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

This was a mistake, he realizes, immediately after pulling Jean in. It’s calmed him down a little, okay good. But now those rumbling voices that have gotten into the whole eating people thing are acting up. There’s a swell of noise in his head, he can’t help but flinch.

HALF LIGHT - (Bite. Bite now. He won’t see it coming.)

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (Jean is stronger than you, to take him down you’ll need the element of surprise on your side.)

HALF LIGHT - (And your teeth in his trachea. Unless you want to play dirty. Sing him a little song?)

When Jean brushes him away his relief is palpable, composure cracking. Tension falling from his shoulders. He looks away for a moment. He plays with his bolo tie. He knows what this looks like, to Jean. That he went from passably sober one moment to nervous and on something the next. If he wants to think he’s fucked up he’ll let him. The truth is way more fucked up than any drug he could put into his body. He lets the trash comment slide off him.

He turns back, running a hand through his hair, more collected but still frazzled.

“Nah, nowhere in Insulinde. I don’t know where we are. They say this is all there is.”

He shrugs, figures he can get into the warring god shit later.

“People just kind of end up here.”

[Jean wishes he could be surprised at this kind of behavior, but it's nothing new. Harrier can rally for a little while, put on a good face, but it's not like he's actually going to change. Fuck jogging. He probably came out here in the middle of nowhere to—it's fine, it's fine, it doesn't matter because Jean is here—and it's not his problem anyways! he reminds himself. He has to keep reminding himself. His instincts are honed to fine, sharp points when it comes to things like this.

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. What he needs right now is to focus and make a plan, but his thoughts are crowded out by useless intrusions. He really might be getting a headache—or at least he's feeling bad enough to simulate the sensation.]

This isn't all there is. That's fucking stupid. We came from somewhere else— maybe it's just an undiscovered...I don't know. You've been here for months and that's all the research you've done? "People just kind of end up here"? Fantastic fucking investigation. God.

[Jean grimaces, looking over his shoulder again.]

I don't know what I expected from you. I need to call this in.

AUTHORITY - (Jean thinks you’ve been sitting on your ass for months. Getting wasted. Jerking off in the dark. Whatever. As far as he's concerned you're shit. He doesn’t think he needs you.)

ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (What he thinks is that they should’ve put you out to pasture years ago. That you lost your cool. He rode your coattails to the top and now he’s ready to jump off at easy street.)

HALF LIGHT - (Fuck Easy Street, fuck Boogie Street. It's all gone. Long gone. He was ready to leave you in Martinaise. He’s ready now. No matter how many times you pull yourself out of the gutter.)

Harry’s jaw twitches. He regains those few inches he lost from wincing.

INLAND EMPIRE - (No one appreciates the shit you do around here. Day after day. Barely getting by. *Fuck the unit.* You could crawl belly naked across broken glass for this man and the first thing out of his ungrateful mouth would be:)

INLAND EMPIRE - (Are…)

INLAND EMPIRE - (You…)

INLAND EMPIRE - (Fucking…)

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - (High)

SUGGESTION - (Drunk)

EMPATHY - (Tripping)

AUTHORITY - (Again?)

“You aren’t radioing in shit, Jean.”

[Jean's head snaps up at the order—and, make no mistake, it is an order. He's trained to respond to that tone from this man, ready to spring into action at the slightest hint of direction. It's not the most significant sway Harry has over him, but it's certainly the most base. Still: just because his instincts point him there, he doesn't need to go. If anything, it only makes him more irritated.]

What the hell are you talking about? If you've got a good reason—I doubt it—by all means, let me know. In the meantime, I'm radioing this in, shitkid. Someone has to pick up the slack.

[Never mind that he has no way of easily doing so. Kitsuragi being around hopefully means the Kineema is too, but in the very least, he can find a public telephone and dial in manually like some kind of civilian. Harry's his superior officer, certainly, and he will defer to that if pressed, but he doesn't expect to be pressed at all. As far as he's concerned, he's navigated this to position himself nicely in a place of moral authority (not always a given with him).]

Where's the motor carriage? Did it turn up in the trash with you and the lieutenant?

[He's already mentally rehearsing his words, how exactly he wants to pose this to the precinct. It's perhaps the most unusual situation he's had to deal with in his time, which is saying a lot—between the Next World Mural, the whole Unsolvable business, and most recently the Case of the Amnesiac Partner, sub-header the Hanged Man or whatever. The hanged man part was mostly accessory to the rest, as far as Jean is concerned.]

“There’s no fucking motor carriage. No contact with any station. You think I’ve been doing jackshit for two months? Don’t- don’t fucking answer that. Fuck you.”

Harry exhales heavily and runs both hands through his hair, longer now with two months growth, he pulls on his mane, trying to get his head to be a little more quiet and a lot less bitey.

EMPATHY - (You can’t ask Jean for his trust. Not anymore. But you can’t just leave him here to get eaten by some guy.)

SUGGESTION - (He's not going to listen to you. Why are you wasting your time with this? Sing him a little song and drag his ass home.)

LOGIC - (You don’t know if it works like that. You don’t know how any of this works.)

“…I’m trying to go easy on you. There’s more I need to say, a lot more I don’t know how to and this place isn’t a good place for any of it…just, c’mon? You can get cleaned up at the flat. This place is weird as shit, I want to go inside.”

He gestures down the path he came from, rooting around in his pocket for a squashed pack of cigarettes. He carefully offers Jean one, like he’s luring a feral cat indoors with some chicken. Psp. Psp. Psp. Jean-Jean, it's your favorite! Nicotine! Maybe he’s even got some benzos left in his hidey holes so you can chill out for like five seconds and read a pamphlet about monsters.

You're trying to go easy on me?

[Jean grits his teeth in his approximation of a smile, trying to take deep enough breaths to calm down and mostly failing due to the prevailing feeling of pressure on his chest. He still feels half buried. There's too much going on, and he has none of the information he wants, largely because he doesn't know what he wants, and he's lost months of his life, and—

Oh, he's going to have a panic attack. That's what this is.

It's inconvenient as all hell. He has better shit to be doing, but here he is, trying not to wheeze himself to death in the middle of a graveyard. He awkwardly drops to a squat, hands on the back of his neck, focusing in on the part of him that wants to be productive. He would very much like to be normal, here. He hates not being the normal one.]

Fuck you.

[After a few moments, he silently, plaintively reaches up for a cigarette.]

TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

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