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

Shinjiro Aragaki | P3 Portable

[fruitknife]

44 - investigating

No talking animals have come anywhere near Shinji, and that's fine by him. (Except for where it isn't, not really, but like hell he's gonna admit that any time soon.) The bigger problem, as far as he can tell from a few minutes' observation, is that the talking animals are the ones who explain how... whatever this bullshit is works.

Whatever. Not the first time he's had to learn by doing, and it probably won't be the last. The giant exam proctors aren't going out of their way to corner him, either, which at least gives him a good opening to observe.

If he didn't know better he'd say he was still in the damn hospital, having some kind of weird-ass coma dream or something. But whatever is going on, it's clear pretty quickly that the giant exam proctors might as well be Shadows. He can't call his Persona anymore, not without putting his life at risk, but that doesn't mean he can't fight. And if this shit's not going to approach him, it gives him an advantage.

And so he closes in on what looks like a giant crystalline version of Ekoda that's shouting at some poor kid about something Shinji's never heard of (but is probably just as much of a boring nightmare as anything covered in Gekkoukan's version of Classic Lit), ready to strike. Why there was a bus stop sign, of all things, sitting around, he doesn't know - but this isn't the time to question it, and really, he doesn't care enough to.

Now's the time to kick some ass.

[truerevelation]

"Hey! I can hold this guy - you wanna take him out?"

Kanji can mostly deal just fine with being stuck back in Hecatite form; the fragile nature's a bit of a downer in this situation, but he's used to it well enough. As it is, he's just going to see who else around here can help break faces, and if that's who he thinks it is...

Well. That's a good sign.

A series of glowing lines spiral out from his outstretched hand, working to bind the Proctor down. ... And hopefully shut him up.

[fruitknife]

Shinji doesn't quite smile, but it's a near thing. "Got it."

And sure enough, as soon as the proctor's good and stuck, Shinji makes short work of it. Shorter than he'd expected, really - but hey, if these rock things are weak to being beat upside the head, he'll take it. (Too bad Fuuka's not around to ask; she'd probably figure it out in seconds, like usual.)

[truerevelation]

Okay, no powers... but that's cracking impressive work. Once it's gone, Kanji fires off another thread to zipline across to Shinji's side, giving a smile. "Nice work, man," he says.

[fruitknife]

"When I hit, I hit hard. You didn't do so bad yourself - nice trick with the rope thing."

Fancy powers weren't even really his thing when his Persona was an option, so Shinji's not really feeling the lack. Doesn't mean he can't admire it in others, though.

[truerevelation]

"No kiddin'... and heh. Thanks. I've had time to learn a few tricks with 'em," Kanji says with a proud sparkle in his expression.
"You dealt with these guys before?" he asks. "Been a while since I've been round here." Like the last Jaunt in these parts, he adds, psychically, just checking...

[fruitknife]

There's been one here before?

Shinji shrugs. "This exact kind of thing, not so much, but I've been in what you might call similar situations."

[truerevelation]

And that answers that. Something like a year and a half ago, yeah. Never mind their space trip...

"Gotcha." And he thinks he can guess the situations... But he's not sure how to start that conversation. Especially with more exams probably very close. "Eh, people end up here all the time less prepared."

[fruitknife]

Huh. Anything you can tell me that I'm apparently not finding out from the cute animals?

"Can't say it wasn't nice giving some version of that guy what he deserves, though. How the hell he held onto a job for so long I don't know."

[morethanashadow]

Unfortunately, Chara, Phillip's faithful Spirit Familiar, is a little bit distracted by the lecture. After all, the dog does speak only in iambic pentameter.

Phillip, however, is not about this lecture at all. And he also cares not one bit that he is entirely too old for the ridiculous Champion of Stars outfit he wore the last time he was here. "Star Struck!" he calls from behind Shinjiro, a dazzling display smacking the not-Ekoda in the face and making him flail around blindly. Go on, keep hitting him. Phillip's got support handled.

[fruitknife]

...Well, every little bit helps, so Shinji waits until he's taken out the proctor before turning around and asking, "The hell was that supposed to be?"

