TEST DRIVE #24

[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 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.

Comments

[likescats]

Well Death recognizes that soul. Also the age...wait?

Either way, your grandfather is quick to locate you. Oh dear, this got quite a lot more complicated.

I DO NOT BELIEVE THEY ARE IMPS BUT THEY ARE CERTAINLY NOT FROM OUR WORLD.

Death meanwhile always looks the same so he might as well be from when you remember. ....and given the timeline thing he's technically from all of those at once but still, you try to focus on one moment. Either way, he looks the same as the last time you saw him.

HELLO, GRANDDAUGHTER.

[inthebone]

She stands, and turns to look at him.

Somehow, Susan's not surprised to find him here. Of course he's here. Wherever here is.

"Hello, Grandfather," she says. "If they're not from our world, where are they from?"

[likescats]

THIS ONE I SUSPECT. OR PERHAPS DRAWN IN BY THE BEINGS THE RUN THIS PLACE FROM ONE OF THE MANY OTHER WORLDS.

[inthebone]

“Drawn in by the what?” Susan says, staring at her grandfather. Unfortunately, as yet Susan hadn’t yet had the explanations for this. Or possibly that should be fortunately, considering what she was likely to think about it when she did. “What beings? What world? Grandfather, where are we?”

[likescats]

WE ARE NOT IN THE SAME UNIVERSE THE DISCWORLD IS.

And Death sounds utterly serious now. And there is a hint of annoyance to his voice. Okay more then a hint. You know it's serious when Death gets angry and the Arcana annoy him.

AS TO THE BEINGS. THEY CALL THEMSELVES ARCANA. LIKE THE CAROC CARDS BACK HOME BUT NOT WITH ALL THE SAME NAMES. WHATEVER THEY ARE, THEY ARE POWERFUL ENOUGH TO TAKE PEOPLE FROM THEIR WORLDS AND BRING THEM TO THIS PLACE. AND THEN SEND THEM TO OTHER WORLDS.

THEY ARE MORE POWERFUL BUT THEY ACT LIKE GODS. THIS IS ALL ONE BIG GAME TO THEM.

[inthebone]

"What?" Susan says, staring. "But...how? That's not possible! You can't just...kidnap people from one universe to another!" Susan pauses, and then adds, with less certainty: "...Can they?"

[likescats]

APPARENTLY THEY CAN. THEY SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO, BUT THEY CAN.

Especially not to him, or her, or the other Death here.

YOU ARE GOING TO DISLIKE THIS PLACE A GREAT DEAL. IT MAKES EVEN LESS SENSE THEN THE THINGS YOU FIND SILLY IN OUR WORLD.

[inthebone]

"But I...I'm not going to be staying here, am I, Grandfather?" Susan asks. She couldn't be stuck here, surely. "I'll be going home. Won't I?"

[likescats]

Oh he really wishes he could send her home. Even if he had to stay. Especially Susan at this age. Instead he looks at her. So there can be no mistaking it for a joke, not that he'd joke about something like this. But he's very serious.

SUSAN. I DO NOT HAVE THE POWER TO LEAVE THIS PLACE. IF I HAD ANY SORT OF POWER OVER THIS PLACE I WOULD HAVE SHUT IT DOWN THE MOMENT I ARRIVED.

THE BEINGS THAT CONTROL THIS PLACE... THEY ARE PLAYING GAMES. WITH PEOPLE AS THE PIECES. HOWEVER THEY ARE POWERFUL ENOUGH THAT NO ONE BROUGHT HERE HAS BEEN ABLE TO STOP THEM.

[inthebone]

"But...you're Death," she says, in a small voice.

They haven't always gotten along. Mostly, in fact, their relationship - at least from what Susan has experienced so far - has been, well, difficult. It's not exactly smooth sailing, after all, when you started off resenting your Grandfather for not preventing your parent's deaths. The Duty hasn't always been something Susan understood. When she's older, it'll be better, although she's not older yet.

But he's still Death. And Susan knows that that means that he shouldn't be something that can be...trapped. Sure, the wizards did it, but they were wizards. The one that had summoned her had let her out, and given her breakfast. She'd never thought the wizard could have kept her there forever.

What kind if being could keep Death trapped forever?!

[likescats]

Oh Susan.... and it's probably best that she doesn't know that He can appear outside the wizard's summoning circles and mostly stays in them to be polite. Because that would just raise even more, how powerful are these people questions.

YES. BUT THERE ARE PEOPLE FROM OTHER UNIVERSES HERE. ONE OF WHICH IS THE DEATH FROM ANOTHER WORLD. AND SHE IS TRAPPED HERE AS WELL. WHATEVER POWER THESE ARCANA HAVE IS APPARENTLY REAL ENOUGH TO TRAP EVEN BEING LIKE US.

[inthebone]

“But I can’t stay here!” Susan protests. “I’ve got...” She pauses. Yes, well, she did have classes tomorrow, but she’d already learned that time was a much more flexible concept in that regard. “I’ve got things I’d rather do than be stuck here! And...what happens if you’re not home?”

[likescats]

THAT I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT MYSELF. I HAVE HOWEVER BEEN HERE FOR ....OVER A MONTH I BELIEVE. TIME IS STRANGE HERE.....THEY TEND TO HAVE ONLY SEVEN DAY WEEKS.

HOWEVER IF TAKING ME OUT OF THE WORLD DID NOT SEND YOU DIRECTLY BACK INTO THE DUTY THEN I BELIEVE TIME MAY NOT BE MOVING PROPERLY BACK HOME WHILE WE ARE HERE.

And there's also the fact that you're a teenager, but he's not going to get into that if he can help it.

[inthebone]

"Only seven?" Susan says. "Why only seven?" Surely eight made much more sense.

"So it's...just like before, then? When I was...filling in?" she says. "That is, I know I'm not filling in. But that when I go back, time won't have passed?" (Because she will be going back, some day. Right?)

[likescats]

I'M NOT SURE. PERHAPS WHOEVER CREATED THEIR WORLDS STOPPED A DAY SHORT.

Eight makes sense if you're from the disc, considering how it's everywhere.

IT SEEMS TO BE THAT WAY AT THE MOMENT BUT ON THE OFF CHANCE THAT IT DOESN'T AND WE DO GO BACK TO FIND IT'S MOVED ON. I SHALL HAVE A WORD WITH THE HISTORY MONKS AND PERHAPS THEY CAN FIX THINGS WITH TIME SO THAT OUR ABSENCES WON'T HAVE CAUSED ANY ...UNWANTED EFFECTS.