synodiporia_ooc | TEST DRIVE #24

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TEST DRIVE #24

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 April 21-28. Our next Jaunt will be Digital Frontier: Legacy Mode, a return visit to the Grid, where investigation of the secrets held by a new computer system will be investigated. The jaunt will be accompanied by the walkabout Northern Lights, where a ski resort in Finland is subject to some unusual happenings during the longest night of the year.

Prompt #62 is a Liminal Space that offers a chance to get clean, if you can work with its quirks.
Prompt #63 gives players a taste of the exploration setup used on the Grid previously.

#62

Liminal Space is a laundromat - the rows of washers and dryers stretch into the distance, occasionally punctuated by the doors to Travelers’ private created spaces. If you’ve been looking for a chance to wash your clothes, you can even do that; there are stacks of odd gold coins marked with five-pointed stars around, apparently of a perfect size to slot into the machines.

Of course, first you have to free a machine of its resident hamsters.

They’re not true animals - instead, they’re made of cloth. One might be flannel, another denim, and so on. They’re all running endlessly in the washer and dryers like they’re hamster wheels, and the detergent and fabric softener dispensers in the Liminal Laundromat look more like a drip-feed water bottle you’d leave upended in an actual hamster’s cage.

#63

(For a quick rundown of the Grid’s various factions, see here. Automata are not on this short list, since their functions changed significantly after the last jaunt and we haven’t formally sorted out how yet.)

It took quite a bit of scanning, but the Defenders in this system are now satisfied that the Programs visiting from the Grid to help with their data reclamation didn’t come bearing new and unusual strains of corruption. Their wariness isn’t uncalled for, given that Programs come in one of two colors, and the Grid’s visitors apparently have another three to come to grips with.

With the conclusion of the quarantine protocol, all Programs are now free to explore the area and see what they can find. The task goes faster in groups of Programs, and a fair amount of work is required before a sector is considered fully processed. You might find nothing, or you might find something - or you might find danger, in the form of corrupted data.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

--Option A--

Laundromats aren't very exciting.

Boring was good, really, after the last while in the Junkyard, but after a few hours of watching fabric critters run around inside washing machines and gingerly piecing together how the machines are supposed to work and what all this stuff was for specifically, Drake's thoroughly ready to do Something Else.

Which means he's begun knocking on doors.

Having a sunglasses-bedecked pink haired man in blue and grey body armor knock on one's door with an assault rifle slung over one shoulder generally isn't really a good thing, but he doesn't seem particularly hostile. Probably it's just the utter monotony of Liminal Laundry and not looking to actively cause problems. Right?

--Option B--

After testing some doorknobs and knocking on some doors, Drake's wandered back to the machines and their cloth rodent population. This was a good half hour ago.

Coming upon him now means finding one of those enormous industrial sized dryers normally reserved for king sized quilts and the like with an inordinate amount of blue cloth hamsters in it. Every single one, is some shade of blue. And he has another carefully cradled in his hand, working on opening the door and not letting any escape in the doing. Most are happy to keep running around and around and around, but some, like any enterprising hamster, are hellbent on going anywhere but where they should be.

On one hand he really is being careful, handling the things with all the gingerness one might use on a real small fragile rodent, but on the other there's a good thirty in there and he's got another one. Can cloth hamsters be overcrowded?

[Will match format; there's a tiny bit of info up on main page for appearance and a brief overview. Want to do something else? Let me know, wildcards are great!]

Edited 2018-04-22 03:06 (UTC)

Unlike the newcomer, Gale has learned to suppress the 'leak' of his powers in the time since he's been here. For more than one reason, many things have happened in the past two years, but it has the added benefit of letting him fly under the radar on occasion. Not causing a volatile reaction to another asura when they're in unfamiliar territory is helpful.

Gale is no longer dressed in his Junkyard armor, though his atma is still visible on his leg. He still dresses in shades of grey though, orange streaks across the shoulders of his shirt. Oddly enough, there's a white tattoo on his hand as well.

