TEST DRIVE MEME 001

[rubimods]

⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:

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, waxplay, character death, and references to children in proximity to sexual situations.

✧ ✧ ✧

Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. For the first round, this test drive serves as characters' arrival into game.

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.

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

AWAKENING IN PAJAK WOOD

The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest warmth of the sun. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the daylight has taken on a sickly green tinge. You lie amongst the mosses and ferns, the 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.

Fortunately, you seem to be alone. The birdsong continues 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. Amongst gnarled oaks and moss, you see nothing around. No sign of civilization or sentient life. Movement flickers at the corner of your eye, but it's just a curious animal — brave squirrels or lizards who have come to see what stirs in their home.

Then, like the rippling of the horizon at noontime, the ash-gray soil around you undulates. Sea, not earth. Something else has come to greet you — their grey bodies blended in so easily with the floor, but as you stagger to your feet, you see them. Thousands of spiders roll like waves underfoot. They crawl towards you from the darker edge of the forest.

attack

Individuals who attack the spiders will find the small spiders are easy to kill, but the pheromones released by their corpses draw larger spiders in their place. 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 will attempt to use their webbing to handicap 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.

FAQ: DEATH RULES

hunt

Any aspiring monster-hunters enterprising enough to try to follow the spiders to their nest will move eastward. This way, the forest grows darker and darker — though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset.

In the void, the birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs, but soon it is impossible to see. Even with the brightest magical light does not reach further than a few inches. The air grows heavy and thick, 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. Soon, you cannot move at all.

Turn back while you still can — collapsing out here is dangerous. The void can play tricks on your senses. You may find yourself reliving unhappy memories or hallucinating your worst nightmares.

SETTING: THE VOID

But flee the spiders westward and you will discover that the wood is well-populated with the survival resources that someone might seek — berries bushes and trees bearing stone fruits; sticks and dry leaves to aid in the building of a fire; rocks big enough to fashion into crude weapons; small animals that can be hunted or caught; hike long enough, and you might just find the freshwater stream that runs north-to-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads.

What's more, you may run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist hiking parties, others may still be naked and confused and processing how they have no memory of how they got here. They all stagger vaguely, as you do, with only the sun for a waymarker — and even that won't last long.

Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty, as it's going to be a long hike. If you sneak a good look at your new companions, you may four varietals of marks on their bodies. Maybe someone will even point out that you have one, too.

FAQ: CURSE MARKS

EVERY DAY LIKE THE ONE BEFORE

Hike far enough — or long enough that the sun does go down — and signs of life come into view. The glow of fires and lights, the smooth curve of a stone wall. A town sits at the edge of this wood, a reward to the survivors.

The fifty-foot wall of beige stone protecting the town's perimeter has only a single entrance — an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people into town from the winding dirt road. Attentive eyes may note that the road itself bears the mark of many wagon wheels and horse hoofs, but not cars.

guards

The guards grant entry to anyone who attempts a conversation with them. However, if your character is more likely to attempt to sneak in, overcome the guards, or attack them, please reach out HERE.

Inside the wall lies a quaint, historic town with a population around five thousand. The streets are cobbled, and their signs are 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 bank — 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.

No matter what time you pass through the gate, the streets are full of people. The climate of the bustle befits a night market or a busy friday downtown — plenty of people to ogle at your exposed body. But despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, the locals don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. In fact, the further into town you go, the more you may notice that 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! If anything, they seem to be under the impression that you're naked to participate in the evening's events with the rest of them.

Those still determined to find proper clothing will find that modern clothing stores aren't a thing here. The closest this town has is a tailor's shop, which is closed for religious observance, and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.

Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! The locals will gladly share what they have with those who ask politely — but those items are as revealing as what they're wearing. You might get a mesh bodysuit or drape outfit. Remember not to be ungracious! it's only appropriate for the occasion.

steal clothing

Anyone unwilling to ask nicely for help could break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry. Notably, inside their homes, the people of the town also appear to own some more modest apparel. Be sure to alert us HERE if your character pursues this option.

SETTING: CRIME

And what is the occasion? The locals are excited and flattered by any interest in their ordinary weekly prayer: 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!

Anyone who chats at length with the townspeople will gather that the locals feel it's better for the newcomers to dive into the deep-end because, since you'll be settling in here, they expect you'll want to participate down the line. They seem to be under the impression that the new arrivals are a boon from their god.

