synodiporia_ooc | Test Drive #16

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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.

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▶ THE CALL KNOWS WHERE YOU LIVE...

[ Desmond Miles thought he’d about seen it all, honestly-- or, at the very least, felt like he had. End of the world? Check. Wars? Check. The best and worst of humanity? Check and check.

Then there’s this nonsense.

The whole of the world is made of arts and crafts supplies, he’s been given yet another crazy story that he was supposed to somehow believe, pulled from time (again, now only literally) to another world entirely, and he is Not Happy about it. What next? No, seriously, that's something Desmond legitimately wants to know. Because, hey, who cares that he has a disaster to prevent, some key to find? Not the Arcana, apparently. Never mind this weird psychic network thing; something Desmond’s leaving alone for now. He needs a little time to process all of this. What a mess, right?

Well, considering there isn’t much Desmond can do about it right at the moment, that’s where you come in, friend. Finding him either up one of the plastic trees trying to get a good look around or doing his damnedest to get to that barn on the horizon, attempting to look for people of some kind. Now if only it would actually get closer instead of the (seemingly) same distance… ]

▶ TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE PLOT...

[ Or choose your own adventure! ]

"I don't think you're actually gonna get to the barn, dude. Just sayin'."

He can keep trying if he wants, but it's probably only gonna give people free entertainment. At least Claudia hasn't actually made any popcorn. ...So far. She hasn't ruled it out.

It could be worse, honestly. There's a moment-- silent, shoulders tight until he could relax them, easing out of the frown. People (normal people) is at least something of a good sign, right?

Right. Regardless, Desmond shrugs a shoulder and eventually stops in his tracks. "Figured it wa worth a shot, at least."

Desmond Miles is the original determinator and this is just a setback he tells himself. Granted, if Claudia had actual popcorn she better be prepared to share.

Claudia shrugs. "Maybe so, but I'm pretty sure it's just a backdrop. Better to save the energy for other crap."

Of course she'd share the popcorn! Once he stopped earning a popcorn.gif, anyway.

Desmond Miles will never stop earning a popcorn.gif. That's like asking water to be wet.

"Would it be too much to ask for a rain-check on anymore craziness?" Not that Desmond really expects on, letting out a slow breath. "Save it for after New Year's, maybe?

"Sure, if you can figure out when New Year's is. Best we've got are educated guesses."

"Huh," says the girl in the hoodie, with the pink tipped hair, staring up at him. "You know, you look enough like my friend to be his bazillion-times great-grandson... but I'd really like to know how people can inherit scars. This is, like, the second time I've seen it."

Inherit scars? Great-grandson? She's kidding, right? It's certainly enough to have Desmond squinting down at this girl for a short moment. He can't get a good measure of her from up a tree and now it's a debate if he should risk getting out of it.

Desmond compromises to meet the idea halfway, climbing down enough that he can get a better look at her. "You know, most people would just say 'hi'."

Edited 2016-12-17 22:57 (UTC)

"Oh right," the girl says. "I knew I forgot something. I'm Thorne. With an 'e' on the end. Welcome to liminal space, dude."

Closer up, she's pretty obviously Latina and pretty in an ordinary sort of way. Probably in her mid-twenties.

"So, like, what's your name, anyway?"

It's noted-- Desmond's good with remember faces. Not that he's much better, really. Huzzah being Ambiguously Brown? Still, he likes her hair. It's pretty cute!

"Liminal space..." he repeats it more to himself. It's not the first time he's heard it, of course, but it just... it still sounds so weird. Like some RPG gone wrong. Maybe something Rebecca would have secretly dumped into the Animus.

And yet...

The subject of names makes Desmond edgy, just a little. He could give an alias. He has a number of them. But what would it really do for him here? Not a whole lot, he decides, sliding the rest of the way out of the tree and dusting himself off.

"Desmond," he offers, conversationally. "With an 's', not a 'z'." You know, despite how everyone pronounces it.

"Hey," she says, waving up at him. "Nice to meetcha, Desmond. Has anybody explained this place to you yet? Because we're kinda-sorta in a space between worlds."

