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

ʀʏᴏ ᴀsᴜᴋᴀ >> ᴅᴇᴠɪʟᴍᴀɴ (ᴏᴠᴀ/ᴍᴀɴɢᴀ)

[reillumination]

ᴀ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ'ᴛ ɢᴏ ᴏɴ ᴛʜɪɴᴋɪɴɢ ɴᴏᴛʜɪɴɢ's ᴡʀᴏɴɢ

[ Ryo doesn't take to waking up in strange places the same way he used to.

He's seen it all: hospital ceilings, the interior of another hot-wired car, the musty underside of motel sheets. He can no longer count on one hand how many times involved alcohol, but he can still number the times each has involved graver injuries. Right now, he can feel the dull ache in his stomach from talons entirely too long, the itch of bandages that need to be redressed, but right now that isn't of particular significance. That's a known. Waking up with dampened hair, the smell of Earth beneath him — that's a known too. Distantly, he realizes that the lap of water at his hand is a kinder call to rouse than most.

But, that's the only kindness.

His reflexes no longer care for tenderness when the weight of eyes sends adrenaline rallying up the notches of his spine, sends him staggering to his feet. He soaks in his surroundings, his hand reaching for the gun he keeps, but the moment's gone before he can speak and send the observer answering for whatever it is they seek. As he turns to where they once were, he's left instead to steady the rabbiting thrum of each half-directed thought.

There's no lake like this he's ever glanced. There are no landmarks like this across the topography of Japan. And moreover — the next sound he hears, he glances toward it. Or perhaps he doesn't. It's difficult to tell, but there's the indicative turn of his head, the wan light of the moon catching cold against his pale skin.

He keeps his hand on the butt of his gun. ]

Akira?

[ He keeps his posture tense, doesn't let hope flicker in. ]

ʙ. ᴀɴᴅ ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ɴᴏᴡ, ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ

[ Who even knows what day it is anymore?

Well, someone is counting. He is. There's an internal clock that won't stop ticking, a sort of constant rhythm stretched thin under the skin. Two weeks, on the nose. Fourteen days. And finally, finally — he's had it. He's done long stakeouts in the wilderness before, so it isn't as if this is any different, being huddled behind the brush as he is. The only thing that is, is this: he's never been cornered where they want him before. He'd always had an exit, a place he could turn. But now, there's only the foreign musk of pine, the scent of wet dog, and the stillness that hangs like a fog against the woods.

He'd laugh, if the sound wasn't caught fast in his throat. Even the low burn of his cigarette can't rid him of it, thin tendrils of smoke weaving through the loose net of his fingers until —

It's a blur of motion. The other might have come up on his right, his left, from behind. Regardless, there's a pale hand darting out. It cinches about the nearest bit of fabric, the closest limb in a vice grip and jerks them to crouch where he is. Despite the thin, delicate nature of it — his hold doesn't leave room for argument. It's strong, stronger than it seems to have any right to be. He's too young for this. ]

Hurry up and stop moving, [ he hisses around the the filter of his cigarette. It's hard to see if he's looking at the other he's just grabbed at all. The shades he wears are dark, opaque. In normal circumstances, it'd be bound to draw questions. Right now, however, it seems like his attention is fixed on the thin thread of light bled up against the horizon line. Maybe they can see it too, maybe they can't. If their eyes are good, there's a black form looming against the dawn. To Ryo, it may as well be the Shuck right up on them in the heart of these woods.

But, it won't matter either way, because nothing is going to halt his fixed advance on that hulking fucker that's intent on getting entertainment out of its quarry today.

He dips his free hand under the heavy canvas of his coat and closes his fingers around —

Yeah, that's an over-under shotgun. It's a sturdy make, well-kept and heavily modified. There's an absolute comfort in the way he pulls it up out of the makeshift holster he's made, levels it. He barely takes a steadying breath through his nose before he has his index finger on the trigger, the cherry of his cigarette scattering a thin film of ash. ]

Cover your ears. [ Not that it matters if they did anyway. He might as well have spared himself saying it, because the thing goes off and it's loud. Let it be known that Ryo Asuka doesn't mess around, but the shot's in vain anyway. It hits true to the mark, but the mark is absent for its final interview. That wolf evaporates like vapor off the asphalt on a hot Tokyo day, the wasted buckshot lodging itself in a metallic array across the thickening copse. It's just tree sap and bark that's left to show for the efforts he's made. ]

Dammit.

[ Yeah, they're gonna hear that one. ]

ᴄ. ɪᴛ's ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛ, ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ ʟᴇᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴇᴀsʏ

[ He's lucky.

