synodiporia_ooc | Test Drive #16

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test drive

Test Drive #16

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jarlaxle doesn't really seem to notice any kind of hesitance on Drizzt's part, or any misgivings. No, he forges ahead as always, clapping a hand on Drizzt's shoulder with enthusiasm.

"Their questions are nonsense!" Well.

"And the only way to combat nonsense, Drizzt, is with but more nonsense."

Drizzt looks at Jarlaxle in bewilderment, not understanding why the other drow is being suddenly so familiar with him. "Of course you would know all about nonsense."

He knew. He knew more or less from the first sentence that Drizzt wasn't as he recalled him.

He knew.

But that didn't seem to be stopping him.

"What ever would that imply, Drizzt?" Cheerful and familiar, like he'd known the other drow for a while now.

"Do you suppose I'll attract any more?"

It's easy enough to tell that Drizzt is far younger than he remembers as well, and certainly not close enough to being an adult. Drizzt is unnerved by the familiarity, not sure what has sparked it. Jarlaxle seems to think they are suddenly old friends.

"Nothing like that," Drizzt states with a shake of his head. "I fear what other sort of trouble you may attract, and trouble seems to find me often enough."

Much younger. He was at least an adult the last time Jarlaxle recalled seeing him.

Now he seemed to have regressed back to teendom.

Great.

"Well there doesn't seem to be much else here besides trouble, if I were to be honest. If you didn't want any, you should have wandered where there are no towering teachers with silly questions to answer.

With that in mind, I'm going to find myself some trouble."

Actually, it is great. Just ask Zaknafein. Drizzt has grudgingly accepted the fact that he's still a child if only to please his father. Who is on the back of his mind at the moment, not sure of when to bring him up.

Then Jarlaxle mentions taking off, and Drizzt knows he can't let that happen—or at least, he wishes to talk with him further before he does. "Trouble can wait. I need to speak with you first."

Well it's not great for Jarlaxle, because he kind of liked the thing they had going when Drizzt was less worried about being stabbed in the back while he slept by him. Thanks, Drizzt.

"Oh? Of what? Is it more interesting than word chess with nightmarish examiners?"

Drizzt isn't as suspicious as he could be, owing to the fact that his father had openly said he was friends with Jarlaxle, and he takes everything said by his father to heart. Jarlaxle had a similar pragmatism to his father, that much Drizzt knew before, but now he knows it was more than that. He looks over Jarlaxle's face, searching for something.

If he is truly a friend of Zaknafein, then Drizzt won't keep the truth from him for long, but he wants to feel the other drow out first.

"You were friends with my father since your days at the academy?" Drizzt asks once his internal debate is finished, face set resolutely, as he intends to get some answers.

He didn't expect this sort of question. The brigand looked surprised, quietly going through all the things he'd told Drizzt in the past.

None of them had been entirely what his relationship with Zak was like.

For once, the mercenary took on a more serious look, the usual jovility fading a little.

"We were good friends, yes. Ever since we were in the academy."

Drizzt knows he's likely not going to be able to sneak by little bits and pieces of knowledge through the way he acts for Jarlaxle to not start asking questions of his own. In fact, he embraces it. It's the reactions from Jarlaxle he wants to see, and so he's not going to try to be incredibly cautious about it. If Jarlaxle strikes out at him, he'll have his answer. And if Jarlaxle never strikes at him or gets angry, then he'll still have his answer.

The answer doesn't seem to surprise Drizzt, although he can't help but grin a little at the surprise, knowing that it was no small feat. "And he spoke to you of me?"

"He couldn't stop speaking of you to me, if I am to be honest." There was warmth in that tone, creeping in.

"He assured me that you would defeat me in a match one day."

And that seems to be what Drizzt had been waiting for, and the tenseness in the young drow's shoulders lessens greatly. The warmth and the words convince Drizzt in equal measure that he can at least put some measure of trust into this strange drow. Zaknafein truly cannot stop speaking about him. There's no melancholy in Drizzt's eyes as he regards the other drow, as he has no reason to be melancholy in the first place--here, Zaknafein is alive.

So to that effect, the next several seconds should be hilarious. Drizzt starts grinning, perhaps with a bit of a smirk to it. For all of the confusion Jarlaxle has caused him, he finally gets to pay some of it back.

"You are right in that he cannot stop speaking of me," Drizzt quips, quite suddenly and purposefully switching to the present tense. "I'm afraid I was already known to several of the other Travelers simply because of that, and he now makes a show of letting everyone know that I am his son."

