The Crossing Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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thecrossinglogs2024-11-09 11:57 am
thecrossingmods) wrote in thecrossinglogs2024-11-09 11:57 am
TEST DRIVE #1
TDM # 1
Welcome to The Cavern, wayward souls.
It's good to see you again.
The TDM is game canon and will be active NOV—JAN. For further details about the setting, please reference our current setting page. All the information there is fair game for this TDM.
It's good to see you again.
The TDM is game canon and will be active NOV—JAN. For further details about the setting, please reference our current setting page. All the information there is fair game for this TDM.
arrival
— THE RIVER
The River is wide, black, and deep. It is so deep, and so dark, and so cold, that when you wake deep beneath its surface you may, for a moment, think that this is all there is. An abyss, a vacuum, a void. Nothingness in all directions.
It might even be what you expected, coming from wherever you were Before. The blackness, at least. Perhaps the cold. Maybe even the pain: all-encompassing, all-consuming. If a mortal wound brought you here, it might feel like it's being torn open anew, over and over again.
The current is simply slow, however, not non-existent. And you can swim. (Or, even if you can't, that's more of a procedural problem than anything: you don't need to breathe down here, it seems. Perhaps you don't need to breathe anymore at all.)
It hurts. It hurts so much. But if you can just concentrate long enough to pull yourself up onto the rocky shoreline, or even enough to get your head above the surface of the water, that pain will dissipate, almost as if it was never there at all. When you have the presence of mind to examine yourself, you'll find that you are actually hale and whole, with your body exactly as you expect it to be.
There are others in your same predicament. Maybe they can help you; maybe you can help them. You're all in this together, after all.
— THE CAVERN
Once you do finally pull yourself free from The River, you'll find that there was never any abyss at all. On the contrary, there's quite a lot to see — though your eyes might need a minute or two to adjust.
The Cavern yawns around you, the main chamber alone large enough to house a small town, and the ceiling too high to make out through the darkness. There's some light: you can see the eerie green glow of bioluminescent plants lining far-away walls, and tracing the underside of the land bridge that extends over The River. There are pinpricks up high on the cliffs above The River that are organized enough to suggest intervention, or at least planning.
There's something else, too — something orders of magnitude brighter than anything else in the chamber. Its glow is dim on this side of The River, and it's difficult to discern where exactly the light is coming from, just that it isn't coming from anywhere outside the cave. You feel as though you might be safer if you got closer, but maybe that's just because any light at all is comforting in a situation like this. If nothing else, you'd probably find whoever is holding it.
Either way, whether you follow the light or don't, there's plenty of time to be alone with your thoughts. Or to share them, if you're so inclined, with the others that are here with you, emerging one by one from the depths of The River.
Perhaps you've already accepted what's happened to you. Perhaps you need time, and it will take some discussion with the others to arrive at the one thing you all have in common. Perhaps even after that it's still too much, or you still aren't ready. However you get there, though, there's no way around it: you are dead.
If you have questions, The Ferryman is available to answer them.
KEEP TO THE LIGHT
— THE LANTERN
The source of the light is a lantern — specifically, it is The Ferryman's Lantern, an ornate metal lamp hanging from the end of a tall wooden staff. It's large, weathered from use, and despite how improbably far its glow casts — from the land bridge over The River, where The Ferryman is holding their vigil, up the cliffs above and into the subterranean city's many tunnels — it isn't so bright that it can't be comfortably looked at. The Lantern has an unmistakable aura of comfort and safety (maybe because of, or maybe in addition to, the light it casts), no matter how close or far you are from it.
It's only at the very far edges of the glow, where the last bits of light are swallowed by the darkness, that this sense of safety begins to fray. It's here that you can see them, prowling the boundary: wisps of something that you can barely see. Many somethings, in fact.
They can't cross into the light, it seems. All they can do is wait for you to leave it.
— THE SUBTERRANEAN CITY
Maybe you'd rather stay for now, though. There's plenty still to explore within The Lantern's shroud: to start with, the network of tunnels you can see built into the cliffs above The River.
The biggest hurdle is figuring out how to get into the city. You can spy the entrances, marked by dimly glowing torches set into the open mouths of tunnels, but they're so high up! Surely you're not meant to climb?