There's plenty here who don't have someone around, but Ryo intends to keep his fortunes that way. Even after finding a suitable place to settle in and settle down, there's little to promise yet that he can lower his guard. He feels it, like others feel it. It's there. That black shadow, the black Shuck — that other shoe that's bound to drop. No matter how many times he and Akira had pursued it, it thinned through their trappings like water. It chased another way around, like a natural stream underground. And now, it seeps into everything.

Like blood, he supposes. It stains wood, stains clothes. It stains his skin as he holds a pair of crumpled frames in his hands, the rounded rims cracked through and chipped like the surface of the moon or the flat face of frozen ponds. Ryo doesn't peer too long into the promise of it, because he knows already that there is nothing there — there are no means through which these could have survived to begin with. The fire was hot enough to eat through the bulk of a mortal men.

At the end of the day, his father is dead. It didn't matter that he weighed more than he did while he was alive. It didn't matter that the flames warped the comfortable chair his father used to sit in. It didn't matter that it ate through the first set of desk drawers, before Ryo could think to extinguish it. It didn't really matter at all.

Logically, Ryo knew he was being toyed with.

Outside his cabin, lingering in the dusk hours, Ryo turns the glasses over in hands. His chest doesn't constrict. His heart doesn't feel tight. He breathes.

He places the frames back where he found them, against the inset of the window. They'd caught the light. That's how he spotted them. He doesn't want them. That thing can keep it.

He wipes his hands against his coat, pats himself down for his carton of cigarettes. He has a few left. He thinks about what he'll use once they're gone and almost laughs, and then does as he pulls one out of the pack. His hands nearly drop the thing, nearly drop the lighter he keeps too as he balances the smoke between his lips and tries to kick up some kind of reasonable spark.

It's only when he's able to take his first drag does he look up at all. The blue of his eyes, despite the flicker of the reddening cherry, is odd and dark. ]

What? [ The question lags behind the recognition of another. The words come sharp, hoarse. He blinks once, twice. ] Did you want to smoke?

[ Did they? ]

ᴅ. sᴏ ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ɴɪɢʜᴛ ꜰᴀʟʟs, ᴍʏ ʟᴏɴᴇʟʏ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ᴄᴀʟʟs

[ For more 80s hits and yesterday's favorites (commercial free!), dial-in at rasasvada or PM this journal here. I'll be glad you did. ]

Bryn Thornbreak | Original Character

[thornbreaker]

Arrival

[ Bryn is not sure what to think when she opens her eyes. She remembers falling asleep to celebrations. She remembers the sound of her friend trying to navigate playing his banjo with his new arm. She recalls another one complaining about how no one told her how dirty adventuring was. She knew the sounds she fell asleep to and the familiar voices. When she wakes up there's a tired confusion as she looks around. Her companions weren't alongside her. Surely they couldn't have wandered off that far. Why would they have? They had some measure of comfort in the druidic settlement.

A moment later it clicks. She isn't in the settlement. Her companions aren't with her. She scrambles up quickly, hooves kicking away any twigs or leaves that had touched and startled her. She reaches to her hip for her weapon only to feel air. Not good. She reaches behind her to see her smaller sword was still on her back. Nothing. A sense of dread hit her at the idea that was alone and unarmed. Normally she found comfort among the woods but now her heart began to sink. Surely this was a joke. A poor joke but what other reason was there? ]

Alessandra? Azogg? If you dragged me from camp to play a joke this isn't funny.

[ Slowly she starts to walk forward, trying her best to rest each hoof lightly on the ground. Her movement is slow and cautious. She peeks slowly around each tree close enough to her. The tightening feeling in her chest gave her no comfort. She knew the wilds though. She should feel at ease but the hairs on the back of her neck felt like they were standing up. If only she had even her hunting knife on her. There were so many small comforts she was used to even if it was as simple as feeling like she had a real weapon on hand. Now of all the times to be stuck without them. ]

Last time I ever listen to someone and sleep near people.

Day Ten

[ She knows the feeling of being watched. A feeling she was far too familiar with that brought forth more emotions than she knew how to handle. She hated it. It got under her skin and wrapped all sorts of negative thoughts in her mind. She had to survive though. A small cabin, weathered and worn and barely fit to be shelter was her new home. It served primarily for storage of anything she manages to salvage from the area. Food, material that she might be able to use for crafting and a few things she thought might be interesting. Yet every night so far despite the feeling of being watched she kept sleeping outside. There was a deep comfort to sleeping in the wilds and exposing herself to the elements. It was one of the few comforts that she could find at the moment. Considering she was positive she wasn't finding a familiar village anytime soon she took any comfort as a victory.

