TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

[ryslighelpers]

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.

Comments

[ikutachi]

[ There's the start of a word that gets choked back before it can get further. None of it makes sense. The locations are none she recognizes and alternate realities are impossible.

And... she is throwing a tantrum. Four years prior, she would have never believed that humanity would go nearly extinct, or that monsters were real and fed on the innocent. It was a truth that had to be accepted to continue living. This is... It's just a less violent version of that. She comes from a home in Japan. He comes from a home in Ennor. Both are now adrift. ]

Sometimes we leave all we've known.

[ There's a faint sadness behind it, but only the kind that comes from idle musing. Eyes close, one hand rests on her chest, and she exhales. Both are now adrift, but still they walk. Simple as that. And just like that, the small glimpse of weakness is gone and thrown in a box with all the other Deal With It Later tier problems. ]

Then we assume it's possible. We should mentally prepare for the worst. This place might be a world that isn't yours or mine.

[nearamir]

[He nods slowly - not the slowness of one who doubts, but that of one who is, in this very moment, accepting the truth. It is, after all, a truth that has lurked in the periphery of his thoughts since the moment he awoke. Something is unnatural here; this much, he has known from the beginning, by his very presence.]

[And yet, slower still, it begins to dawn on him that it may not be as unnatural nor as fearsome as he thought. Stranger than anything he has said, perhaps, is the look of near-relief, of hope, that touches his expression for a moment.]

Or it may be simpler still by far. For is it not said that even Manwë himself does not know what becomes of the souls of Men, when their bodies fail them?

Does it not seem natural that whatever passes beyond life, it would be something we would share?

[ikutachi]

[ Honestly? The words aren't that strange. If a thought is cast to the Deal With It Later box, the option Wakaba would have bet on is that this was her punishment. The others aren't here because she failed them, simple as that, so of course she'd be banished to some hellscape without her friends, powerless. Of course her blade was rescinded; she was no longer worthy of it.

But how Faramir describes his afterlife, the hope in his voice; what he sees is not nearly so bleak. Ignoring whatever Manwë is, probably a God, the world he sees is one she fought for. Written in different names, in different worlds, but a place where nowhere as bleak as long as the weight is shared. That every soul here has a second chance to share their stories together. She wants to believe it.

No. She needs to. She owes them as much. ]

...Yes. I hope so, truly. People are strongest when they walk their lives together. I... I just pray everyone else went somewhere nicer.

[nearamir]

[It has always been easier to find hope for others than himself. His own hope for this place is slight - that it is some natural thing to find himself here, that he has not been raised by darker forces, that death has worked itself as death must - and until she says that last, he has not thought much about the place itself. Now, though...]

We do not know yet what lies beyond this burial ground. [Assuming, of course, that anything does. To say that part feels cruel.] We do not know what manner of place this is.

Take heart, my lady. This may still turn out to be that somewhere nicer.