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

[ayiyiyi]

The woman appears to need no help at all; with a furious yell, she launches herself at the first Proctor, her sword a flash of metal as it swings towards him. The Proctor fights back, parrying her blows with an angry examiner's stick, but Xena is relentless, and theres a flash of a grin as she presses her advantage.

But she does notice Cassandra. There is, perhaps, no obvious invitation - no nod of the head, or even a salute. But she catches Cassandra's eye, and in that moment, warrior to warrior, there is an acknowledgment that yes, Xena has this - but if Cassandra wishes to join, then Xena will welcome a new comrade.

And then the moment is gone, and Xena proceeds to kick the Proctor in the face. Repeatedly.

[fearinahandfulof]

As long as she's been a Traveler - which isn't very, at least in comparison to some, although she's been on a not insignificant number of missions by now - she still isn't quite used to simply being invited to help in such a manner. Not that it stops her from accepting.

As intent as they are on judging everyone else's level of knowledge, the Proctors don't seem to learn anything themselves. At the very least, they don't seem to communicate with each other, judging by the fact that this group is every bit as unprepared for Cassandra's own fighting style as every other Proctor she's had to fight. None of their strikes even come close to hitting her; she's far too fast, the angles of her counterattacks too odd, for them to guard against. It's almost disappointing, if useful from a practical standpoint.

(It does not strike her as remotely unfair to counter a stick with a sword; like most of her kind, Cassandra is ruthlessly pragmatic when it comes to combat tactics.)

She takes a split second here and there to check on the other fighter. As she'd suspected, the other woman doesn't really need her help, but it still seems more right for Cassandra to assist than not. She just hopes the Champion they're defending won't end up more terrified of them than the Proctors.

[ayiyiyi]

With the two of them together on the battlefield, the Proctors have no chance. Xena slashes and punches and kicks her way through them, one falling after the other, and with Cassandra there it's the work of mere moments to defeat them all. The battle is over, but the blood is still pumping through her veins.

But the Champion is still standing on the edge of the battle, staring at them with wild eyes. Xena steps towards him, and her words are gentle and reassuring.

"Are you alright?" she asks, and he nods nervously.

"I...I...thank you," he stammers.

"It's no trouble," she assure him. "They won't bother you any more."

He grins, shyly, and scurries off. Xena sheathes her sword, and turns to her new comrade. "Nice work," she says to Cassandra. "I like your style."

[fearinahandfulof]

Cassandra doesn't dare approach the young Champion after the battle is over; she doesn't want to frighten him further. The other woman, thankfully, seems to have that in hand, and Cassandra watches as she reassures him and sends him on his way. She just hopes the remaining Proctors will leave the boy alone.

She mentally braces herself as the woman approaches her - only to be taken off guard by her words. "You... do?"

[ayiyiyi]

Well now. That's curious; for someone so capable on the battlefield, she's rather mousy in personality, isn't she?

"Well, you got the job done, didn't you?" she points out. "And it's different. Unexpected. Makes your opponents work harder to figure you out."

[fearinahandfulof]

Logically, she knows this. It's just strange to hear someone else speak it aloud. "In my world, it was considered... ugly. Grotesque."

[ayiyiyi]

"What, they expect the art of war to be pretty?" Xena says, disbelief etched on her face. "A battle is a struggle, a question of life and death, of blood and pain and anger. Trying to look pretty on the battlefield is a great way to get yourself killed."

[fearinahandfulof]

That... is true, and hearing it put so bluntly makes Cassandra feel more than a little foolish. "I think they expect the stronger warriors to have attacks that... befit their rank somehow? A weaker warrior can have an uglier technique, but the strongest..." She shakes her head, feeling frustrated; she doesn't think she has the right words for this. "I developed my technique on the spur of the moment to save my fellow warriors from an attack. But it made them afraid of me. They said it was warped and cruel."

[ayiyiyi]

"All war is cruel," Xena says. "The people of your world are deluding themselves if they think that a more attractive fighting style means it's not. You shouldn't listen to them."

[fearinahandfulof]

"The Organization does - did - nothing to discourage that mindset," Cassandra remarks, her expression thoughtful. "But I don't think they wanted to. It strengthened them and weakened us."

[ayiyiyi]

"The Organisation? And what exactly is that?" Xena asks.

[fearinahandfulof]

Cassandra pauses. She's never quite sure how to explain the Organization to people; her world's structure seems very different from most, and the Organization in particular tends to upset people, albeit for good reason. "The Organization is... not rulers, really; they command us, but they don't command the human population." She frowns slightly. "I'm not sure how much interest they really have in the human population. They create us to fight yoma - the monsters who infest our world - but they don't seem to care all that much about the humans we save in the process. They're happy to take their money for our services, but..." Cassandra shakes her head again, looking troubled. "I don't think they care much about things that don't benefit them directly."

[ayiyiyi]

"Well don't they sound like a great bunch of people," Xena says, with a wry sarcasm.

[fearinahandfulof]

"I know." She'd known that even before they'd dragged her back from the dead. Very few warriors didn't, as far as she remembers.

[ayiyiyi]

"Well then it's a good thing they're not around here," Xena says. Then she steps off, journeying once again out into the unknown. "Well, I think it's time we see if any more Proctor's are about. Feel like helping me take down a few?"

[fearinahandfulof]

An offer like this should probably not be surprising after all this time. It is anyway. "I - yes."

[ayiyiyi]

"Alright then," Xena says with a nod, and sets off into the unknown.

Proctors beware.