hole in the back wall, hand at the hilt of his sword as he steps out into the night and stops to take a look around.

He can't see anything watching, but that isn't doing much to make him feel better.

"We'll be obvious targets on the road." But the road, it's quite clear, is also the only way they've got a hope of keeping the crowd together.

Threaded | Flat

Prompt #7

Prompt #6

Prompt #7

#8

Prompt #8.

Prompt #5

Bruce Wayne | DCAU | #5

#5

5.

#7

#7