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synodiporia_ooc2016-10-14 02:43 pm
powersthatbe) wrote in synodiporia_ooc2016-10-14 02:43 pm
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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.
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.
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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?"
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"He assured me that you would defeat me in a match one day."
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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."
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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."
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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!"
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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.
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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!
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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?"
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
Drizzt the Asshole 2: The Assholening
ur fired
WAIT
He moves in the blink of an eye, his hand darting out and grabbing Drizzt's shoulder, yanking the younger drow back.
"Wife?"
WIFE!!
She swings her broom, hard, aiming for the hatted head of the guy seemingly harassing Drizzt.
"GET YOUR HAND OFF HIM OR I'LL HIT YOU AGAIN! ZAKNAFIEN! ZAK! THERE'S ANOTHER DROW!" she yells, readying her broom for another swing.
HI "MOM"
"Wife," Drizzt states dryly, merely leaning away from Jarlaxle, letting him get hit. "It's tradition for her to hit people with her broom upon greeting them."
/scream
He takes the broom with a yelp, but manages to snag his hat before it goes anywhere, trying to hop and dance out of Elphaba's range.
Which is hard because that's one hell of a broom.
"Madam-"
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What are the chances?
He can't even begin to fathom.
His flurry of motion comes to a skidding halt a few feet away when he spies that familiar plumed hat and bald head. Unlike the other two drow present, he hasn't ruined his eyes by staring at the sun so the hood of his long, black sweater is pulled up over his head and he's wearing a pair of sunglasses that were gifted to him by another kind traveler. His vision is still blurred a great deal, but the drow before him is far too distinct for him to not be able to tell who it is.
"... Jarlaxle?"
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"We both know him," Drizzt replies to her reassuringly. "So you should hit him one more time for good measure. I'm sure he's done something to deserve it."
Unfortunately, because Jarlaxle has been acting quite familiar, Drizzt knows he'll be in no danger because of this suggestion; it's too bad for Jarlaxle that he showed that hand to Drizzt so soon! It also has the added benefit of letting his father's mind catch up with what's happening. Having a friend show up so suddenly would be surprising.
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BUT REALLY-
Any sort of argument died on his lips the moment Zaknafein spoke, and the brigand froze, turning his head to stare at what he had once been so sure was an illusion.
No.
It was not false. He could tell that immediately, he knew what and who he was looking at.
"... Zak." Like he couldn't believe what he was looking at, the word hushed and almost breathless.
There was no question if he could make it to Zak without being swatted by that broom. It may as well have been he teleported to the weapons master's side, slipping past Elphaba with fluid ease.
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