synodiporia_ooc | Test Drive #6

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test drive

Test Drive #6

Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cuts there are three 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 that a forest of bare toplevels! OCs are especially welcome!

Our upcoming app round runs January 1st-7th, after which we’ll have a Victorian Cosmic Horror Jaunt - the madness of the Cthulhu Mythos in rural 1800s England. With that in mind, here are some darker prompts, to catch the feel of how your characters react in troubling times...

Prompt #20 is a flashback to the Cursed Kingdom jaunt, where werewolves hunted, deadly magical creatures roamed, and magical curses and traps struck without warning. Feel free to play an investigator, a werewolf, or simply a citizen of the magical kingdom who’s become unfortunately lost...

Prompt #21 is a glimpse of a Jaunt, either far in the past or sometime in the future. In the mining village of Enterrado, a gang has taken control of the flow of silver into and out of town, and the only folks with the hope of running them out are a vengeful band of vigilantes and outlaws. With half the Travelers brainwashed into believing they belong to one gang or another, friends are ready to kill friends, and it doesn’t seem like the few sane folks remaining can stop the bloodshed...

Prompt #22 is set in Liminal Space, during a time of instability, where buildings are collapsing and re-forming, and the worst fears or greatest desires of Travelers are appearing (and vanishing again) like all-too-solid mirages. What would your character imagine, and what kind of threat would it present… ?

Prompt #20: Dark Forest
The trees are too thick to let in any hint of sunlight, if there is any, but more likely the world is just as dark everywhere else by now. Tendrils of mist wind between the trees - most of them harmless, but every now and then one will latch onto a passerby like a leech and begin to turn pink as it drains blood. In the open hollows between the trees, shallow puddles of brackish green water contain hidden sinkholes, or startling arcane visions of the dead. Slowly, snakelike, briars grow and slither like a cage from tree to tree, enclosing anyone too slow and cautious in a pointed hedge-maze. And somewhere nearby, a wolf howls...

Prompt #21: Wild West
They've taken to calling the tavern at the end of the street the Bastille. Its windows have been shot out and barricaded, and some of the tables inside have been upturned for cover. But still, despite the tension, people come in to drink. For all that the miners and the vigilantes have exchanged fire in the streets, and three men have been shot dead in this very saloon in the last day, it's the closest thing left to neutral territory. Desperate bargains and parleys are discussed, struck, and abandoned. Drinks are downed in quantity, and it's almost true that nobody gives a damn any more who's cheating at poker. If you're looking for an old friend, or one of the mad strangers from out of town, or even for someone to draw down on, you won't get better terms anywhere else than you will in the Bastille. Come for the whiskey, stay for the knife-fights.

Prompt #22: Chaos Given Shape
Liminal Space bends and drips like a Dali painting, one landscape sagging into another, buildings settling, leaking water or dirt from whatever alien environment is above them; walls collapsing only to reveal something new on the other side, like a caterpillar molting into a butterfly. Calm meditation and focus by Travelers seems to stabilize the environment briefly, but if one person exerts too much mental influence, the surroundings begin to resemble the territory inside their heads. Old fears and nightmares, lost loves, desperate desires all form out of the fluidic landscape - and that's enough to break almost anyone's calm. But two people, working together, can sometimes strike a safe equilibrium...

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Adachi hadn't seen Naoto yet, more concerned with following the glimpse he'd seen. When he managed to get up to the path, however, there was nothing; nothing but a dark path shooting straight through the buildings and into nothingness. That... was not something he wanted to look into, not again; too many bad memories of manacle laughter from a normally quiet teen.

He shook his head at that, turning around and finally spotting her. His face broke out in a wide grin, genuinely happy.

"Naoto-kun! Man, I'm happy to see you."

There isn't much that makes Naoto actually look confused. This is probably at the top of the list. Yamato-Takeru goes into a defensive stance for a moment before Naoto waves a hand at him.

"Adachi-san." She looks at him for a moment, eventually speaking. "From your manner towards me, I must assume we are from different universes." Her tone is not necessarily cold, just confused and dry.

Adachi stared at her for a moment, before his expression -- and his posture -- quite literally sunk. The expression on his face said it all: he was already reliving the nightmare it was to obtain Naoto's trust and her social link. Not that he didn't deserve it, between getting her censored from the case and his general shitty attitude.

He finally straightened after a moment, letting out a sigh as he reached into his jacket pocket.

"I'm not even going to ask if you need proof. I know better," he said, pulling out his pair of Midnight Channel glasses and slipping them on.

She raises an eyebrow, then nods. "Things are strange here. You do not seem to be agressive towards me, so I will assume we are from starkly different universes."

A moment's thought, and then she asks, "So what was different in your version of events? I am honestly curious."

"Yeah... very different," Adachi replied, pulling his glasses off again. "For one, I'm not a murderer. Been told enough that I'm not supposed to exist as I am to figure that one out."