Well, yes and no. Some investigation reveals a series of wood-plank catwalks leading up to the lowest tunnel entrances, but it's a long climb. If you're feeling impatient (and brave), there's also a system of pulleys, ziplines, and simple rope elevators connecting the higher levels to the lower ones. The ropes have clearly been here a while, but they're probably safe, right? What's the worst that could happen, you die all over again?
(Too soon? We get it.)
There's plenty to see once you reach the city itself, even if there isn't much in way of a population. (Until now, at least!) The lamps and torches lining the walls are packed with the same bioluminescent plantlife that can be found elsewhere in the cavern, so there's no risk of them spontaneously going out. There are signs placed strategically throughout the tunnel system to point you toward major landmarks, using only simple iconography.
The city itself certainly appears lived in, even if it's currently empty; in fact, if you pay close attention to the signage and the decor, there appear to be layers of activity not unlike the rings of a very old tree. Older tapestries covered with newer ones with entirely different patterns; boxes of radically different table trinkets carefully stored in apartment closets, to make room for new ones on a shelf; evidence of the stone market stalls having multiple different usages, many of them apparently in sequence.
Some of those tapestries or trinkets might even be familiar to you, like they came from a culture of your homeworld. Strange, though, since you didn't arrive with anything similar on you. Where could they possibly have come from?
VENTURE IN THE DARK
— THE WRAITHS
The Cavern is big, and The Ferryman's Lantern only reaches so far. If you want to explore, you'll need to brave the darkness— and whatever else might be waiting out there for you.
You'll have some light, at least, even if it isn't much: the luminescent plants grow throughout the cave system, including its winding tunnels and cramped smaller chambers. As for whatever else might be lurking out there, well... without The Lantern, there's not much you can do to keep them at bay.
The Ferryman calls them "wraiths", if you were curious enough to ask beforehand. They're more what you might typically expect from the idea of a ghost: pale and insubstantial, like mist struggling to take and keep a shape.
And they certainly do have shapes; those shapes are just incomplete, sometimes blurry, like a pencil drawing that has smudged and faded over time. They have faces that seem to have been stretched too long or too wide; they have eyes with no color, unblinking, always staring back; some of them have mouths that never close, while others have no mouths at all; some of them have hands with wispy tendrils of grasping fingers; others' limbs seem to have lost their shape entirely.
There are dozens of them lingering just outside the boundary of The Lantern, and many more roaming throughout The Cavern. They do not speak, or otherwise make any sounds at all. They do not swarm, either, even when one of The Ferryman's souls crosses the boundary. They simply watch, and, seemingly at random, some will choose to follow you anywhere you go throughout The Cavern.
Annoying, maybe. Creepy, certainly. But that seems to be all. Just remember: The Lantern is the only thing that keeps the wraiths at bay. They can't hurt you, out in the darkness, but they will notice you, they will follow you, and they will remember you.
If your exploration takes you to the catacombs, you may find that your wraith shadows get lost just as easily as you in the tunnel system. Perhaps they get distracted? Or maybe they have some curiosity about the tunnels that outweighs their curiosity about you? Either way, it's possible to lose them for some amount of time there— but the wraiths aren't bound by petty things like physics the way you are. They will find you again eventually, either by floating through some wall, appearing at the dead-end of a tunnel, or even just waiting at the entrance for you to emerge again.
If, on the other hand, you find yourself stumbling upon the whispering pools, you'll discover that wraiths gather in droves there, circling the pools, sometimes trying in vain to press their faces to the water. The wraiths that followed you here seem to be the only exception; whatever the pools are saying, it's apparently not interesting enough to draw them away from you.
Aren't you lucky?
Image credits: 1, 2, 3 + stock imagery unless otherwise noted
The River is wide, black, and deep. It is so deep, and so dark, and so cold, that when you wake deep beneath its surface you may, for a moment, think that this is all there is. An abyss, a vacuum, a void. Nothingness in all directions.
It might even be what you expected, coming from wherever you were Before. The blackness, at least. Perhaps the cold. Maybe even the pain: all-encompassing, all-consuming. If a mortal wound brought you here, it might feel like it's being torn open anew, over and over again.