Malik had already tried getting to the barn and had long since given up after trying the sleek lightcycle currently sitting dark and idle in the field-patch he'd decided to sit and watch everyone else from. There's the charred remains of a now unidentifiable fabric creature not too far away.

He's not wearing the robes that Desmond would recognize though, and has one more arm as well but the rest is definetly Malik. Even if he is wearing cream and crimson.

"You will not reach anywhere worthwhile in this direction." He sighs in greeting. "Though the door to the Workshop is not far if you keep the building to your left side for a while."

Desmond's pretty sure that his own words are coming back to bite him-- asking Lucy just how long until he was going to lose it. Something he's honestly afraid of. Afraid of what the cost could be trying to save everyone; afraid of just how long he'd still be himself. Sure, he's gotten used to strange visions even when he's out of the Animus. Flickers, most of the time. Just at the edges of his vision...

But they never actually talked to him directly and it trigger something. It's slight. The way Desmond tilts his head to give Malik a once over, overly familiar, never mind the poor creature that'd been demolished or the lightcycle. It felt like seeing an old friend after a long absence. It left a lump at the back of his throat.

Am I dreaming? Desmond asks himself. Doesn't voice it. He keeps it to himself, with that scar twisting just so when he frowned (also oddly familiar). What he asks instead: "Workshop?"

"Leonardo's Workshop, it has stayed despite his departure. It is one of the reliably safe places between jaunts and has living quarters for those who need them." Malik explained, rising fluidly from his seat on the ground. The grey metal of his left hand catching the light with the movement, the missing ring finger briefly obvious in the splay of his fingers as he rises.

"I can take you there if you wish." He adds, taking the time to consider Desmond's everything for a long moment. The odd familiarity to his features is both reassuring and unsettling, like looking at a suddenly grown Darim might be.

This is a bad dream, he thought. Too much heavy food before sleep, or maybe the mild sedative for the Animus had been a tad too high-- whatever it was, Desmond was sure he had most certainly not heard that right. Leonardo's Workshop? (The familiarity of those words strung together leaves a weird sort of ache in a way, like a phantom limb.) Malik's face? (If it was even him. He's an Assassin, that much is certain-- or, at least, the missing finger is a sign.) This entire situation? Liminal space was a big enough pill to swallow. This was asking a bit much.

It showed, too. A little, anyways. Desmond's shoulders were slightly tensed and his eyes had narrowed just a tad. Enough to form a slight scowl. He has enough tell-tale signs. Who else wears read and white hoods, right?

"Look, just-- hold on a second," Desmond said, carefully, and gestured in front of him as if he were beckoning Malik to sit back down. "I just got here. It wasn't exactly a great ride to Fun Arts and Crafts Land."

"It is rarely an enjoyment to find yourself somewhere strange." Malik blinked, "I was going to offer you something to eat and as much of an explanation as I can give from the comfort of the Workshop. I have Samoas there."

Because samoas would clearly help everything make more sense, or at least easier to deal with.

"But if you wish to converse here, that is fine as well. This is not the most dangerous or strange Liminal Space has been." He shrugged.

Every time Liminal Space changed, so did Altaïr—back into his white robes from home and, most importantly, his full set of arms. The blades he usually kept in his Hammerspace were back in their sheaths. Leonardo's Workshop and its books were left in favor of walking briskly to the nearest vantage point. His hood tracked back and forth, looking for enemies. He never trusted each new environment the Arcana made. As someone who traversed the land between cities quite often, that farmhouse definitely was not getting any closer. But someone else was. He quickened his step to close the distance between them.

"Do not bother with that," he told the man in the hood and jeans. Twenty-first century, he guessed. "It is another one of their illusions—"

Oh. Oh shit. He thought that the Arcana had finished with bringing in Infiltrators to overlay their minds, but this physical copy was a step up. This had to be the Infiltrator who had been in Newport. The savvy international spy. He knew what he would do if he saw his own face, because for several weeks he had lived his life and carried out his missions. The man had been not too different from himself, except he knew how to use technology.

And guns.

He whisked out a metal cap seemingly out of nowhere and threw it on over his hood too quickly to get a good look at it. Altaïr immediately disappeared, invisible.

