TDM: SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

[ryslighelpers]

TDM: SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

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

(CW: Human remains)

When you awaken, you are hit with an immediate feeling of motion. A bobbing, if you will, or perhaps more of a rocking. You take a deep breath through your nose and take note of salt, along with the pungent scent of rotting wood. Creaking sounds echo all around you. Sitting up, you find yourself locking eyes with a skull.

An entire human skeleton is positioned across from you, resting limply against a pillar. Surveying the rest of your surroundings, you soon realize that you're below deck on an old, dilapidated ship. A ship that's on the move. The crew must have suffered a terrible fate, strewn as they all are across the floor. With their ripped poofy shirts, sheathed cutlasses and jaunty feathered hats, they seem to scream one word at you. "Pirates". ...Ooh, is that an abandoned bottle of rum? And a treasure chest? Surely they won't mind if you help yourself. They're dead, after all!

Once you've ascended the creaky steps, you find yourself on the deck of this vast, once proud vessel. A tattered Jolly Roger flaps overhead. Thick fog obscures most of the ocean surrounding you, but what's that straight ahead? Land ho! The ship's about to make port, and a crowd of curious onlookers has already gathered on the docks to stare up at this spooky new arrival. They appear apprehensive, perhaps even fearful, as if they haven't seen a ship come in for a long time. Will they hold you accountable for what happened to the skeleton crew? Will they praise you for 'ridding' them of pirates and allow you to keep the booty? There's no way to know just yet. Perhaps you'd best hide and find a way to disembark without being seen. Or perhaps there's someone else to be found here on this ship who suffered the same fate; someone who has a better idea of what to do.

SCENARIO TWO

You've stumbled your way into a city, and you're promptly besieged by the overwhelming sights and sounds. 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 lost expression and your clothes- so different from their own- 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. A hefty laptop may be handed to you, with words of a ‘network’ used for communication. Wonder what that’s about? Then there’s the very confusing pamphlet stuffed within: "What To Expect When You're Expecting (To Turn Into A Monster)”. They may direct you to an organisation known as the Lighthouse, their members most prominently found at the 38-8 apartments and the Lighthouse Church. Or perhaps, if you're injured, they'll refer you to the Crowe Clinic instead. Unfortunately, the directions you're given are so very complicated that you lose your way in the streets after two left turns, a right and a left at the soup kitchen.

Take care when asking for more help. 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

Now that you've found a moment of peace, you open up the mysterious device that's been handed to you. Perhaps you'll recognize it as some sort of laptop, albeit an old and clunky one. Or perhaps you'll be astounded by this curious feat of technology, which is unlike anything you've ever seen before. Regardless, the moment the lid is propped open to reveal the screen and the keyboard within, you gain your first glimpse of the network.

Perhaps you'll want to choose a username and write your very first message, posing the pressing question that's on your mind at this very moment. The lettered buttons click and clack awkwardly beneath your fingertips as you type.

However, you may instead want to respond to today's most popular message.

WELCOME TO RSDOS. PRESS F1 TO COMPOSE POST. *** TODAY’S TOP POST *** 018.07.154.55 <JUSTSOMEGUY> Let's play Two Truths, One Lie! It's real easy! You just post three statements about yourself, and the rest of us have to guess the lie. It'll be fun! And you get to be a liar liar without your pants catching fire for a bit.

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

c

[201graves]

[This place is baffling. It makes exactly the opposite of sense. Harrow, in her infinite wisdom, has been trying to learn — trying to understand, to the best of her ability, while at the same time not getting run over or looking directly into the sun or whatnot. She's trying. But the sounds and smells and forsaken lights dig into her brain, make her see things that aren't and miss things that are.]

[No one has ever spoken to her the way these people speak to them. The closest was Silas, who hated her for something done by someone millennia older than her and because he was taught to. These people, though . . . they hate viciously, with teeth shaped like re-formed fear, and when she looks at them she doesn't know what it is she's seeing, not really.]

[It's never been like this. She doesn't know who she is here. She doesn't know anything.]

[The voice pulls her out of it. Firm enough to pull her out of the mud her mind has stirred up, to make her look around and remember she has a body that she exists in. The stance reminds her of something-somewhere-someone, or maybe too many people, or maybe someone she wishes she was. Regardless, she's focused now. This is a problem to solve. Low stakes, on a grand scale, but . . .]

[And she can't do anything. She's useless and weak and weaponless, just a skinny girl with smudged paint on her face and aching shoulders.]

[Her gaze comes to rest on a glass bottle just ahead of her and to the right, resting on its shelf.]

[A few seconds later, there's an almighty crash just behind the shopkeeper. Milk explodes onto his head, with a few glass shards ricocheting off surfaces and coming to rest in his hair. He's soaked all down his neck and back — but he managed to block the other girl with his big stupid body. How chivalrous.]

[The mutinous source of the projectile glares at him from beneath her skeletal face-paint as every rangy inch of her stalks up to him with the force of a very concentrated storm.]