The current is simply slow, however, not non-existent. And you can swim. (Or, even if you can't, that's more of a procedural problem than anything: you don't need to breathe down here, it seems. Perhaps you don't need to breathe anymore at all.)
It hurts. It hurts so much. But if you can just concentrate long enough to pull yourself up onto the rocky shoreline, or even enough to get your head above the surface of the water, that pain will dissipate, almost as if it was never there at all. When you have the presence of mind to examine yourself, you'll find that you are actually hale and whole, with your body exactly as you expect it to be.
There are others in your same predicament. Maybe they can help you; maybe you can help them. You're all in this together, after all.
— THE CAVERN
Once you do finally pull yourself free from The River, you'll find that there was never any abyss at all. On the contrary, there's quite a lot to see — though your eyes might need a minute or two to adjust.
The Cavern yawns around you, the main chamber alone large enough to house a small town, and the ceiling too high to make out through the darkness. There's some light: you can see the eerie green glow of bioluminescent plants lining far-away walls, and tracing the underside of the land bridge that extends over The River. There are pinpricks up high on the cliffs above The River that are organized enough to suggest intervention, or at least planning.
There's something else, too — something orders of magnitude brighter than anything else in the chamber. Its glow is dim on this side of The River, and it's difficult to discern where exactly the light is coming from, just that it isn't coming from anywhere outside the cave. You feel as though you might be safer if you got closer, but maybe that's just because any light at all is comforting in a situation like this. If nothing else, you'd probably find whoever is holding it.
Either way, whether you follow the light or don't, there's plenty of time to be alone with your thoughts. Or to share them, if you're so inclined, with the others that are here with you, emerging one by one from the depths of The River.
Perhaps you've already accepted what's happened to you. Perhaps you need time, and it will take some discussion with the others to arrive at the one thing you all have in common. Perhaps even after that it's still too much, or you still aren't ready. However you get there, though, there's no way around it: you are dead.
If you have questions, The Ferryman is available to answer them.
KEEP TO THE LIGHT
The source of the light is a lantern — specifically, it is The Ferryman's Lantern, an ornate metal lamp hanging from the end of a tall wooden staff. It's large, weathered from use, and despite how improbably far its glow casts — from the land bridge over The River, where The Ferryman is holding their vigil, up the cliffs above and into the subterranean city's many tunnels — it isn't so bright that it can't be comfortably looked at. The Lantern has an unmistakable aura of comfort and safety (maybe because of, or maybe in addition to, the light it casts), no matter how close or far you are from it.
It's only at the very far edges of the glow, where the last bits of light are swallowed by the darkness, that this sense of safety begins to fray. It's here that you can see them, prowling the boundary: wisps of something that you can barely see. Many somethings, in fact.
They can't cross into the light, it seems. All they can do is wait for you to leave it.
— THE SUBTERRANEAN CITY
Maybe you'd rather stay for now, though. There's plenty still to explore within The Lantern's shroud: to start with, the network of tunnels you can see built into the cliffs above The River.
The biggest hurdle is figuring out how to get into the city. You can spy the entrances, marked by dimly glowing torches set into the open mouths of tunnels, but they're so high up! Surely you're not meant to climb?
Well, yes and no. Some investigation reveals a series of wood-plank catwalks leading up to the lowest tunnel entrances, but it's a long climb. If you're feeling impatient (and brave), there's also a system of pulleys, ziplines, and simple rope elevators connecting the higher levels to the lower ones. The ropes have clearly been here a while, but they're probably safe, right? What's the worst that could happen, you die all over again?
(Too soon? We get it.)
There's plenty to see once you reach the city itself, even if there isn't much in way of a population. (Until now, at least!) The lamps and torches lining the walls are packed with the same bioluminescent plantlife that can be found elsewhere in the cavern, so there's no risk of them spontaneously going out. There are signs placed strategically throughout the tunnel system to point you toward major landmarks, using only simple iconography.