He could see the change immediately. While it was nice to see Drizzt calm, the manner of it coming around was confusing, to say the least. What did his relationship to his father have to do with this now? Now that they'd once been so close without this knowledge- Oh he had intended on being open about it.

Later.

If anything, the look of dim confusion on the mercenary's face doesn't suit him. It's probably hilarious.

If you aren't Jarlaxle.

But not having knowledge he thinks he should have is obnoxious. Is this what everyone feels like talking to him?

Gross, he's never gonna let someone know more than him ever again.

"... He can't?" Nice one. Try again.

"I'm sorry, there seems to be some confusion here."

It's definitely hilarious, and Drizzt is enjoying himself more than a little. He doesn't know Jarlaxle well, but does know that it is extremely rare for someone to pull one over the mercenary. For someone to confound him and confuse him.

Drizzt tries to keep himself steady, tries to tease Jarlaxle a bit more because it's fun, but the knowledge of the truth about his father no longer being dead wants to explode out of his chest. He starts grinning brightly, more brightly than Jarlaxle has ever seen. Then there's laughter, his lavender orbs shining with pure joy.

"The confusion is yours. We are in a plane of existence entirely different from our own," Drizzt reaches to clasp hands on top of Jarlaxle's shoulders. "And somehow, in this plane, my father is alive!"

Edited 2016-10-16 01:45 (UTC)

No it's not funny you stop that right now. He doesn't like not knowing something like this, stop being an assbutt, Drizzt.

Of course, Jarlaxle seems to just take the laughter with grace as usual, merely crossing his arms elegantly and arching a brow, just about to hop in and ask if the younger drow was done with his joke.

But... Then the news.

Drizzt was never one for lies anyway to begin with, to lie about this?

Impossible. His face became unreadable, the single visible ruby colored eye staring a hole into Drizzt as the brigand read every motion and sound from him.

"... What is the name of this plane?"

He'll save a proper reaction for later. It's not that he wouldn't be happy.

... He's not sure if he can believe it.

That isn't the reaction that Drizzt expected, but it is at least one that he understands. He can almost see the emotional walls go slamming up around the other drow, walls to protect him from the elation that might prove to be false. Jarlaxle doesn't trust him deeply enough, just as Drizzt does not trust him, to take the truth at face value.

Also, the way Jarlaxle's single eye bored a hole into him is quite frankly a bit terrifying. He's powerful in his own right, and a friend of his father, and now Drizzt feels extremely foolish for how be was acting a moment ago. Drizzt drops his hands away from him immediately as the question is asked, his smile fading as his mirth id stolen entirely. He steps back to give Jarlaxle room, and finds Guenhwyvar quickly at his side.

"Liminal Space," Drizzt says quietly. "It allows us to travel between worlds that we are often bidden to fix or prevent a calamity, although we are always somehow connected to Liminal Space even when we are away. We call these other worlds Jaunts, and truthfully this is likely a Jaunt instead of Liminal Space. Only Travelers, their spirit animal companions, and other animals generally exist there."

He pauses for a moment and frowns, looking a bit irritated. "If I look younger than you remember, then it is surely a Jaunt. In the last Jaunt, I reverted to a younger age. My clothes have also changed from my typical gear, making it even more likely."

Whenever that happens, it makes Zaknafein happy, because then he can even more strongly insist on Drizzt experiencing what is left of his childhood. The worst part about it is that Drizzt cannot find it within himself to argue properly. Zaknafein is simply too happy about it. Not that Drizzt is going to tell Jarlaxle of that. Or of Zaknafein's fussing about his appearance. Or of any of a dozen slightly to completely embarrassing things that happened to him since he started Traveling.

"I would not lie about Zaknafein, as the lies would be too painful to bear," Drizzt shakes his head at the notion, suddenly switching topics back to the first as his thoughts gravitate towards his father. "I love him too much, and he is too important to me to speak anything but the truth, especially to someone he marked as a friend. He was the one who told me as much."

As Jarlaxle as not yet told him that he was friends with Zaknafein from the time he was taken.

"Those that are in control of this world now, the Trumps, are capable of reaching across time and space and even reversing death to find Travelers. Bringing Father back from the dead would have been trivial for them, as they do it regularly for Travelers that die. Perhaps it was even that discussion between us about you that made the Trumps aware of you. It is certainly timely, considering that we only first spoke of you in the last Jaunt."

Drizzt knows he is talking a lot, but Jarlaxle knows none of these things, likely. It's best to get him up to date on the basics at least. Especially since he's got a healthy dose of skepticism right now.

