graveyardsmash | JANUARY/FEBRUARY TEST DRIVE

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test drive

JANUARY/FEBRUARY TEST DRIVE

TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

Welcome to the Ryslig Test Drive Meme! Below are a few prompts to get you started, but you may make up any prompt you desire! Please take a look at the navigation page for rules, setting information, and links to reserves and apps. Have fun!

SCENARIO ONE

You wake up on the beach thoroughly drenched, with your mouth full of sand. The salt water is making all the cuts and scrapes on your skin sting and the sand isn't helping. The air is slightly humid, ruining any feeling of refreshment you might have gotten from your dip in the ocean.

There are lights in the distance, but the unfriendly scent of gunpowder fills the air. If you're lucky, you're alone. If not - you might find yourself staring up into a pair of monstrous eyes or down the barrel of a local's shotgun.

SCENARIO TWO

So you've just arrived, and already some of the natives are trying to get on your good side with offers of food, shelter and other luxuries in return for hoping you don't eat them. They even have some helpful pamphlets to share with you. "How To Deal With Changes", "Alternatives to Human Flesh", "What to Expect When You're Expecting (to turn into a monster)" are all on the more informative end of the scale. There's even some detailing certain monsters, and the changes they go through. Some of these seem to have been passed down from one monster to the next.

Among these however, are some... not so helpful ones. "Bunnyipyips And You", "Axe Thief Axehounds," and "So you're becoming a Fur Bearing Trout" among others. Sometimes they have marks on them from previous readers saying they're lies, or pointing out good "jokes."

Then there are the people who aren't happy to see you at all. Glares and silent, judging stares if you're lucky, torches and pitchforks attempting to drive you out of the town if you're not. You may need a friend to help you.

SCENARIO THREE

"Seek us out," the voice whispers in your head, and before you have time to question it you've found yourself in someplace entirely alien.

Maybe it's the Fog God's ghostly town of Dyster, where exultant followers dance around bonfires and sing their praises to the skies above. Maybe it's the Fourth God's arcade, with small robots wheeling about amidst the lights and colors of old pinball machines.

Only one thing is certain: you are not alone, in this sacred place.

SCENARIO FOUR

The time has come and you've found yourself becoming a monster. Is the change instant, or gradual? Are you familiar enough with monsters to know what's happening, or is it a complete shock? Feel free to pick any monster type for this prompt, but note that you may not get the same one in game.

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You'd be surprised at how much paper can help sometimes...not this paper, clearly, though.

[He snorts at the pamphlet dismissively, then shrugs.]

Maybe they're bullshit, but the people seem to think some thing is responsible for all these monsters being in charge. For the transformations.

[At the last word his face shows real disgust.]

I'd be surprised if there weren't people doing real fighting against this. They just obviously have bad leadership.

You think?

[She scoffs, shoving her hands deeper in her jacket pockets. But she has to admit, she's a little glad to see the look on his face, the disgust, the talk of fighting. That's something she can understand.]

Look, leadership's not what you need in a situation like this. Leaders get taken out, then everyone's floundering. What you need is critical mass. People power.

You think you're going to get that from the ticker-tape parade out here? 'Cause you're talking like I ought to be patting them on the head and telling them thanks, I just love this bullshit about... [She glances down at one of the pamphlets she's dropped on the sidewalk by her foot.] ...furry fish, keep up the good work. It's useless bullshit, and I'm gonna tell them that. And if they don't want to get snapped at, they ought to back the fuck off the first time.

Of course we don't need lone leaders. "Leadership" can be more than one person. It can be anyone who helps organize that "critical mass." Makes it effective.

[He looks speculative.]

...you know, now that I think about it, yelling might just help wake some people up. But only if someone can give them suggestions about what to do that might actually help.

[Again, she looks at him very hard. This time, though, she looks less angry, more... calculating, maybe?]

[It's a moment before she speaks.]

You got any ideas? Besides finding whoever's doing this and kicking their ass, I mean.

[He's glad she asked.]

Kicking their god's ass would be the long game.

Short run, making contacts and friends with locals and stopping monsters from terrorizing the citizens. Researching how to stop our own transformations.

