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TEST DRIVE MEME 002
⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:
Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: nudity, spiders, character death, and references to children in proximity to sexual situations.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
FAQ ✧ SETTING ✧ CALENDAR ✧ RESERVES ✧ APPLICATIONS
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: nudity, spiders, character death, and references to children in proximity to sexual situations.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE
The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the frost-covered mosses and ferns, the frozen soil cold and just a little damp on your bare skin. Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.
You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards emerging from a temporary retreat from the wintry weather. With your feet under you, and you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees, though much of the fruit has been picked clean. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, is running actively again as the weather warms back up from the recent snowstorm.
As you explore, you may run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike, and the weather isn't quite amenable to your lack of.
Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.
This quaint, historic town of five-thousand has cobbled street and signs lit by gas lamp. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street — a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer — while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. At the far end of the main street, visible about a mile to the north now that the trees and the enormous wall is out of the way, sits a castle with three towers.
When you enter, the streets are full of people, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available — the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.
breaking and entering
If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.
Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. Parts of the house still bear the dust of disuse, gathered on various furnishings — bedding, sofas, curtains, wooden tables. However, it's already full of people! Anyone who's already appeared in the village just as you did today lives here. Once inside, you may notice patchwork repairs have been made, and some scorch marks still linger from a recent fire, and some furniture is still lying around in splinters.
Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner of parsnips, pheasant, and squash. During dinner, they (and those outsiders who've already begun to settle) sit down at the enormous wooden dining room table and help orient the newcomers and answer their questions.
finding roommates
Don't spend too much time in the dining room going for seconds, though. You'll want to claim a bedroom quickly because each one only has two full-size beds, and there aren't enough spaces for everyone. The last people upstairs will need to double up to squeeze in. Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements.
Get a good night's rest. By the light of day, locals will help get the new arrivals set up on the coal stove with breakfast. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal — at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. As you find your way around town to get your bearings, folks are eager to help you find a place to apply your skills so you can contribute to your new home.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing or other inventory items, asking questions at dinner/orientation, or staking your claim on a bedroom!
OFFERINGS FOR ULANTI
The festival starts in the middle of the night, when the sun and the children are safely tucked into bed. The streets come alive with dancing locals, their faces painted red and purple and black and yellow. They all wear revealing clothing that, to your sensibilities, may seem sexually suggestive. Some individuals openly expose their breasts and nipples, while some others may incidentally reveal when they turn around to tend to their errands that their dress is backless — entirely! market stands and kind neighbors will gladly provide clothing befitting the occasion to anyone who asks.Notably, the locals' choice of clothes reveal a mark on their bodies. An astute person will notice that there are four varieties — and a very astute (
In addition to dancing and the lighting of any number of candles, you may stumble upon fighting rings inspired by Terry Silver's basement club, where the locals brawl until they're bloody and unable to move. Elsewhere, amongst the performance of a number of erotic dancers, you might come upon a face you recognize — naked and collared and caged, tongue pressed to the bars to taste anyone who'll stop and give them a little attention.
Temporary night market food stands offer various forms of alcoholic beverages and sweet and savory street food in suggestive shapes — sausages, popsicles, flowering cupcakes. many of them represent hedonistic indulgences and displays of wealth that the town usually does not seem to possess. This bounty, they attribute to the Duchess' patronage — and much of it is dosed with herbs and additives that enhance the sexual appetites and aggression in any who consume them.
Another kind of temporary stand has been erected — while new arrivals may at first mistake these for some kind of bathroom, it becomes apparent upon entry that they are partitioned stalls with gloryholes drilled between them. Some stalls are closed with an anonymous stranger waiting inside for someone to push a part of themselves through the hole to be lavished with mystery touches; others are fully unoccupied, should your character wish to lock themselves in and wait on the small wooden stool for a partner to offer themselves.
