Ryslig Helpers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ryslighelpers) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
graveyardsmash2020-05-08 05:52 am
ryslighelpers) wrote in graveyardsmash2020-05-08 05:52 am
Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE MEME: MAY/JUNE
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.
no subject
He certainly has not been in Ryslig for a year. It has only been about seven months, by his count.
One year. Only one year since Jean Valjean, the brute, carried a dead boy on his back through the sewers of Paris. One year from then, and Jean Valjean is dead, by his own admission. Javert has little choice but to trust it is likely true. There is little sense in mulling over the circumstance. Valjean is here now, Valjean has inescapably resurfaced to annoy him as he has done over the past two decades of Javert's life. He followed him into this wretched abyss, and here he will stay indefinitely.
He represses his shudder.]
Longer still than it has been for myself, [mutters Javert tightly to his coat collar. A hiss.] But then, not so long as I might have guessed.
[The lack of pity in Valjean's tone encourages him. There is little worse for Javert than genuine pity. He straightens, head held just slightly more erect, and plunges a probing gaze directly into Valjean's eyes. Javert's eyes are not as Valjean remembers them. The intensity is the same, sure, but the color--they are a bloody crimson red. And they reflect absolutely no light, dull as a matte sheet of black rubber. He appears to discern whatever lay in Valjean's thoughts, and his pitiable smile broadens.]
Do you think me a madman, Valjean? [Good God! His voice cracks like a goddamn adolescent's on the name, after refusing to say it aloud these seven long months.] Here and now, in this wretched, miserable city, where sense is insensible and the impossible is routine?
no subject
Those are not the teeth of a man.
So, it is true -- here, men do become monsters, with changed teeth and changed eyes and command over men and beasts that is beyond what is natural. What, precisely, has become of Javert, in this less-than-a-year in a pit of man-eating man-monsters?
The shock that goes through Jean Valjean at the sight passes by his face, invisible.
The answer he chooses to give Javert is that infuriating thing Jean Valjean does sometimes where he just looks at someone in place of an answer. The look he gives Javert now says, well, Javert? Are you? In a city of monsters and cannibals, become like them, and even before that become a man who would let his quarry go, and a man who cannot get Valjean out with a steady voice: are you a madman?]
no subject
much good that would do, with monsters' immortality!. Instead, he squeezes his club harder, and shudders with his unsettling, silent laugh, devoid of any humor at all.Sometimes, he is mad. Valjean's presence only seems to stir that madness to the surface, rip his old wounds open again and flay them out in the searing sun. He wonders what Doctor Lecter would say about his mind during this exchange, if he were to bear witness to him now. How do you feel, Javert? Do you wish to eat him?
That snaps Javert out of it and back to attention. He clasps his hands around his cane at the small of his back.]
You are not dead, Valjean. [He means it to sound cold and commanding, like his old self. Yet he cannot bear to address Valjean by anything other than vous, and it considerably dampens his venom.] Not now, you are not. And you have one month to live as you are. After that you will discover if undeath shall be the fate for you, or if it's something else Madame Fog has decided.
[His gaze fixes on a point just past the tip of his own nose. It appears to take him considerable effort to squeeze out what he says next:]
Questions?
no subject
But yes. So he has heard. One month, and then he, too, shall change, and be compelled to eat human flesh, or blood, or souls like all the rest.
Compelled irresistibly, by his own changed nature, to kill -- or worse, destroy the very soul.
It cannot be that simple. Jean Valjean knows well what it is like to be so desperately hungry that better judgment is overridden, but it has been a long time since he has been that man. He has suffered pain, want, deprivation of every kind. There must be a way to remove himself from the equation; to neutralize his own existence in this pit of torment.
Unless it truly is the pit, and this is damnation, and his punishment will be to lose that last thing that has remained to him, his conscience. But if it is Hell, why do the natives of Ryslig suffer and die and do not return like the monsters do?]
Many. But you need not take time on my account, Inspector.
[It is awkward for the both of them. Yet, he knows Javert is a man of honesty and integrity, and if he has been here long enough to have already changed...maybe there is a way to make use of that experience.
He makes no guesses and no assumptions about what Javert has or has not done during that time.]
Only, if you please, tell me which of these contains the truth, and which are nonsense.
[He pulls out a sheaf of informational literature he has been given. Jean Valjean has accepted every pamphlet he has been given without discretion and with thanks, but some of them involve things like fur-trouts, and others have been marked as jokes. It cannot all be right.]
no subject
Does Valjean see what he truly is, now? He is not quite the Inspector Javert of June the 6th, 1832. He speaks the same, he is shaped the same, his bearing is roughly the same, rigid and soldierly; but he is irrevocably, thoroughly changed into something else. Something drearier, something who always seemed to walk about with a bitter taste in his mouth, something of a hollow shell of his resolute and haughty self. His skin a pallid corpse-gray, his sharp gray eyes now a smoldering, reflectionless red. His square jaw sits differently, more of an overbite than his bulldoggish underbite to accommodate two lengthened canines.