That comfort was ruined when she found tracks in the cabin. Within a few moments she's galloping through the woods as fast as she can. Twigs, branches and roots snapping underneath her as she is done trying to sit and wait to find out what's been around the area. She is a fighter, a hunter, and she would not be bothered by some unknown creature following her. ]

Come out! Are you afraid to fight me?! Cowardly beast!

[ Finally at her last shout she slows to a stop to catch her breath. She's at about a zero on the level-headed scale as she keeps looking around to see if the beast has shown itself. ]

Just you wait! When you show yourself I'll crush you!

[ Zero chill. ]

A gift

[ No mater what she's done it seems like the creature won't fight. She tried everything she could think of. Traps, goading, even trying to knock a tree down when she thought she heard it on the other side. Not that the tree budged nor did she find that fight but she tried. That was all she could do to find comfort. It never mattered how fast her legs made her run. It was faster then her. As much as she hated to admit it maybe it was even smarter than her. What a joke. She was supposed to be capable of taking beasts down. Now this thing was messing with her like she was nothing. It was eating at her. She was letting a mere animal get her. Bryn was positive that somewhere her companions would be laughing at her. To go from the fearless fighter who charged into anything without question to a paranoid fool.

This morning as she heads out it's different. Instead of finding food while she's out and about she finds a blacksmiths hammer. Ornately carved runes along the hand and a crest engraved into the head. The hammer has certainly seen better days but it was made with a fine eye detail. She takes the hammer and turns it over in her hands a few times. There's something unsettling about having the hammer in her hand as she notes some marks on it she doesn't remember seeing on it before. ]

Hordus? Hello...? Are you out there?

[ Now she's confused. She was certain there was no one she knew here. Part of her almost hopes that it was someone else's if only to ease her mind. ]

I hate this place.

Wildcard

[ Wanna make friends with a centaur? Now's your chance! I got a little info post for her here and for any questions/plotting stuff feel free to pm me. ]

Akira Fudo | Devilman

[wahey]

a. arrival
(cw: he arrives in the nude because that’s how devilman rolls; also some minor canon-typical injury description)

[Akira doesn't awaken so much as he's ripped out of a blood-loss induced unconsciousness. It takes a few seconds for the shock to wear off to let him to realize a few things: (1) he was no longer in his devilman form, (2) his injuries have mysteriously vanished, and (3) Sirene was similarly gone. Was he dead? Surely, she would have killed him without a second thought. If that were the case, he probably wasn't in any sort of heaven, considering his merging with a demon as vicious as Amon.

A hand lowers to pat his stomach, double checking in slight disbelief to find his innards no longer exposed to the elements by Kaim's horns. There was nothing - not even a scar left behind. Akira doesn't think to check the bag on the ground for clothes as he stands up. Beyond the disregard for his own nakedness, he looks entirely human at the moment. The only odd features on him were two long scars on his back. The markings snaked over his shoulders to the chest, and were far too symmetrical to be from any accidental injury.

Not that Akira is expecting any company to actually see him. Instead, he’s taking a moment listen to the rustle of leaves and twigs above him, to the sound of rocks embraced by the edge of a creek, to the chirping songbirds fluttering from tree to tree. He lets himself soak in the calm of the natural landscape, unbothered by the exposure to the temperate air. It was incredibly peaceful here. So much so that a single, sure observation comes to his head:]

This can't be hell.


b. good pickings
[Once half-clothed and introduced, Akira quickly finds himself busy enough with the task of survival. No convenience stores seemed to be on the island, sadly, so it was back to basics.

Perhaps it should be natural that a devilman would take some fondness for hunting. The visceral impulses of a demon fit perfectly well in untouched wilderness as much as they clashed with life in a human city.

But of course, killing things wasn’t the only way to gather food. Sometimes, you’re on foraging duty.

For all Akira excelled in picking out elusive game and landing his marks, he couldn’t escape the grasp of boredom picking fruits out of a tree. Standing comfortably between two branching trunks of particularly large, old and magnificent looking one, he digs into the leafy branches hovering twenty feet into the air. Every dozen seconds or so, an apple gets picked from its base and is lazily tossed downward - presumably, to someone below.]

[Not that he’s paying any particular attention to where he’s throwing them, he’s just chucking them to the ether. Rather than an orderly pile, the grass below is going to be scattered with fruit all over the ground.

Eventually, his head appears out of the green:]

Is that enough? Can we call this done?


c. two weeks in

[Fight-hungry devil blood and youthful impatience mixes into quite the powderkeg after weeks of a threatening thing hovering in Akira’s periphery. The viscera left behind was familiar enough for him to assume some kind of demon was fucking with him, even if the typical demon he knew tended to leave more intact displays of gore. The moments of uncanny quiet left him with a sense of urgency, and soon enough he was itching to find monster flesh to rip apart with his bare hands.