"Are you collecting them?" He asks curiously, deciding on attempting a casual approach rather than their traditional military. They are no longer in the Junkyard. The same rules no longer apply.

With no active ill intent on the part of the Embryon bishop, would there be something for another demon to pick up on? It doesn't mask footsteps, but there's nothing in that sound to suggest to Drake an effort at stealth, so he continues to work on getting the little cloth creature into the dryer without hurting it. 'Hurting' it. Did it even have the ability to BE hurt?

"Sorting." The answer's prompt, even as he finally manages to get it in there, AND prevent any others from escaping, and close the door of the dryer with a satisfying click. "There's enough big machines." And when he's done with blue, then he's going to work on white, then yellow and on down the line because he had absolutely nothing better to do with his time.

Only once he's sure his rodent prize is secure does he bother to turn and actually address the person who spoke to him; nothing was setting off any instinctive alarm bells so the delay should be fine - except gray and orange. Grey, orange, and the black mark of another avatar tuner, but no armor, no attack when there could have been one. The only Embryon member he can recognize on sight is the silver haired leader, and this isn't it. He's rather good at maintaining control of his expression, none of his surprise and instant wariness shows visibly. The Embryon were always trouble.

But he also doesn't draw the rifle slung across his shoulders. This isn't the Junkyard, and the rules of Liminal weren't the rules he knew best. "... If you want the orange ones you better get there before I do." He's going to stuff all those ones in a dryer too given the opportunity. It's .. not quite a challenge.

Gale takes in much just by looking. One doesn't need an array of various mental powers to be observant. The Brute soldier hasn't shown any outward aggression, In fact he's making an effort not to hurt the creature, regardless of the fact that it may not technically even be alive.

He doesn't have much interest in the creatures himself, outside of the fact that they are soft should he decide to touch or hold one. The Junkyard didn't have anything in the way of things that could be considered soft, or gentle for that matter. Physical contact was only made in relation to pain; hurting someone, being hurt, or trying to heal what's been hurt.

"What are you going to do with them once they are sorted?" As Bishop, it had always been his job to ask the hard questions of his leader, to be deliberately and often frustratingly contrary for the sake of discovering loopholes and flaws in a plan or line of thinking. While there are very few here that get the full brunt of this behavior, it still shows in how he tries to help people.

The Colonel wouldn't look well on hurting harmless little things for fun. The Brutes had standards. If it had been intelligent and an enemy that might be a different matter, but hamsters did not qualify.

"Nothing. Watch them a bit maybe." He hadn't thought that far ahead yet. Maybe something more interesting would turn up if he waited!

.. No, probably not. This was just an enormous cleaning facility. There's silence then for a long moment, and though the sunglasses keep where his gaze is exactly a mystery there's really no mistaking that the taller man is being scrutinized.

Gale is still an unknown. He could be a high ranked Embryon member, he could be a nothing, but without his other form's sense of smell Drake can't tell if he'd ever even crossed the man's path before. "I know at least some of the rules here, which means I'm not going to kill you. But I'm not going to be playing twenty-questions with anyone from the Embryon either."

Whether or not he could back up the statement on killing Gale is certainly questionable, but there was a line in the sand to be drawn, and it was better made sooner than later before anyone in team orange got the impression Drake was easy to pump for information. "Just so we're clear."

Gale is not afraid of the newcomer and it shows. He's taken on things far more powerful than anything the Junkyard had to offer, so he doesn't tend to feel threatened often. Unlike most, he's not a prideful person. It's more a matter of factual evidence for him than pride, though it has this unfortunate side effect of making him seem arrogant at times. He's only recently learned to tone it back.

"I'm not interested in your Tribe's secrets." Which is a very strange thing to hear himself say. The former Bishop is standing at ease, a hand on his hips and shoulders relaxed. He's not carrying an assault rifle or any other weapon on him. They both know that doesn't exactly matter anymore, but it's the principle of the thing.

"But I would like to ask you something."

This is considered with narrowed eyes. He could be civil, that was easy enough, and so far he'd been practically a saint as far as his tribe was concerned. He knew the occasional Brute had no issue with even offering advice to enemies to make it more interesting later, but Drake wasn't given to making things 'more interesting later', that got people killed.