The city itself certainly appears lived in, even if it's currently empty; in fact, if you pay close attention to the signage and the decor, there appear to be layers of activity not unlike the rings of a very old tree. Older tapestries covered with newer ones with entirely different patterns; boxes of radically different table trinkets carefully stored in apartment closets, to make room for new ones on a shelf; evidence of the stone market stalls having multiple different usages, many of them apparently in sequence.
Some of those tapestries or trinkets might even be familiar to you, like they came from a culture of your homeworld. Strange, though, since you didn't arrive with anything similar on you. Where could they possibly have come from?
VENTURE IN THE DARK
The Cavern is big, and The Ferryman's Lantern only reaches so far. If you want to explore, you'll need to brave the darkness— and whatever else might be waiting out there for you.
You'll have some light, at least, even if it isn't much: the luminescent plants grow throughout the cave system, including its winding tunnels and cramped smaller chambers. As for whatever else might be lurking out there, well... without The Lantern, there's not much you can do to keep them at bay.
The Ferryman calls them "wraiths", if you were curious enough to ask beforehand. They're more what you might typically expect from the idea of a ghost: pale and insubstantial, like mist struggling to take and keep a shape.
And they certainly do have shapes; those shapes are just incomplete, sometimes blurry, like a pencil drawing that has smudged and faded over time. They have faces that seem to have been stretched too long or too wide; they have eyes with no color, unblinking, always staring back; some of them have mouths that never close, while others have no mouths at all; some of them have hands with wispy tendrils of grasping fingers; others' limbs seem to have lost their shape entirely.
There are dozens of them lingering just outside the boundary of The Lantern, and many more roaming throughout The Cavern. They do not speak, or otherwise make any sounds at all. They do not swarm, either, even when one of The Ferryman's souls crosses the boundary. They simply watch, and, seemingly at random, some will choose to follow you anywhere you go throughout The Cavern.
Annoying, maybe. Creepy, certainly. But that seems to be all. Just remember: The Lantern is the only thing that keeps the wraiths at bay. They can't hurt you, out in the darkness, but they will notice you, they will follow you, and they will remember you.
If your exploration takes you to the catacombs, you may find that your wraith shadows get lost just as easily as you in the tunnel system. Perhaps they get distracted? Or maybe they have some curiosity about the tunnels that outweighs their curiosity about you? Either way, it's possible to lose them for some amount of time there— but the wraiths aren't bound by petty things like physics the way you are. They will find you again eventually, either by floating through some wall, appearing at the dead-end of a tunnel, or even just waiting at the entrance for you to emerge again.
If, on the other hand, you find yourself stumbling upon the whispering pools, you'll discover that wraiths gather in droves there, circling the pools, sometimes trying in vain to press their faces to the water. The wraiths that followed you here seem to be the only exception; whatever the pools are saying, it's apparently not interesting enough to draw them away from you.
Aren't you lucky?
Image credits: 1, 2, 3 + stock imagery unless otherwise noted
no subject
Find… something…?
[His question comes out hoarse as always. It was probably going to take some time for his vocal cords to adjust again. He didn’t have anyone here to interpret his mostly one-sided conversations either.
Did that… bug Nagito? There wasn’t really much he could do about it but… the thought had Sunny fidgeting nervously as he picked the comic up. Might as well keep it, right…?]
no subject
[Maybe he'll recognize something.]
Me reaching for Danganronpa references ^^; it’s been a hot minute
Here… [Moving aside a bit so Nagito could see the small stack of reading materials. There wasn’t anything else that Sunny recognized; just a few novels - like A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Death, So You Find Yourself in the Afterlife, What Next?, and so on.
There might, however, be an orientation guide to Hope’s Peak Academy slipped in among the pile.]I am here to remind everyone of ten years ago
Ah--I wonder, is this the new version? [But no, it's from before the school closed. He read his front to back multiple times; it's the same.]
