graveyardsmash | TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

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test drive

TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

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".

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? 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.

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[He turns to her, and there is a flicker of something that might be a wry smile on his grim face.]

Nothing has passed since I awoke that was not.

[He is still holding the pitchfork. He looks down at it for a moment, as though remembering he has it, and then reaches over to lean it against the wall.]

Are you hurt, lady?

[ Even with all his struggling, the man does not relent at all, if anything the only thing Misha achieved was to make it worse for himself. He's tugged along more firmly this time, and the fingers gripping on the collar of his shirt just make him panic more. ]

Fuck off, let go of me!

[ He continues thrashing about uselessly, glaring at a woman who passes them by as she hurries along without saying a word. They're getting closer to the building now, and the man is carefully backing him against the wall, making it so that he can't run even if he wanted to. ]

Out of here? With you? You're out of your mind, I'm not going anywhere with you– [ his voice cracks as he continues his attempts to escape. ] I'm like you, [ he spits it out ] you can't do anything to me, you won't get anything from it. This place made me different but I'm still not a human. You can't do this, get off of me.

[ Desperately he hopes the man will understand what he's trying to say; demons don't eat other demons, they just don't. He has to let him go. ]

[The city's always been too loud for Aaron. He's used to the small town he grew up in, the Ranch and barely seeing more than fifty people in a week, even in school. Coming here, to somewhere that's constant noise and cars that look like they belong in a museum. He's walking back to where he's been crashing to rest, having visited the clinic to get his stitches checked and the rapidly healing cut that pulls his lip into a permanent snarl cleaned up as best they could manage.

When he spots the girl nearly walk into traffic, he's quick to grab her arm and pull her back as a car flies past, horn blaring, raising his hands in a gesture of peace.]

Sure, just let you get flattened next time. Whatever.

[She had managed to find an old lantern behind one of the more dilapidated gravestones, somehow lighting it by hitting stones together like in those cheesy survival videos she watched years ago. Honestly, she's still amazed she managed to get it to work.]

[She nearly dropped the lantern when a person came stumbling out of the darkness, but managed to keep hold of it as she looked at the man that had arrived from god-knows-where. He looked (and talked) like someone straight out of a LARP event, and it made her wonder Who the hell buries someone in LARP gear?]

Uh... Hey there. You uh... You also crawled out of a grave, huh? I don't suppose you know where we are?

[She sounded unsure, still clutching the lantern in her grasp, dirt clinging to her clothes and skin and hair, making it obvious she had also only recently escaped from one of the many graves around them.]

[For all the struggling and talk, he isn't putting up much of a fight. Diavolo, for a second, considers muffling the boy's constant noise with his hand - just long enough for him to be heard - but the sharp ache in his palm dissuades him. One thing in his disjointed speech stands out: "this place". It seems he is new. And he insists he is not human, but there he flails, all skin and hair, without a single monstrous feature to distinguish him from the rest.

That realization fills Diavolo's stomach with ice. The dread sets in fast - there's no telling who else may have arrived. He pushes the boy along further still, into the shade despite the creeping sense of dread, out of sight.]

Quiet. I'm not going to hurt you. [He insists, but his grip doesn't slacken and he only presses forward so that he can speak even more softly.] You need to tell me what you're running from. I... I need to know. [He takes another sideways glance at the street, wishing, not for the first time, that his appearance wasn't so flashy compared to the masses. There's nowhere to blend in out here.]

[The fact he's still sitting in the grave definitely has something to do with the open wound in his face, which he seems far, far more focused on. Blood's welling between his fingers. Not all is healed when you're first pulled through to the peninsula.]

Just woke up here.

[But he hesitates. Last he knew, it was June. Now there's what looks like the last bits of winter snow on the ground.]

...What month is it?

[ shoving is absolutely not the nicest thing to do to someone - Nancy had learned that in kindergarten - especially not a someone who's just saved you from taking a bumper to the knees, but it's been so long since she's had any sort of time to take a breath and make a rational decision. lizard brain instinct controls her thoughts and, subsequently, her limbs, and it controls the twin scowl peering back at him now.

there's no throbbing heartbeat in her ears, but the city sounds fill that void all the same, the pressure mounting in her, a kettle about to screech. a little feral, even as she lets out a breath, glances over her shoulder at the road, the cars that have taken up the space where she'd just been standing, and then back at him. ]

I have to get out of here.

