thecrossinglogs | TEST DRIVE #2

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TEST DRIVE #2

TDM #2

Welcome to The Desert, wayward souls.
It's good to see you again.

The TDM is game canon and will be active FEB—APR. For further details about the setting, please reference our current setting page. All the information there is fair game for this TDM.

arrival

— BENEATH THE RIVER ( NEW CHARACTERS ONLY )
CW: claustrophobia, being buried alive
If your journey is starting here, you begin as all others have, and all others will: in The River.

You awake in the dark and the damp, with pressure all around you. In this case, however, it isn't water that surrounds you— but earth. Specifically, it is mud made from the sand of the desert and the standing water of the sparkling white salt flat that The River has become, and it behaves like quicksand. It has you here, and it doesn't want to let go.

You aren't in any direct danger; you may or may not notice that you don't need to breathe down here (or at all). But that may be difficult to appreciate in the moment: immediately on waking, you are seized by what was perhaps your last memory— or, at least, the somatic feeling of it. Panic, terror, pain; or (depending on the circumstances) maybe peace, or relief. It is the moment of your death as told by your body's visceral, emotional response, and it won't stop until you pull yourself out of the mud.

You are close to the surface. Even a bit of lucky thrashing might be enough for you to break through the sludge, and crack the shell of salt above. But The River will not release you easily; it will continue to suck you back down until you are able to fully pry yourself free— or someone else is able to lend you a hand.

— BEYOND THE RIVER ( EXISTING CHARACTERS ONLY )
If you arrived here from the Cavern, you'll find that the cave you came from opens up onto a rocky cliff face, not unlike the one you may have found yourself settled in before The Crossing. From here you can see the sprawl of the Desert ahead of you: the Oasis tucked against the base of the cliffs, the endless dunes, and the wide, white expanse of The River — though it hardly looks like one now.

There is no city to be found among these cliffs, though. They are steep and rocky, with dry, loose sand making finding and keeping traction difficult. There is a narrow, winding path to the Oasis below, but it will take time to hike, and the sun is already hot and oppressive above you.

Theoretically, there's a more direct route... if you're feeling bold. The cliffs are covered in jutting striations (as if, say, carved by a massive river, or maybe a River) that make halfway decent handholds and footholds for anyone hoping to climb their way down instead.

Just don't change your mind too much. If you turn back, you may find that the path behind has become impassable or now leads somewhere else entirely. You don't ever see it happening, but it's almost as if the cliffs are rearranging themselves whenever your back is turned.

shelter from the storm

— THE OASIS
The Oasis, as well as the rest of the surrounding Desert, is bustling with life. (Or do plants and animals have a Journey they need to complete, too?) It's a green, if not lush, patch surrounding a small lake of fresh water, partially shielded by the arms of the cliffs from the winds blowing across the dunes.

There are creatures besides you making their homes here: from small, skittering mammals to circling scavengers. If you look closely, though, you'll find it's a bit of a mishmash, as if an ecosystem appeared rather than developed... and, depending on where you're from, some of it might even be recognizable to you.

Those of you that came from the Cavern might appreciate the return of natural light, though you might be disappointed to discover that day and night don't always arrive at the cadences you might expect them to... In fact, they don't seem to follow any recognizable or even trackable pattern at all. Some noon suns stretch on forever; some sunsets speed run straight into dry, cold night.

If that were all the unpredictability the Desert had to offer, it might be tolerable enough... but the weather proves to be just as erratic. One day is clear and bright, with wide-open skies; the next brings dust clouds and lightning storms rolling in from the dunes. (And when today might be half as long as yesterday, those swings add up.)

Luckily for all of you, there have evidently been others here before you, just like in the Cavern. There is a collection of shelters lining the Oasis, no more than huts designed to keep everyone within as cool as possible. There's less space than there was in the Subterranean City, but that means some things are easier to find... The huts are decorated just like the city was before it, as if in layers with the odd familiar trinket from your home stashed in a drawer or under a mattress.

shifting sands

— THE DUNES
The Ferryman is holding vigil at The River, as they always are. They have positioned themselves (and their Lantern) so that their Light casts over the Oasis— but that aura can only cast so far.