"Father was taken when he jumped into the acid pits to resist Malice's will to kill me, as far as I can tell. It was his fear that he would kill me when we were first reunited, but his body is his own and his heart beats strongly." Drizzt's eyes fall to Guenhwyvar, stroking her fur, that memory still bringing pain even with his father returned to his side. "But I was not taken from the same time. For me, it has been six years since Baenre's attempt to take Mithral Hall, and I now sail on the Sword Coast. Or sailed. I am a Traveler now, no longer a sailor. Others complain about it, but with my father returned to me, I cannot complain so nearly as forcibly."

Father. He called him Zaknafein more often than not back home, but now Drizzt relishes being able to lay claim to his living father as his. Every single time he says it, his heart jumps and lets out a tiny note of joy. Father. Father. Drizzt can call Zaknafein "Father" to describe him to others and to his face!

Edited (LIES WOULD HURRRTTT or something) 2016-10-16 14:30 (UTC)

It wasn't his intention to intimidate. Though he was aware that was what would happen. He couldn't quite arrange himself to suit the mood properly, not if he couldn't see Zak in front of him now, talking and breathing, alive. It wasn't that he expected Drizzt to lie to him of it.

But of someone else to lie to Drizzt. Through magic, illusions, necromancy, some foul trick that the young drow didn't deserve to be the recipient of. The look on Jarlaxle's face was less directed for Drizzt, and more of a thought towards what may happen if someone else proved to be a very, very poor prankster.

However, as Drizzt backed away and deflated, the older drow rose to try and coax it back, knowing that this moment was important for Drizzt. It wasn't about Jarlaxle accepting it. The boy had his father back. For now, illusion or not, Drizzt deserved some happiness.

"... Then we are eternally lucky, and eternally thankful to the Trumps, aren't we?" His tone was soft, warmth starting to lap at the edges again. There was... something vaguely sad to his tone. Something oddly heartsick and longing.

"Do you know where he is?"

Drizzt knows his father is his father, Jarlaxle. He'd be incensed to learn that he wasn't believed simply because Jarlaxle didn't trust Drizzt's viewpoint. There's no question that Zaknafein is Zaknafein, not after all they have been through in two months' time.

Jarlaxle's body language doesn't offer him much in the way of information, and the fact he softens in response to realizing he intimidated Drizzt is something that just makes for more questions. He's not acting like the Jarlaxle he knows at all. Far more open than he's ever been.

An imposter?

No, the emotions seem real enough. Why, then? It seems like he cares a great deal more than Drizzt remembers. And Drizzt gave him information that should have caused more questions from him, but he's so incredibly focused on Zak.

Although Drizzt remembers being the same way when he had first heard his father's voice in his head. His focus had solely been on Zaknafein. If they were such close friends, then of course his focus would narrow.

Perhaps he's acting warmer to Drizzt now that they are away from Menzoberranzan and he knows that Drizzt knows the truth. Maybe. Or maybe he really is leading an imposter to his father, in which case Drizzt would still be better off fighting alongside his father. But somehow, Drizzt has a feeling that it isn't the case.

Or maybe he simply wants to believe that there is a third drow like the two of them.

"Yes, we are," Drizzt speaks quietly back, the look of apprehension that he had a moment ago slowly fading. "And I do not know his exact location, but this plane allows us to communicate mentally. I can call out to him and find out where he is."

Edited 2016-10-16 19:18 (UTC)

Be incensed, Jarlaxle, a master of illusions himself, knew eyes couldn't always be trusted, or ears in fact. But then, he'd not been here for two months with Drizzt and Zaknafein, so he wouldn't have the same amount of information the other two had.

He'd been with Drizzt though. Spent so much time with him that he'd grown to see the drow as family. Drizzt was as a brother to him, loved and dear. While his mind was focused on Zak, it still hurt to see that Drizzt had no recollection of their time together. He could tell that much just from the way he spoke, how he approached him and stood around him. Drizzt did not know him as he should have.

It was a pain he wasn't familiar with, and a pain he had no desire to linger on.

"... If you would." Hard to read again. But it sounded as if something was being held back furiously in those words. Fighting not to allow any shred of hope to appear in his words.

Jarlaxle, like anyone else, didn't enjoy being hurt.

He wouldn't be able to take getting his hopes up about this.

Drizzt had more than the sight and voice of Zaknafein to go by. Not that Jarlaxle would know the desperate moments when they had first met again, or when Drizzt had fallen into a tearful heap with his father. Or anything of dozen of new memories that very clearly told Drizzt that his father was real, alive, and with him.