And he knew the Embryon weren't as harmless as they looked. The Colonel hated their leader way too much for that.

"You can ask anything you like. I won't guarantee answers."

But if Gale has questions he better keep up because Drake turns and heads for another washing machine to peek inside, apparently actually intending to keep up his hunt for blue cloth hamsters.

Gale is patient. He knows this soldier probably doesn't know the truth, or at least not all of it. Varion could have told them anything, or nothing at all. The answer given wasn't unexpected and he nods, moving to keep at least along side of the other man so he doesn't feel like he's being stalked.

"What is the last thing you remember?" A seemingly innocuous question, but an important one.

"Sitting down to a lunch of somewhat charbroiled purple flavored rations with mystery sauce and equally charbroiled meat." That is a thoroughly unhelpful answer, and it's certain that Drake knows it. "I was thinking to myself to never ask Cloudy to cook again, because enthusiasm does not replace skill, and then I was here. Minus my lunch."

Well no. There was that bit with talking to an Arcana in there but frankly that's private and he's unwilling to discuss it. The lunch is easy enough to discuss, but it did leave an impression. Enthusiasm really didn't make up for much. But when all there was was leftover kills, rations, and mysterious sauces found in suspicious places, making do was how it went.

This room doesn't have a door. Instead Drake stands in front of a large boulder that is split down the middle, opening up a tunnel big enough to let something the size of a cow pass through. A thin stream of water seems to appear out of nowhere in Liminal and runs into the tunnel, and if Drake follows it, he'll step out onto a rocky platform on the side of a small rocky mountain. The water pools here, forming a small mountain pond before it falls over the side of the rock and into another pool further down. A path leads into the valley below, and all around them...

There is wilderness.

Untouched, vaguely central European wilderness. In the distance some mountains that resemble the Pyrenees can be seen.

This has never happened before. Doors lead to the outside, yes, but they always lead to buildings and cities or ruins, not ... unmachined, natural stone. Not little streams of water.

For a time, Drake stands in the doorway, glancing back briefly to the laundromat and its denim hamsters, then back to a sound and sight he hasn't seen in ... in ... It eludes him. Too long. Another life, perhaps. There is a long moment of indecision before he steps through, taking the time to close the door behind him. Had this been an obvious room, he would call out but this doesn't seem to be a room. It seems to be something else. Something that brings to mind campfires and songs late into the night.

There's no stealth in the Brutes officer's step, just the caution of being sure there's good footing as he leaves the tunnel and follows the water onto a platform that shows a view of green and blue and distant rising shapes of things that might be mountains.

Nothing like this exists in the Junkyard. These were ... trees, the word was trees. A jungle -- no. Forest. And 'Ponds' and 'streams'.

The assault rifle is unshouldered and set down on the bare stone in a clatter of metal, Drake settling by it after a moment in a graceless thump to watch the view in overwhelmed silence. He has no idea that these rooms in liminal belong to someone else, and that he is absolutely trespassing. But if he did know.. maybe he'd take the risk anyway, for this place.

"Holy shit."

There are all the sounds in the air that one would expect from a place like this - birds, and the wind, and sometimes the bark or roar or other sound of mammals in the distance. A pleasant wind carries cool spring air across the the rocks, but the sun is warm, the rock is warm from the day's sunlight, and as long as Drake stays among the rocks and trees, it is warm enough to comfortably sit here for some time for any kind of being.

Far above, a bird of prey circles over the valley.

After a while, there's some commotion - excited barking, and then a wolf cub in pursuit of a white dove breaks through the undergrowth and emerges onto the clearing by the pond below. The dove absconds, taking flight across the pond and vanishing into the forest on the other side. This makes the cub almost tumble into the water - she stops just in time to avoid that fate and barks in annoyance at the bird that got away.

A moment later, a fully grown wolf appears from the same direction and makes to trot over to the cub. He stops dead in his tracks, however, and looks up at where Drake is sitting.