In addition, many of the locals' choice of clothes reveal the same four types of marks on their bodies as the folx who were wandering out in the wood!

ROOM AND BOARD

Once you're tired out, the locals will help you find a place to stay. The boarding house is several stories tall and spacious, accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines. Beyond the overgrown yard is a bright red door, which opens into a spacious cottage.

The house has clearly been empty for some time — dust has gathered on various furnishings — bedding, sofas, curtains, wooden tables. According to the locals, it has remained empty since its last occupant passed away, and that's all they'll say about that!

Each floor of the house has a shared sitting room, but only the first floor has a kitchen — large enough to support feeding the entire household. Here, a few of the townspeople will help out — they stock the kitchen and help make dinner for the new arrivals.

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.

Comments

[nootherway]

[ Her mouth quips. Almost a smile. Not quite. She remembers this look, though. The way he holds his distance, wary but hoping. She thinks of dogs, of the mutts she'd find and tame in the woods more than two lifetimes ago: when she was a teenager, she'd go out and hide there, in the trees, and the strays would surround her, nosing her hands for food. Then, they would walk with her through the trees, through the paths she learned to forge and then find on her own. Her very first squad. But they usually started out like this. Wary, hanging back - but wanting, too.

The wanting is done now, she thinks distantly. Or it ought to be.

The rock feels good in her hand. Not as good as a knife. She supposes she never wanted to kill him, never quite set out to do it, but -

Well. ]

But we always do. Don't we?

[ It's strange to talk like this - to speak at all. She's gone a while doing as little of it as possible. ]

oh my god of course she associates him with dogs ihu sm

[dadyl]

[ She's hard to read, just like him, so Daryl can't tell whether she's really surprised to see him or not. Let alone see him like this. They'd surprised each other that first time, one shot in a million, and she'd gotten the jump on him the second, coincidence or not.

No, not a coincidence, he thinks. Fate or some bastardized version of it. Maybe this moment is, too.

But even more so than the last time, he can't parse this sudden collision between them now. Is he at a disadvantage (besides that rock) or are they on the same unknown battlefield? ]

How'd we get here?

[ Because it can't be a coincidence, that he remembers nothing, that he wakes up naked and alone and then there she is. It's more than just possible that Leah has something to do with what happened to him. It isn't as though she hasn't attacked him before. ]

:D

[nootherway]

[ She doesn't respond immediately. Just watches him, again. Taking in the set of his jaw, the way his hair falls over his eyes. She knew him when that scar was raw and healing. Time faded it into another piece of him. A road marker. You carry what you do, Pope used to say. He was always so proud of them, his boys and girls, and how few scars they took. No burns, not even after the fires. Not until Bossie.

Symbols matter. She never quite believed in God, but Leah knows symbols, and power, and what it means to wield it in hand. She knows the weight of the rock in her hand too, and how that's likely to end if she goes for him. She could, she knows. It's been a while since she's had to kill a man with nothing but a stone, like Cain, but it would hardly be the first time.

Even so.

The silence stretches out. She doesn't move. She regards him, and he regards here, and all the things there is no room to say anymore. ]

Why would I know that?

[ She asks it softly. ]

Why would I tell you if I knew that?

[dadyl]

[ He knows he has no right to but he feels that one. He doesn't show it, his face doesn't change, doesn't ripple in the least, but his heart flinches. He hadn't wanted it to go the way it did, not either time. He'd never wanted that. He'd also never known if she'd believed him all the times he'd said so. ]

Fair 'nuff.

[ He isn't going to fight her on that and there's a concession in his voice. He's had very few hills to die on when it's come to her. Only the really important ones and those turned out to be kill or die. ]

I'd tell you if I knew.

[ He'd tell her and if things were different, he'd want her by his side. But he thinks she knows that, too. It's too bad it's never mattered, all the things she knew about him. Knows about him. ]

[nootherway]

Mhmm.

[ Maybe he would - if he was the only factor in the equation, and not his people, but she's not a child and has no room for those distinctions. This what-if life where it almost works out. All she has is what's in front of her, and what's already been done.

Her family is dead, now. She is the last one standing. And now Daryl's watching her, standing very still. Maintaining that distance between them - and her rock, Leah supposes.

That's a factor, too. ]

Now what?