Anyone native to Rubilykskoye will take the time to answer questions about the festival of Ulanti, which functions as a way to purge their bad energy ("zadza") and sate their inner beasts ("duchozweirz"). They encourage characters to join the festivities — which range from staged sexual performances to sadism and masochism designed to feed the desire for violence. all appetites are welcome here, and there are only two rules: (1) stay away from the unmarked, which refers to the locals' prepubescent children; (2) hold nothing back.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try entering the fighting rings, watching or joining a live sex performance, or eating some aphro food (deliberately or otherwise)!
the fathomless dark of pajak wood
At the outer edges of the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day — eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches. In the void, the air feels heavy, as if it were not air at all but some more solid mass. Almost like liquid-smoke, it presses down upon you. Slowing your movements. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.
Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.
In addition to the spiders, you may come across the sharp-toothed furred yetis that emerged during the snowstorm, still looking for a meal. Each one hunts alone, a fifteen-foot-tall shambling creature that drips black ooze and super-chills the air around it until your skin feels tight and icy. If it gets the drop on you, you're likely to be its dinner. It has emerged from a long summer hibernation to enjoy the colder weather, and it's starving.
Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body — what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?
In the fog, you may also hear the voices of those familiar to you — people you know from the town, or people whom you know with almost perfect certainty aren't here. these figments may recreate unhappy memories or force trespassers to hallucinate their worst nightmares. Nothing is as it seems in the void, and when you swing at these figments, desperate to silence them, it might not be a figment at all, but a friend in the flesh trying to help you. By the time you see their true face, it could be too late to stop yourself.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger!
HIDING INSIDE EACH OF US
Uh oh spaghetti-os.
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
The baker, Nile Yoren, is a likable, middle-aged woman who can fill any request — wheat, rye, even nut breads. She boasts that her sourdough starter belonged to her grandmother. Today, when you enter her shop — to help out or to get a muffin or a bag of rolls — something is off. Her smiling face isn't behind the counter.
Around the back wall, you hear the crackling of the oven. But when you call, she doesn't come out. You have to go back and look for her. What you find is not just the oven crackling, but nile herself — twisted into an incandescent monster of human flame, the flickers of dark orange light like a face howling in agony amidst the yellows and reds and whites. Before you can scramble away, the creature lunges at you. Defend yourself or flee, or her inner beast will be feeding itself on you.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
someone else transforms
The baker, Nile Yoren, is a likable, middle-aged woman who can fill any request — wheat, rye, even nut breads. She boasts that her sourdough starter belonged to her grandmother. Today, when you enter her shop — to help out or to get a muffin or a bag of rolls — something is off. Her smiling face isn't behind the counter. Around the back wall, you hear the crackling of the oven. But when you call, she doesn't come out. You have to go back and look for her. What you find is not just the oven crackling, but nile herself — twisted into an incandescent monster of human flame, the flickers of dark orange light like a face howling in agony amidst the yellows and reds and whites. Before you can scramble away, the creature lunges at you. Defend yourself or flee, or her inner beast will be feeding itself on you.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
you waited too long
At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
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[ .. should he be more concerned about giving his name to strangers in a place that seems as suspicious and awful as this one?
Probably, the rational side of Daniel thinks. But he already feels so tired after the trek here and the weird explanation of things that it's hard to care enough to actually consider it, let alone put it into action. ]
Lucky sounds about right. [ He instead continues, shaking his head - clearly not seeming impressed with this place in the slightest. ] I still can't believe any of this is actually real.
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[ Gabe lifts the bottle in grim salute. Fuck then, right? He used to think he had a handle on waking up dazed and confused in strange places, but even he can’t top this one. It doesn’t even make for a good story, and there’s that anxious twitch deep in his chest that says hey, motherfucker, they took you from the safe house, with your goddamn kids. They know, whoever they are, and that reckoning’s going to come due sooner or later. Something brutal, something a body only survives at cost. It’s just how this shit plays out, isn’t it?