I am here for it! <3 XD
New…? [He peers somewhat curious at what Nagito has found. It… looked like a guide? It had been so long since Sunny had been in school himself… he didn’t think Distant Academy had an orientation guide… but maybe he had simply forgotten.]
no subject
[He's expecting a no, judging by the confusion he's had from others. It still feels very strange to even have to ask about it, to expect that someone wouldn't know. Everyone should know Hope's Peak, but so far it's only been him here who knows of it.]
no subject
That’s… where you went? [Sunny recalled Nagito’s introduction. It must be important to him, if the other recognized it.]
no subject
[He's drawn some conclusions about this, but he rarely states his conclusions without at least a bit of a runaround. Of course, Sunny doesn't talk much, so Nagito isn't sure how much he'll get out of him...]
no subject
I… live in… Faraway Town. [Or lived, he supposes, but semantics. As if the name would give Nagito an idea of where that might be. Or, maybe, something could be gleaned if they both hadn’t heard of the other’s location?]
[Still, for everyone here to not have heard of someplace famous was a little bizarre.]
no subject
no subject
Not that place… [He mumbles, eyes downcast and the corners of his mouth weighing with his thoughts.
Sunny was very aware of how his imagination worked by this point. If he had made Faraway Town, it would be much different. More like Headspace, less things that forced him to remember.
Unfortunately for Nagito, Sunny didn’t know how to handle a joke very well. He almost looked like he was pouting.]
no subject
[That's an exaggeration except in Nagito's mind.]
no subject
Finger tracing the ‘Hope’s Peak’ on the cover.]
It… sounds fictional… too.
[Was this his way of trying to make up for the mistake? Parroting the joke? It fell flatter than he had thought, causing a nervous chill to sweep across his back. What if he had just accidentally insulted the other?]
no subject
no subject
Like someone cresting a great mountain after a struggle. But… where did they go from there? When they reached the top, what point was there in continuing? One could only touch the clouds, not walk among them.
In the same way, Faraway Town made more sense with context. It was just… far from everything. The city, the desert, the ocean… the town just existed in the middle of nowhere, a quaint little place untouched by time. It was… disconcerting, but not any more so than the idea of moving to a new place. Staying or going, it didn’t matter. It was all scary.
Sunny forced himself to bury those thoughts, looking at Nagito with a curious tilt of the head. Was he going to keep the guide?]
no subject
It could come in handy explaining what Hope's Peak is, don't you think? [He adds it to his pile of books, before considering the pile as a whole.] Maybe I should see if I can find a backpack, or something like that.
[Actually, maybe it's strange he hasn't gotten lucky and found one already? Well, he's especially unsure of where on the scale of good to bad his luck is right now, so maybe not.]
no subject
As for a bag… the teen hadn’t found one either. Quite strange, but if there had been others here…]
Maybe they… all got taken? [A tilt of the head as he thought. People had lived here before, right? And maybe they took only what they could carry… which would be much easier with a bag.]
no subject
[Or maybe Sunny doesn't want to carry a bunch of books around while searching like a weirdo.]
no subject
The teen shook his head. He was used to carrying his own inventory.
Would that offend Nagito? He clutched the comic close to his chest, worried about that possibility.]
no subject
Well then, shall we move on? Unless there's something else in here you'd like to check!
Let me know if you get bored/want handwave ^^ enjoying this but also understands bc Sunny is silent
His sole gaze lighting up a bit. So cool!
Then, the other teen’s words sink in. Sunny looks around the room once more and then shakes his head.
No. It would be best to move on. Not much left (aside from the books they found and maybe some worn blankets).]
we can keep going until we hear back on apps, maybe?
[As if showing off the handiwork of the builders is at all the point of a prosthetic.]
Sounds good to me! Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t monopolizing your time ^^;
Still staying outside of what might be considered a personal bubble, for his and Nagito’s sake, but Sunny’s sole eye lights up again.
It was like Nagito was some sort of super hero, or prodigy, or… a super student! Sunny could already feel his imagination working!
But… ‘allowed to show it off’…? He tilts his head a bit, mouth returning to that comfortably neutral straight line. Eyebrows scrunched together… wasn’t the point of having a mechanical arm because you didn’t have an arm?
Then again, with Sunny’s missing eye, he wasn’t sure how he would feel about a mechanical eye so…you're good! :|b
no subject
Friends… of yours…?
[The teen hesitated a bit asking the question. Those two names might be people Nagito simply knew. Acquaintances, business partners… but the familiarity with which the other talked about them implied otherwise.]
(no subject)
I forgot to reply T.T We can either handwave the rest or keep going