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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
Browsing (Part of my brain is like browsing now, pool later when they “know” each other XD)
He was at least determined to get in and out of the store without disrupting its current searcher… at least, that was the plan. The last thing Sunny thought was going to happen was having a mechanical hand waved in front of his.
Seen another one? No. He didn’t even know what an aug was. Was that supposed to be a term from a video game that he hadn’t played? Or… was this man a robot? He didn’t look like a robot… but what if robots looked more human than he had originally thought here…
This was a dangerous rabbit hole for Sunny’s brain to go down. He spaced out a little looking at the hand, confusion etched in the way his eyebrows drew together.]
huge brain!!
But alright, it's really starting to seem like this person does not know what he's talking about. Just in case:]
Aug? You know, augments? This one's a grip strengthener, I think. Usually for people who do a lot of work with their hands...
[Ah, he's focused, he is. He wiggles the hand again.]
You can say no. I get it.
I don’t even know if I’m describing this properly XD
Grip strengthener?
The teen mimed opening and closing his hand. There was… some sort of device people could buy. It opened and closed, and was supposed to help train their grip strength. But Sunny had never used one himself
in his current state, he would probably make it to five presses before his hand began to ache. Not great resultsWas that what this stranger was looking for? Then again, a mechanical hand was being waved in front of Sunny’s face, and it didn’t look like the device he was thinking of…]
lmao dw i know exactly what those are
In any case, this gesture,] I don't know what that is.
[A beat. He considers the aug he's holding, frowning at it; there's really no way to, uh, demonstrate how this thing works, even if it looks like a very mean glove.]
They install these in your hands, you know, sub-dermal at least. I'm not a mechanic, though. [So don't think too hard about that explanation because he might just be super wrong! Anyway, he perks up,] Can you help me look for more that look like this?
Oh good XD
That explanation though… both cool and creepy. He involuntarily shuddered a bit. That didn’t sound like a pleasant process… His one eye blinked. Well, helping this stranger search for more couldn’t be too bad, right? He’d been dragged around by Kel for three days, and his friend was the most rambunctious person he knew… so it wouldn’t be more exhausting (and exhilarating) than that, right?
Sunny nodded with just a tiny bit of hesitance.
Time to hope he doesn’t regret his decision.no subject
But oh, good, perfect!! He perks up somehow even more, flipping the hand aug around and showing a piece of it that's slightly thicker than the rest.]
Look, here— This is where they engrave the brand name. [He tilts it back and forth, so it will catch in the light. There's definitely a really small engraving there, although not readable while he continues to wiggle it around.] If you find one that says Stone, come and show me, got it? Anything else— I don't care!
[Chipper! It's fine.]
no subject
especially when he only had one eye. Sunny squinted, not making the word out but… ‘Stone.’ Got it.Still… there was one more clarification needed.]
Just… a hand…? [Sunny forced his vocal cords into some resemblance of a whisper. Was that all he had to look for? And… was this man going to just leave Sunny? How was the teen supposed to find him if he did locate another one of these ‘augs’?
The questions swam in his dark gaze.]
no subject
Anything with the name on it, I guess. [He makes a face at this, brow furrowing, but never mind; now he nods more decisively and repeats,] Anything with the name.
[A beat. Unfortunately he was inclined to just run off and assume he can find whoever he wants later, given how limited the space seems to be here, in the light— but now that he's thinking about it, leaving someone behind right after finding them feels... less than great.]
Let's finish this room and then go together.
no subject
[Sunny lets out a breath in relief at the fact he wasn’t just going to be abandoned. Nodding, the teen begins to search the room in the opposite direction as the other occupant, opening cabinets, searching on shelves… he didn’t find any other ‘augs’, but he did find an actual stone. Strange, how did it get in here?]
no subject
Nothing. Could be good. Could also be horrible. What if someone else has picked up—mmm.
Instead he twists around, plunking his elbow down on the top of a low shelving unit and sighing, extra dramatic so that it seems like he's not as bothered by it as he is.]
I've got nothing! What have you got there?
no subject
In the end, when Sunny turned to face him, all he had to show for his efforts was the stone he had picked up-
It was round, smooth, and fit in the palm of his hand.
Probably not what the man had wanted though.
Sunny’s expression grew a bit dejected.]
no subject
A nice rock? But also a rock. He says,] Huh.
[And then,] Oh, a stone, I get it. That's clever!
[Clearly this was a bit this little guy is doing, mhm, yep, Hammer loves the sense of humor--]
Well, I guess we're out of luck. What were you looking for before I found you? I'll help.
no subject
‘Stone’… he’d keep that in mind for the future (and more than just rocks next time).
Sunny’s voice came out in a hoarse whisper.]
Supp…lies…?
[Really, he’d just been giving himself something to do. Food, someplace to stay… things like that. The teen wasn’t even sure if he wanted any of that but… what else was he supposed to do?
For once, he felt lost.]
no subject
But he likes a distraction and he wants to help, so, brightly:]
Supplies! Okay! [He claps his hands together and looks around; they've searched this room, but now that he has supplies on the brain, they could have missed something.] I can do supplies. You should have a first aid kit just in case.
[Ignoring, of course, that they are dead, that's immaterial, they seem solid enough that they can still get hurt? So, first aid kit. He lists the rest on his fingers:]
And snacks... a blanket... a bag. Let's start there.
no subject
Still… Hammer’s vigorous reply almost surprised the teen. He stood there, one eye blinking, in near shock. The other sure knew what to look for… how to be prepared…]
I can… look too…
[The declaration was small - maybe the man hadn’t even heard him since he was already searching. Really, Sunny should have kept an eye out for useful stuff on his first sweep of the room.
Live and learn - that was the expression, right? Or in this case… maybe it’s ’never too late to learn’ since they were both dead…]
no subject
Of course you can! Come with me!
[He should have the final say on his supplies, after all, even if Hammer is working through his little list. He gestures, like, come here and see the shelves, it's great fun to look for first aid kits.
That he doesn't know where the first aid kits are (if there are any) might betray that he did not pick anything like that up for himself, but that's probably fine. He's got that metal hand thing, he has totally normal priorities--
So, as he shifts some... mugs? out of the way on the shelf to see behind them,]
I'm Hammer, by the way.
no subject
Trust a stranger? Even one who seemed to be helping him out?
Eh. He was already dead, so what was the worst that could happen?
Clearly his preservation instincts hadn’t followed him to the graveAh, wait, they were making introductions?]
S-Sunny. [The teen hoped that was sufficient enough as he combed through the lower shelves. The fact that Sunny himself also didn’t know where the first aid supplies might be proved that he hadn’t paid much attention during his first sweep of the place.
Two peas in a pod, then. Sort of.]