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

Laundry Day! (#62, if that wasn't clear)

[waitatick]

Of all the missions and battles he'd been a part of, Lotor was fairly certain this would rank in the top ten of his long life in terms of strangeness. Not that he could really be bothered about it at the moment, of course, and it would do no good to dwell regardless. His under-armor was more than a bit...lived in, and the opportunity to cleanse it shouldn't be overlooked. He'd disregarded such opportunities in the past, and the memories of the aftermath were rather less than pleasant.

But this was like no cleansing facility he'd ever encountered. And he'd encountered quite a few, on countless worlds and off-planet bases. For all his status as a prince and his father's rather overt classism, Lotor had learned very young how to care for himself, a large part of which meant keeping his armor and the underlayer of breathable, protective fabric underneath both clean and in good repair.

After a quick assessment of the machines in this facility and his determination that they were indeed some manner of cleansing apparatus, Lotor sighed. His armor did have hidden compartments in which a spare set of underthings were stored, but the prospect of simply donning them and reassembling his outer armor atop them was less than enticing. With the fabric layer it was perfectly fine, but without it, comfort was a bit of an impossibility. Then again, Galra armor had never been built for the comfort of its wearer, and he'd faced far worse.

Paying no mind to the doorways leading off to other areas (oh, he was curious, but his objective was clean underarmor, not exploration of random areas) he looked into several of the machines, the barest hint of a smile surfacing as he saw the creatures within. He'd never encountered such things in all his life, and found himself feeling almost giddy at his discovery.

"Forgive my intrusion," he said softly when he opened the door to a creature of what looked to be denim running merrily on the cleansing machine's interior, trying his best not to startle it overmuch, "but I am afraid I must ask your assistance. I am unfamiliar with the technology of your world and would be indebted if you might advise me of its proper use."

It never even occurred to him that his translation software wouldn't relay the message. If this were indeed some plot of the witch's, the least she could do would be to afford him clean undergarments.

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

[teamblue]

--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!]

Susan Sto Helit

[inthebone]

62

Susan - Duchess of Sto Helit and sixteen year-old-girl, currently dressed in the shapeless and unflattering nightgowns of the Quirm College for Young Ladies - stood amoung the rows and rows of...things. ‘Things’ was, she knew, an irritating vague term that did nothing at all to describe what was in front of her. But considering that, at the moment, despite all of Susan’s Education she didn’t have the foggest idea what they were...’Things’ was really the best term Susan had for them at present.

They were large, white boxes. They had circular windows in the front. Inside the windows, small creatures appeared to be spinning, for reasons and motives unknown. And all of it was very loud, the...things....shaking and making an awful lot of noise.

(She thought her Grandfather’s home hadn’t made any sense. But compared to this place, Death’s house was perfectly logical.)

Carefully, she inches towards one of the....things...and crouches down next to it, so that she can peer inside.

“Hello?” she says, tentatively, to the odd creatures running around in there. “Are you imps?” They didn’t look like any imps she’d even seen. But what else could they be? “What are you doing?”