synodiporia_ooc | Test Drive #21

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yup!" He clicks through another couple images, completely missing that 'Big Bird' means something other than a big bird.

"Eww!" Prompto gives Eliot a look but he can't hold it, crumbling into laugher. "Well, someone did say that there's no wrong way to love a chocobo."

"And was that someone fucking chocobos?" Eliot asks, glancing at the pictures. "You take a lot of these?"

"That.. was a mental image I could have done without. Thank you." He shrugs. "And yeah. I'm always snapping pictures. Maybe one day I'll actually get good at it."

"Show me more," Eliot directs, waving peremptorily.

He blinks up at Eliot for a moment with a broader smile. "Really?" Then he shifts to sit closer to the taller man to make it easier to see and starts scrolling through the saved photos. There are a few selfies and what look like your typical road trip photos. Some look like they were taken in the heat of battle for some reason and some? Some are actually incredibly beautiful.

Eliot looks through the photos critically, taking them all in, and judging. His lips purse at the picture of the bikini-top clad blond (Prompto's girlfriend, it looks like, except he's said he 'never'), his head cocks to one side for the big brunet who always seems to have a bared chest, eyes narrow a little bit at the goth kid, and he wonders which one is the king. He's guessing the one who actually wears a suit - though he's certainly not as good looking as Prompto claims. None of them are. Certainly they're attractive (well, except maybe for the goth, he's really not Eliot's type), but not insanely beautiful, at least not compared to the gunner's who's also excessively easy on the eyes.

But some of these are really, really good, and the magician can appreciate that. Not only is the scenery majestic, but the way Prompto has framed the shots plays to all that natural beauty, of his human and non-human subjects. Hmm.

Ugh, though, that snake thing is fucking creepy.

"You're good."

No, he never. Prompto has gotten better at talking with her without turning into a jibbering idiot, and they've become decent acquaintances, but that's as far as he's ever going to get and he knows it. Every so often he'll flick his eyes up at Eliot's face to see how he's reacting to things.

And yeah, he can't blame him with the naga. He still has nightmares about the one in the cave.

The complement lights up his face and he beams up at the magician. "Wow, thanks! I'm hoping one day I can get published. Or have a gallery."

"You'd need a theme, though if this world is anything like mine there'd be an easy show in candid pictures of royalty. Which one is your king?" Eliot asks.

Prompto clicks through and stops on a photo of the young black haired man. "Him. King Noctis Lucis Caelum. One-hundred and fourteenth ruler of Lucis."

"Really?" Eliot raises his eyebrows, looking up at Prompto again dubiously. "You're better looking than he is. I suppose I could see where he'd be popular with 13 year old girls, but he's nowhere near as attractive as you said."

He pauses, then raises an eyebrow, "Have you got a thing for him?"

Eliot can probably hear the gears grinding to a screeching halt in his skull. It's like the magician inserted a cog that turned in the wrong direction and caused a serious malfunction in reality. He cant seem to figure out how to formulate a response to that.

The question at least kicked his train of thought in a different direction, giving it a chance to try and reboot itself. "W-wha? No?" What is happening. "He's my best friend!"

"That's a classic unrequited love story, though. The whole best friend thing. Kind of a boring one, if you ask me, but unfortunately people don't fall in love based on dramatic potential." There's a curiously bitter tone to his words, though his expression doesn't change. "I can't think why else you would assume he was so fabulously good-looking. Unless you're into skinny, broody goth pretty boys. I've never found the whole apathy-with-a-dye-job thing all the appealing, myself."

"I didn't mean it like that. You can think someone's good looking without wanting to jump into their pants." Having the prince as a friend has been nerve wracking enough, not developing those kinds of feelings has been a matter of self preservation. As his throwing his emotions at people he knows could never actually want him back.

"He's the first real friend I ever had, it's never been anything more that."

"Well, you're hotter than he is," Eliot says simply, folding his hands on his sternum as he leans back. "You don't suppose they have cigarettes somewhere around here, do you? I could conjure one, but it's just not the same."

Because god forbid they get deep into holding a torch for your best friend.

Edited 2017-09-27 19:07 (UTC)

Prompto just stares at Eliot like he's an alien from another planet that can't possibly be real. Which, now that he thinks about it, is actually what's going on despite the fact that the other man looks as human as he does. "I-I... Thank you?"

Nearly perpetually redfaced now, he clears his throat and tries to nonchalantly lean back against the couch again, hands folded behind his head. "M-maybe there's a convenient shop hidden behind a bookshelf somewhere?"

"No magic hell space money," Eliot says with a little shrug. "I'll look around in a minute. Resting now."

And with that, he slides down so that his head is pillowed on the couch, and his legs are stretched out over Prompto's lap, his eyes drifting mostly closed.

Test Drive #21

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Ack, lost this!

HOW DARE

It wound up in my spam! /cries

excuses excuses

/whiiiines

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