The Lantern's Light might not be quite so obvious here as it was down in the Cavern, drowned out as it is by the desert sun, but you can still feel when you approach the edge of its protection, the way the sense of comfort and safety wanes. Beyond it are the rolling dunes of the Desert, where wraiths gather in great numbers.

Those who have been paying close attention will recognize that these are not the same wraiths you encountered in the Cavern. Or, at least, none of the wraiths you encountered in the Cavern are represented here.

These wraiths are not the violent, wailing beasts encountered by some during The Crossing. They are just the same as the wraiths originally found in the Cavern: silent, insubstantial, and always watching. The ones who have found the Oasis prowl the edge of the boundary; the others wander the dunes as if lost. Or, perhaps, searching.

If you, yourself, wander the dunes, you'll find them at best difficult to navigate— or, at worst, impossible. You may be swallowed by a sand storm, or lose sight of your landmarks when descending into a valley between the dunes. You might find yourself somewhere you never expected to be... Or, you might just need to send a message out to the others for help finding your way home.

code

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Climate... climate...

[This, he says with a degree of unfamiliarity; like he recognizes the word in theory, but needs to place it to determine how it could relate to his experiences.]

Well... I suppose 'temperate' suits where I was last, too. Hills... trees... surprisingly little snow. But that was only very recently! Mostly, we were underground. Which... I understand many humans don't remember, or didn't even know, on account of being from other worlds...?

[And this is a little more skeptical and uncertain, as he heard the claims out but to some degree still isn't sure that his rescuer from the mud wasn't pranking him. Why would different worlds share an afterlife situation, after all? What if people met friends who didn't know them anymore, or even stranger, themselves...?]

Don't remember..? Where I'm from, humans generally start life overground and only go underground after death. Weren't you a human too, at some point?

[He looks like a human skeleton!]

Oh, no, not at all. But don't worry! It's a common mistake. I am a skeleton, of the sort of people who sealed in some caves centuries ago.

[He considers, the nearly-human shape of his skull shifting briefly to something perturbed. The more he runs into humans who - rather than just thinking those old stories were only stories - haven't even heard of them? The more his grasp on his practiced explanation slips. Waking in the mud as if he had been some buried dead human really isn't helping.]

Well, not me personally. I wasn't around yet. But other people were! People who aren't human, and never were, and are called... monsters?

[Said carefully, because apparently some humans react badly to the word alone.]

Monsters...

[That does put a frown on her face, but at least she's not freaking out! Now that she looks at him more closely, she does register the expressiveness of his face... a regular skull couldn't do that, could it?]

So you were born like this?

[She imagines a tiny baby skeleton... but then she recalls the logistics usually involved in birth and procreation, and her frown steepens as her confusion increases.]

[The relatively simple frown is a victory, in his books, for this circumstance. He'll take it and even brighten up a little, despite the increasing frowniness.]

Yes, to the best of my knowledge! Not that I remember it, even if I was technically there... But my earliest memories are of being a younger skeleton.

[A 'babybones', one could even say, if one were teasing about it. The alliteration added a certain something that was lacking when other people called each other babies over one thing or another, he feels.]

Did you need to eat, in life?

[At this point, both her initial fright and the regretful sympathy that followed have given way to sheer curiosity. There truly are strange worlds out there! Who'd have thought that there'd be monsters that look like skeletons?]

But of course! Everybody needs to eat! I... think.

[There's some cause to secondguess himself on this. Some monsters, is it really eating or something closer to osmosis-style absorption? That's probably just linguistic semantics as far as this conversation is concerned. As far as he knows, everyone he knows had to eat something, in some way or another. And the topic of eating is another thing to brag about.]

And I was even taking cooking lessons, not so long ago, to improve upon my culinary prowess. Who knows what wonders of taste I would have unleashed soon?

["Everybody needs to eat"... except titans, which eat humans out of compulsion rather than hunger and throw their mangled bodies back up later. But she puts that upsetting knowledge aside for the moment, because everything her new acquaintance says brings up more questions.]

But wouldn't food just...

[She attempts a pantomime, but finds that she has to say it out loud.]

Wouldn't it just fall right out of you?