He knocks the bottle back again. This time, he takes a real drink. Exhales with a hiss. ]
LaRusso. Okay. [ He grins. Hi, stranger. ] Most people call me Fifty. You can call me Rodriguez since we’re doing grownup names. This place is a trip, huh?
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But honestly, he's already glad enough to have a grownup name to use here, thanks, so Daniel will grab hold of that opportunity for now, nodding his head with an exasperated look at that last question.
Exasperated due to this place though, at least, not due to Gabe. ]
You don't reckon anyone has found a way out of this place yet, right? [ Surely this boarding house wouldn't be bursting at the seams if that was the case. ] I assume you're probably not too happy either about being taken away from everything.
[ Sure, Gabe might seem a little.. you know, wild in the idiotic sense, but Daniel can't imagine even he would be totally okay with being dragged away from whatever business he had going on back home to instead be stuck in a place that threatens to turn him into a literal monster.
Like something straight out of a horror movie. ]
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[ Which Gabe, a shameless gossip himself, has been listening to a whole lot of. He doesn't believe any of it on the surface, but it's good to know what people talk about. The local bitching colors a lot of how things work. What people care about. What they don't touch. And he's been hearing all sorts of nonsense-sounding bullshit offered out with great sincerity.
He shrugs, angling his face like he's watching Daniel, tracking the conversation the usual way. ]
I got shit to do I can't do here, so. No. What were you doing before this went down, anyway?
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[ It's a surprisingly honest answer to a total stranger, but.. on the other hand, it's not like Daniel feels the need to hide it. Even if he's a little worried about trusting people in a place that seems so geared towards monsters and acting like violence is normal, it's not like anyone here could get to his family. They're so far away.
Which is also, at the same time, the exact problem.
Because even though Daniel is being honest here, something dips in his face - and more importantly for Gabe, in his tone - when he says it. It's clear worry. Maybe even some longing. ]
That's what gets me about this place, you know? [ It's not even like Daniel is being loose-lipped here because he's drunk. No way one glass of wine is going to do that to him. But maybe it's the presence of the drinks that makes it feel a little bit more like he can complain, especially when Gabe has - so far - seen relatively open to it. ] It just drags us away from the people we care about, and then it expects us to somehow be happy about it.
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You got kids, huh.
[ It comes out a little softer than he means. It isn't a question. ]
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Daniel hears the hint of something softer in that tone, after all. Maybe it's that hint that pushes him on to actually say: ]
Yeah. Two.
[ And while they should technically be safe, Daniel is a natural worrier. And even more so when he can't just check whether they're okay or not himself - for example, because he's stuck in a different world entirely. ]
My oldest daughter's called Samantha, and my youngest son is Anthony.
[ Not that the names matter to Gabe. Daniel knows that. But he can't help it - speaking their names feels like the only way he can still be connected to them, and he puts his half-empty glass of wine down, his fingers instead rubbing the knuckles of his other hand. ]
What about you? [ There was that softer quality to Gabe's voice, after all. Even if he might not exactly expect soft kid stories from someone who's apparently got a codename, Daniel is pretty sure no one voices a statement the way the other did without having kids yourself. ]
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Nah.
[ He lies soft and smooth. You don't name your kids in his line of work. Not to strangers. ]
How old are yours?
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But it's not like he's going to press it with a total stranger. He can understand not wanting to share in this screwed up world, even though Daniel is also pretty sure he doesn't exactly give off serial killer vibes.
(He hopes, anyway.) ]
They're teenagers.
[ Though this is not him withholding details as much as he figures saying that explains everything. Teens will be teens.
Daniel continues to stare at the other for a moment. Gabe looks younger than him, but not super young, he thinks. Old enough to have kids, probably not old enough to have teens.
He grabs his glass again, speaks up once more. ] You know, the point where they think they're totally fine on their own, even though the opposite is true.