He paused to rub at the back of his neck, shuffling his feet; all very Adachi mannerisms, but not the same Adachi she knew.

"Beyond that, I'd need to know how things go on your world."

It's odd to see Adachi-san like this, however, she can understand that different people can come from different backgrounds. She did meet a female version of Senpai earlier after all.

"Clearly I should have realized that before I asked such an open-ended question. I apologise." As strange as it is to apologise to Adachi, Naoto can see the man in front of her is not the man she knew. "If you were not the murderer in the case we both seem to know well, who was?"

"Ah..." Adachi began, trailing off. If he was supposed to be the murderer in other realities, he could figure out who the leader of their team was supposed to be. If the bonds he had formed with them were as strong or stronger in these other realities with the other Seitos... well, it wasn't news anyone would take well.

Then again, it was Naoto. If anyone could see the logic in a situation...

"...Dojima's nephew."

There is a notable wince of emotion before Naoto's detective sensibilities take over. As much as she doesn't necessarily want to be disloyal to her Senpai, she can see it. He is naturally lonely, someone who wants connections but before Inaba did not have many of them.

"It is, admittedly startling, however, I must admit, he does somewhat fit the profile of the sort of person who would do that. It is, in theory, possible that there is a world out there where I am the villain of the story."

A faint grin threatened the corner of Adachi's mouth. "Maybe, though I can't imagine you throwing anyone into the TV."

Was that a jab at her height? Maybe. Still, he sobered quickly enough.

"Sorry... I know it's not the best news to hear."

There's an unimpressed look on Naoto's face for a moment, before she rolls her eyes and shrugs.

"Anyone is capable of awful things. It is choices which makes us who we are. I believe in Senpai, however, if circumstances were different, it would not be outside of possibility."

That smile was coming back to his face, so used to having that expression of hers focused on him.

"You're taking it a lot better than I would... like if I found out Dojima-san did it, I... damn, I don't know what I'd do," he replied, shaking his head. "You know how the kid is like... he pretty much could hide anything he was really feeling. He murdered seven people before we could get our hands on him."

"Yes. I believe, at least in my reality, I am one of the few people who can see through his emotions. However, he definitely is quite good at covering up what he is feeling." She sighs. "Well, I think I am consoling myself with the fact that it was not my reality." A pause. "I cannot imagine Dojima-san committing crime in any reality, however." She winces. "That is just too far out of the realm of possibility."

Adachi chuckled at that. "Well, we agree on something!"

He approached her then, not really minding that her Persona was still out. He'd seen him so many times that it didn't bother him in the slightest that he was there as he offered her his hand.

"Well, guess we'll be working together here, hunh?"

There's a tiny smirk on Naoto's face as she nods. "It must be a day of note, Adachi-san, if we're agreeing." She's obviously teasing him.

Yamato-Takeru looks slightly bored by the entire conversation, working through sword forms behind Naoto.

Without hesitation, she steps forward and takes his hand. "It will be slightly odd at first, I must admit, however, I hope we can work together well."

"It took awhile, but we do on my world. I think we will here," he replied, giving her hand a squeeze.

"I am, as Yosuke-senpai said once, an acquired taste." She rolls her eyes.

It took Adachi a moment to realize who "Yosuke" was supposed to be, used to hearing him either by "Hanamura" or "Hana-chan"... at least he was actually used to hearing him mentioned in past tense. He flinched, letting her hand go.

"Well... I'd more say stubborn, but that works too," he said, forcing a smile on his face.

"Well, I am that as well..." She trails off, giving him an odd look. "What is it?" And then it hits her. "Yosuke-senpai was one of the victims?"

Well, that's... interesting. She was not very close with him, but the thought of him dead was not a happy thought.

It was obvious he didn't want to say it, from the moment Adachi flinched.

"...the second, yeah," he said softly.

"Oh." Naoto blinks for a few moments, staring into space blankly.

As much as she was attempting to be cool about it, the thought of the Senpai she knew and cared for actually killing Yosuke was hitting her hard.

Adachi shifted on his feet. "...he was... really empty," he said softly. "I'm glad to know that he's not really supposed to be that way, but..."

It didn't save anyone he killed on his world, in the end... or him, for that matter.

"I do not know about supposed to be, but he is not that way in my world, no."

Naoto takes a breath, then shrugs. "As I said before, it is choices that shape our worlds. I cannot speak for the choices of others, as much as they might stun me to hear."

"That's a very brave way of looking at it," Adachi replied. "I'm... still trying to make sense of it all myself, and I was there."

"I am not certain about brave. Disconnected is more likely." Naoto shrugs. "There are days that I am still attempting to make sense of what I experienced at home. Answers never come easily, especially when things are as intense as that case was."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Adachi replied, rubbing at his neck. "How... how bad was it on your world?"

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