Needless to say, a first proper sighting of the creature finally sets that powderkeg to blow. Through the fog and the dark of night, Akira is quick to spot a glimpse of the massive, vaguely canine shape near the wooden walls of a dark cabin. In the half-second it takes to register in his head, a fearless staccato drumbeat instantly flares up his veins.]

Finally revealed yourself, have you?

[ He was going to kick this thing's ass for all it’s damn trouble.

With an inhuman speed of his own, he slams his forearm square through the wooden door behind the shadow. Whether the cabin was inhabited or not seemed to be lost on him - to hell with the consequences at this point.

The planks shatter into pieces as the hinges snap clean off. Splinters and nails bounce across the floor and opposite wall with the larger pieces of wood. Akira bursts in with his fangs locked together, footsteps heavy and breaths agitated as he looks back and forth for the beast. Of course, there is no monstrous opponent waiting for him. The creature melted into smoke the moment he got anywhere near melee distance.

Instead, all he had was his mess, the cold wind from outside, and whomever was around. Well - at least that was one way to make an entrance. ]

d. wildcard!!

(feel free 2 hit me up over DMs or over on plurk at hematite)

Gobbet | Shadowrun: Hong Kong

[ratsinadaze]

Day 1: Arrival

[This is not Hong Kong.]

[Gobbet knows this before she even opens her eyes. It's the feeling of solid ground beneath her that tells her she's not in the hammock she fell asleep in. It's the scent of pine and the sound of birdsong that warns her she's been taken from the boat, from Heoi altogether, and brought somewhere very far away. It takes her a few moments to convince herself to open her eyes. To break the illusion that this is just a lingering dream.]

[Her attention is drawn immediately to the pack beneath her head. Besides the clothes, there's a bit of food and some items she doesn't recognize. She turns the wooden coins over in her hands, examines herself in the shard of mirror. Does find comfort in the little red orb tucked away at the bottom, when she finally notices it. Wherever she was, perhaps she was not beyond Rat's reach, if this little blessing could follow her here.]

[It's not often something gets the jump on her. The feeling of eyes on her back is unfamiliar. Unwelcome.]

[Gobbet freezes, getting the sudden inescapable notion that she is prey. Her eyes scan the brush, her ears strain to hear footsteps, breathing, anything - nothing is there. Not anymore, anyway. And that is her cue to get lost in this new, strange land. Somewhere that sensation can't find her. Literally anywhere else but this little exposed clearing in the woods.]

[With her new bag slung over her shoulder, the ork picks her way through the unfamiliar terrain towards...where is she going exactly? It's not unusual for her to have this feeling of being guided somewhere. But the pull is almost from the ground, not her gut, and that's what worries her. This isn't Rat telling her where to go, it's the land. And she doesn't much like that, but what choice does she have? She deals with it the same way she deals with every other problem she can't be assed to address: She tunes out and lets life take her wherever it's going to take her.]

[Unfortunately by the time she emerges from the woods to the lake's shore, she's not paying any attention whatsoever to where she's going.]

Day 5: Tension

[She nearly drops the food she's foraged. Gobbet thought being in the middle of this little village would be safe. Would shield her from the prying eyes of whatever has been hunting her. It wouldn't be able to slip past the others who lived there. It wouldn't leave big, red-tinged gouges on the doorframe. And it certainly wouldn't leave smears of blood on the pathway leading up to her door.]

[Okay, it might not be blood. It might be an elaborate prank. A joke. Or a warning that the others didn't want her here. Be reasonable. Think about it a bit.]

[She's just standing there, staring at the claw marks, feeling that feeling again. That she's prey. That there are eyes hot on her back, searing and hungry. And that's why she wheels around on the first noise she hears, eyes wide, stumbling backwards.]

Day 14: Critical Mass

No. Fuck this!

[The yell of frustration comes as Gobbet kicks open her door and chucks the mangled, blood soaked remains of her best friend's cyberdeck out into the snow.]

You're fucking with me! Whoever, whatever you are, you're not fucking funny!

[She's not paying much attention to where she's going or who might be around. She's just hauling ass down the path towards the forest. She's holding something in her hand so tightly that her knuckles are white. At the first snap of twigs, she cocks her arm back and hurls the item - an...apple? - towards the sound.]

Fuck you!

Wildcard

[Your call! Hit me up on this journal or at azazelbunny for planning/prompts/what have you.]