[Granted, whatever he's wearing may or may not conceal potential anatomical differences between his kind and a run-of-the-mill skeleton!]

[For somebody without lungs, he's very good at heaving a long-suffering sigh.]

I can see why you would think that... You're not the first person to ask...

[Another sigh. This is another of those questions he really should have gotten on with coming up with a spiel about, but he just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Maybe he should make the time now, with all the time he can't spend on a proper internet.]

But no. Not if I'm the one eating, and I'm paying any attention. My brother, however... He does that on purpose sometimes. A joke, he says, but I call it a mess.

[She snorts a little, half amused, half bewildered... but the sentiment fades into wistfulness.]

Well, eating won't be a concern anymore, much as all other necessities of life.

[A breeze passes through, a welcome relief from the still heat, and she holds her sunhat in place.]

Make yourself at home as much as you can. There's a mere dozen of us here, so you'll know everybody.

[And they, certainly, will know him. No one could overlook a living skeleton!]

So few people...

[It's said softly and a little astonished. Only a dozen or so, maybe more if anyone else wakes up in the mud and gets helped to the surface by someone or another... Very few compared to the number of people dying at any given point, if there's a lot of different worlds all flowing to the same river. None of their things from home, so no television or books or internet. No need to eat anymore, since they're dead...]

And I heard we don't need to sleep, either. I guess that leaves a lot of time for trading, uh, life stories?

[Of course, depending on how secretive, self-conscious, or scared they are, the actual telling of life stories could be a slow process. Maybe those tangling feelings are the things people are supposed to be giving up actually? A skeleton can hope.]

[For better or worse,a good number of them are very secretive, self-conscious and/or scared! Alas, the first Crossing drove plenty of closely guarded secrets out into the open already... only for those who harboured them to lose all recollection of them. It's quite the peculiar situation.

Frieda let's out another laugh that's half amused, half strained.]

I suppose so! For what it's worth, I still pretend to sleep sometimes. I just lie down in an empty shelter and close my eyes for a while.

[Otherwise, wouldn't she feel like going insane? She wonders if not sleeping anymore will ever start feeling normal.]

Still sleeping even when people really don't need to sleep at all... I guess some habits are hard to break.

[He might have said this with more disdain, dismay, or at least disappointment a few weeks ago. The notion of spending the entire night abed, the hours whirling away with nothing but weird dreams and maybe a sore neck to show for it? Wasteful, he would have said! Now...

Well, it's not the underground, with clear limited boundaries to their lives - or, well, their existence. But it is kind of a captivity, apparently with a brief but regular danger to pass through, towards some incredible unknown final destination that might just be fading away forever after all. He... supposes... he can be the bigger skeleton, and not blame them for wanting to just take breaks from thinking about it.

But surely there are other ways?]

Maybe we have to work our ways up. Instead of real life stories... We could make stories up! Like radio shows, without the radio.

Radio shows? What would those be?

[Alas, there's no such thing as radios in the Walls. They're lucky to have the printing press.

Are they storytelling performances? I suppose that could be fun!

[His eyesockets manage to blink. Truly, these are the questions that drive home that, as much as underground captivity had its downsides, at least they had an internet. Television. And, generally, electronic entertainment of various forms. Some of these worlds hadn't even had the benefits of human trash to sift through...?]

...Yes, you've hit the nail on the head! That's exactly right. Storytelling performances, that suit even the most indoorsy of listeners. We'll have to settle for in-person, but telling entertaining lies is more fun than telling hard truths anyway.

You should talk to Kel! He likes to organise meetings and activities.

[Whether he really likes it or just took the task upon himself out of a sense of duty, who knows, but he's the best person she can think of to join forces with for this endeavour. Clearly, she herself has no such ambitions...]

Organizing meetings and activities... Without the benefits of phones or clocks to help keep people on task? What incredible administrative power.

[Truly, he's in awe of the person he's making up in his mind with this brief description. Without phone calls to keep changing plans up to date, or clocks for people to check about when to gather? He knows plenty of people who would get bored and wander off in the dunes to do something else.

...Well, the area of the oasis isn't too enormous. They could probably shout across it, if the wind isn't winding too much.]

