TEST DRIVE MEME 002

[rubimods]

⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ 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

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.

SETTING: CRIME

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 (thirsty) person might notice that their fellow woodsfolk also have one of these somewhere on their body.

FAQ: CURSE MARKS

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.

FAQ: DEATH RULES

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.

FAQ: MONSTER CURSES & TIMELINES

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?

RULES: CONTENT WARNINGS

Comments

[brothergoblin]

At... what cost... though...

[ Even Tyler's voice sounds momentarily ruined, huskier and deeper beyond just the second puberty thanks to testosterone. He's barely aware of the hand at his back for a moment, his lungs seeming to want to eject themselves via his windpipe. ]

What even is that? Do I have organs left?

[bloomandwither]

[Ankari's ears perk at that drop in voice. He cannot help but deliberately use his real, much deeper voice to tease that,]

Ah, so you have two voices, as well. [he keeps on rubbing the poor man's back]

Burned all the way down, did it? The second will pass through easier, right over scorched earth. [That he would see Tyler react this way and think "so, round two?" probably says a lot about Ankari's twisted priorities]

[brothergoblin]

[ The shift in depth of Ankari's voice is curious, even as Tyler's fighting his own body tooth and nail for a foothold back into 'I'm fine, I swear' territory. In fact there's a quality to it that makes him shiver, just a fraction, skin feeling slightly prickly as the hairs on his arms stand to attention.

He doesn't think on it too much, not when he's only just getting back to being able to stand up straight again. ]

Another? You want another one of those?

[bloomandwither]

That was my fifth down, I don't expect you to play at catch up... [given that reaction, Tyler will probably pass out at three, best to avoid that if they're to actually hold up another conversation]

There might be something easier to sip available. A wine or honey mead, perhaps? That you can have after hard liquor, not so much the other way.

cw: alcoholism

[brothergoblin]

Fifth? You've had five of those?

[ And all Ankari apparently has to show for it is maybe a subtle slur of his words that Tyler had heard earlier. ]

Is this an elf thing or are you just a high functioning alcoholic?

[bloomandwither]

[That slur of words isn't even from the alcohol, he just has a stutter sometimes. The alcohol tends to make that happen less...

As for being an elf or an alcoholic,]

Might be both, lad. Elves are heavy drinkers and heavier smokers. We have very long lives, cutting that a bit short isn't a concern to most. [It should mean more to Ankari, who won't live as long as other elves, but he has about zero self preservation instinct. He won't admit that to someone who seems to like him a bit...]

[brothergoblin]

You smoke too?

[ Tyler is very firmly a stress smoker. The kind of person to not smoke for months and then in times of stress smoke through an entire pack in a short space of time. But alcohol he relies on less.

Eventually he asks the bartender for a honey mead instead of whatever Ankari's drinking, though makes sure to order another one of those for the elf too. He might not be all that into drinking culture, but he still has manners. ]

How long is very long?

[bloomandwither]

Tobacco, cannabis, opium... are those things humans will smoke? We elves enjoy most anything we can grow. [it isn't like Ankari would really know of human culture beyond what he saw of brief visits from human lords... let along the kind of humans from Tyler's world. The modern idea of controlled substances would make him laugh a bit. Sounds like a fools errand to try to regulate en mass.]

Oh, difficult to say. There are some elves from the Northern Scholarship, where time does not move the same, who are some thousand or more in years. Most in Stilmyst will live until four or five hundred... given war or plague doesn't take them sooner. Then there are those who won't stay dead. We are a varied people.

[to say the least]

[brothergoblin]

Depending where you go, two out of those three things are legal to smoke. Want to guess which?

[ At least Tyler can say he's smoked a joint before. His bubble of inexperience had space for weed, if not much room for alcohol and sex. The urge to make a mushroom joke is palpable, on the tip of his tongue. But he swallows it too soon in favor of sating his curiosity. ]

You're a-- [ Prince of Stilmyst. He stops abruptly, remembers they had an agreement to keep secrets. ]

You're from Stilmyst, right? Wait, you're 40-something, you said? If you live until you're 400, doesn't that still make you a kid?

[ Clearly Ankari isn't a kid, but Tyler thinks he's being very smart all the same. He takes a gulp of his mead and decides he likes it much better. ]

[bloomandwither]

Of those, I would guess opium is illegal, given the addictive quality it has. Not feeling pain is like a siren's song- Sorry. Do you have sirens? They lure men to their deaths at sea with irresistibly pleasant melodies. [the metaphor wouldn't make a bit of sense if that didn't exist, right? Ankari is thoroughly unaware that things that are simply real in his world are myth in others...

