TEST DRIVE MEME 003

[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: characters arriving in September's application round will arrive in the midst of a two-part event that will continue through October. Players may date their character's arrival any time from September 8th onward.

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: disorientation, loss of direction, hallucinations, time distortion/lost time, aphrodisiacs, group sex, dubious consent, cannibalism and cannibalistic urges, spiders, bondage/restraint, loss of autonomy, body horror, sadism, torture, cult behavior, assault, arson, caging, free use, and public sex.

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.

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.

You may start out alone, or among others sharing stories just like yours, or you may run into others who are fully clothed and ready for a strange expedition ...

LOST WOODS:

The expedition party made their way into the woods on September 14th expecting a direct route to the Void. Instead, they've found themselves lost and disoriented.

Their navigational tools seem useless, leading them around in circles as ancient trees, caves, water sources, and other reliable landmarks do not align with the maps. Trees seem to move — didn't you see that exact deer drinking from the brook a quarter mile ago? The ever-changing and impenetrable maze of the woods may separate characters from one another, or get them so lost that they wind up back at the edge of the wood, staring at castle walls or farmlands.

With no easy measure of their progress, and the treetops obscuring the light, time feels dilated. Characters may feel they've been in the woods for hours when it has been days, or for weeks when it has been hours. The amount of time that passes in the woods will be individualized for each character, and will not match the full month that passes for characters back in town.

DON'T SMELL THE FLOWERS:

While some folx are being turned around and sent back to start, those that make it deeper are in perhaps worse shape. The dilated time and the circuitous nature of their efforts may stretch their week's worth of rations too thin, driving them to rely upon foraged mosses and fruits for sustenance. The woods are full of fungi and edible flora with aphrodisiac side effects like increased bloodflow, heightened arousal, and increased tactile sensitivity.

Much like the animals afflicted by the Void, the plant-life here grows strange. The deeper they go, the more troubling the side effects of their foraged sustenance becomes.

Deep in the forest they may find:

• A moss that makes them hallucinate an idealized sexual experience from deep in their repressed subconscious, which they will determinedly act out.


• The pulsing fruits that grow amongst this moss will render them desperate to orgasm as if they have been edged for hours, but they will find themselves physically incapable of doing so — unless they succumb to its secondary effect, the hunger for still-warm human flesh.


• A nut that grows in bushes leaves those who eat it unable to feel satisfied by just a single partner, seeking out threesomes and moresomes with a lost hiker or another pair.

The more of these that an individual consumes, the more pronounced the effects as their secretions build up in the body over time. It may become a common sight to find a friend tucked behind a tree, stark naked and desperately masturbating.

REVENGE OF THE SPIDERS:

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.

However, some of the clothed expeditioners will be able to tell you that the Duchess of the nearby town has a special relationship to these spiders, and players should expect their treatment of the spiders to influence future events

BORDER CROSSING:

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.

There are risks associated with Void proximity: increased aggression, paranoia, emotional instability, accelerated monster transformations, and hallucinations.

As the time dilation worsens, characters' monstrous transformations may happen in uneven stages. For instance, a character may manifest a physical aspect or supernatural ability or urge that suits their fully transformed state even if the other aspects of them remain human. These changes can happen totally unprompted, or as a result of their generalized Void proximity symptoms.

Even untransformed, the closer they get to the Void, the more intensely those on the expedition feel intrusive violent and sadistic urges — not just to lash out at others suddenly, but also a fascination with inflicting pain (emotional or physical) that may or may not be erotic in nature. This sadism seems especially potent in anyone with a Niez mark. Those who notice the pattern may be inclined to urge some of their friends to turn back now, before they reach the Void ...

writer's block?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, fighting or getting webbed up by spiders, acting out a hallucination, or grappling with aphrodisiac flower symptoms!

TOWNIE TROUBLES

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.


BUNKING UP:

The locals may still direct newcomers 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.

Don't spend too much time exploring, 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.

