Test Drive #21

[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 than 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 September 16th–26th. Our next Jaunt will be Night Falls on Yensid, a fantasy Jaunt taking place in a formerly magic kingdom whose history went awry when other Travelers failed to properly complete a previous Jaunt there, one of the many forgotten Jaunts from before Synodiporia properly began as a Dreamwidth game. There will be no Walkabout run alongside this Jaunt.

Prompt #55 takes place in a punishment Liminal Space for a Jaunt that the Travelers failed to solve.
Prompt #56 takes place during the first Jaunt the Travelers made to the Kingdom of Yensid, during its Golden Age.

#55

It’s difficult to make out the shape of this Liminal Space, at first, thanks to the decor; it’s somehow both pitch black and eye-searingly bright at the same time, the pulsing rainbow patterns cutting through the darkness making it all but impossible to properly judge distance. The truly persistent, or those who manage to abuse Liminal ‘down is relative’ gravity without hitting a pitfall for long enough, may eventually determine that it seems to be a giant egg. More so than many iterations of Liminal Space, it’s completely closed off.

Unfortunately, that’s going to be very difficult indeed to figure out. It’s not just the impossible coloration that makes navigation difficult; there’s a terrible storm raging, and the whipping winds and cracking thunder make it all too easy to stumble into a pitfall by accident. And those pitfalls don’t exactly want to let go of anyone they ensnare, either. Errant Travelers may find themselves supporting an impossibly heavy overhead weight, or pushing a boulder eternally uphill, or trying to catch an ever-lowering drink of water, or pouring water into a tub riddled with gaping cracks, or any number of other seemingly endless, pointless tasks. They can be escaped with help from another Traveler, or one person can be released from the task when another stumbles in.

The only respite from this - the colors, the storm, the punishments - is in the form of Travelers’ created spaces, but those are as difficult to get to right now as everything else. Good luck.

#56

It's a chaotic time for the Kingdom of Yensid. The Amulet of Yensid, that fabled magical artifact that must be rejoined each lunar year so that the kingdom's three races can continue their peaceful magical coexistence, has gone missing. Two-thirds of it, the humans' fragment and the Forest Folk's fragment, are nowhere to be found. The capital city is just as bustling as ever despite this, with reptilian Stonefolk flitting from place to place in their usual parkour-like fashion, small animal-like Forest Folk hawking various potions and crafts, and humans making all sorts of deals.

There's an undercurrent of urgency to the day's business. Small groups of three or four of various species move through the city with enchanted mirrors, dowsing rods, fishing lures, and all other manner of magical items designed to aid in the act of finding something, but so far, no one's turned up anything solid yet. A few of the stronger magicked items are leading their owners out towards the foreboding Birdlime Mountains, but that's the most promising lead anyone has.

Comments

2/2

[runs]

Eventually, that dies down into a lament of how he is ruined, RUINED HE TELLS YOU, and she turns her attention back to Reynard, studying him closely. No mask, uses Glamour, controls his environment in a way that reminds her a bit of a sixth world mage... Now the good question is if he's native or not. She hasn't seen him around before, but then she doesn't know anyone in Liminal and if he arrived with the last batch...

She's just staring for the moment.

Re: 2/2

[exactwords]

Blame this world for the lack of Seeming, honestly. Adding to her confusion is that this is what he really looks like; he just pretends to be human most of the time.

He mistakes the appraising look and does another bow. "Reynard ap Fiona, at your service, miss. Lovely place we've found ourselves. Fantastic I dare say."

[runs]

"Yeah." She pauses, and then adds: "You look like Disney's Robin Hood, so you fit in really well."

That's probably a compliment.

[exactwords]

"A role model for us all," he says, grinning. "So. You are a stranger in a strange land, too. Nice to know I'm not the only one."

He crouches down to her level. "I'd almost say you're a fellow pooka, but that's an assumption, and as you've noted my lineage is far more vulpine than asinine."

[runs]

So that answers that one.

"...What's a pooka?"

She's pretty sure she hasn't heard that one yet. Sure, sometimes she doesn't pay attention when people start to lecture, so she can't be entirely sure, but...

[exactwords]

"A kith that has launched a thousand furry artists," Reynard says, without a hint of shame. "Loyal, dependable, honest in our way, modest as well."

He may be laying it on a bit.

"When Winter comes, may David forbid it, the pooka will be lighting candles and cracking jokes about the damn cold, keeping warm in fur and thick skin. Seriously, we have a lot of seelie sealies, although to be fair I think a couple are seelie sealie selkies."

Reynard no.

[runs]

"...I don't think kith means the same to you as it means to me." Gil or Jules would probably know better, but that just doesn't sound right. And that last sentence made zero sense to her.

[exactwords]

Heaven forfend that a Pooka say something that makes zero sense. His ears droop, though.

"Not much of a surprise you didn't know what a pooka was, then," he says. "Funny, though, you've most of the hallmarks of one," he adds, with a dramatic sweep of his arm so that it points to Kitty's tail. "Perhaps a little more straightforward with your verbiage than most furfaces I have known, as far as I know."

He turns towards the forest, and it's Forest Folk. "Yet alone among our beastly compatriots here, we know of our dear old Uncle Walt. Curious!"

[runs]

So he can see it. But he doesn't have a mask. And he uses Glamour.

"Because we're travellers, and they are not.

And I'm a Changeling." She shifts, stretching long and then sitting up properly, swinging her legs the moment she's seated. "Our Kiths are just subsets of Seemings and that's kinda what type you are.

