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

[papacerberus]

The Arcana brought us here to be their pieces in their game with each other. We can fight and argue among ourselves, but what purpose would it serve in getting us all through this game and the aftermath intact? That makes us allies of circumstance.

[Lupa tilts his head and smiles softly.] I'm not invulnerable. I know someone else who said something like that, but I still trust him to be able to kill me if necessary, even without the magic and skills he's learned here. Strategy is much more powerful than brute force, magical or otherwise.

[At the question Lupa nods.]

Several now, although I'm one of the only ones who's experienced memories of other lives before coming here.

[pionero]

Arcana, like those cards you use for fortune telling. [ This is certainly new. Cal just shakes his head at it all. He had just gotten his head around the Templars, Assassins, and genetic memories. Now this? It is enough to make you wonder what the hell reality even is. ] Allies by circumstance doesn't stop someone from pulling a knife on you in the middle of the night.

[ It hadn't in prison anyways. ] Not that I don't disagree with you, but it's probably the smarter strategy not to put all your knowledge on the table when you first meet someone. Especially who you're affiliated with directly. [ Paranoid? Probably. ]

...How did you do it?

[papacerberus]

[This time Lupa grins, although it's a bit grim.]

And when they discover that I don't sleep alone, and moreover that I wake up fighting when I am disturbed by someone who isn't Tribe, I'll have some apologies to make after they've recovered.

[Lupa shrugs.] And yet, revealing some things about me has helped you become less tense. I know well the desire to have the defense of knowledge against people I don't know, and can't trust yet.

[Then confusion.] ...How did I do what, exactly?

[pionero]

You must have a pretty big tribe then. Or, very few people know where you sleep. [ This conversation is certainly grim. ]

I wouldn't say I'm less tense. [ His caution is still through the roof. He's just less willing to flick his wrist and let that blade sing out. ] And what is it that makes you feel like you can trust someone.

Live the memories of other peoples lives. [ There is a curiousness in his voice, but also a far amount of wariness. All he can think is the Animus. ]

[papacerberus]

[Lupa's expression immediately falls, grief visible behind the unsteady neutral facade he tries to keep in place.]

We were hundreds strong... Here, even including the Embryon, barely more than a dozen. [He shakes his head slightly.] But apparently it's rude to enter another's sleeping place, so it hasn't been an issue yet.

[Then Lupa's gaze flicks to Cal's hand. He did Malik's dungeon and is attuned to reading movements besides; he knows the signs of being ready to extend a hidden blade.]

For a soldier, not actively having to fight the urge to draw your weapon is fairly relaxed. I'll count it as a small victory.

[And... not answering the trust question, because the answer is pretty much 'Tribe.']

I didn't really do anything? The Arcana merge our data with that of our other lives and we remember that afterwards. And Greg of the Lokapala's memories were already in me. The Atma virus just allowed them to come to the surface to be remembered.

[pionero]

[ He glances down. Memories of the pain Aguilar de Nerha felt at losing the entire Brotherhood spring to mind. ]

Sorry to hear. [ And, he really he is. ] Usually, intrusion in any form is seen as rude.

[ Cal notices the gaze drift to his hand. He stills his hand completely. The man either expects something to happen, or presumes it is, and Cal isn't ready to confirm either of those. He has to keep his normal knee jerk reactions to a minimum now. ]

You're confident in that assumption. [ However, the answer he receives isn't exactly what he was expecting. It sounds exactly like the Animus. Which just makes his blood boil and his skin crawl. Willingly entering it didn't remove the fact that living the lives of someone else changed him forever. ] The Atma Virus. So, you get sick from living all these other memories?

[papacerberus]

I was created to be a "perfect" soldier. If there is one thing that I know well, it's weapons, war, and other combat situations.

[Lupa looks at Cal for a long moment after the question, and then nods minutely.]

It's not a virus in the way that the cause of a cold is. It manifests as an electromagnetic wave pattern. It's easier to show than explain. I will attempt both.

[He takes a breath in, and then releases it slowly. First the black mark on his stomach is limned in a red glow, then the glow spreads to the entire mark. Then the light races outward in a pattern that looks almost exactly like the lines and patterns on circuits. It stops before it reaches his ribs and fully around his sides and then recedes. The black mark is just a black mark again, but if the light show did anything, it probably highlighted how the design looks like three monstrous maws.]