He then snorts very loudly at the kid comment]

N-n, no. I have lived forty-five years, even in the long scale of lives, that is still well into adulthood. We are a bit slower to mature than humans, in our teenage years we begin to wither and need to maintain bloom rather than it being the default. Elves are no longer consider in youth, then. I think humans call that puberty.

[brothergoblin]

Bingo. Weed is too in some places. But the place I'm from just legalized it, finally.

I've heard of Sirens but only from like... mythological stories?

[ Of which Ankari sounds like he lives in one of those, from Tyler's perspective. The loud snort provokes a broad grin. ]

So you basically get a long retirement, is what you're saying. Old already.

[ He swills around his mead in his cup and then takes a victorious swig. ]

[bloomandwither]

Are elves only in your stories, too? How interesting to consider...

[Ankari will also take his mead a little lighter, not chugging it the way he had to liquor. They're socializing, he doesn't need to be a complete lush.]

I don't know what you mean by that, retirement. That's only for prized horses and hunting dogs that grow too old for their work.

[brothergoblin]

Uhm. Yeah, actually. Just in stories. When I said where I'm from is just humans and animals... literally that's all we've got. Not even aliens.

[ Which Tyler always thought was a shame. All the stories Mary-Ann had told him and Alyson when they were kids painted such a rich world. ]

My mom used to tell me and my sister stories kind of like that. And in the stories, me and my sister were always the crafty goblins helping the princess.

[ Anyway. He's not really in the mood to talk about that now anyway. Better to just sink into the moment as lightly as possible. ]

How do you feel missing your wedding?

[ Yep, let's change the subject completely. ]

[bloomandwither]

[The change of subject might have been a bit too much for Ankari. He was sipping his drink and chokes, coming up from it with a wheezing cough that makes his bloom fail. Who is the goblin, now...]

F-f-ffeeling... pretty good. There was- s, sorry, no. I shouldn't say what was going to happen. You'd be mortified...

[brothergoblin]

[ So maybe Tyler feels a little bad about making Ankari choke. Not just that but he doesn't quite understand how the in bloom and wilting works, so while he's trying not to stare he's also fascinated.

At the very least he reaches out to return the favor, patting Ankari on the back until he's done trying to hack up a lung. ]

Now you kind of have to say.

[bloomandwither]

Urgh... do I, now? It didn't happen, so you know... but the elder worgs demanded a ritual consummation before their council. Admittedly, my husband to be didn't look any more thrilled than I. [just a whole audience to make sure it really happened. Delightful. He finally catches his breath just to, indeed, chug the rest of that mead down.]

Still got called a dog-fucker at least five times after agreeing. By the very subjects I was trying to save, mind you! ... no one is ever grateful. [not true, a lot of his subjects where very grateful, but Ankari feels he's allowed some self pity for having those insults slung his way in so dire a situation]

[brothergoblin]

[ It admittedly isn't where Tyler had expected the conversation to go, but it's fair. He did ask. Not exactly for those details but he'd asked.

And considering his inexperience, maybe those shots did him some service. He doesn't seem to be as flustered as he might have been. ]

Demanded you... have sex in front of them? Why? Were they... didn't they have their own porn?

[ Despite not being embarrassed as such, his cheeks do still turn a subtle shade of pink. It's hard not to when he's imagining what he's being told, body deciding that it's good enough to gift him the first tinglings of arousal. Perhaps it's not just the alcohol in his drink that's making his thoughts turn that way so quickly. ]

[bloomandwither]

Haah... [hollow though the laugh is, it's not one of offense at the questioning, just relief at what was so scarcely dodged. Ankari knows himself, he'd have gone through with it. He's not one to back down from something he vowed to do]

It was to intimidate me, to try to get me to back down from my marriage proposal to their newly appointed King of Stilmyst in my father's place, their worg prince. Khor... Khoriya. That was it. Maybe to humiliate him, too, they seemed to cackle at his distaste for the idea. Stubborn, both of us, maybe... we agreed, it would have been done. [he taps at the bar and they are delivered more drinks. Ankari isn't sure if these are complimentary as a part of the festival or if he'll be expected to pay later on once he finds a job, but either way, he'd cover for Tyler's portion. This is all a lot to spill on someone, he realizes.]

My apologies for such a sordid tale. [it just sort of spilled out of him, needing to be told to somebody and Tyler is... so nice and open to listening. He doesn't deserve to hear these things, even if Ankari is grateful he will]

[brothergoblin]

[ It certainly is a story that gives Tyler pause. In fact, for a moment he sort of just freezes as the different facets of the tale sink in. There's so much to parse that he just stares vacantly at Ankari for a moment, gaze unfocused. He's easy to snap out of it though. Maybe it's the bartender making up more drinks, or maybe it's Ankari himself. ]

You don't need to say sorry. There's nothing to be sorry for except the million questions that are buzzing around in my brain now.

