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

[darthprepboy]

[The grimness reminds him of people he's known. Those men wouldn't be quick to take a hand up if they didn't truly need it. Leo sits back on his heels.]

Good. I'm glad. And it sounds as though you have a touch of amnesia. We're...we're on some sort of shore. A lake, I think.

[His eyes narrow. That black eyed look is really doing nothing to reassure Leo of the man's humanity. But he should really give him the benefit of the doubt.]

Did you see anything moving in the mist? Not a trick of the light, I'd say.

[clonelord]

[This man is right to trust his hackles which raise in suspicion, though not for the reasons he assumes. Even without his enhanced biology and Astartes senses, Fabius can see it. He drinks in the way those shoulders tense ever so slightly with apprehension, and the way he sits where he awoke, rather than stepping closer to the old man that's been battered by the tide.

That ghastly smile, more fitting for a corpse than a man, is ever present.]

Amnesia? No, I remember everything before the blackness. I think I simply lost consciousness, though I do not know how. [It could have been any number of things, really.

His gaze, slow but studious moves from the man at his side to the tree-line, fog clinging to the dark branches. He doesn't see anything, though it's likely because his attention is still focused on this human. How was Fabius to know he isn't the threat? He's also acutely aware of how light his body feels, no doubt stripped of his armor and augments, therefore defenseless.]

Are you a resident of this place? This is very much unlike my own home. [A small interrogation, perhaps that would bring answers.]

[darthprepboy]

[it may say something that Fabius reminds him of his grandfather. He doesn't trust the man, but right now he's more concerned about the unknown movement away from the beach.]

Me, a resident? No. And I'm willing to bet this is nowhere else in the UK either. Just a hunch. You can tell me where you come from, but first, we might need to head away from the open. I smell gunpowder.

[He'd rather take his chance with one weird old man than an armed guard.]

[clonelord]

[What the young man fails to realize is that the danger might just be a lot closer than he thinks. The mention of gunpowder has Fabius tilting his chin, as if trying to better catch the scent on the wind. His sense of smell has been dulled for millennia, but even in this withering old body he can clearly tell the subtle notes of salt from fish and fish from the acrid scent of propellant. A corner of his lip twitches up, and by instinct his bony hands flex. He doubts he has the strength to wrestle a gun from a younger man's hand, but with a firearm at his side he would feel one step closer to whole again.

Wordlessly, Fabius pushes himself to full standing. There's a bit of a wobble as he finds his footing, but soon relaxes into this new body as if he'd always owned it.]

Saltpeter, charcoal, sulfur... [Fabius mutters to himself, as if reciting a grocery list, then looks towards the young man.] Feel free to run, boy. I am going to get my hands on a weapon.

[Perhaps it is curiosity that urges him to inspect the perceived threat, or perhaps he sees it as a chance to wrangle a weapon for himself. Old as his bones are, he might just be able to trick someone into taking him in rather than punching a hole through his gut.]

[darthprepboy]

Excuse me? [He glances at the man's body, trying to determine if he could reasonably wrestle a gun away from someone.]

We don't know how many there are. Or if they're friendly...though on the balance I don't think staying to find out is a good idea.

[clonelord]

[A wry laugh gusts from Fabius, his sallow face pulling with the wide berth of his toothy smile.]

A calculated risk is no risk at all.

[If those shadows are anything to go by, they're humanoid. The appearance of the man beside him is also exceptionally human, and judging by the level of their heads, he is no longer the stalwart Astartes his superior gene-seed had grown him to be.]

What if there is some strange lifeform here? As a human, wouldn't you protect yourself from it? I doubt those guns are for us.