He would feel bad about Jarlaxle's feelings if he knew them, able to easily extrapolate how it would feel if something like Zaknafein forgetting him had happened. But he doesn't know, and he doesn't trust like he should. What took decades to build up may not be impossible to replace, as other duties or interests will not constantly keep them away from each other. But it will still take time.

Drizzt just notes that Jarlaxle is back to being unreadable and just as confusing as ever before he opens his mind to his father, calling out to him. It isn't long before the two of them settle on a location only several minutes away from Drizzt to meet. For now, he keeps Jarlaxle out of the conversation, wanting to physically reunite the two of them. Mental connections just aren't enough, and Jarlaxle will only believe it when he sees Zaknafein himself.

"Father will meet us near a house several minutes away, and then you can see that it is truly him," Drizzt breaks the silence suddenly, turning to look at the brigand for a moment before he begins to walk towards the appointed place. "You don't believe it's really him, do you?"

At least Drizzt sounds sympathetic.

He'd believe it when he could hear Zak speak. When he could listen to him, touch him, assure himself that what he was witnessing wasn't false or some illusion made up by a mad sorcerer or a desperate wish.

Drizzt might never know them, of course. Not for a long, long time. Jarlaxle preferred to keep such things private, and if they reached such a point as where they had left each other, even then Drizzt may never know the hurt. Because it wasn't Drizzt's fault that he no longer knew the mercenary. It was by no device of his own that he'd not forgotten, but simply didn't know Jarlaxle for long enough.

The brigand would just have to fix that problem himself, and with time and a careful hand.

He began to follow, his mind carefully going over everything that had been said, and every memory he had of Zak himself. If anyone could tell if what he was seeing was false or not, it'd be Jarlaxle. Even a hair out of place could alert him.

"Your father has been dead for quite a long time." Softly spoken, faintly thoughtful, the pain and regret from that time buried and hidden.

"I'd be as likely to believe Malice has risen again."

"If Malice shows, we will kill her," Drizzt snaps with sudden coldness, a flare of anger rising up; he is starting to grasp how much his father had suffered because of her. "I'll not let her anywhere near my father again."

The protectiveness is new, but it is something that Drizzt already feels strongly. Drizzt knows his father is broken in many ways, and he feels that most of them tie back to his mother. He knows that there are times where Zaknafein had more difficulties than others, and that more than once, Drizzt's presence has ended those moments. But not all of them. There is precious little Drizzt can do for his father's nightmares, much to his distress.

"I know it is him because it is him. The way he moves, the way he speaks, the way he loves me—and I have felt the third directly, as the so-called network can carry emotion." Drizzt's voice stays resolute until that last bit when his voice is takes on a gentler tone, albeit not much. "Perhaps I could be fooled for a moment, but I knew it was him the second our gazes met. I've never had a reason to question the truth before me."

Someone's convinced that he's been reunited with his father, fully and completely.

"We shall indeed." Easy and to the point. He'd relish being able to kill her multiple times.

The protectiveness is new, but he knew this was real. Zak had never been the one to accept help or protection, Jarlaxle himself knew that the weapons master wouldn't accept it. Considering all the times the brigand had tried to get him to leave. Take his boychild and depart with Jarlaxle, abandon the house, abandon the matriarch, abandon everyone and become a part of Bregan D'arth.

More regret that he'd never convinced him to properly.

Love. Something that he knew Zak had, but he'd never been sure the male knew what it was. Just a warm, deep feeling, but a nameless one. "I understand." And that was it. Still completely unreadable, but at least Drizzt was no longer fixed with that piercing crimson stare.

Well, at least he could trust Jarlaxle to help him kill Malice if she was ever revived. Not that she would likely be, as she would not help the Trumps' mission, whatever it was. She was useless to them.

Drizzt lets the conversation lapse into silence then, not sure how to feel about this. He wants to be elated for both his father and Jarlaxle, but he truly doesn't know the mercenary all that well. The ranger isn't even 100% convinced that it is Jarlaxle, considering how he's acted before. And right now, Jarlaxle is refusing to believe that Zaknafein is alive, which is fair enough. It's a little much for Jarlaxle to take his word on.

It's a couple more minutes before Drizzt speaks up again, and he doesn't stop walking as he goes around the corner of the street. "Just around this bend, and you will see the truth for what it is."

At least there was that. He knew for a fact Malice wouldn't be helpful to anyone. If they wanted to get anywhere, Malice wouldn't be helpful.

Nope, not much else to say. Jarlaxle was oddly silent for now, so it would appear, staring ahead and waiting, watching for Zak.

"I hope I will." He stated, his tone quiet as they rounded the corner.

at least i didn't get arrested

Only because your fashion sense isn't illegal yet

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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