test drive meme.

[fablemods]

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away... You snap awake with a sudden jolt, the sounds of nature surrounding you. The ground is warm beneath your hands, a press of fabric under your head. Sit up. Look around. This isn't where you fell asleep. Not even close to it. But with no one around you, answers as to how you got there in the first place are a little beyond your reach for now. If you decide to head off, don't forget your bag. You'll want that if you plan on making it out here. If you want to survive. And if you don't want to move, well...good luck. There's a shadow on the prowl. A rustle of leaves, a snap of twigs. Glowing eyes in the distance... -------------------- Characters find themselves waking up on the bare ground (or a bed if they're very lucky), a leather pack beneath their head, and entirely alone. It's not where they fell asleep that night. Isn't even close. The sky is the wrong shade, the ground isn't quite right. The only note of familiarity are the clothes on their back. Searching through their pack, characters will find a change of clothes, a few food rations, and something personal to them. They'll also find a pouch of wooden coins and a shard of mirror. Before they get a real chance to investigate those items though, they'll hear a rustle in the distance. The sounds of something moving around. It's their cue to get moving too. And somehow, all characters find their feet guiding them in the same direction. Off towards the Great Lake, less than ten minutes walk away, no matter where on the island they first woke up. Welcome to the island of Leutheria. Welcome to the Fablelands test drive. Above is an arrival prompt that players are welcome to use to introduce or test out any characters they are interested in bringing to the game. Below is an on-going event that takes place throughout the first two weeks of a character's arrival. (Though the wolf will still remain a constant presence on the island for the months to come). And of course, you are free to use this post for any other prompts you wish to use, or mirrorshard conversations too. All threads are able to be used as game canon, providing both players agree to it, and can ultimately be used for bonus AC if you wish to. If you have any questions, please direct them to the FAQ. And without further adieu, let's get on with the show! premise | faq | locations | wishing well | taken | reserves | applications | hiatus/drop | bonus ac

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away... You wake to the feeling of being watched. Of a set of unfamiliar eyes, of warm breath on the back of your neck. A jolt back to the land of the living, and it's gone. No matter how quick you are, how sneaky, the source of the disruption has long since disappeared, so you have no choice but to try and ignore it. To continue on with your day and try to set that moment of strangeness aside. You eat, drink, speak with others. Perhaps you explore a little. Whatever it is you choose to do for the day, that feeling from the morning won't return. And by the time the sun sets and the moon glows brightly above, you've likely set those moments of strangeness aside. It's not like it's anything new, after all. It's the same again for the next few days. No better, no worse. Something best ignored, right? A speck of blood on the doorframe. That wasn't there before, was it? A snap of twigs in the distance. A crunch of leaves. Claw marks gouged deeply into the door. Into the wall above your bed. Scraps of red fabric, turned darker with blood. Pieces of fur. Of flesh. Do you run and hide? Do you fight? Whatever you choose, it's definitely time to make sure your body parts aren't scattered next... ...what a horribly big mouth you have. -------------------- Since first waking up on the island, characters have been stuck with that feeling of being watched. It isn't a constant. Isn't more than a few seconds at a time, dotted throughout the day. Investigation has never turned up much, and there's never been any sightings of the cause of it all. Until now. Throughout the first half of the week, characters will find themselves suffering from that feeling of being watched on a far more constant basis. Rather than it being a one-off, few seconds occurrence each day, that feeling will last for minutes at a time, and on multiple occasions. However, it isn't until the fifth day that they'll start stumbling across physical signs of their monitoring. There are claw marks on doors. Spots of blood on the paths outside. A crack of twigs in the forests, or the imprint of bloodied paws in the snow. Ten days in and those signs start finding their way indoors. Wet footprints, tinged with red. Claw marks in the walls, the floor. Torn sheets and the smell of wet...something. Whatever it is that's been watching you, its finally decided to come and say hello. Two weeks in and characters will begin to have sightings of the creature, its fur dark and its eyes a glowing yellow. At times it looks like a wolf, prowling in the distance. At other times, it's walking on its hind legs, almost human were it not for the muzzle full of gleaming sharp teeth. Get too close, and it slips away like a shadow, gone between one blink and the next. It decides when to reach out to characters, not the other way round. It's after characters finally get a good look at the creature that it starts leaving...gifts. Characters will start to find familiar items from their home worlds amidst the mess. The remains of a childhood pet, perhaps. Photographs of loved ones, faces torn almost beyond recognition. It's only once it delivers its final gift that the creature retreats to the trees again: a blood-splattered item of clothing that clearly belongs to the person the character misses the most at the time, alive or dead. [credit 1 & credit 2]

Comments

C

[sharpshooterpaladin]

[ Lance barely knows the guy. He knows he's new, knows his name, knows he can handle a gun... that's about it. He was only dropping by because him and Keith had talked about going hunting soon, maybe even as soon as tomorrow, and Ryo doesn't live too far away, and it figures maybe with some more support they could get more done.

So here he is.

He didn't expect-- that. The bloodstained glasses. He's got good eyes, unfortunately good, so he can tell that's what they are, even in the low light. Lance feels suddenly wrong-footed, offkilter. He's not sure what to say, there are a dozen questions buzzing around his head, but none of them seems like the right thing to start with.

... So he doesn't. He stands, and waits, fingers nervously dancing over the makeshift quiver and the ends of his arrows, to the end of his bow slung over his back. Makeshift. Bamboo. He's still learning, but he is learning - as much as he still wishes he had a rifle. He lingers, not sure what to say, what to expect Ryo to say. When he does speak up, Lance jolts just slightly, like he got lost chasing after trains of thought. ]

Hey. Uh. [ A smoke? ....... It seems so outlandish it takes him a moment. ] Not really. I wanted to ask if you wanna come with us tomorrow, we're going hunting. [ Addendum, he's suddenly not sure if Ryo is familiar with the "we" he means here, ] Me and Keith.

But... did something happen?

[reillumination]

[ There's not much to say.

There's often isn't these days, the hands on the clock ticking toward increasing uncertainties. Ryo hadn't much to spare, much to consider beyond what was next, who was next — if he was next, his father's hunting knife kept just beneath his pillow.

So, what was the use in dredging up what had gone past? What was the use in recounting any unsettling distance, paranoia staining dark the white bones that kept it all inside his chest? Maybe once Ryo would have regarded Lance as someone who was innocuous, who had no real interest in him as much he had no real interest in him. Perhaps he would have given him more than a cursory glance, a family name to term him by when crossing paths.

Instead, he only tugs his collar closer with his free hand. It brushes, curls toward the cut of his cheekbones. It hides so much of him. ]

Ha, [ he breathes, after a time. He takes a long drag off his cigarette, flicks from it the thin film of ash. ] Nothing like that.

[ If he notes Lance's discomfort, he doesn't seem to pay mind to it. His eyes flit to quiver Lance consults, the repetitive movements meant to steady him. And still, even after, Ryo doesn't look at him. He looks beyond him, the curve of his shoulder like a level for the horizon line. He doesn't really want to go, but he knows Akira will want to. At the very least, he could ascertain the lay of the landscape and guarantee that Akira'll remain safe.

He takes another drag. ] We'll go, [ he says, words punctuated by thin wisps of grey smoke. ] I'm good at tracking.

[ He omits that he won't be the one to kill. He can't bring himself to do it. ]