I'll keep a lookout for this Kel!

[Granted, the utter lack of a schedule - even just a sleep schedule - keeps most of them from ever having clashing plans! If someone calls a meeting, it's almost certainly the most exciting thing going on. Frieda nods animatedly, happy at the prospect of Kel and the skeletal newcomer being able to bounce ideas off each other.]

He wears orange and has brown hair.

[Only in a place with a population of a dozen (and no clothing shops) would that be an adequate description! (Granted, Kel may have asked the Ferryman for a replacement for his torn outfit at this point, but even so, there are only so many brunets around!)]

[True, and yet, some of the recent arrivals to the desert have managed to find themselves wandering away from the oasis at such times to miss meetings. The skeleton was out wandering the River in search of cracks and movement in the mud, and missed a whole discussion about the upcoming toll. One just never knows!]

Orange, and brown... What color-focused markers! He should stand out from the sand.

[Admittedly, some of the stone might be brown or orange. But the salt across the River gets spread through the sands and adds to the brightness of it all.]

And I assume he's human...

[Alas... at least, part of the conversations are recorded in the linked notebooks and electric devices! As for Kel, he just so happens to be in the centre of the group's current height chart and lack features as remarkable as Daniil's snakeskin suit (which, granted, he stopped wearing for the time being) or Thara's pointy eats, but Frieda at least supplies one additional marker, lifting her hands up to about halfway down her neck.]

His hair is about this long - and he's human, yes! Most of us are.

[This fellow and Thara may just be the only members of the non-human club at this rate...]

Edited 2025-04-01 00:05 (UTC)

[He'll certainly be reading up on the various records, partly to get a better idea of their situation, but maybe mostly for the sake of something to read at all. For now, he nods understanding and thanks at the indication of hair length, and hums thoughtfully.]

How strange! I wonder why that might be, with 'different worlds' and everything...

[It would be one thing if all the dead were from his own world. One thing that brief time on the surface taught him was just how many humans there were across it, and how few monsters really. The dozen-or-so humans vs seemingly just him would make sense. But if there's other worlds... Ones where maybe monsters and humans never went to war, or worlds with neither but some other sorts of alien life... Well, it's strange. Statistically unlikely! Something to puzzle over later.]

It seems like we're quite ubiquitous in the multiverse!

[Look at her, who comes from a country without even electricity, having adopted such a concept...]

Will you be alright looking for Kel on your own? Not to be rude, but I think none of us have seen your kind before... if anyone else gets startled, please try to not hold it against them.

[Granted, the lenient friendliness with which he took her initial awkardness in stride already proved that he can handle it!]

Yes, that was never in question! I, the Great--

[He trails off with a frown, uneasy and frustrated, before he barrels on.]

I mean... I'm too great to let myself take that kind of thing personally! Even if I've heard it's a great shock, for some humans.

[Not just heard - the first couple days were full of surprises all around. But he has to admit to himself, in the privacy of his own head, that he hadn't faced those conversations alone, and that does make a difference to his eagerness to keep meeting new faces.]

But, there isn't a great rush. Maybe I'll let rumors of my incredible visage spread, before I introduce myself to many more people...

[Oh, this is sad to see... he needs a name, and fast! She's confident that with the help of the more whimsical fellow souls, those who don't see such things through a dutiful, meaningful, heavy lense like she does, he soon will have one he can proudly declare.]

You're very kind to be so understanding. For what it's worth, I'll tell anyone I come across!

["Not to alarm you, but there's a skeleton monster in our encampment"... no, she'll need to workshop that.]

I am very kind... And you're kind to offer!!

[Truly, who can recognize kindness better than their fellow kind people? He grins brightly at her, before going a little thoughtful.]

Maybe I'll take some time to explore the sands, in the meantime... I hear there's sometimes things to find, even if the Ferryman is helping people out of the river.

[That, and it offers an explanation where he's been getting off to. Whether she workshops that explanation more, or offers it as is... Some of them might find that blunt approach the simplest and kindest. He wouldn't mind a more complimentary description getting handed out - adding a well-placed adjective like "cool," for instance.]

TEST DRIVE #2

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