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
Hmm... Well, I have been distracted lately, but if it's that famous I'm sure I would've heard of it. Guess this place is stranger than we thought... Were you a student there?
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...Here's the part where he would introduce himself as the former Super High School Level Lucky Student. But does that mean anything here, with someone who seems like they really don't know about Hope's Peak? Of course, talent matters, it must, but his talent never has, and so--]
Oh, but I wasn't really that impressive, not like my classmates. Well, I suppose if you really don't know about it, you won't have any expectations at all, but if you happen to meet anyone else who went to Hope's Peak I wouldn't want you to base your impressions on me! Everyone else was very talented, the best at what they did.
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[ He draws little circles in the air with his index fingers. One can't judge an institution by just a few people, after all, though he really means no harm by the statement; rather, he would judge it by its own values. ]
The people in charge of it are what matter most of all, aren't they? Oh, but you must be talented too, if they were to admit you. Institutions with standards always maintain them. If they didn't, they would lose their integrity.
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When you say "luck," do you mean that in the sense of "true randomness," or just pure coincidence - or rather, a perfectly natural sequence of events - rationalized by the human mind and defined as simple "luck?"
[ All sound logic says the latter, but he does ask. That seems a strange thing to study to him, after all, and the former could pass for an Ability. ]
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[Even making the comparison between himself and the Super High School Level Hope is impertinent, but it's an important distinction to make, in Nagito's eyes.]
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But there's also something wrong with the idea of a place studying luck. Dazai turns that over in his mind, looking to the slightly dented ring once more. If he were just to take the idea of luck as an uncontrollable phenomena on its face - for his own amusement to translate it into the terms he knows... ]
Luck, huh... I'm jealous. No matter what it is, once I've set a prediction or made a plan, it ends exactly how I expected. There may be variables that slightly differ in the interim, but my desired outcome happens without fail.
[ It sounds like a joke, but it's really not. ]
Having a person who could throw a wrench in my plans sounds interesting.
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Something like that... Do you get bored easily?
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Well, I don't know that I'd got hat far... [ He would, always, and this is just a roundabout way of saying yes, ] But I've rarely found something that I could maintain interest in.
[ Just one person, really. ]
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[And it must mean Hinata-kun is better than this person, too. And yet--he'd still introduce them. Hope would have to result from a meeting, if this person is worth anything at all.]
Unless you're exaggerating your talents, of course.
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[ Dazai puffs out his chest with a grin. He is not, in fact, if anything he's underselling. Dazai isn't a person who cares if others know of his talent though, and in fact people just thinking of him as a pathetic and lazy layabout is ideal, and so this is what one gets.
But who will reflexively demean oneself isn't missed. The person with luck, the person with prediction.... Both must be disappointed. ]
Well! As it is, you have to settle for me alone, but I am delighted to meet such an interesting person... Actually, I never went to school. I don't remember if I did in my early years, but I neither went to middle school nor high school, so I don't know what either is like.
[ Though he had no need to. ]
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They say high school is the last time you really have freedom. Do you feel cheated?
[Nagito's tone has lightened considerably; there's no indication either way if he actually thinks that himself.
(He doesn't, but it's not like he ever had something like freedom to begin with.)]
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[ It would be appropriate, then, that at eighteen he left the Port Mafia. ]
Komaeda-kun, [ Because Dazai really would prefer to keep that polite distance, ] How old are you again?
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(And if, somewhere deep in his mind, he thinks someone else, someone utterly hopeless, certainly ran about freely ruining things--he stops thinking about it.)]
I'm twenty-two. Or I was twenty-two. Maybe we should change how we refer to that sort of thing now that we're dead... What about you?
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[ Dazai quips, but only as a lead up to what comes next, ]
Since we're dead, twenty-two is the oldest I've ever been and the oldest I will ever be as well... [ So, they're the same age. ] Though I am gravely disappointed by this afterlife. I had hoped that death would at least offer an escape from it all, but here this world is, telling me that I need to die again.
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[He really doesn't know; it's kind of an interesting thought experiment.]
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... Well, yes. I'd like to have the comfort of dying a second time being the end of it, my soul extinguished and so on and so forth, but that isn't likely at all.
[ Nagito is taking it in stride and at least to some extent, curious enough, so he will answer honestly. ]
Most likely, I would wind up right back here, [ He spreads his arm out in a wide gesture to the room around them, eyes briefly narrowing before he fixes his countenance, ] But there would be consequences for it. One could call it "bad behavior."
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Then it's probably best to learn more about this afterlife instead. [In the hopes Dazai might change his mind about the apparent suicidal intent? In the hopes Dazai might be able to find something actually permanent? It's entirely unclear what Nagito might be referring to.]
no subject
You're right! We can find a way to die permanently! Once and for all! Immortality is too much of a curse for mere humans like us!
[ Dazai says, suddenly humming happily as he starts to rummage through the closet for himself. It's like someone flipped a switch with those words. ]
What have you figured out so far?
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That isn't a surprise, of course; it's not as if we're the first people to ever die. But then the question is why doesn't there seem to be anyone who hasn't just dragged themselves out of the river? Besides Ferryman-san, that is.
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[ It's a singsong voice, and just his demeanor not garnering any reaction tells him as much as anything. They're both eccentrics. Dazai is fine enough with that, his eyes briefly flicking to the other pocketing the ring as he starts the process of rifling through everything else left.
There's nothing left here, but.. ]
Shall we inspect the next one? I bet we'll find something from my world next! Something super important!
[ He draws out the word super just slightly, just enough to indicate his enthusiasm on the entire affair. Whatever might be ticking beneath, on the surface he's not concerned in the least. ]
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But if he wants to inspect boxes, Nagito isn't going to stop him. Nagito pushes another box over to Dazai.]
Is there anything in particular you want to find? [If Dazai will tell him about it, it might tell Nagito more about where Dazai is from.]
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[ It's not quite that he doubts that they do; at the moment, there's no reason to assume either way, and so it's only intended as an observation. ]
Hmm... Maybe a rope? Though I wouldn't need one from my world... Aha.
[ There it is. It's hidden carefully in one of the boxes, wrapped up in cloth - an Walther P38. It's damaged, and even at a glance one can tell that it's beyond repair and inoperable. He lifts it in one hand, turning it this way and that as he observes it with a blank look.
He scoffs after checking the chamber, ]
They could've at least left bullets in it.
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The gun draws his attention, though. He's not familiar enough with the weapons to identify the type on sight, but it's certainly seen better days.]
That might be for the best when it's in the condition, don't you think? [If someone tried to fire it, it might explode or something.]
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[ Though even if it was perfectly functional, he wouldn't want it. If it were loaded, he might tolerate it at best. He stares at the weapon, or at least what used to be one, for several seconds with an indecipherable express before placing it back in the box.
It's just scrap metal now. ]
Though I'd like to think there will be no need for any kind of weapon here.
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I could probably have just uploaded this icon and stopped tbh
help that is his default expression truly
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imagine if this icon was like one or two steps toned down
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