ON THURSDAY WE HAVE ORGIES:

On Thursdays, religious ceremony spills into the streets as soon as the sun and the children are safely abed. Dancing locals paint 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! 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.

The folks dancing and selling their wares are all offering their energies to give thanks and ask for their god's patronage! The abstractions are all familiar — fertility, harvest, peace. Smalltalk makes them eager to chat and draw you into those festivities — including some ceremonial wax-dripping on the exposed parts of your body! 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.

CULT CONSCIOUSNESS:

Usually, the people of the town are very generous, but the atmosphere of the town this month is a little ... darker.

Word has spread around town that some of the void-touched chose to remain behind, and perceptions turn critical rather quickly. Even those who thought they might offer support in alternative ways, or who weren't quite up for making the trek for various valid reasons, will be seen as refusing to help the Duchess. The townspeople increasingly consider those who stayed behind to be a threat to their beloved matriarch.

This unpopularity has consequences, as the townspeople of Rubilykskoye not only see no problem with acting upon their everyday violent urges, but feel that it's their civic duty! Newcomers who are just settling in won't be spared either, as they're found guilty by association for emerging from the wood instead of staying within it to join up with the expedition team.

As a result, the void-touched who stay behind will be targeted for everyday acts of violence and intimidation: they may be attacked on their way to work, or at the tavern. One reckless individual tries to set the boarding house aflame. Players are welcome to invent and resolve their own conflicts here, but please make sure to reach out to a moderator if you feel it might be something that leads to meaningful consequences.

This behavior escalates over the course of the month, and by mid-month, the blacksmith has produced a number of stocks and human-sized cages to sit out in the town square. NPC townspeople will not hesitate to gang up on the void-touched, strip them, and throw them into these devices to 'learn a lesson' about being a part of this community. Similarly, the townspeople see no issue with sating their sexual urges with the folx who are caged, whether they're willing or not.

writer's block?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: acquiring clothing or other inventory items, staking your claim on a bedroom, or wrassling with a local who's trying to throw that character into a cage!

Comments

[otherbitches]

[ It feels good for one long moment to cow Hopper. How can Hopper just fucking roll with this? Doesn't it make him want to peel his own skin off? A slippery, dark voice in Billy's head reminds him how needy he was, how swiftly he was willing to bend. Maybe that's why Hopper doesn't seem to fucking care. He wasn't the girl.

So it feels good to cow him, until Billy stiffens as if struck. ] I'm not. [ He's ready to spit again. ] I'm not that fucking thing, I'm—

[ Billy breathes through his fucking teeth, grinding them. Hopper's convinced, but for how long? They walk, and walk, and Billy doesn't say shit as the trees pass, become more trees. Same trees. Similar trees. He doesn't know this shit. Was never a boy scout. Knows the ocean, beaches, riptides. Cities, bars, fake IDs. This is not his domain. ]

It was this way. [ He says it abruptly. Breaks the chilly silence, preemptively cutting off any bullshit from Hopper. Their feet are going to be banged up to hell. ] It's just further.

[verbol]

[The dirt under his toes reminds him of summers in Hawkins, when his dad was sometimes in a better mood. When he'd be out in the yard, barefoot, helping his old man change a wheel or wash down the car, or holding a ladder steady while he painted. Before he started drinking, before, before -

It crusts between his toes, dry underthrow dragging and cutting into the soles of his feet. They walk and walk, the quiet is overwhelming, it's unnatural. There should be birds, he thinks. Sounds that the woods make, that he expects. It's just a vacuum around him, where the only thing that penetrates is the sound of their breathing, their footsteps.

Then Billy speaks and Jim almost collapses with the relief of it. ] Sure, [is what he says. Dumb. Lost. ] But I get the feeling we're going round in circles.

