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

[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.

[seestheworld]

Minako just nods. That's probably all that needs to be said. "Ken was here for a while - well, a Ken, because apparently in his world I'm a guy - but he was from a lot earlier in the timeline."

She does catch his disappointment. She's just not sure what to do about it, since it's not like she can make one of them bond with him. But Shinjiro's not one for pity, either. "Well, if they're not talking to you, then they're clearly not good judges of character."

[fruitknife]

"...You, a guy? I can't see it." Not and still being Minako, anyway. Probably wouldn't have been anyone he really wanted to talk to, either, and that would've just been upsetting.

Or not, since if that'd happened, how would he ever know the difference? This is why he doesn't do philosophy bullshit.

"Their loss, I guess. But if the cute animals ignoring me means everything else is ignoring me too, I can take it."

[seestheworld]

"We didn't talk too much about that. Ken did say he was a good leader, but...." But it's still a weird thought even after seeing Yua and Souji.

"It does, actually; it means you're immune to this world's magic. You'll probably get some pitying looks, though." Might as well warn him ahead of time, although he's probably going to be irritated either way.

[fruitknife]

"Doesn't make it less weird to think about." And when he says he can't picture it, he means it.

Sure enough, that tidbit gets a long, grumbly sigh from Shinji. "I don't need pity about it. Sitting around moping won't get shit done."

If there's one thing his time on the streets taught him, it's that you take advantage of what you have on hand, no matter what it is.

[seestheworld]

"Yeah, I know." Her expression turns slightly wry. "There've been a bunch of Wild Cards from various versions of Inaba, of all places. Two of them were the essentially same person, but different genders and very different personalities. And two of them were actually the same person full-stop." God, but she misses Yua. And she hopes Souji 2 is all right, wherever he is.

At his sigh, her expression becomes more wry. "I know. I'm just warning you in advance."

[fruitknife]

"...What, that place you said the volleyball club went over the summer? I thought you said there was nothing there. How the hell'd they end up with even one Wild Card?" Never mind an assortment, but that's probably down to 'the same way Ken knew a guy as the leader.'

"I know, I know." Shinji sighs. "People just get so hung up on 'oh. you poor thing, can't do what everyone else is doing.'"

[seestheworld]

"From what they've all told me, the goddess Izanami got bored and decided to empower three people as an experiment. I think they were supposed to embody Hope, Despair, and Emptiness, or something to that effect. It turned into a big mess in just about every version of Inaba, because the Emptiness representative went out and started killing people. This was a couple of years after us - none of the Inaba Persona users had even heard of the Dark Hour until they came here. At least, not the ones I've talked to."

Minako follows his sigh with one of her own. "I know; I ran into some of that after my parents were killed." With the added bonus of nobody believing her when she'd told them what had happened that night, not that that still stings after all these years or anything. "And nobody ever seems to figure out that that's really not something you need to hear."

[fruitknife]

"Huh. Way to stack the deck against a good ending. If they'd never heard of the Dark Hour, though..." Well, that part's obviously a good thing, but if that's the case, how the hell did they get Personas at all?

(Incidentally, it may be hard to tell, given all the layers Shinji regularly wears, but he doesn't have an Evoker on hand. No sense carrying something he can't put to use.)

"Doesn't mean the shit didn't suck, but... I've done enough beating myself up."

[seestheworld]

Minako does her best to answer the unasked question. "The non-Wild Card users got their Personas by facing down their own personal Shadows. They also had this thing called the TV World instead of Tartarus - people were actually getting thrown into actual TVs by... I think it was either Despair or Emptiness, or possibly both... and ending up in this weird dimension inside of them. And this TV World was full of Shadows, both of the normal variety and the personal variety. I think the TV world might also have been an Izanami Special, but I'm not sure, so don't quote me on that."

She does notice the lack of Evoker - she's seen him with one enough - but for now, she doesn't comment. "Yeah, same."

There's a sudden commotion from inside her satchel; it sounds like... chirping? "All right, all right," Minako sighs, although she's still smiling. "Don't be so impatient." Once the satchel is opened, something flies out in a blur; that something is, of course, Mothman, who perches in his usual spot on Minako's shoulder, studying their current surroundings with interest. Minako turns back to Shinji, looking slightly sheepish. "I guess he didn't want to be left out."

[fruitknife]

"...Their own personal Shadows? And that's what... you know, that would explain a lot, actually." About the Strega kids. About his own mishap.

Shinji blinks at the sudden onslaught of chirping, and again at - is that Mothman? How the hell? But he can't help smiling a little, all the same. "Hey, buddy. What're you doing here?"

[seestheworld]

"Yeah. And things apparently can go wrong even after you deal with it; backslide enough and you might even be facing your Shadow again." And she doesn't need to tell him how that might go; he can probably figure it out for himself, if he hasn't already.

She can't help but smile as Shinji smiles at Mothman. "The first Jaunt I was here for was... the only way I can describe it is Anime High School, complete with sparkles and sweatdrops and spontaneously generating thematically appropriate flowers and everything. This little guy popped up halfway through and then decided to stick around afterwards. He's got a real mischievous streak - the first thing he ever did was cast Eerie Sound during a horror movie." Mothman chirps cheerfully, seemingly confirming her version of events, or possibly commenting on the weather.

[fruitknife]

"And those of us who never really did it in the first place could be in some real trouble." Well, he's just gonna have to hope that doesn't happen. Losing control of the damn thing once was enough of a nightmare, and even that was never as bad as what the Strega kids had to deal with.

"...Yeah, sounds about right. So he's not - local? That put us in the same boat, or do you have another adorable critter lurking around here somewhere?"

[seestheworld]

"Yeah." She hopes like hell Shinji will be all right.

At his next question, Minako can only grin sheepishly. "Suzaku... doesn't really deal well with the Evoker. And I keep forgetting and using it on the Proctors. So she's taking a break to calm her nerves." Minako really does feel badly for her, but Enemy -> Evoker -> Persona is too well-ingrained in her by now.

[fruitknife]

"Yeah, well, they're basically Shadows, right? Can't say I blame you for fighting 'em how you know best."

[seestheworld]

"I don't think a sparkly habitrail would have helped out here anyway."

[fruitknife]

Shinji laughs, and doesn't even cough afterward. ...Well, not much, anyway. The immediate anger might be over, but he's still living on borrowed time and he damn well knows it.

"Yeah, probably not. These assholes look like they could bust themselves out and keep right on with the questions."

[seestheworld]

That cough worries her.

"You laugh, but I had to confine a rampaging werewolf with one once. Although why it turned out to be a habitrail of all things, I don't know." Maybe it's just that Questing Country seems to thrive on the ridiculous. "It'd probably be easier to just portal them into solid rock or something, but the Evoker's faster."

[fruitknife]

It's not nearly as bad as it was in September, at least?

"Besides, when it's Rock Ekoda? That had to be satisfying."

[seestheworld]

That's not as much of a comfort as Shinji might hope.

"Oh, definitely."