That is the brand that the Atma Virus leaves on our bodies. The Karma Society that created it, and us, claims that the Atma awakens and brings out the full potential hidden inside our core data. Avatars, according to them, and they call us Avatar Tuners. It's also corrupted. We awaken into gods and powerful beings--demons.

And for those of us used as test subjects in the Junkyard, we also awakened to emotions, and the memories of people who died in the world outside. We share our core data with those people--reincarnation.

[pionero]

How well did it turn out to be the "perfect soldier"?

[ Thankfully, he is able to follow the technical terms thanks to the time spent in Abstergo. Not that it has really prepared him for what he sees. His eyes widen slightly and that puts him back on alert. Especially at the imagery of the maws. ]

And being this "Avatar" makes it so you can live the memories of other people? [ It sounds just like another form of genetic memory and the Animus. ] And you become a god or a demon. That's not much of a trade off.

[papacerberus]

[Lupa shrugs]

I can't be what I'm not, and I always will be a soldier first. So I can't really tell you how well or badly it turned out from the standpoint of "perfecting" soldiers. But thousands died for the Karma Society's experiment, so from the standpoint that values life and humanity, it was a miserable failure.

[Then Lupa shakes his head slightly.]

It did awaken those memories, but I don't think we were meant to experience memories of our past lives. We were meant to be downloaded into microchips, so that other soldiers could draw on our skills and experience to fight with. The war we were fighting, and the prize we were promised were all lies in order to weed out all but the very best and strongest.

[Lupa snorts at the last bit, but his smile is more of a grimace.]

I hadn't even described the price of the Atma yet.

[pionero]

[ All Cal does is give a huff of laughter. You can't be something you aren't. Maybe that means he was always destined to be an Assassin. ]

The idea of memories being stolen and put in a database never sat well with me. [ Abstergo takes them and makes them into games. ]

All of your life savings thrown into the cause?

[papacerberus]

We all rebelled against the Temple and its Law at the end, even the Brutes.

[Lupa is counting the technicality of Varin wanting to go back to his past life as rebelling there. But the question makes him still. For a long moment, he doesn't move, hardly even appearing to breathe.]

The price is Hunger. For MAG, specifically. It's found in trace amounts in every living thing, and most abundantly in those that can experience grief and suffering. We must consume it in great amounts, or go Mad, and attack everything without discrimination or ceasing until we're killed.

[Lupa doesn't feel the need to mention that when one effectively turns into a god, indiscriminately trying to murder everything turns out badly for everybody else.]

[pionero]

Anarchy?

[ Although, he figures they had something to replace the system that they just pulled down. Hopefully at least. It really wasn't any of his business, was it? ]

So far it sounds normal.

[ He hasn't equated that living things also means people. ]

[papacerberus]

We maintained our command structure within our Tribes, although we abandoned the Law that required members of a Tribe that had lost its Leader to join and follow the leadership of the victorious Tribe. It didn't matter, in the end. Angel destroyed everything.

[There's a deep sorrow in his voice when he says that, and Lupa doesn't bother to hide it. On the other hand, for all that he's blaming one person for mass destruction, he doesn't sound angry at this "Angel" at all.]

MAG is only found in amounts large enough hold back the Hunger in the bodies of humans and demons.

[Again, Lupa goes incredibly still, even holding his breath.]

[pionero]

Angel? Is that a friend of yours?

[ Despite the seemingly uninterested questions, Cal is listening. Perhaps not as closely as he should be - until he says the bit about human bodies. That makes his head turn completely to look at him. ]

You eat dead people. [ Because it better be that than eating living people. Even though it sends a shiver through him. Now he is suddenly on edge and ready to pull out his blade again. ]

[papacerberus]

Angel was the technical director for the Karma Society. She wished to turn the world to chaos where the strong devoured the week, in opposition to the leader, who wished to create a society based on order that decided who was worthy of a falsely peaceful life as Tuners under her control, and who was unworthy and slated for... becoming food.

Angel started with us in the Junkyard, as test subjects. She destroyed the Junkyard to force Sera to obey her.

[The way Lupa's expression twists in distaste, he doesn't like either option, but he dislikes the "orderly" one more. He isn't surprised at Cal's response, and holds carefully still, hands away from his weapons.]

I must in order to maintain my mind and self-control. The only way to end Madness once it fully sets in is death. Death is denied to us here, so if I didn't, I would go Mad again and again, attacking and devouring even my friends and comrades. I went Mad once and never wish to be that kind of danger to anyone again, before even considering how much pain and grief it would put my comrades through.