He's pretty sure that he doesn't know this scent that the wind carries towards him....

Edited 2018-04-23 18:30 (UTC)

Some of the people in the Junkyard could remember a life before that hell, and the Brutes had a bit of an advantage there, it was actively encouraged to try to remember. But Drake's life had been long, and the fragments he had were scattered and disconnected, and nothing quite fit with this wilderness that was before him. He knew the words, but no images went with it.

The sun is warm and welcoming, not hateful black. The sky blue, not acid yellow.

Were he not better in control of himself, he'd probably weep. If Nirvana ever existed, this had to be closer to it than even the real world.

As it is, he stays right where he is for the time being, watching and listening and working on coming to terms with something so utterly FOREIGN as leaves, but then there's barking below, a bright sound that instantly draws attention, but the little shape doesn't look threatening, isn't ACTING like a threat, so he just watches it chase the bird with interest. Those aren't demons, he's pretty sure. 'Wildlife' is the word he wants but can't think of. The.. puppy? Was probably harmless, but the adult version that follows could probably be a threat if it wanted to be, it was a more impressive creature.

Drake has a gun, and given that thing's lack of armor he's sure that's enough protection, but he doesn't pick it up. They belonged here, he was just visiting. If he stayed still, maybe he'd just be ignored, even if he is wearing military-esque fatigues and armor with bold splashes of blue all over it.

The scent on the wind isn't exactly a pleasant one. It has the tang of reptile, the musk of a venomous coiled thing in the leaves more than what one would expect of an armed gun-toting man. But said man isn't doing anything much just yet, this is all much too fascinating. Slowly, he reaches into one of his many pockets and withdraws a small device, removing his sunglasses and clipping it into place over his eyes instead, a small cord threaded back to somewhere in his hair with a faint click.

He needs pictures of all this.

The larger wolf remains where he is for a long time, staring. Or rather, scenting.

Comparing. He definitely doesn't know this scent, has never smelled it before around Liminal. But he knows a similar scent - two actually, but only one of them intimately. Gale.

This guy has distinct similarities with Gale. Same world and same species, he would reckon, at the least, perhaps even from the same area. Not close enough to be closer than that, he doesn't think.

Huh.

He lets the man do his thing without any sign of hostility, though he is watching him carefully. Going by what he knows about Gale, there should be no imminent danger here to himself or Saffron, so there is no reason to intercept him directly. Saffron trots over towards him and follows his look, and then there are two wolves watching Drake.

If Drake remembered anything of wolves, or for that matter even dogs, he'd understand that this steady watchfulness might not be ordinary. But he doesn't, and as far as he knows this is ordinary for any animal. He's watching them, why shouldn't they watch him?

Besides, their stillness is making it much easier to get a nice picture or two for data collection (and bragging and proof) purposes even though he's not entirely sure of what category he should be filing them under. Nothing in his training or experience among the Brutes really told him what to do when surrounded by nature and being eyed by a pair of canines.

It also means he doesn't understand that he shouldn't approach wild animals. After making certain he has a decent record, the device is put away and sunglasses back on (finally he understands the PURPOSE of sunglasses, there weren't lights bright enough for that in the Junkyard usually), and then he levers himself to his feet and begins looking for an easy way down. He could just jump, it's not that far really, but loud noises and fast movements would reasonably set anyone off.

It seems the wolves won't have to do any intercepting, he seems intent on doing it himself, with all the utter guileless fearlessness of a child, not an adult.

There is a path down, secure and wide enough for Drake to walk it down the hillside. It ends near the pond, but leads him away from it at first, off to the side and around a few rocks and trees.

When he arrives at the pond, the adult wolf is still there, but the cub is gone. Or at least out of sight - Laughs-at-the-Storm doesn't think that this man will be a danger for Saffron, but he's not going to chance much. Safety before curiosity.

Up close, the sense of similarity with Gale is stronger, and Laughs slowly trots towards the man to have an even closer look.