[He's watching the dirt. Has been watching the dirt. Recounting their tracks, looking for any that look like they might belong to someone else. Something else. The sun is going down, the light is going out - ] You any good at climbing? [It's out of the blue, a throwaway question. Jim might be better at climbing now that he's lost the weight, gained some muscle, and there's all these tall fucking trees that must have a view of something from the top of them. ]

[otherbitches]

We're not, [ Billy says. Not because he believes it, but because if they've really been out here going in circles, he might lose it. He feels too frayed. Too tense.

The question throws him. ] What?

Yeah. I guess. [ Billy's got arms: pumped iron, did push ups, ran for miles and miles, but that was to look good. Not really for tree climbing. ] When was the last time you climbed a tree?

[ When was the last time Billy climbed a fucking tree? It was probably a measly thing, some anemic city or playground tree he pressed his sneakers against and climbed. Billy was a wild boy, but he doesn't know forests. ]

[verbol]

I tried to climb out of a Russian prison, pretty sure I can do at least half a tree.

[Ha. Nice distraction from the nakedness. Don't think of tree bark on your dick, Jim! Don't think at all, in fact. ] I think we might see clearer with some height, is all.

[Logic feels meaningless here, actually, but he's going to use it anyway. He walks over to a tree, looks up, gauges the height. Looks at the bark, the trunk - it's going to hurt like a bitch, he wagers, with all this exposed flesh. He sighs, scrubs his hands over his head. ] I'll go up. Don't run off and get lost, Hargorve. I'm warning you.

[otherbitches]

[ He might be looking at Hopper like he's a fucking nutcase. Like he's going to climb up this fucking tree with this nuts out. Like he's going to be left with any dick at all (to haunt Billy with). ]

Yeah, yeah. The Russian prison. [ Billy should ask more questions. Maybe he will when he's not trying to avoid feeling the dried cum on his stomach. ]

Where you think I'm gonna fucking go? [ He snaps. Language, Billy! But he's not a complete fucking monster. He shrugs the thin coat off his shoulders, misses it immediately, but shoves it at Hopper. ] Put it over your front. Might not scrape your dick off.

[verbol]

Into the goddamn woods, I don't know.

[Run away, find some more Unholy Food to eat and start the process over again? More likely than Jim would like to believe!!] And - thanks. [It fits like a towel, more or less. He's not going to dwell on the thought of dick splinters, or Billy's concern for dick splinters - this is just a Guy Thing. Of course he'd be worried, no one wants Dick Splinters.

The trees are not prime climbing trees, but Jim finds one that has enough grooves that he can at least slot his toes in without having to scale it like a fucking spider-monkey. Predictably, it is not a pleasant climb. The bark hurts and scratches, and each grunt he utters as he goes up is followed by a hiss. By the time he's got hold of a thicker branch to pull himself up, he's sure his soles are bleeding slightly. One of his palms feels wet, too. Still, he climbs with determination. He's endured worse than a mean tree; will endure worse than this in the future. So he climbs, climbs, climbs and even when he almost slips and falls, he keeps going.

At the top, the air is thinner, but he can see -

He can see a clearing, some distance away. A break where the trees part into what looks like a town border. It's harder to see further than that. It's something, though. A direction, a path. Now all he has to do is get back down.]

[otherbitches]

[ Somewhere around the half-way point Hopper's foot slips. He catches himself, keeps going, keeps hauling himself up. Billy imagines him slipping, crashing to the ground, splitting open his skull and how red and terrible that would be. Would that be his fault too? Like all those bodies back in Hawkins, turned to fucking goo? He imagines, coward he is, "Not my fault. He slipped. Not my fault."

Consider it a fucked up and welcome distraction from watching the way Hopper's legs flex, glutes powerful as they haul himself, dick soft but sizable. All of Jim is big. Billy knows that first hand.

He considers bolting. Instead, for now, raises his voice. It feels dry. He's thirsty. He's hurt. ] You stuck?

Need me to call the fire department?

[verbol]

Quit yapping, [he calls down, squinting as he commits the path to memory. Left. Forward for at least a mile. Right. Forward until the end. Simple. Easy.

