TEST DRIVE MEME: SEPTEMBER

[ryslighelpers]

TDM: SEPTEMBER

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.

Comments

Wen Ning | The Untamed

[deadwenwalking]

i.

[When did he pass out? He doesn't remember.

Wen Ning sits up abruptly on the beach, looking this way and that for signs of anyone familiar - or anyone at all. There's no sign of the boy he'd just been walking with, and the terrain isn't like any local place he's ever been to.

Is this the ocean? He's never even seen salt water. How had he been taken this far out?]

A-Yuan? [He finally calls out for his travelling companion. Then, after a pause, he tries a second name.] ...Young Master Wei?

[He stands with a wince, glancing down at the bandage over his left hand that's been soaked and covered in sand. He'll need to rewrap it soon. Lights in the distance mean a town of some sort, so he's sure to find something there. He pulls at the top of his robes in a futile attempt to cover some of the black lines crawling up his neck, then sets off in that direction.]

ii.

[Wen Ning is used to getting uncomfortable glances from people. He isn't used to them shoving things in his direction. Someone has given him a basket of baked goods, most of which he's never seen before, that he's quite sure it would take him at least a week to eat all of.

People have always been afraid of the "Ghost General", but rarely has anyone worried that he was going to eat them. (It's not that he hasn't heard this concern - it's just rare.)

Setting the basket aside, the pale man begins flipping through the pamphlets curiously. (How were these made? The writing is all so uniform and perfect.) There are so many words he isn't even familiar with, which goes along with this town and its strange technology.]

Excuse me... [He might ask one of the monsterish looking creatures that seem to mingle with the rest of the crowd without issue.] Are you... one of these? [And he'll hold up one of the very unflattering drawings in the provided pamphlets.]

network.

[After some time of having to figure out what a computer even is...]

My tear ducts are working.

Is this what's supposed to happen?

wildcard.

[Want another scenario? Toss it at me!]

ii

[cartoongiraffe]

[Wen Ning, you can't just ask people why they're monsters. Tahani overhears the pale man talking to a monster.]

Excuse me, you seem like you just arrived here. Would that make you a mortal?

[Doubtful, he's so pale.]

Or newly dead? I'm afraid I don't know the correct term.

[deadwenwalking]

Oh. Yes?

[Technically he's a "puppet". But mostly human. Mortal in the sense that he can die. It's not something he usually bothers explaining to strangers.]

I'm alive. Whatever you want to call me is fine.

[He's not a monster yet, despite appearances. In fact he feels weaker here than he did in his own world. More "normal".]

[cartoongiraffe]

Ohhh.

[How to tactfully tell this man he's probably dead? But then is he really?]

I am most likely dead. Was dead? But now I'm here and it's very quaint but confusing. Have you managed to gather any kind of idea of where we are or what this is? -I know you probably haven't. Why would you be asking questions, then?

[Pull yourself together, you're blathering. She hears the voice of her mother.]

Perhaps we could divide up the questioning and share what we learn?

[deadwenwalking]

[He frowns at that, eyes downward as he tries to bring to mind exactly what he was doing before he arrived here.]

I don't think I died...

[It's very difficult to get the drop on Wen Ning. He's more then likely to notice an arrow or any other sort of projectile headed his way before it hits him, but he isn't infallible.]

I don't think you'll find I have many answers, either...

[He gathers the pamphlets up in a bundle and holds them out to her.] People just keep giving me these.

network: < AngelA >

[hevenly]

Do your tear ducts not normally work?

If you are a new arrival, you will find that you have been made human, should you not have been human before.

[deadwenwalking]

I haven't been able to cry for a long time.

I guess it's complicated? If they're going to make us monsters anyway the change doesn't seem necessary, but maybe they need a blank slate.

[hevenly]

For any specific reason? Or are you just naturally a less emotional person?

It makes no sense to me, but the affairs of gods seldom do. In making me human, the Fog God sapped me of my strength. Then in making me a minotaur, she made me once again stronger. It was a pointless, unnecessary change.

[deadwenwalking]

As I said. It's complicated.

Though I'm not unhappy about it.

[hevenly]

It may be no large change for you now. But I'm one month's time, new changes will start, and it will matter to you then.

[deadwenwalking]

That's what I hear.

And I won't know what exactly I'm going to be until then either.

[hevenly]

No, you will not. You will only get some idea when the first fog rolls around and your changes begin. They may happen gradually, small pieces at a time, or they may come all at once. It is different for each of us.

[deadwenwalking]

But there are only a certain number of monster types, correct?

[hevenly]

Correct. Do not ask me to list them all, for I do not know them in total.

But, even among one monster type, each individual monster can present differently. An ally and myself are both minotaurs, but I have cow features and she has goat features.

[deadwenwalking]

I won't ask, then.

I've yet to hear anything encouraging about any of this.

[hevenly]

Nor will you anytime soon. The physical changes are the least of monsters' problems.

Has anyone told you about the hunger yet?

[deadwenwalking]

Not in any great detail.

[hevenly]

The hunger will come. Perhaps not in the first month. But it will come eventually. None can run from it forever.

Monsters of this realm must feed to survive. And the food we are cursed to eat is humans, be it flesh, blood, or spirit.

[deadwenwalking]

[there's a long pause before the next response comes. Then:]

Why?

[hevenly]

Because the Fog God is cruel and petty.

[deadwenwalking]

Is that really the only reason?

Why are we not being hunted down?

[hevenly]

Some will try to tell you that we have been chosen for a higher purpose, to become our "truer selves." These people are fools, seduced by the Fog God's tricks.

Humans have tried to capture and kill monsters, but we remain more powerful. And even then, they tried to become like us, not to stop our existence.

[deadwenwalking]

Has no one ever been able to change back?

[hevenly]

None to my knowledge. If it were that easy, no monster would stay as they are.

[ Well... Some might. But Angela does not agree with the few fanatics who embrace what the Fog has done to them ]

[deadwenwalking]

What about escaping before being changed?