graveyardsmash | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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?

[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.

[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?

[He is quiet for a moment, frowning. This is something he had not, to his shame, considered; to wake in a grave had seemed to him so queerly logical, given what he last remembers, that it had scarcely occurred to him that there might be any other reason. It was the waking that had concerned him, not the grave.]

...That, too, I cannot say. Whether we woke in our graves because they deemed us monsters, or whether they deem us monsters for our awakening.

What do you last remember, before you woke?

I remember falling asleep the night of the party my family had to celebrate their magic and Casita coming back. And when I came to, I was in an open grave - not just that, but my family all had graves too.

... They weren't open.

[He is quiet for a moment, his expression softening. At last, he lowers himself to one knee, the better to bring himself to her eyeline - he's well over a foot taller than her, so under the circumstances, it feels appropriate - and meets her gaze, sincerity clear in his grey eyes.]

When I awoke, I found myself among such graves. I saw upon them names that I knew: my father's, and my mother's, my comrades', and last of all my brother Boromir's.

But Boromir has no grave. His body was carried upon the Anduin to the Sea, and never claimed by the cold earth; and this I know, for I saw it with my own eyes, that he could not have come here alive or dead.

[His hand comes to rest against her shoulder; he has not looked away from her eyes for a moment.]

Do you understand what I am telling you? A name on a stone is only a name. A cruel trick played by whatever darkness drew us hence. Grieve not for the sake of carven stones.

It's... just a trick?

[Her eyes water a bit, but she's not sure if it's from relief or just thinking about all the graves with her family's names on them.]

They're not really all dead?

[To lie would be easiest, and perhaps kindest; to tell her that they all live, and all is well. But he cannot be sure that the graves are empty, and all is not well, and falsehood has never come well to him. He sighs, and squeezes her shoulder lightly.]

At least one of those closed graves lies empty. Why not all of them? It is plain that whatever evil rules this place would have us despair; would show us things that are not true to stage its macabre welcome.

Do not assume the worst. There is trouble enough at hand, without weeping for unproven sorrows.

Yeah... you're right.

[She has to have hope that they're all still alive. That hope is the only thing that's gonna keep her going.]

The last thing I remember was them being safe and alive, they have to still be okay...

[He nods in sympathy and in agreement, and pats her shoulder. Withdrawing his hand, he stands and takes a half-step back, turning to look back the way he came. Her grief is clear, and he does not wish to rush her, but he is all too aware of the possibility that the man who came for her may not have acted alone.]

I do not doubt that they would wish you to look to your own safety, for now. Come, walk with me; let us find some place where the men are less furious and more wise - or at least, where their pitchforks are not sharpened.

[She nods, and starts to follow him.]

Do you know where we could go to be safe?

No. [There is no sense in lying.] But we might do well to find somewhere less crowded, and with a better line of sight. A courtyard, or some other open ground.

This place is very strange to me, I fear. I may serve as a guard, if you are in need of one; but not as a guide.

TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

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