That last is going to need to be the most important.

[Damn right it is. But she doesn't want to say that, doesn't want to dwell even for a second on the idea that this might happen to her.]

[Instead, she goes for what feels like the easy jab.] So, solve it all through the power of friendship? Nice plan.

The power of friendship and a sufficiently large number of angry, organized people who know how to go after the fog god and the cannibals.

You seem like someone who would do well on the "riling up" end of things.

[He generally approves, even if he thinks it needs to be tempered.]

Thanks. I'll take that as a compliment.

[She's pretty sure it wasn't one, but hey, as far as she's concerned, "riling up" is better than "calming down". People ought to be riled up. It's not like there's any shortage of things to be riled up about.]

[Sighing, she scuffs the pamphlet aside with her foot.]

You know if there's anywhere around here I can buy a drink, by the way? I tried asking a couple times, but... [She waves a hand.] More fucking pamphlets. I don't think they even heard me.

As you should.

Maybe we could find a place and then discuss a little riling?

[She looks at him blankly, with perhaps just a hint of disgust.]

If that's a come-on, you need to know that I will rip your balls off if you try to touch me. Clear?

Loud and clear. The only thing we'll discuss riling is the local populace. I thought we could talk about how to get firearms too. You wouldn't happen to know how to shoot? I'm afraid I couldn't hit the side of a barn.

Edited 2020-01-16 23:40 (UTC)

I've never tried. [Her father's a felon and her mental health history wouldn't exactly pass a background check. Besides, shooting people isn't her style.]

Pretty good aim, though. I can probably learn.

Maybe. Talking to the locals is the most important thing. I'm sure plenty of them are armed and resentful of monsters.

What do you do, back home?

[I beat up criminals and take their money. I patrol the streets of New York. I sit in my apartment and watch stab wounds heal up.]

I'm a mechanic.

You?

I work in a bookstore and do research, though this isn't my first time handling the unnatural. Far from it.

Oh. [Kook, she decides, and sighs. Damn. He'd seemed like he might actually be a help, but someone who says they've "handled the unnatural" before... she wonders how many crystals and books about angels are in his bookstore.] You actually fight at all?

I'm sworn to the pen, but yes, I can fight if it comes to that.

"Sworn to the pen." Pretty dramatic way to say you're a nerd.

That's him. Dramatic. He chuckles.

"Hey, someone's got to point the people with the swords in the right direction. I do more than strategy though."

"The people with the swords ought to point themselves in the right direction," she mutters, shaking her head. Still, she can understand where he's coming from - respect it a little, even. Strategy is something that matters to her, too. She doesn't always apply it, but she likes to know about it, to think about it. The Art of War is one of her most-thumbed books.

Shoving her hands deeper into her pockets, she looks around for a promising liquor store, and, when she doesn't see one, sets off in a random direction. "What does it actually mean, then? Sworn to the pen? Besides being a nerd."

"Not always possible. It never hurts to have someone with a broader perspective doing backup." Really, he thinks that some people are just more intellectual and some people are better at active fieldwork and though the two might overlap some, people are supposed to stay in their places.

"You're not entirely wrong about the nerd thing." He gives a lemon twist of a smile. "To me, it means strategy, research, finding out how to deal with threats and stop them."

"Magic threats." Yeah, she's not letting that go. She's still not convinced magic is real here, let alone anywhere else. After all, magic's just science you don't know yet, right? So calling it 'magic' is a bit of a cop-out.

"Alright. Let's say it's science we don't know about."

No, he's pretty sure it's magic, and it's evil, but he's happy to let her figure that out for herself.

"It's a threat, just the same. Do you know up the street they have a "Soup Kitchen" that offers human flesh?

She didn't know that, as it happens, and lets out a low whistle. "Shit. That's pretty bold, I gotta say. Cannibals with an outreach programme?"

"They say the Fog God encourages cannibalism." He's not even going into the 'we turn into monsters bit.' The words are calculated for what she's apparently willing to believe.

"It's some kind of cannibal church. Worth checking out, maybe. With a flamethrower."

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throughavisordarkly - 2020-01-22 00:19 (UTC) - Expand

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