...I don't think Beasts usually talk complicated." She certainly doesn't, unless she really wants to get around saying something. She's more prone to plain old lies.

[exactwords]

That... is an interesting statement for him to process. Once he does he shakes his head.

"Different sort of Changeling than I am, then," he says. "You're not putting me on? Putting me on would be the Pooka thing to do, but... Drat. And I thought I'd found one of my own."

He sighs, and sits down. "I don't suppose you've run into any trolls or boggans? Redcaps or saytrs? Kobalt Knockers or Sluagh Sidhe? Or even just the regular kind of sidhe, I'm not terribly picky."

[runs]

"I might be, but then I still might not hide what you want me to be hiding, if I were." She grins at him, and then shrugs.

"I have run into satyrs and trolls and we ran into a Bean Sidhe once, but they weren't Changelings, and when Simon was a Changeling, he wasn't a troll, he was an Ogre.

...What's a Changeling to you?" She leans forward a bit, looking at him curiously. He's using Glamour, so his world can't be that different from Lilofee's.

[exactwords]

"A creature of the Dreaming," he says. "A shard of faerie that's too fragile in a world of Autumn cold and deciduous dreams to survive without a human body and soul to protect it. If there are paths to Arcadia and the true Fae, common wisdom holds those trods are closed. We make due with what glamour humanity has left - help keep it alive, when we can."

He snorts. "A tad difficult with the vampires wanting two-legged sheep in their cities instead of creative, critically thinking adults, but we get by and by. And the Courts are not without allies."

[runs]

She just-

what.

That's... that's different all right. "Be glad they're closed." Well, it's good for the people on that side of the divide, anyway.

Still.

That.

What.

She doesn't even know how to react to most of that.

[exactwords]

He grimaces. "We've had a taste of the true fae, with the return of the Sidhe," he says. "The reviews were mixed, at best."

His experience with asshole sidhe nobles throwing around Majesty seems inadequate to explain her distress, though, and he knows it.

"I imagine that if I were in your world, seeking Arcadia would be much more foolhardy than it would be in mine," he offers.

[breakaleginhalf]

Meanwhile, while that conversation is going on, another Changeling has wandered into the scene, drawn by the screams of rage and the hot mess of wrathful Glamour it spewed. Gil just sort of stares at the stall owner before he dismisses him completely and looks around instead.

"Kitty." Where does she keep disappearing to, Christ she's fast. And he hasn't spotted her or her companion atop the wall just yet.

[exactwords]

That's worth another eyebrow raise, particularly as this chimera - well, mishmash, anyway - doesn't seem to be attracting undue attention from the human, draconian and furry fellows in the area.

"Friend of yours?" he asks Kitty.

[runs]

It's a delicious mess, and if she wasn't so very full already... But she was distracted, anyway. Even more now, the despairing shopkeeper no more than background radiation.

She doesn't get to respond to Reynard, because when she opens her mouth to comment on the uses of heading back deep into the Hedge and other court preferences, Gil shows up, and both their attention is drawn to him.

"Yes." She watches her brodad, waiting for him to turn around and spot them, and then opts for throwing a pebble his way instead of waving. It'll bounce harmlessly against his shoulder, though her aim is still true. "He's like me." Well, kind of, but the same kind of Changeling, anyway.

[breakaleginhalf]

The rock gets his attention immediately, and he turns and looks up with one eyebrow raised. "Ugh, finally. Don't run off like that, you're impossible to find."

He moves closer, eyeing off the... Beast? sitting next to her somewhat warily. "You make a friend there?"

[exactwords]

"I hope so," he says mildly. "In any case I'd like to say I was keeping her out of trouble."

He'd like to, but that's a blatant lie.

"Whatever sent me here decided I looked like one of the locals. Well, one of the near locals from the woods."

[runs]

"We were keeping out of trouble." Which isn't a lie. The trouble are over there, and they're here.

[breakaleginhalf]

”Yeah, you sure look local." Can you hear the disbelieving tone in his voice, Reynard? Because he doesn't believe you for a hot second. He stares a moment longer, very obviously taking in the foxy Changeling in his entirety, before he looks back at Kitty. "Throwing rocks at people is so not staying out of trouble. Don't go starting shit, Kitty."

[runs]

"I threw a pebble, and only at you."

Subject change. "I don't think he has a mask. He's from a really weird place. But there's people around who look like Beasts so he's not that weird."

[exactwords]

"An interesting theory. Tell me - in more banal realities, do you two come down with a dreadful case of humanity? Or vampirism, I suppose, can't say as I like that prospect. Or stranger still - imagine my heading out to a chanbara sort of place and tripping on far too many of my own tails."

He will not comment on his normal human Seeming.

[breakaleginhalf]

"Depends on the reality. Sometimes it's humans, sometimes it's aliens. But mostly I find I tend to stay exactly the same."

What the hell is a chanbara. Whatever. "You don't... look like what I'd normally expect. From us." There's a curious tilt to his head, as he folds his arms. "What's good, Robin Hood?"

[exactwords]

"We'll find out later, alligator," he says... then jerks a thumb at Gil. "I assume there's a bit of gator there. Just a tad."

His ears flick towards Kitty. "I don't think we're quite the same sort of Arcadian refugee, no. But we're similar, that can't be denied either." He considers his glassteel weapon, his shield of living wood. "Similar enough that I mistook her for my own Kith."