TDM: MARCH / APRIL

[ryslighelpers]

TDM: MARCH / APRIL

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

[sheathedclaws]

"But I'm not addressing you. Jiang-xiong is my friend, I don't even know you!" His wings flutter as he speaks, his voice higher pitched in being upset The question though does distract him, Huaisang pausing for a moment before offering a proper greeting bow.

"Nie Huaisang. If you claim to be Jiang-xiong, how could you not know that?"

[legbreakings]

Here comes the next round of outraged noises because this?

"This is a joke!" he snaps, stepping close towards him to intimidate, his hand twitching with the petty desire to snatch the man's fan away and smack him over the head with it. "I saw Nie Huaisang days before I was kidnapped and he wasn't even half as annoying as you!"

Which is neither the point, which is that this man looks nothing like his Nie Huaisang, nor strictly speaking true. That whole revenge scheme had been a major annoyance. But he really needed to get a jab in to vent his own annoyance - annoyance which is quickly turning towards the situation at large. If this is really some alternate Nie Huaisang... Even more mirror headaches. Just what he needs.

[sheathedclaws]

He doesn't step back even if his grip tightens on his fan, his eyes never leaving the stranger's face. "I don't know what you're talking about! I've never seen you before in my life and Jiang-xiong is my age!"

[legbreakings]

Jiang Cheng does take note of the distinct lack of backing down or cowering, something he would have expected from his Nie Huaisang at this age, and it only leaves him more inclined to break that stupid fan over his stupid head.

"Well I'm not, use your eyes! And use your brain while you are at it! Do you think anything about being abducted to another world is going to be normal!"

As if he didn't spend months clinging to the theory that Wei Wuxian is a talking bug because he didn't want to deal with alternate realities.

[sheathedclaws]

"Obviously things aren't like home here, but that doesn't mean I'm going to accept you without some kind of proof." He counters, wings fluttering in with his upset.

"So how are you going to make me believe your claims?"

[legbreakings]

If he had access to his cultivation, this at the latest would be the cue for Zidian to be sparking at his hand. Here Zidian is nothing but a fancy bracelet and he starts, finding himself at a loss how to convince this man.

There are so many small but meaningful differences between his past and Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji's, there is no saying what remained the same with this man.

When in doubt, be obstinate.

"Why should I need to convince you?" he bristles, lips twisted into a sneer. "You're the one who is lying about being Nie Huaisang!"

[sheathedclaws]

"I am NOT!" Is that a foot stamp, it might well be. "I am Nie Huaisang and you should know that! At least Jiang-xiong would!"

[legbreakings]

You want to flounce at him, Nie Huaisang imposter? He will never back down from a pettiness competition.

"You don't even know what the Nies look like!" he barks right back, gesturing at his green robes. "What you are wearing is the sorriest excuse at playing dress-up I've ever seen!"

[sheathedclaws]

"I know exactly what the Nie sect and clan looks like given I'm one of the only clan members left alive!" He snaps, his expression going from annoyed to angry, his posture shifting slightly as he steadies himself.

"You don't get to insult my clan robes when you look like that!"

[legbreakings]

Well. Fine. It had been a low blow, solely due to his own annoyance with the situation at large. It doesn't mean he is going to apologize, but that reminder of being one of the only left alive... that does hit hard. He would have been infuriated, too.

"Let's just stop wasting time on these things," he says briskly instead of jumping at the fight in the making, which is pretty close to apologizing in his book. "You're not my Nie Huaisang and I'm not your Jiang Cheng. But there are others here from a similar world who don't look like they should."

[sheathedclaws]

"As long as you admit I'm not lying." He does calm down a little, his wings still fluttering behind him and he tries to get another look.

"...Who else?" when his attention returns to the man claiming to be Jiang-xiong.

[legbreakings]

"Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. They have more in common with the ones I know than you do but it is basically the same."

They are certainly more alike in personality, while he doesn't see much of the skittish headshaker he had dealt with for so many years in this Nie Huaisang. Calm as he is, he reminds Jiang Cheng more of the man who had only revealed himself once the mask came down. Had he been so fearless as a boy? It's been a long time and his judgment skewed by everything that happened since but he had been far less concerned about consequences while Nie Mingjue was still alive.

[sheathedclaws]

"Wei-xiong and Wangji-xiong are here? Why didn't you say so?" His mood shifts far too quickly, Huaisang fanning himself for a moment before closing the fan.

"Can you take me to them?"

[legbreakings]

Jiang Cheng scowls at him. "You didn't ask, you were too busy telling me I'm not Jiang Cheng!"

Another token scoff and then he relents. "I'll contact them to come see you." It may turn out they are no more familiar to Nie Huaisang than he is but there is no need to argue about that just yet.

[sheathedclaws]

"Well you aren't." He points out, his expression falling for a moment before he perks back up.

"I'd like to see Wei-xiong at least. I haven't really talked to him since...." He trails off.

"It's been years."

[legbreakings]

"He should be happy enough to talk to you, whether you are from his world or not. He is friendly, and likes to talk to people."

And Jiang Cheng at least knows nothing of problems between Wei Wuxian and Huaisang in his world, only of the dire end things had with his own Jiang Cheng. It should be safe enough.

"My laptop is at the inn I'm staying at tonight. I'll write to them, and tell them," he looks around, spying a restaurant down the street, "to meet you over there at that restaurant tonight, at the Happy Crab." Which sounds more like a disease to him than a food place but... It will do.

[sheathedclaws]

"Or I could stay with you until you hear back from them. I mean, it makes the most sense." He points out before glancing toward the restaurant.

"And we can figure this whole thing out. There have to be some things you can tell me that would at least prove your identity."

[legbreakings]

Jiang Cheng gives him a vaguely irritated look out of narrowed eyes but then he shrugs.

"Fine," he says curtly and starts walking towards the inn where he has booked a room for the night he is staying in town before returning to Lotus Pier. "I'll have to get the laptop. And I don't know how often either Wei Wuxian or Lan Wangji check theirs for new messages so if you have to wait and grow bored, don't complain to me."

It could be a matter of minutes or days, really; the uncertainty is just another thing to hate about this place. They could send Jongdae to harass them in person but that would require first sending a message via laptop to the messenger harpy.

[sheathedclaws]

"I don't think you'll bore me. We can talk while we wait." He follows, catching up to fall into step with him. "Unless you'd be willing to take me to wherever you're actually staying in this place. I haven't been here that long..."

[legbreakings]

Jiang Cheng shoots him an arch look from the corner of his eyes, mouth twisting into a sneer, albeit this one is almost teasing by his standards.

"Ah, so now you suddenly trust this stranger and would follow him home?" he quips. "There is a powerful witch in this land, I bargained with her for a copy of Lotus Pier. It is where I live, but it's quite a distance from the city." Which is why he had not considered taking this Nie Huaisang there but... "If your world has as many differences as Wei Wuxian's even in the details, then showing you my Lotus Pier would drive my point home best."

[sheathedclaws]

"At least it...well I've never actually been there but Jiang-xiong and Wei-xiong used to tell me about it." And he had wanted to visit.

"And admittedly, I still want proof but you're at least closer to something I recognize than anything else I've seen here." He hadn't denied this stranger was a Jiang after all.

"So, that seems the best solution."

[legbreakings]

"At least if you have never been there you won't tell me that it looks all wrong," Jiang Cheng points out. Never mind he had just done that about Nie Huaisang's clothes. That's different.

He takes him quickly to the inn down the street, where he needs to grab his overnight bag and laptop.

"I can't tire anymore but if you are anything like my Nie Huaisang I don't want to deal with hours of your whining, so we will take public transportation part of the way."