TDM: NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

[ryslighelpers]

TDM: NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

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 in a dark ditch, the sky cloudy overhead. Dirt cakes into your cuts and scrapes. The air is clammy and damp, and it smells like rain.

You’re in a grave. And when you sit up to inspect the tombstone marking your spot, it has your name on it. Maybe the graves next to you have the names of familiar friends, family, acquaintances. Not all of them are open like yours are. RIP.

There’s a light dancing in the distance, and you hear the jingle-jangle of heavy keys, or worse still, the gravekeeper’s massive pitchfork or shovel. If you're lucky, you can sneak out beyond his notice, and get out alone. If not - you might find yourself on the wrong end of a shovel’s swing, or worse yet, tripping headfirst in front of a pair of monstrous eyes.

SCENARIO TWO

You've stumbled your way out of the graveyard, and you're promptly besieged by the overwhelming sights and sounds of the city. Cars honk at you to get out of the street, and strangers try not to look in your direction for too long. They see your dirty clothes and scraped faces, and pretend to busy themselves with something else. Rarely, a look of pity is cast your way.

But some people try to reach out. Enterprising citizens and those that hope to curry favor with the newcomers pass out new clothes and bundles of food, asking if you have a place to stay the night, wondering about the details of the world you came from. Some are even handing out pamphlets which vary in how helpful they are--"What To Expect When You're Expecting (To Turn Into A Monster)", "Wolpertinger: Fact or Fiction?", "100% ACCURATE MONSTER QUIZ ASSESSMENT: GUARANTEED TO PREDICT YOUR MONSTER!", and "Ryslig Law In A Nutshell".

As you wander from street to street, you come to realize that some of these people seem...off. If you draw close enough to look at them--really look--you'll be able to observe certain uncanny features. A misshapen eye socket that looks more like an insect's compound eye, skin like a loose bag that seems to fit poorly over their own musculature, a backwards hand that seems to function as normal, and, of all things, an opaque mucus that seems to drip from unseen orifices.

Not only do these people look strange, they act strangely, too. One can be seen drinking a cup of whole coffee beans. Another chews on a piece of rubber tire as if it were a stick of gum. A man dressed in a full-body trench coat seems to writhe as he sits and reads a newspaper.

If any of them notice your approach, they immediately stroll over to enthusiastically greet you. When they speak, a droning buzz seems to emanate from deep within their chests. They smile and stare unblinkingly, talking in obscenity-riddled, disjointed sentences.

"Welcome! It is almost a season! Are you ready to fucking party?"

"What the shit! You're monster?"

With time, more and more of these people begin to shuffle towards you in an almost swarm-like fashion. Lose one of them, and more show up around the corner. They're eager to ask questions--most of which make absolutely no sense--and they won't be easily dissuaded from their goals.

Maybe you should run. Or maybe punch one of them. Surely, that won't cause any problems.

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? Does it fit you, or does it feel incongruous with your nature? Feel free to pick any monster type for this prompt, but note that you may not get the same one in game.

Comments

[pinballs]

[Kim's mouth tightens to form a single straight line.]

Well, it's good to see that hasn't happened yet.

[He means it, genuinely. The cold, late-autumn air nips at his neck, and he pops up his collar in a poor attempt to shield himself from it.]

If I had to hazard a guess as to what happened, this must be some sort of...undiscovered isola, perhaps. Though why I don't recall traveling through the pale-- [He stops himself short, then shakes his head. No, he doesn't have the information to entertain wild theories.] Let's focus on getting away from here, and then we can talk more.

[Within moments, however, Kim spots a crowd in the distance and slows his pace. He squints from afar, trying to determine what's happening. It's only after a few seconds does he realize that there are more of these human-adjacent things strolling their way, as if closing in.

Kim stops dead in his tracks.]

Shit.

[From far away, the gaggle of parasites burst into a round of "Shit!" "Shit!" "Shit!"]

[tequila_sunset]

“Could passage through the Pale eliminate our memories of it…” He trails off, and runs a hand through his tangled hair.

[Come on…I know things about the pale.]

(You didn’t remember what it was. Three different people had to explain it to you.)

(Kim is right, now really isn’t the time.)

[I needed my memory jogged. That’s all. I forgot what money was too. I got that down pretty fast.]

(On a purely practical level, yes. While we understand it’s function on a most basic level: the exchange of tokens for goods and services, we are however still deeply troubled by money as a concept. By its unrelenting chokehold on the minds of others, how it corrupts the very nature of what should be common decency. The very obstacle it represents in the path of our ultimate goal: liberating the working class.)

(How do you fight a concept? You didn’t get that far into the reading.)

[I think I’m supposed to think about it really hard.]

(THOSE THINGS ARE STILL FOLLOWING US. Oh god, look at the way they’re moving.)

(The way they lurch and shamble, their completely inhuman motions. It’s impossible to deduce intent from their actions.)

[I’m still not ruling out that I was a genius self taught entroponeticist in my past life. This is a new thought project.]

(Sure. What’s one more delusion. Add it to the pile, it fits right between to herald of the apocalypse and rockstar)

(No it doesn't. What kind of organizational system is this?)

(Focus! Take a head count! How many of these things are there?)

(Too many. You’re starting to feel a little sick, actually. Sweaty.)

“Kim. I think I remembered something.” Harry squints at THE APPROACHING HORDE OF GOD KNOWS WHAT.

[pinballs]

[It is possible, Kim thinks to himself, for memories to be lost in the pale. To intersect with what was and what could be, absorbing it like a tactile sponge indiscriminately. But Kim knows that he would've taken measures to avoid this. His idle knowledge on volta do mar and other such techniques--the ones he initially learned reading thick, historical tomes as a child on the playground--is so ingrained into the fiber of his being that it would be difficult to imagine allowing himself to go to pieces while traveling the Pale.

The creatures stop, around ten feet away. Detective Du Bois is saying something. He focuses again, side-eyeing his partner. He doesn't want to take his eyes off the man-things, lest they begin moving again.]

What is it, detective? [He mutters back in a low voice.]

[tequila_sunset]

He squints harder. Like that might help him remember whatever he’s struggling with.

“Have you ever been in the ass end of a horse costume?”

(It’s a vague memory. A gym teacher memory. Just a picture. Maybe it was a funny story once. Now it’s already vapor. There it goes, Harry. Say bye-bye!)

“Um what I’m trying to say is I don’t think those are people.”

(If they were people they wouldn’t need costumes! An excellent deduction. We're on fire today.)

“And I used to be really scared of bugs, I think…”

(But for Dora. Squashing bugs for her holiness, trapping them under cups if you weren’t too drunk to make the trip from the bug to the kitchen to the outside. A holy privilege in itself.)

(That was before the phasmid. You’re on much better terms with insects now.)

(Not like anyone’s asking you to be the man of the house anymore.)

(You don’t remember where the house is either. Perhaps in your absence it has become a sanctuary for all the flies and cockroaches of Jamrock.)

Harry scratches at his beard, his face breaks into a wild grin.

“I think they’re bugs, Kim.” He can’t keep the excitement out of his voice.