[ okay, so it's probably not the thank you that he may or may not be expecting, but at least Nancy doesn't shove him again. baby steps. there's a pamphlet burning a hole in her back pocket about monsters, of all things, and the only thought pinballing around her head is run run run. ]

[The sound of a familiar voice yelling is what gets her attention. Kate's plan had been simple: snoop around, try and find out if anyone she'd known was here, change into a much more reasonable form, and then show up and talk to them.

Unfortunately, the more instinctual part of her brain, the one used to protect her friends in the middle of a trial, is what takes over at that yell. Potentially saving a friend in trouble is far more important than not surprising them by showing up looking like a wild animal, right?

A wild animal that happens to have a cute pastel pink scarf around its neck, but a wild animal none the less. Who's tail is wagging about a mile a minute as she looks up at Nancy, putting herself between the her and the lumbering figure. Who definitely notices the very non-human shape and turns around quite quickly in apparent fright.

Give Kate a moment to not make this weird. She's just happy to see another friend out of the fog.]

[He doesn't know what he anticipated, or rather who. This strange blue-haired woman, if he's honest, is one of the most mundane things he might have imagined - though for the first time, it makes him wonder how many of the graves around them are, so to speak... occupied.]

Not where we are, nor how we came to be here; for this is not where I thought I would be laid to rest.

I was about to ask the same of you, though I suppose that now I know the answer. But you have light, and that is something.

Oh, shit.

[He just wanted to go out for noodles. Can't he ever grab lunch during the Fog without having to be back on duty?]

[Fine. Okay, fine. Bedside manner: activated.]

You, uh. Might want to wash your face before you start thinking about woodwork projects.

What's the saw for?

Hey, hey, hey!

[He raises his hands, palms open, in instinctive reassurance. Except it's probably not that reassuring, because he's a rotting corpse and his hands are floating a solid six inches from the truncated ends of his arms.]

I get it. No touchy. Put the claws away, okay?

You new?

Yeah, we hear that a lot.

[There's a skeleton in a sports jacket leaning against the wall next to her, holding a meatball sub in one detached, bony hand. Based on his tone, he's probably smiling ruefully, but it's hard to tell. Skulls are smiling all the time, after all.]

It's super messed-up, whatever it is. You, uh, you just get here?

There's a bathhouse down the road, by the way, if you need it. You've got a little something... [His free hand gestures vaguely.] ...everywhere.

[Good things about being an animated skeleton: it doesn't hurt that badly when people crash into you.]

[Bad things about being an animated skeleton: sometimes, pieces fall off. Right now, the man Mikhail crashed into is cursing under his breath, trying to figure out which to retrieve first: his arm, which is flopping around in the corner, or his box of kebab.]

[Oh, or the frightened human. He should probably start there, huh?]

Is this going to be one of those things where there's an angry mob coming around the corner next? Asking for a friend.

Also, can you grab my ulna? Thanks.

Do you suppose it to be chance?

[Faramir's tone is dark, bleak in its assessment of the situation. His face, beneath the streaked mud and the dark hair plastered against his brow, is stern and dour. Still, he approaches the edge of the grave and, with only the briefest of hesitations, holds out his hand to offer the stranger help out of the grave.]

There is naught to call adventitious. This is some scheme.

[He almost trips over her. That, in itself, is a startling reminder of just how off-kilter he is; even in this rainy darkness, he ought to be infinitely more conscious of his surroundings. But his mind is racing, and the silence feels deafening, and he almost trips over her before he sees her.]

[He stops a foot or so short of where she sits, and for a moment, looks down at her, his brow creased in concern and thought. At last, slowly, he turns to look at the headstone of the open grave. The characters on the stone are neither Tengwar nor Cirth, but he finds that he can read them, even so.]

Wakaba. Is that your name?