Inspector Javert is beyond expiration, and persists in spite of the simmering melancholy settled into his weary lines. He must persist. He has no choice.
Their hands brush when he takes the entire stack from Valjean. Even through gloves, it is plain to feel that there is no warmth in his flesh, no life in his complexion. Javert curtly shuffles through each of the sheafs, his disgust growing more apparent with each heading. By the time he gets to fur-bearing trout, his eyes flash testily.
He hands none of them back. Instead, he unceremoniously stacks them up and tears the entire mess to pieces.]
Ah! A damnable waste of good ink! [That sounds like the curt and pitiless inspector Valjean knows. RIIIIIP. Riiiiip. riiiiip.] Men are feeding you half-truths. All they want is to spare their own necks from your claws. They write pretty falsehoods to endear themselves to you, so you may remember their names and faces when you change.
[Javert's lip peels back to reveal quite a lot of teeth. A rueful grimace, as he appraises the tatters in his palms. He darts a cynical look back to Valjean.]
Tell me, did they slip you calling cards? Drink? Money? Their names and faces embroidered on handkerchiefs?
no subject
Javert is sepulchral.
The closest reaction to surprise Javert has gotten so far, though, registers in Jean Valjean's face when Javert rips up the papers. The tearing-sound, and Javert's tone, are by far the most normal thing about this strangest of conversations -- and they have had some strange conversations.]
It seemed to me that the welcome they offered was done out of fear.
[He accepted nothing but directions, but of course, he's not going to say so.
Anyway, he is now at a loss, no closer to understanding his current situation than he was before. Curtly:]
Well! Since the literature is not to be trusted, what, then, should I know?
no subject
[Javert strides over to the wastebasket by the cinema and dumps the shreds in. Good riddance! He wipes his gloved hands off, like he feels filthy simply handling the pamphlets. He does not appear to hear Valjean's question, his head tipped forward to examine his gloves of any errant paper shreds or artifacts.
It's stalling. Javert is stalling like a damn ninny, trying to find some way for Valjean to be settled and cared for while keeping his own bloody hands off, as far away as he can manage. Why did the Fog take him? Why, when he is the least deserving man he can conjure to mind? His fingers twine into his whiskers, agitated, anxious.
A solution comes to him. Haze! Madame Lust at the Bath-House! Haze, the organization that delights in handing out free welcome-packages to new arrivals. Hawkeye at the Clinic is another option, but Javert grimaced to think of how Hawkeye would probe, joke, and jeer with Valjean to clownishly ply him for information. No, that would not do; he needed to take Valjean to someone less personally acquainted with himself. He jerks a decisive nod to himself and pivots on his heels.]
Follow me, [instructs Javert.] There is an establishment [perhaps there is a nearly imperceptible contraction in his carefully blank face at that word] outside the city that will give you the proper arrangements. A monster establishment. I will take you there.
And don't forget that I know your old habits, Valjean. [His voice didn't crack this time. That's an improvement.] Do not hide. Tucking yourself out of sight will do you no favors.
no subject
And, even if Jean Valjean felt it right to conceal himself, it is clear that if he wants information to arm himself against the horrors he hears he will inflict on others, horrors he does not know how to check, he must follow Javert. All aspects of his conscience point in the same direction.]
I will go with you.
[And, though he may not like Javert, Jean Valjean knows him to be honest. If Ryslig has changed that, so much the worse for them both -- but even a trap might teach him more than he would learn otherwise.]
no subject
He bows shallowly and turns off, gesturing to Valjean to follow closely. He has to adjust his brisk pace several times to stay in pace with a human. Vampires tend to move with swiftness and preternatural elegance, and Javert finds he must exert effort to slow his gait.
He says nothing for a good length of the trip. He walks with his head bowed and hands clasped tightly around his cane at the small of his back, eyes tracing paths along the cracks in the walk. Automobiles occasionally zoom by on the street, and Javert absently barks to Valjean to stay on the 'concrete' walk. After about twenty minutes, he does at last open his mouth for another try at talk, and this time he is calm, muted, and utterly professional.]
The proprietress you will meet is a social creature, well-liked, and comely. [He does not glance at Valjean, his eyes glued to the road ahead. He hums a cross between a snort and a contemplative scoff.] Let us try this again, from the beginning. Do you know what breeds of our kind to expect?
no subject
Our kind. He notes the way Javert phrases it, how it forms a dichotomy with how he pronounced men with disdain not long ago.]
I have seen a few in person, but from a distance, and never for long. By your reaction, I presume the fur-trout is not among their number.