[morethanashadow]

"Champion magic?" Phillip says, because... well, that's what is was, "I'm Champion of Stars, so... there's a theme going." Stars. Star is the theme.

[fruitknife]

Do you know, he never would have guessed.

"That what happens when the cute animals show up?"

[morethanashadow]

"The Spirit Animals? Yeah." Chara, the giant dog, pads over and nods his head at Shinjiro. "Do you not have one?"

[fruitknife]

Shinji shrugs. "Nothing's turned up so far."


(...can he pet the giant dog. Can he. He's at least offering his hand for a sniff.)

[morethanashadow]

(Chara will gladly accept pets. He'll even lick Shinjiro's hand. You seem pretty decent.)

"You might be a Pillar, then," Phillip says- unless he's just a Traveler who is none of the above, which has happened, "I think it makes you immune to the magic around here, but you don't get powers or a familiar."

[fruitknife]

"Huh. Well, these assholes aren't cornering me with questions, either, so I'll take it. Makes it easier to sneak up on 'em."

(Yes good. Good doggy.)

[seestheworld]

Or not.

One of the Champions has spotted the giant Ekoda and moves to intercept. But there's no sparkly lightshow, no incantations. Instead, there is the telltale crack of an Evoker and three simple words: "Satan. Spiral Viper."

The Ekoda crumbles completely under the onslaught, much like the original had when faced with an angry Mitsuru. Minako sighs as she reholsters her Evoker. Suzaku is probably going to get on her case for going straight to the Persona instead of using her sparkly portal powers to spirit the thing away, but honestly, the prospect of hitting some version of Ekoda in the face with a spell had been just too tempting. She's not going to say no to a little catharsis.

It's then that she happens to notice just who else happens to be standing there. "...Shinjiro?"

[fruitknife]

Shinji freezes when he hears the Evoker. It's probably pretty comical, what with the crumbled remains of Rock Ekoda, and here's him with a bus stop sign over his head in mid-swing.

On the other hand, that's a genuine grin on his face, for one of about three people who know he's capable of the expression. He lowers the sign, still smiling. "What the hell kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time?"

(Hello to you too, Minako.)

[seestheworld]

Oh thank god, he actually knows her. Minako gives him a lopsided grin. "A bunch of weirdos decided I needed a vacation." She almost tells him they thought she needed to get out more, but it's been long enough that she's not sure how he'd take it.

Her grin softens into a genuine smile. "It's good to see you."

[fruitknife]

"Some vacation this is." But considering her alternative, this is bound to be a little more interesting, at least.

"You too."

[seestheworld]

"Well, they kind of left out the part where it'd be a working vacation."

Actually, they'd just stuck her inside a creepy Liminal sauna with nary a word.

"When did you get here?"

[fruitknife]

"Considering the way your time in Iwatodai went, I'd think you'd be used to more work than you planned on doing." She can't tell him she expected all the Dark Hour-related bullshit.

Well, she could tell him that, but he wouldn't believe it for a second. No one expected that at first, not even Mitsuru.

Shinji sighs, and shrugs. "I dunno, just now, I guess? If I didn't know better I'd think it was some kind of weird-ass coma dream, but I know for a fact I woke up."

[seestheworld]

"I got even without the Dark Hour," Minako replies. Certainly, she hadn't expected to be dragooned into joining the Student Council. "But the Dark Hour didn't really help, either."

(Minako might have expected it if she'd been able to remember at the time. Might have.)

"So you're from March, then," she says, half to herself. To Shinjiro, she says, "Then you probably didn't get the standard 'Welcome to Traveling' spiel from anyone, did you?"

[fruitknife]

"Yeah, I... know how it ended up." And that's probably all the more either of them want to say about that topic.

"Not as such, no. Picked up the general idea from other people freaking out, and then we were here, and no cute animals have come to explain shit, so I've been winging it."

Most people wouldn't realise Shinji's actually kind of upset about the lack of cute animal companion. Minako is one of the few likely to catch it.