[Jean very nearly lets that get to him. The familiarity of it—the tone, the explanation, the patented Jean-Heron kid gloves treatment—settles his nerves for just a moment. His eyes stop darting around long enough to settle back on Harry, truly taking in how different he seems. Months indeed—there's a marked improvement between then and now. Maybe he really has been jogging.

He barely recognizes the man in front of him.

He shrugs Harry's hand off with a brusque disgust, repulsed in an instant. Emergency or no, he can't let himself drop his guard.]

Trash pile? That doesn't sound new for you, Harry.

[That opens the door for some very easy retaliation, so he pushes past it quickly, taking a step back so he can raise his voice again.]

Peninsula? Like, like—where? I've not heard of it. Certainly not on Le Caillou, I assume.

[It's moments like this he wishes he had Kitsuragi's propensity for writing details down—he's sure he has a legal pad somewhere, but not on his person. Vicquemare squeezes his eyes shut, trying to commit the flood of information to memory clearly and precisely.]

Displacement. Ve—ry fucking specific.

Yeah, I guess so. I'm surprised I managed to get this thing lit, it was pretty dusty when I found it.

[She gave a small shrug, relaxing slightly. This guy didn't seem to be a danger, despite his overall... weirdness, but she liked to think she was pretty good at being able to tell when someone was an actual danger to her.]

Do you want to try and find a way out of here? This place is huge, I've been wandering here for a pretty long time already.

[She looked around, scratching the back of her neck with her free hand.]

I'm not sure, but I think I've been hearing someone digging graves, maybe they could help us?

Truthfully?

[He sighs, and looks away, out into the dimness.]

I do not know what I want. I am afraid to find what lies beyond these stones and open tombs. [I am afraid to see in the light what I have become.] This place is drear and dark, but there are worse fates than this.

Nor am I sure that I wish to meet the gravedigger of so accursed a ground. Yet I suppose our options are few.

Are you armed? My sword is gone, and my bow too.

[Well, about as 'okay' as Bruno can manage.

Oh, they're hugging, now. This is nice. Unexpected, still, but nice. He wraps his arms around her, briefly relaxing into the warmth before angry voices on the other side of the boards bring the present into sharp focus again.]

Of course they're still out there--run now, hug later!

[He pulls her along, deeper into the building. Trust Bruno to find the best hiding places....]

I'm fine. I wasn't the one who was all "I'm cool and can easily kick your butt if you try swinging that pitchfork around!"

What was all that about the "monster" stuff anyway? Was he... seeing things, or something?

[She lets go reluctantly. There's a million emotions she's feeling right now - but if they don't escape the crowd they'll be dead for real. She follows him into the building.]

How did you get out? I mean, I saw your grave and I thought -

[Cool. Kick your butt. He blinks, momentarily unsure. She has such an odd manner of speaking, so unlike anyone he has met before, that it is hard to know what, if anything, he should say in answer.]

[Better, then, to stick to the latter part. He may not know the answer, but at least he understands the question. He sighs, and pushes his long, dark hair back from his face with one hand.]

I... cannot say. Only that if I knew that men walked among us who had risen from their graves, I might fear monsters, too.

Perhaps fear outstripped reason, in his case. You scarcely seem monstrous to me.

_{[One thing James is learning very quickly about this place is that the people who seem to hate monsters the most never look up. And so, that is how seven feet of gangly cat man ends up landing right on top of the fellow from above. He lets out an angry cry and drops his weapon. He's lucky JW only wants to pin the guy and doesn't instantly put his jaws around his skull.]}

Oh, come on, pick on somebody your own size! Like me!

_{[He lashes his long scorpion tail and lets out a ratcheting growl before glancing up at Mirabel with one eye.]}

The nerve of some people, am I right?

Edited 2022-01-15 21:44 (UTC)

[Mirabel doesn't answer right away, wide eyed because that is a giant cat with a scorpion tail in front of her.]

I... uh...

[And if that wasn't startling enough, the man starts to swing his pitchfork at both of them.]

[Oh the grave thing. Mirabel deflates a little, remembering the trauma that caused.]

I'm not a monster. Is that the reason I woke up in a grave, because they thought I was?

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TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

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