[He knows what he's read, but not how much of it to believe.]
no subject
Clever as I know you are. Impossible to imagine a fur-trout striking fear in the hearts of man. What a comedy! [he laments dryly with a tip of his hat. He stubbornly avoids meeting Valjean's gaze.] You are right. No fur-trouts, but mer-men and mer-maids are plenty. Who you are going to see is neither of these creatures.
[The corner of the former inspector's mouth curls into a rueful, humorless smile.]
Madame Lust is an enormous snake with the breast and face of a woman. She is experienced with welcoming newcomers, as most Snakes tend to be. She will see that you settle.
no subject
Okay. He will take that information and file it under, "Ryslig = Hell?" However, he will make no firm judgments before he meets her, because Javert insists they are alive, and also that she is reliable.]
A singular name.
[This is said completely placidly. It's absolutely neutral, as if he were remarking on the weather. There is no judgment, no question about what sort of establishment he's about to go to, just a remark. His face is not suspicious or disgusted, nor possessed of any sort of thrill. It's an "Oh, huh."]
no subject
Perhaps he ought to mention to Valjean that Madame Lust, while respectable amongst monsters, has quite the forthright habit of wearing nothing but jewels on her top half. This never bothered Javert, who has seen plenty of women in various states of undress during routine inspections of Parisian brothels. And besides, he always kept his eyes on her face, where it is decent.
He chooses not to supply any further information to Valjean just yet.]
Indeed. And yet it is not the most singular I have known here.
[His own assistant's name is Turn-From-Evil-and-Do-Good-Seek-Peace-and-Pursue-It. Talk about singular!--
Any distant amusement in Javert's faint smirk drops and hardens instantly, disconcerted. What on earth is the matter with him? This is a grave mistake. There is nothing amusing about this old specter's arrival to Ryslig. It is a suffering Valjean should not need to endure, coming here, following in Javert's footsteps like an undesirable spook all his adult life. Javert rebukes himself sharply. He squares his shoulders and at last hurls a heavy, glimmering glance Valjean's way.]
So there are Snakes. Nagas, they are called. That is one. Did your propaganda give you enough to understand what I am?
no subject
So, Jean Valjean pieces together what he knows, both from here and from France, its countryside and its cities. Javert is dead, that much is certain. That narrows it down significantly. Dead, but no beast-characteristics, no fading into slime nor into shadow, and no smell of rot or disjointed limbs. The less fearsome monsters, if any fit those characteristics, can be discarded as lies.
As for the theaters of Paris, he himself had not attended, but Cosette had animatedly talked to him -- ah, Cosette! Can it really have been a matter of weeks? It feels like a life-time since they sat together in that little room -- about a farce she had seen with her husband, the story of a living corpse that drank blood. A vampyre, she had called it, and in search of something, anything to say to keep her speaking with him, Jean Valjean had told her of rumors half-forgotten in his youth of precautions one must take if one suspects the dead have begun to walk again, and she had been horrified and thrilled by the tales of disturbing graves. He had assured her that nothing like it had ever happened in his village.]
If I were to guess, from what little I know, I would say you have taken on the aspect of a vampyre.
no subject
Undeath suits me, I think. I am a veritable leech for the blood of society.
[Isn't it what he has always done in his ignorance and blindness? Had he not realized it so late...! But no matter. That life is over, and now he is reaping his just rewards, steeping himself in the smells and sounds of copper-sweet blood coursing through veins and arteries.
It occurs to him now, through his ruminations, that Valjean smells like a well-ripened whiskey, both smoky and bittersweet. Again the bestial part of his mind wanders to what it would be like to end this, to snatch him up by the throat and take what he should have done that night of June the 6th-- He represses a shudder and a painful pang in his teeth as he slams his hat back on his head. He resumes his long stride and buries his chin in his collar.]
There are other undead sorts, [Javert growls rapidly, his syllables bleeding one from the next.] There are the walking rotted corpses called Liches. Unsightly fellows, all of them, unless they peel every last bit of flesh off their bones. And there are the Waldgeists, with their antlered crowns.
no subject
But he does not speak of it, and keeps his face thoughtful only, for Javert is also proud, and it would upset him to know that Jean Valjean pitied him. The subject returns to practical matters quickly enough, in any case.]
What is the type with bull's horns called?
no subject
His lips pinch together as he considers the short list of Ryslig minotaurs he knows. It is very short, shorter still than the actual list. He can only think of two, and Angela is not among them.]
Which cut of beef found you? A young man or a blockhead of a young woman?
no subject
[He is not educated, and his tastes in literature run more towards travelogues than myths, but the name rings a bell. Bull-headed, Greek?]
no subject
In any case, [he mutters a tad more humbly,] that is your taste of the beasts you will find here. There are plenty more than that.
Be ready, we shall come up on the bath-house shortly. It is not far out of city bounds.