Enough. Attend to your business instead of advertising your cowardice. And clean up the mess you've made.

[findingtruth]

[There's a poison running through the people of this city, and Nancy imagines it doesn't get much better outside of Bavan. Like the curse that hangs over the heads of Ryslig's monsters, a murky darkness hangs over the heads of the human inhabitants too. They're haunted by it, by the ever-present fear of death and loss. They're haunted by their own experiences. Cursed by their trauma, and by the horrors they've seen. Nancy picks up on all of that easily enough.

And this man is picking on her because he thinks she's an easy target. She's skinny, small, and young, and people like to underestimate young women. He's full of anger and fear, and an untransformed monster is easier to harass than something with claws and fangs. But he doesn't realize she's looked monsters right in the eye and lived to tell the tale. He doesn't know she has a fire burning within her that burns even brighter when she's forced into a situation where she feels she has to fight back.

She sees the other girl, her eyes flickering over to acknowledge her. She notes the smudged paint, notices that she looks as human as Nancy, and wonders if the girl is going to intervene. She hopes not, in a way. There's no point getting others involved, and Nancy thinks she can handle the oafish man herself.

She turns her gaze back to her harasser.]

If you get out of my way, I can leave. It isn't hard to understand.

[Nancy says to him, voice stern and even-toned. She feels frustration, but her tone has no hint of it.]

[He's about to say something back when Nancy hears something shatter. She sees glass and milk spray everywhere and sees rivulets of pale liquid running down the sides of his face, soaking into his shirt. She gasps, taking a step back.]

What th-?! Shit! [She isn't hit, but the man stumbles to the side, clutching the back of his head. He lets out an almighty roar and turns to the painted woman, looking ready to attack.

Nancy looks around desperately and decides to pick up yet another glass bottle. She sweeps in between the girl and the man, holding the bottle out threateningly at him with one slightly trembling arm.]

Don't. [She says firmly.] I mean it. Go to the back room, get some ice for your head, and leave us alone.

[201graves]

[Harrow tenses when he turns to her, but not out of fear. She instinctively forgets how powerless she is here. Even before she ascended, she was a being of unparalleled power. There would be nothing in the world stopping her from turning this man into a thanergetic smear on his own dirty floor.]

[She would not need someone to step between her and the shopkeep. Part of her desperately wants to believe she still doesn't need that; the rest of her doesn't know and doesn't want to think about it. All of her is stung, horrified to be seen as weak by an ordinary human (just like she is right now, for a little while). Her eyes bore mutinous holes in the back of Nancy's head.]

[But all the same, she ducks, folds her body in half and rises again with a slippery shard of wet glass between her fingers. It's big, and it's crude, and most importantly it's sharp. She's moderately aware that she looks crazed holding it — and in general — so she does the obvious thing and brandishes it, wild-eyed in a way that's only half put on.]

[It's at this point that the shopkeep decides he's over it. Bellowing to some assistant cowering in the back, he turns and stomps away into the employees-only room. As the assistant comes scuttling out with a WET FLOOR! CAUTION! yellow sign, Harrow begins drying the shard of glass on what she is choosing to call her substitute robes and which is actually a stolen and very oversized sweatshirt. Her tiny hands disappear inside of the sleeves entirely.]

. . . Do you? Intend to leave.

[Gideon wouldn't, something treacherous whispers behind her eyes. But Gideon was not very smart at all.]

[findingtruth]

[Nancy is oblivious to how Harrow feels; she sees a thin, human girl around her age lending her a hand during a moment of conflict that could grow uglier. She sees someone that she must look out for, at least until the conflict is over and they're free of this man. She doesn't want Harrow getting hurt on her behalf, and the way the girl brandishes the glass has Nancy worried. There's no plan here. It's all chaos, which means Nancy will have to think very quickly if things start worsening. And from what she can see, there's a good chance of that happening.

But before things can worsen, the man appears to give up, vanishing into the backroom. Nancy lowers the hand that holds the bottle and sets it back on the shelf. It's over. For now.]

Yeah. [She exhales, glancing toward the backroom and the slowly closing door.] We're not wanted here, and there are other stores run by people who aren't assholes.

[201graves]

[She'd seethe knowing she's seen as fragile, too, someone who needs to be looked out for — never mind that it's objectively true. Nancy isn't very big or physically imposing, but she looks like a bodybuilder next to Harrow, whose bony elbows could double as knives, whose skin under the paint speaks of caves under the earth rather than healthy exercise under the sun. So sure, it's true, but still—]

[For the best that she doesn't know, is the point. She's struggling enough with what Nancy says in response to her question, some stubborn internal hook snagging on the logic of it. She is no longer anyone's Reverend Daughter here, she reminds herself. She has no authority. She has no power. She is exactly as she appears.]

[Pausing, she inspects her shard of glass and deems it clean enough, dropping it in a pocket. Her hands disappear inside of her sweatshirt sleeves again.]

We're not wanted anywhere, here. [Fingers flicking slightly out past the hems before retreating again — a gesture to Bavan at large.]