"Hello," he greets him - and it does indeed sound like speech to Drake, though close attention to the wolf while he's talking will reveal that Laughs doesn't strictly make enough sounds to convey that much. Liminal autotranslate also takes into account all other parts of wolf language when conveying sense, and translates body language, scents, and so on also.

And down he goes, interested too in the smaller plants than full grown trees, or how natural rocks look or what a flower even is. He's not going to linger too long on them simply because they're not moving and the wolves could move, he can always backtrack to check out a bit of green later.

The little one, Drake notes immediately, has gone missing. He's not in the right shape to put a better sense of smell to work and try to determine where she went, but that was alright. Surely too small to be a threat. Maybe he was the threat instead! Except the adult is still here and doesn't seem to be acting in ways he associates with canine hostility thanks to the occasional dog or wolf-leaning asura - no teeth, no hackles.

And then it says something and Drake slams to an abrupt halt, visibly surprised. He'd been assuming til now he was dealing with an animal, like those cloth hamsters, incapable of communication and uninterested in trying, thus fine to approach and do as he pleased. Suddenly he has to reassess both his own actions and the actions the wolves have taken - if one can talk the other probably can too, and this is NOT Brutes territory. If push came to shove, he's an invader in another predator's space.

"Ah," is the supremely clever response as he frantically works on figuring out whether or not anything he knows applies to this situation, "Hello." The strangeness of the werewolf's communication doesn't occur to him, speech for demons didn't even always require a mouth, but this isn't a species he recognizes at all. "...Is this your tribe's territory? I didn't see any markers, but I'm not looking to trespass."

Well. He's polite enough about it; Laughs is an unknown, but intelligent, and likely not from another Junkyard group, so there's really no need to start trouble on purpose.

Laughs-at-the-Storm definitely approves of Drake's reaction to him, and the following words. Respect for another predator's territory is an excellent notion - understanding territory, and understanding the nature of predators, is rare enough among the residents of Liminal. It works together with the positive notions that he has regarding Drake by virtue of him seeming to be the same species as Gale and Lupa, and his tone is guarded, cautious and attentive, but unmistakably friendly and approving when he responds.

"It is."

In as far as he has a tribe here. ...Actually, phrasing it like that brings up an interesting question. Would Griffon mind the visitors? Probably. Not this specific one, he's sure of that, considering the sense of Wyld that his whole species projects, but all the human and homid visitors... But then, it's just territory. There is no Caern here.

So it should be fine. Or at least not as much of a problem with the humans. Griffon isn't completely unreasonable; the circumstances must be taken into consideration. Strategic tolerance.

"But you are welcome."

There is a very specific you here. Not everyone is strictly welcome. Dragons and other animal companions are, his pack and some people that he considers family are. Everyone else is just tolerated.

"I assume my tribe's markers are different from yours'." Likely more focused on visual things than scent.

It's sensible as far as Drake is concerned. In the Junkyard EVERY bit of territory was marked as someone's, usually in bold colors and lights, and being caught in the wrong place alone would ordinarily be a death sentence. With the addition of their demons, the awareness of territoriality seemed to be ... heightened. Sometimes ignored, sometimes running into trouble was the specific goal, but here? There was no war on here. There were no advantages to going looking for trouble, and potentially a lot of drawbacks.

Drake was alone and there could be many wolves in the trees. The Colonel didn't tolerate stupid soldiers.

".. I'm glad. This is a ... an amazing place." He'll take that welcome, even if it's for him alone. It meant he could enjoy the feeling of the sun's warmth on his skin a little while longer, a thing that simply never happens under the grey skies of 'home'.

There's a faint snort at the thought of different markers. That's probably very true. "We usually rely on sight. Lights. Colors. I can see that wouldn't work well here." Except for the Vanguards, who favored green and thus would likely claim the entire natural world was their space because of it. "Other ways are ... ah. Unreliable. You never know if someone will be able to smell a scent trail, or even have a nose. If others of my tribe arrive, I will be certain they ask permission to visit."

But they would inevitably want to see. Sunlight, trees, ponds. Everything here was a mindbogglingly unfamiliar masterpiece. The DOOR at least could be remembered and recognized, even if scent marks inside would likely be missed.

