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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
millions knives — trigun maximum
❚❚❚ CW: suicidal ideation
II. THE LANTERN
III. THE WRAITHS
WILDCARD
In the Lantern
Utterly alone… or so the teen thought.
The musing that the man had asked was one Sunny hadn’t thought of. His thoughts had been rather empty - quite unusual, when his imagination was so broad and deep usually.
Sunny’s gaze went from some form of shock - sole eye widening - to back to focusing on the wraiths. If that was what they would become…]
Then maybe that’s what I deserve.
[The whisper that came from him was an escaped thought, barely able to be heard. It had been so long since he had spoken. So long that his vocal cords had gone dry from disuse. Talking wasn’t comfortable.]
no subject
So he simply takes the whisper at face-value and gives a soft hum in response, tinged with the barest hint of wry amusement. ]
Perhaps it's what everyone here deserves.
[ Given their rather painful entry, it's a possibility that what they endured was merely a taste of what's to come until they too are left nothing but a literal shadow of their former selves. Knives has never put any stock in the notion of an afterlife and certainly not in humanity's belief in a heaven and a hell, but if there is any truth to it then the sensible conclusion here would be that this is hell (or something like it) where sinners go to be punished.
He'd certainly never make it to heaven, that's for sure. ]
CW: being dead, low self-esteem
He really was the worst.
Then… why did his arms wrap tighter around himself? Why did he still stay within the safety of the light? Even in death, it seemed like he couldn’t catch a break.
If anything, the figure near him must have felt something of the same, right? To be so far out here, trying to be alone. Another thing that Sunny was ruining for someone, with his presence alone.]
the River
Where we are? I haven't the faintest idea, I was facing the King...
[She was dying to the King, she remembers. Dying, or perhaps frozen at the last second after all. And the water is still so cold, and none of them had dared to touch the 'tears' floating along the halls but if it had freezing properties as well?]
Could this be... Are we frozen? Unfrozen in a different location?
no subject
Right now there are more important things to focus on. ]
Frozen? [ If his bland echo isn't answer enough, it's reinforced by the flat look of incomprehension on his face. ] No, but we might be if we stay here.
[ The pain might have subsided, but it's still cold in the water. So, rather unceremoniously, he's letting go to move to the shore proper. No sense staying in the river when it doesn't seem like there are any answers to be found there. It's unlikely any of the other struggling people will know more than them. ]
no subject
[The blandness and incomprehension are incomprehensible to Odile, as well. She thought - she assumed - that most of the world had heard of the King's ongoing conquest of Vaugarde by now. If this person hasn't even heard of any of that, then she truly has no idea where she is.
But that's a disorientation for later. The more immediate disorientation of having been abruptly and mysteriously submerged is ebbing now, with the pain of (near?) death fading and air again around her head. And she can make out the same faint glow of a shore, do her best to swim in the same direction as this stranger.
It may take a little longer for her to get there and get her feet under her, and she's wheezing by the time she's pulling her way out of the current... but this suffices for her to start getting her bearings. If he hasn't strode off by then, she'll at least briskly offer:]
Thank you.
lantern
Hope not. That doesn't look any better than being a white horse.