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[ Gabe huffs at that, lifting the bottle in grim salute. Teenagers - yeah. Teenagers are a goddamn trip. He's lucky that Zee's too responsible to get into shit, a survivor already: kid knows the score, always thinks about the cost before he makes a move. Out of any of them, Zee's the one Gabe would bet on making it out alive and mostly in one piece. Melody's the impulsive one, though. She's trouble even when supervised, all rage and grief - more like Gabe at that age than either of them like admitting. He's not her blood father, but she's his kid.
Quietly, Gabe worries she'll end up just like him. Too stubborn to bend before something finally corners and breaks her. Corrupted by proximity because it's not enough to survive and grief what could've been - he's the one who's been training her, so what happens next might as well be his fault.
And with his luck, Izzy - who really is his blood - will end up worse once she grows up. Everyone in his family ends up dead or a goddamn monster - why would his daughter ever break the streak? But that's not shit you say to anyone, ever. That's never something he'll say to her. ]
I was a terror back then, [ Gabe continues, cheerfully. ] But you don't strike me as the wild child. Were you?
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Does it count when you only get in trouble against your will?
[ Granted, not like Daniel wasn't mischievous at all, but he can recognize he was somewhat of a goody-two-shoes dweeb.. He certainly wouldn't classify himself as a terror, anyway, despite all the trouble he got into.
But it's not like he could help it that he somehow had a permanent karate rival target sign painted on his back.
He shakes his head though, not seeming to linger long on the idea. Instead he stares at the other, speaking up with: ]
You got any good stories then from your terror teenage years?
[ Surely there's something superficial enough to not mind sharing, Daniel figures. ]
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That sounds like a story.
[ Do tell, LaRusso. Even so, people have a tendency to notice when you’re directing the conversation too heavily, nosing into their business and offering none of your own. Gabe certainly notices. So he shrugs, lowering the bottle, and doesn’t stonewall. The alternative is what, cooling his heels alone?
Nah. That’s boring as fuck. ]
Skipped school and stole an armored truck with my friend once, [ Gabe drawls, flashing a grin. ] That was fun. Driver left the keys behind.
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[ At least he doesn't sound disbelieving. You know, after you get dumped into a world like this, stories like these suddenly feel a lot less like they're just bluffing in order to look cool or tough.
Hence why Daniel's tone is more just surprised, in that sort of way where it's even reflected in his facial expression. ]
Was that just.. hanging around? [ Damn, Gabe. Did you live near an army base or something? Or just in a place with a lot of geared up paranoid people?
Maybe Daniel will offer one of his own stories later, but he's kind of invested in this one now. Better to think about than anything about their current situation. ]
And who would be stupid enough to leave their keys in that kind of vehicle?
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Almost. ]
We thought we were real badasses, [ Gabe says, a little wistfully. He misses Gilly. ] Gonna run away and live it up real good. Course, that was before we realized why nobody was looking for it: damn thing was slated for scrap. It barely ran. Definitely wasn't anything in the back.
[ He snorts. ]
But for about fifteen minutes, we thought we were rich. Teenagers do dumb shit, you know?
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Maybe it just sticks with you, exactly because of how dumb it was.
(A dumbness that feels so much lighter than anything about the place they've found themselves in.) ]
It's easy to not think about consequences when you're that young.
[ Daniel feels like that's got to explain most of the dumb stuff teens pull in the first place. ]
You miss living in the moment like that?
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That didn’t last. It never does. But for a moment—
For a moment, he and Gilly felt close to immortal jacking that truck. Part of Gabe misses that thrill. He’s never gotten it back.
He snorts, shaking his head. ]
Every damn day. Course, I’m told I’ve got an adrenaline problem. What about you, LaRusso?
no subject
[ The way he says it almost - almost, because Daniel's mood isn't still that great, every single time his thoughts threaten to lead him back to the reality of his current situation - sounds a little playful, like he's turning it into a joke. Not that he's judging Gabe's own adrenaline problem. Sure, it could prove a problem in combination with the local village idiot impression Gabe gives off, but it's not like Daniel has seen anything too crazy from the other yet.