"You never know if another will be able to see colours, either. Or consider them markers."

He decides that Drake is likely not a danger - not right now, not under these circumstances, not to him, anyway - and sits his butt down, tilting his head to the side in question.

"You've never seen something like this?" He wouldn't be surprised. Going by what he knows about the other two of Drake's kind.

That draws a brief, toothless smile. It's taking a bit of effort to weigh the furry shape and guess what might be seen as a friendly gesture versus one that might be hostile. Showing teeth in a smile had once been friendly even to the Brutes, but that changed when fangs happened.. "In that place, all could recognize them, and lived or died based on their ability to mind them. It is the way things are." There's a slight shrug. Many things just were the way they were, and Drake didn't spend a lot of time wondering why. "Expecting it to be elsewhere the same way would be silly. Especially when there's small rodents running around the cleaning machines."

His first taste of liminal: exceedingly bizarre.

When Laughs sits, it seems appropriate that he does too simply so he's not looming about. The stone here is nearly as good as the warm stone above, he has no complaints, and plunks down as gracelessly as he had before.

"I .. might have." His brow furrows, gaze tracking out across the open space to the mountains far distant. "But those memories were ... a lifetime ago." Literally, in this case. "Nothing in this lifetime compares. The colors, the sounds. What little I can smell. This light." He turns one hand palm-up to the sunlight, thoughtful. "It's warm, not hateful. It feels ..."

Articulating things of that nature seem to be a bit of a struggle, as after a few moments he gives up with another bit of a shrug. "A little closer to 'Nirvana' than any world I've known. You're lucky it's yours."

"It isn't mine. It just is."

Yes, he created it, and he controls this space - and it is nothing but a weak copy of true wilderness, in his mind. It seems alive and right, it breathes and lives like true wilderness does because he knows it so intimately, because he doesn't truly try to control it past how he has to.

But, of course - it is not true wilderness, exactly because it isn't just. Because he made it, because it only is because of him. Making it permanent at least helped a little bit with that, and introducing the bunnies and having others around the place helped, too.

Nirvana means nothing to him, but he thinks he understands anyway. A memory of a space closer to Wyld than Weaver or Wyrm resonating somewhere in the soul of a creature of the Wyld.

"You lived before?"

Something in what the wolf says draws a puzzled look from Drake, who doesn't say anything immediately, instead trying to work it out for himself.

This effort fails, after several long moments.

"Of course. ...Doesn't everybody?"

This comes with the thought that maybe not everyone did. That was somehow more disturbing than the sun's warmth was pleasant.

It's easier for him to grasp since back where he's from, some select few people are reborn while the vast majority aren't, and he knows some people who are. So he's had that discussion a good long while ago from the other side.

"Most people here don't. In Liminal, those who die come back to life, but that's different, they come back as they were and the process is traumatic.

So there's no point in killing for other reasons than food." He doesn't know how much Drake has been told already, so he feels like that should be said. "And there is no reason to kill for food because maybe half of everyone here can just create food items, so if you need food just ask me or someone else who can."

A resurrection that while traumatic, puts people back the way they are instead of beginning a new life? Drake looks thoughtful, but doesn't say anything on it immediately. That didn't remove the point, that made death a viable tool in far more situations.

"If I can't even help in catching it and killing it, I don't deserve to eat it." He's not going to be very interested in 'created food items', he can't hunt them. "And if killing it is only a temporary inconvenience for it, then there's even less of a problem doing it than usual." That's not how he's supposed to be taking that information, but he sounds a little bit relieved, whatever way he IS taking it.

Of course in turn it means he's likely to get eaten at some point in the future too, but he'd deal with that and the connected trauma when the time came. Karma spins on. "There has always been worse things than death, it seems now even more than usual. That's good, something nice to tell my Leader when he arrives." Now death can be a proper education tool and not just an object lesson for other people!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TEST DRIVE #24

Drake | Digital Devil Saga OC (tw: may contain cannibalism mentions)

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a lot of text, a lot of doin' nothin'

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