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

[teamblue]

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.

[vorenado]

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.

[teamblue]

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."

[vorenado]

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."

[teamblue]

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.

[vorenado]

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.

[teamblue]

"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.