Other than, you know, the weird indoor glasses thing. But that's still mild. ]
Kind of the opposite thing, actually. I often find myself wishing life was a little more quiet. [ A pause, a faint roll of his eyes, and then: ] Like I'm wishing right now.
[ Would love to not have been transported to another world, that's for sure!! ]
I just thought I was finally going to get some peace and quiet. [ Until this happened. ]
no subject
Only problem is here, he's got no distance. No perch to set himself up on. Just this room, and this man - still a stranger, eternally a threat. It's just how these moments go. ]
Peace is relative. So's quiet.
[ Gabe tilts his head. ]
How're you defining it? Since we're going there, and we're already drinking.
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Not being in a situation where we're apparently dealing with the threat of turning into a literal monster?
[ Or where you're being hunted down by guy who practically abused you decades ago, he thinks, but there's no way Daniel is going to offer that one out loud. He doesn't even offer that one to people he actively likes, to the people he trusts the most in the world.
It's easier to give the more superficial reason, the one anyone could understand. The one that doesn't require digging into his own heart.
Because he's pretty sure Gabe can understand this too, being stuck in the same situation. Things might seem relatively calm while they're sitting here in this room drinking, sure, but Daniel knows they're not. Not when he considers the bigger situation here. ]
I don't think anyone would call that peaceful. [ He sips from his drink again, but shakes his head as he swallows. ] I don't know how the people who live here can act so normal while having to live with that reality all the time.
no subject
You've never been to lockup. [ Probably. But he's got a sense. ] People can get used to anything if you take the time to establish the pattern.
[ It's an adapt or die type thing. Given half a choice, most people adapt. ]
But in the meantime: booze. Sobriety's overrated.
no subject
It just doesn't seem like a good idea. Even though he doesn't necessarily distrust Gabe, and the other has seemed alright enough despite a few oddities so far, Daniel can't help but feel too paranoid in this place to fully trust so easily.
Still, he pours himself a new glass, and then reaches over to do the same for the other.
Two glasses won't get him drunk, anyway. Maybe it'll just take the edge off. That can't hurt. ]
Well, I won't make a bet as to which one of us will get used to this place first. [ He says - dryly. ] Because it sure won't be me.
[ Daniel kind of feels like he'll never adapt, really. Everything feels so completely opposite to who he is. To what his values are.
It's a much more worrisome thought than he's letting on to with his tone, though he is at least admitting to what he's saying out loud here. He feels like it's too obvious to lie about, anyway. ]
no subject
You can't let your guard down, ever. Not for a second. ]
Why? You're alive, [ Gabe points out. ] You can't do shit when you're dead, so this is a step up.
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[ Because Daniel clearly isn't. Sure, he's realistic enough to recognize that this is just their situation and they have to deal with it - he isn't going to deny that.
But he is going to complain. It's his god-given right, alright.
Besides, it does help in a way, since it means that Daniel is way too caught up in his own complaining and Gabe's cover-up to realise the other's problem here. Your secret's safe, Gabe.
While Daniel's just sipping his wine again for now. ] Are you saying you're not worried about turning into an actual monster, like they're talking about?
no subject
[ He's really not, but also: you can't do a goddamn thing when you're dead and if you're still kicking, then there's a chance to adapt and overcome. You can still fight if you're breathing and that's better than nothing.
Gabe shrugs, spreading his hands out. ]
Not right now. Honestly, this whole thing sounds like cult nonsense. Locals believe it, but whatever: I've met people who thought science was the second coming of the devil and went around shooting outsiders with bows and arrows. But we're here, and there's booze, so that I will take.
no subject
When he lowers his glass again, he speaks up with: ]
You know, Rodriguez-- I can't tell if you're the absolute smartest or the absolute dumbest person I've met today.
[ It doesn't even sound like an insult.
More just that he's at least the most unique person Daniel has met today. Especially among all the weirdly cheery cult-like people in this place. ]
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