[ Mostly, she just sounds tired. She remembers trying to kill Maggie Rhee. She remembers hunting through the woods. And then she remembers the world tilting and a sudden, abject quiet. She's not a fool - there are ways these things end. But then, they're still standing here now. A conundrum, that. ]

[dadyl]

[ The thing is, Daryl is alone. He's left his family behind, struck out to do what he does best and comb the world for what needs to be found, and somehow woken up even more alone than before. Even Dog isn't even with him, though Daryl tells himself not to be worried about that. Dog can take care of himself.

It's the immediate present that's worrying Daryl now. She's a statue, a black hole, and Daryl can't even blame her. He wonders if she knows. She has to know.

He shows her empty hands. ]

That's up to you, Leah.

[ The use of her name feels like summoning a ghost but she's already standing right in front of him. ]

It always has been.

[nootherway]

[ He shows her his hands, as though this means anything. As though this changes anything when the bodies have already been laid out. She went back and she killed her fallen a second time, after. She went back into what remained of Meridian and she put them all down, her boys and girls, and she was too weak to bury them with a bum shoulder and no one else to carry the burden so she took their pendants and she hung those from a tree: she hung her own there too, and this, she knows, is ritual. She never believed in God, not really, but ritual, yes—these things have weight. What you build, what you drop behind in your own wake.

She killed them again, her boys and girls, and she only started avenging them. Maggie Rhee talked about emotion like this was about feeling and not a natural goddamn consequence. What does it matter how she feels? Her duty was always to the ones standing at her side. But that’s no one, now. That’s no one at all, because it cannot be someone who lied to her and there is no one else here.

She thinks he killed her, even if she can’t quite remember how. She wonders if she ought to feel some way about that when he calls her Leah.

Mostly, she doesn’t feel much of anything right now except for the smooth, cool surface of the rock in her hand. ]

You already made your choice.

[ She doesn’t smile. Her face is a nothing mask. We are what we are, Pope used to say. ]

Walk away, Daryl.

[ This is a pattern now. The standoff. And then the divide. ]

[dadyl]

[ He had. He'd made choice after choice, but so had she, and he knows already that he isn't winning this argument. He'd been kidding himself back when he'd thought he could. When he'd been sure there was a better depth to her he could reach, the layer sandwiched between her life before him and her life after him. Like that person he had known could have been the real her all the time.

He remembers Maggie now and reminds himself of what happened. No matter if she's standing in front of him again or not, what had happened had happened. Neither one of them can take any of it back. ]

Are you gonna follow me?

[ He can't see how the honest answer won't be yes. Yes, because there was no chance she was ever going to stop at Maggie. None at all, and that knowledge lives very cold in Daryl's chest as they stare at one another.

One of them is already dead. He just doesn't know which. ]

[nootherway]

[ She makes a strangled noise. Bitter, quiet laughter. Follow him? ]

What'd be the point of that?

[ Why would she ever do that? ]

[dadyl]

To kill me. Like you were tryin' to kill her.

[ He doesn't hesitate. What's the point of lying to each other anymore? He has no one here to protect and there's nothing left to hide.

At all. ]

Now that you've found me.

[ He's assumed she must have been looking for him. That she must have known he'd tried to kill her - had thought he had. Because if she'd survived, after everything, she must have been hunting him. That's what she and her group always did, after all. ]

[nootherway]

Ah.

[ So he was there, in the end. That’s fitting, Leah supposes. One day she might even feel one way or another about that. Today, in this place, she just lifts her chin and gives him a long, silent look. ]

You weren’t the one I was tracking.

[ Though he lied to her, again and again, and by right—

But what does it matter now? She rubs her thumb along the smooth, cool surface of the rock. What would it feel like to return the favor, now?

Not much of anything, she imagines. ]

I told you to go, Daryl. I don’t repeat myself.

[ She’s not the sort of woman who throws herself upon the mercy of someone who’s already gone. ]

[dadyl]

[ He isn't sure what to make of that. If she isn't after him, if she wasn't part of this, then what was she tracking? How have they both ended up here like this?

Daryl supposes that it doesn't matter. Not in this exact moment. He won't be finding out from her.

She'd let him go once before. She'd called him in and lied to her people, but she'd stood by them instead of him in the end. He'd thought any chance of her making the same choice again was as dead as he'd assumed she was.

He can't believe her. The coincidence would be too great. Unbelievable.

But what choice does he have? ]

Just don't go east.

[nootherway]

[ She just gives him a long, impassive look. You have no right to ask me anything, she thinks, but does not say. What use would that be?

But she holds, and she doesn't bash his skull in with a rock, and that is - perhaps - the only grace people like them can ever afford each other. ]

Go.