"Do not shoot," came his voice from thin air. "I will explain."

Oh, shit was right. Desmond had time enough to turn his head, pulled from the places his thoughts had gone (mostly worry-- how were the others doing and were they okay?), only to find himself staring right into Altaïr's face under the hood before the man vanished entirely. It's enough to make anyone jump. The flickers he gets, they never talk directly to him. They were just memories at the edges of his vision...

Desmond took a step back, left arm slightly extended from his body out of a new habit, eyes narrowing down. He could hear the guy, but as far as he knew, it was thin air again. Don't shoot? With what, exactly? He didn't even have a firearm in the first place. Where would he even put it? Not that Desmond tells Altaïr otherwise. Any advantage in this situation was a good one.

Despite it (or, perhaps, in spite of it), Desmond manages to keep his cool, voice steady. "All right. An explanation would be good."

The accent was different, but he was not familiar enough with modern English to place it. For all he knew, his Infiltrator could be faking it. The Arcana's auto-translation obscured the rest. Desmond, however, might hear the familiar tones of twelfth century Arabic.

"You are not supposed to be here. You are supposed to be safe, at home. Everyone you see here is a prisoner."

His voice came from a different pocket of air each time he spoke. He was moving, never staying in the same spot. Already the helmet he'd stolen, which he had taken to calling the Cap of Invisibility after the myth, was sapping at his stamina, making him feel like he was sprinting despite only walking. He had a time limit within which to prevent a fight. He hoped the man would not think to use his other eyes to find him.

Altaïr could not take any chances. He did not want to die at the hands of a dangerous Infiltrator in the worst possible place. Dying in Liminal Space meant waking up from mortal injuries trapped in a cocoon with no light, no sound, no room to move, and no one to talk to save for the intermittent network messages from the man he'd killed at the same time. He had been trapped for a week, barely sleeping for the pain, despite the healing. No one had known what would happen, because it had been such a long time since someone had done it.

"You must return before the Arcana take a liking to you. How did you arrive? Did you follow someone through their..." he felt foolish saying it, but he said it anyway, "portal?"

Old Arabic, telling him he should be safe at home-- ha, as if that were (or had been) even possible, and Desmond was far from an Infiltrator. He was from from a lot of things, like even thinking to use that second sight in the first place. There's still a lot he has to learn, and right now? Right now, all he wanted was for someone to just sit down, tell him what the hell was going on (or that the story he'd been fed was some kind of joke, maybe) and to just wake the hell up from whatever weird dream this was.

Of course, that wouldn't be happening. Sorry, Altaïr. Desmond's already as much of a prisoner as everyone else.

No going back.

Desmond decided trusting his eyes in the first place wasn't going to help, so he moved to just following the sound of the other Assassin. Listened for his quiet footfalls, the shift of robs, breathing, voice, turned with him anywhere Altaïr may move so that his back was never to him.

"Look, I just got here. I don't know what's going on past whoever these Arcana guys are, what they've told me, and I don't know how I got here." Sounding more than a little irritated, you bet. Can anyone really blame him right now? Give it a few hours and he'd chill, but right now was not the time it'd be happening. "What portal?"

As far as Desmond knew, he'd just... woken up, ready to step out of the Animus for some sleep or a good stretch.

Edited 2016-12-24 04:39 (UTC)

The Infiltrator was tracking his movement, not closely enough to be using his other sight, but well enough to frustrate Altaïr. He knew he might be good enough to do so, but invisibility had been worth a try. What he said was also troubling. It seemed he was not brought here by accident.

"An entrance in the air, from one place to the next. But if you have already met the Arcana... it may not matter.

His voice darkened bleakly at the last, but he kept it level enough to be businesslike. He was used to dealing with dangerous, irritated men; he had grown up with them, even spent a good amount of time being the source of their irritation. He was a different man now.

"What did they say to you?"

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Test Drive #16

desmond miles | assassin's creed

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please excuse the current terrible icons

it's all good!

excellent also woops like 5 billion years later......

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Re: desmond miles | assassin's creed

please excuse my current terrible icons

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