[ Which is to say he's not running for the hills and actually has some burning queries he wants answered but also is aware this could be something Ankari doesn't want to dig into further. ]

[bloomandwither]

[Ankari gets a bit lost in that blank stare he's getting back from Tyler, unable to parse it. Judgement? No... Tyler isn't like that, not from what he could tell so soon. Doesn't seem like boredom, either, or disgust. Grim curiousity, maybe.

Of all the things there are to be, Ankari doesn't mind being a fascination. It feels almost nice, to be so interesting as to spawn a "million" questions,]

You are too kind, lad. My kingdom fell to the worg just hours before I arrived here. To say my life was upended twice in short order- invasion and then waking in this place... well, it is an understatement. [He doesn't sip his drink, just rolls the glass back and forth between his palms]

I appreciate you lending an ear. You're free to ask any questions, if you remain so curious.

[brothergoblin]

[ Something noticeably shifts within Tyler as he thinks through what he's just been told. It wasn't so long ago that he pushed and pushed without thinking of the feelings of somebody he cares about more than anybody. He'd upset her so much for doggedly forcing them to dig deep into the truth that she hadn't spoken to him for weeks after.

At times, as much as he wants answers - either to sate his curiosity or quell demons - he knows he's prone to do it at the expense of somebody's comfort or feelings.

He doesn't ask any questions just yet, instead chooses to rest a hand on Ankari's shoulder and squeezes in what he hopes is a supportive way. It truly does sound traumatic going through these things in such short succession. ]

I'm sorry, Ankari. That's a lot.

[bloomandwither]

[There is the slightest jolt from Ankari at the shoulder touch, but it isn't a flinch away. He nudges into it a bit, smiling lightly and pulling bloom back into place. No feeling sorry for himself, not here and now, when he's in pleasant company. Lighten up and laugh, he thinks.

Ankari tips his glass towards Tyler's, tapping the edge delicately together. A very dainty "cheers"]

A toast, to missing my own wedding.

[brothergoblin]

[ Apparently the booze is doing enough to pave the way for more physical interactions than Tyler is used to. He's spent so many years not hugging people because he'd been so uncomfortable with his chest that now it's more habit than anything. His new chest is everything he's ever dreamed of, but the habit of old, of keeping himself physically closed off, is hard to shake at times.

He doesn't shift his hand off the elf's shoulder, even as he goes to pluck up his glass to toast. The chuckle at the humor is sincere, tickled. ]

To not having to make council porn.

[ Gulping down some more of the mead, eventually the curiosity gets the better of him. Though not without a caveat: ]

Tell me to fuck off if I ask something you're not okay with.

But... how wolf was your wolfman fiancé?

[bloomandwither]

I will be more gentle that that, lad, but thank you. [he appreciates the sentiment, though, that Tyler respects him enough to not demand more sordid details than Ankari may be willing to give.

Though, Ankari is a bit too honest at all times. After drinking to dodging his wedding, he sets the glass down to gesture with that hand as he talks, better painting the picture by gesturing to the parts of himself that the worg would be different, starting with a pantomime of how long a maw would be compared to his own face... which is very large]

Wolf muzzle, snarling fangs and bright eyes- [pulling down from there, he gestures to his shoulders next] -thick fur everywhere, too. Except where he had deep scars. He had more claw marks from his own than damage warring against us elves...- [then he lifts his hand well above his own head, long fingers waving to an upper height that dwarfs both of them,]

-eight foot tall, maybe? They stand upright like men. I was eyelevel to his collarbone. Don't think I could have reached the top of his head even... [Ankari perks himself up on tiptoes just briefly for fun, as if this isn't a terrifying enough picture] He wasn't even the biggest worg there, but if he was being made King... I suppose that make him the strongest of the immediate lot. They have a hierarchy I don't understand.

[brothergoblin]

[ Tyler is still imagining a werewolf from some movie or another, but put into physical proportions like that is weird. Like his brain is trying to change werewolf-like from the imagination bucket to the real bucket.

What's more concerning is probably the next course his curiosity takes. He isn't any the wiser that their beverages might be helping in ways that aren't clear to them.

His cheeks are dusted in bashful pink anyway, skin warming up until his skin is prickling again. Maybe he'll get lucky and Ankari won't notice. Just like how maybe he won't notice Tyler's gaze settles on him for a little longer every time, a little more frequently. ]

Uhm, hierarchy like a traditional wolf pack or... something totally different to that?

[ He thinks credit where credit is due - holding a conversation still is impressive. ]