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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
She's tall - about six three - and her build and coarse, scarred skin reflect her old life as a fighter who became a smith. There doesn't seem any reason to rush, so she takes equal care progressing. Once the footing is more certain she disengages gently. She'd like to try and drain the water from her perforated lung, but decides to wait. If she doesn't speak loudly and keeps her sentences short it won't affect her voice.]
I'll say. Not what you expected to happen? What were you about to say?
no subject
[He clears his throat, those ears pinned fully back, now. Blunt, she is - a kind that reminds him of some of the Vigilant Brotherhood. Without the signs of a tendency of intimidation some of them carry, despite her height. Though perhaps because he's caught her at a bad moment.
Then again, maybe not. Weakness tends to sit poorly on those sorts. He need only think of the habits of his kinswoman the widow empress to know that. Nevertheless, when released from her grip he steps back to a more polite distance. ]
Only a title, in truth. A terrible irony, here... [He trails off, closing his eyes for the moment. He's no longer quite so skeletal as he was at the Untheiliean Court, but his dreams still are full of death.] I am a Witness for the Dead.
no subject
She presses her lips together for a moment so she doesn't outright laugh at the idea that it's ironic for someone with a death title to be here, though some amusement shows in the lines around her eyes. Her large round ears, he's probably noticed by now, don't move at all.]
Hmm. I don't know what that means, but I hope it isn't that you can't die.
[yeah she should probably offer up a bit about herself, to keep this from being an interrogation.]
I don't think I've ever had a title, really, though I was a Sister when I was alive. The poem on my sword calls, called me Woman's Need. You can see why I'd want it shorter.
no subject
[There's the slightest touch of morbid humor to the words, as the man takes a moment to neaten his own sodden braid. The black robe he leaves to drip. Attempting to wring that out would just be a lost cause.
Would someone as unfamiliar as this, neither elf nor goblin, know enough of Ethuveraz to understand his calling? He supposes it falls to him to explain. If she is - was - indeed a Sister, perhaps it will at least make sense in the broad strokes. Just as well, it seems, that Need is willing to explain in kind. It sounds like something out of a tale, to him.]
It is a title, then. Your... sword?
no subject
[She says it dry and deadpan.]
It's actually been quite a long time since I died. [She touches the old, symbolic wound, mercifully out of sight. In a vague way she remembers that it had seemed tremendously important when she was new. Hadn't it hurt for a long time?] I died, or she died, depending on how you look at it, to bind myself to a sword. That's when I shed the name I bore in life.
[Need quirks her heavy gray eyebrows.] That make any sense to you? It's a bit of a lost art in Velgarth and frankly that's just as well.
no subject
It sounds dangerous, othalin. I know of no maz to bind the soul thus, nor any foolish enough to do so.
[His ears are fully pinned back now as he stares at the woman, his expression grave. Searching for signs of - something.]
Do you remember that name?
no subject
[Need seems quite even-keeled and steady. She's someone who's got a lot of anger to her but is very good at controlling it, to the point where even when she's annoyed - if she is right now, it's faint - there's no sense that she's about to go off.]
I didn't for a long time. When I was showing an old memory to one of my chosen, it was there, though.
It was Lashan. Sister Lashan. A lay sister, a long time ago.
no subject
If that even matters, here and now, when death has claimed - him. Celehar squashes that particular thought down with all the force he can muster, lest he does truly become a madman and a haunting shade.
So eventually he just. Sighs, and shakes his head.]
My apologies, Othalo ... Need. I am a prelate of Ulis, and the proper passing of the soul is part of my calling. I have seen too many ghouls to take it lightly.
no subject
Clearly Celehar's upset to hear what she did, and he's probably trying to decide what to do about it. The tension's not so much in his body, she doesn't think he's considering attacking her and besides, he's so thin the threat would be minor. Unless, unlike her, he has some talent that hasn't been left behind in the dark water. Hm.
...Looks like at least for the moment he's going to go with head rather than gut. Good, that suggests he's got some brains in there.]
You're in good company with that concern. [Need had been something like a Companion, but not beholden to the gods in the same way, bade to incarnate at a specific time, and doesn't benefit from the institutions that instill trust in Companions.] I've had enemies who didn't let themselves pass on normally too. [She smiles faintly.]
So what's a prelate of Ulis do? That's not a god I know.
no subject
There truly must be strange lands, beyond the boundaries of Ethuveraz. Perhaps he must seem just as strange to them. Still, it is hard to imagine.]
Ulis is the god of death. His prelates perform the rites, and funerals. Those who are called to it also Witness for the dead. We may hear their voices, and set their souls to rest when they are disturbed from their graves.
no subject
Need takes off her leather apron, clinging unpleasantly, and drapes it over her forearm. Might as well act like it's a physical thing, and like she is, since that's how things are shaping up so far. Her attention is caught by the Lantern some distance away on that land bridge, but she draws her eyes back to Celehar.]
I see. Do people love you for it, or does it unnerve them?
no subject
[He catches the line of comparison almost immediately, his expression flickering momentarily, but he doesn't comment on what to him reads as a gentle rebuke of his reaction, just dips his head in acknowledgement, those strange ears of his dipping too. Having just finished being unnerved himself, he resolves to steel himself better against the strangeness that this place offers.
That black coat of his must be heavy with dripping water, but he doesn't set it aside.]
Very astute, Othalo. Ulis is a god who is respected. [But not always welcomed by the living.]
And your own service?
no subject
[She's used to having to explain some of this. No one worships those gods anymore, not as the Twins.]
More recently, I'm closest with Kal'enal, the Star-Eyed. She's the central goddess for people of an ethnicity whose name won't mean anything to you, I'd imagine. To others She's one in a pantheon. I... [Need lets out a breath, not quite a sigh. She finds it vaguely embarrassing to admit to this kind of thing, it sounds hopelessly idealistic and she prefers to be seen as cynical.] She helps those who've tried and failed, but through agents. I'm called to answer the desperation of women, for the most part. Ones who've no hope on their own, no one will fight for them, they won't see justice. Living and dead.
[This matters to her, really matters. Her big hands have tightened, not quite making fists. The first real pang she's had since arriving in the cavern comes with the thought that that's behind her now.]
no subject
I wish more were called to action as you are, Othala Need. There are many in sore need of that help. In my calling, it often comes too late.
no subject
With an effort, Need gets back to her even keel and nods curtly. There's an old, weary, stubborn aspect to her as she makes an admission.]
I don't think I made a great difference in the time I had. All the same problems I saw when I started were there by the end too. But trying matters.
And right now that's beyond both of us. [She favors Celehar with a half smile.] For now, at least. I'm not sure what happens next.
no subject
He failed them. But - there is nothing he can do about it now. It occurs to him that his spirit, too, may be trapped in his corpse in unending torment, if that is what this is. Strange, to meet others afflicted with it.
Celehar shoves the thoughts aside, forcing his head back up. There is a question, though he is ill-equipped to answer.]
I am afraid I have little truth to provide. The matter has always been the subject of great debate, and little truth. But there is a lantern, ahead. Perhaps we should make for it.