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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.
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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It feels like ages since he'd seen Jarlaxle last, time trapped in the Abyss can hardly be a measured thing. Though if time had passed for the brigand as it had for Drizzt it may seem as long for him as well. He certainly seems older. Different in some ways but still so very much himself.
The partially unsheathed blades snap back into their scabbards and he stands up straighter to face Jarlaxle as he approaches. His heart twists sharply, feeling his regret over distancing himself from his friend a lot more sharply now that he's been free from the hell that had become his life.
He should have run, he can see that now.
"It is I, my friend. Impossible as that may be."
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He understood the glasses well enough, but he still had to stop himself from trying to remove them from Zak's face, wanting to really... see his face, all of his face. Jarlaxle was older, though to any human he'd still look as young and as handsome as any other elf. He himself was studying Zak closely, trying to gauge when he'd actually been taken. He looked as he'd remembered him... Everything had been so perfectly restored.
"Impossible." There's a short, breathless, disbelieving laugh. "I suppose that would be the word for it- Perhaps improbable suits it more now. It is, apparently, entirely possible." A weak attempt at a joke, and there was a faint crack in his voice. One Jarlaxle swallowed immediately.
"What manner of power has returned you...? Is it you, Zaknafein? Is it you wholly?"
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She rubs a bit at the tattoo on her finger, sighing.
"Time, place, even different world entirely. None of it is a boundary for them."
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If Drizzt had any doubts that Jarlaxle and Zaknafein were friends, they are gone now. Not with the way that either of them is acting now, especially Jarlaxle. He knew that it was Zaknafein at first glance, just like Drizzt had. Jarlaxle's voice had emotion in it that Drizzt had never heard from the older drow.
Watching the two, Drizzt is at least now fairly convinced that he can trust Jarlaxle, and a holy convinced that he is not any sort of imposter. He cares about Zaknafein, and it also seems that he cares about Drizzt himself. It really does raise a number of questions, none of which Drizzt will ask right now. Not at this moment, when he feels like he is intruding.
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"Truthfully, I do not know the why, only that I was the first of us to be brought here." The truth of the when he'd been taken is hidden under his shirt, the frightful, twisted scar over his heart and those acquired as he'd been forced to endure well beyond his own death.
It honestly surprises him to see Jarlaxle so emotional, especially over him. He had retreated into his own, personal hell for so long he'd practically forgotten that once the other drow had actually cared when they were young, and there's part of him doesn't want to believe that Jarlaxle still could to such a degree.
He is such a fool.
"It is I, old friend. Not Zin'carla, or even the Weapons Master of House Do'Urden." He says softly, but with conviction. "For now I am just Zaknafein."
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He was emotional, much to his own surprise as well. It didn't happen often, he could count on one hand when he felt his heart rise into his throat like this. And most of those times had been due to Drizzt.
This, however, was different. He reached out, gently resting a hand on Zak's shoulder, peering at him with the one uncovered eye in slowly fading disbelief, and growing awe.
And hope.
"... Just Zaknafein... Is more than fine with me, my friend."
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So Jarlaxle will be able to see more of Zaknafein in his eyes and smile than has been there in centuries. The former weapons master lifts a hand to rest over the one on his shoulder, but then he surges forward to pull the other drow into a tight embrace.
"I am sorry." He says, still after all this time blaming himself for what happened between them. "For everything."