He looks down, down, down; sees mostly branches and the outline of Billy's face. A little vertigo hits, but it's passing. He can ignore it. He huffs out a breath, wishes he had fucking shoes and some gloves so that he could just slide most of the way down if he had to. Instead he's gotta move slow, feel out each step and grip down with deliberate and precise thought. His hands and feet hurt so much, and by the time he's eased his way down enough not to kill himself with a fall, he just jumps and lands in a squat, falls forward onto his hands and hisses out a wince. ] Shit fucking damnit, [and then,] Goddamn fucking splinters.

[There's a big one in his palm, big enough he can rip it out with his teeth. The others are smaller, like little needles. Will need someone else to fish them out if Jim doesn't do it himself.

Later, obviously. ] Fuck - give me a second. [His feet are next, pulling out the bigger chunks of wood. Blood follows, but the sting is enough now it might as well be numb. ] Okay. There's a town at the edge. Looks like it's got people in it.

[otherbitches]

[ He nearly bolts. Almost does it once, maybe twice, muscles tense as he watches Jim climb, then bitch, and then make his way down. It'd probably be easier to bolt, to call up casually asking which fucking direction, then just get the fuck out of here.

He almost does it. Shifts his weight from one bare foot to the other, then Hopper nearly loses his grip, bare foot crashing down and breaking off bits of bark. Hopper almost falls to his death and Billy watches with sick fascination the entire way down.

Hopper still looks like shit. ] I told you there were people.

[ Said with a touch of annoyance. A little sullen. There's a beat where nothing's said, where they need to start walking again, save that Hopper is catching his breath, breathing through the pain and pretending like he's not. He's still got the jacket on. Not like it really did anything for him. ]

Use it to wrap your feet, [ Billy says stiffly about the fabric. Abruptly. ] You're cut all the way up. Look like fuckin' hamburger helper.

[verbol]

Yeah, well, that's what happens when you climb a tree with no shoes. I'm fine.

[He's hissing with every step. Walking faster seems to make the sting become a numb kind of ache, which is far more tolerable than walking slow. He glances at Billy with a vague kind of spooked-animal-esque look, like he's suddenly afraid of him now that they've only got walking to occupy him.

He is. Terrified, even. Of himself. Of Billy. It's a strange kind of fear; he doesn't know what to do with it, how to react to it. He can't find the energy to be angry about it; he can barely find the energy to cast the blame, either. So he walks, mostly quiet, until the silence is so big and oppressive, he sucks in a breath and mutters, rough: ] How's that shoulder?

[otherbitches]

[ It just gets worse. Hopper doesn't take the fabric back and Billy stiffly returns it to his shoulders, equally quiet and equally spooked. It feels notably unfair that this is real. Not some fucked mental death throe. That not only did he beg for Hopper to rut against him, to be inside him, but now they have to walk in silence.

It's fucking horrible. ]

I need to take a leak. [ He says it abruptly instead of answering, like it's easier to talk about piss than about what Hopper did to his shoulder. What Billy did to his. Which it is.

He stalks into the woods. ] Don't follow me. [ LIKE IT NEEDS TO BE SAID...? Once he's in the cast of shadows, he breathes, kicks a few stones hard with his bare feet, gritting his teeth hard instead of making a sound. He doesn't return to Hopper. He remembers the way Hopper gestured.

Town is this way. ]

the end ... for now

[verbol]

[Don't follow me, he says, like Jim's got a thing for watching another guy piss. Jim lets him go, situates himself against a trunk and takes the time to examine the damage to his feet. Splinters, some other shit that he'll have to pick out. He's mostly waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting - ]

Hargrove, [he calls out, after a full minute passes. Curses under his breath and then steps forward, follows where he's gone and -] Hargrove?

[Gone. Dust. Jim inhales real deep. ] That stupid son of a bitch, [he says, under his breath, and starts fucking walking.]