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

[choicely]

[ Naked though she may be, and certainly looking worse for the wear given that running through the forest has allowed her to accumulate more than one scratch on her person — as well as an untold number of leaves in her unkempt hair — Yennefer draws herself up as if she's trying to call on whatever reserve of energy may still be left within her.

The man she's unexpectedly been running with — someone who appears to be in much the same predicament, judging by the utter lack of clothes — is unknown to her, but something in his face calls a different one to mind, enough of a familiarity he bears to Cahir that for a moment, she's not unconvinced she hasn't been trapped here with some distant family member of the knight's. ]

That remains unclear as of yet.

[ The least she can do is figure out who she's traveling with. ] What do they call you?

[umarell]

Nicky.

[ He could play closed-off and standoffish, refuse to give her answers before she gives him ones first, but Nicky doesn't really see the point. This situation would not be served by pettiness on his part, only made more complicated. It's clear to him, in any case, that they're on the same side of whatever this is. ]

Do you recognise this place, at least?

[choicely]

... it's never really occurred to me until right this moment that a lot of forests don't look that fucking different from each other.

[ Because she's certainly stood in places like this, but surely nothing exactly like this before. There are notes of familiarity in the tall trees, in the sound of the stream babbling idly beneath the lowered tones of their conversation, but at the same time, Yennefer knows she's been brought somewhere that isn't the Continent. ]

No. In fact, I'm starting to believe I'm quite far from anything that could be deemed recognizable. [ A pause, and then she ventures: ] Do you?

[umarell]

It could be anywhere at all.

[ Which means, in effect, that it's nowhere. It has definitely not gone unnoticed that she hasn't offered her name yet, but he doesn't pry. He just idly takes another look around the area, brow furrowed. ]

We should see if there is a town nearby. Somewhere we can make contact.

[ He's lived longer without a cellphone than he's had access to them, but surely even somewhere as rural as this would have one phone, somewhere, maybe even just a phone box. ]

[choicely]

That's what I'm afraid of.

[ Though she doesn't utter it in a manner that would sound scared — it mostly leaves her as a dry, muttered remark, but at least they're both thinking along the same lines when it comes to what to do next. She'd prefer not to be saddled with someone where she has to do all the thinking for both of them.

She hums, once, a quiet agreement to his assessment. ]

Likely not in the direction we've come from, so... we go that way instead? [ She points out ahead of them, her gaze drifting back towards his face. ]

And it's Yennefer. [ If they're going to be traveling together without a single stitch of clothing on, he's at least earned himself a name in exchange. ]

[umarell]

Yennefer.

[ He's happy to head in the direction she points – in fact, he'd have suggested it himself – so he just sets off walking, relatively at ease with being naked in her company now that they've both determined the other isn't a threat. Or at least not an immediate one. Nicky, for his part, is much too old to be ashamed or even overly conscious of his body. ]

I think it would be wise to try to find others, too. We cannot be the only ones stranded here. [ A thought strikes him, then, and he looks over at her. ] Where is the last place you remember being?

[choicely]

[ Yennefer, too, has very few hang-ups about anyone seeing her naked, inadvertently or otherwise; by the time you're several decades into your life, with probably several more decades to live besides, you start to dispense with the idea of modesty. She also hails from a world where several of the biggest cities both public baths, so in general, the Continent puts significantly less stock on any scandal around nudity.

But her most private discernment, and one that she'll never admit to aloud, is that there are worse aspects of her that could ever be exposed than the ones that run skin-deep, bigger vulnerabilities she won't let her guards down for even if she doesn't have a stitch of clothing to her name. ]

Someplace far from here. [ There's a pause, and then she ventures: ] Have you ever heard of Kaer Morhen?

[umarell]

No.

[ He’s well-travelled, so the sound of an unfamiliar place perks his interest. He eyes her curiously for a moment, trying to fit things together in his mind. Her eyes are violet. ]

Is that where you come from?

[choicely]

It's just where I was last.

[ Though it doesn't immediately occur to her that anything's strange about him not knowing — how many people on the Continent would instantly recognize the birthplace of witchers, even with how ostracized they've come to be for various reasons that are based more on misperception than true understanding? ]

What about you?

[umarell]

I am from a place called Genoa, in a country called Italy – although those were not the circumstances when I was born. Genoa was its own republic then. That was a long time ago.

[ He thinks about it for a moment, brow furrowed. ]

Someone must have brought us here.

[choicely]

[ A long time ago can be a relative measure, in Yennefer's mind — but that seems like a question best reserved for whenever they're on the other side of it, if it even happens to occur to her by then. ]

Whatever, or whoever's responsible — it would require a great deal of power. Bringing others from different spheres like this?

[ She doesn't have to answer that rhetorical question for her meaning to be clear — it represents something much more formidable than she has the reserves to deal with at the moment, especially standing in the middle of the woods with no clothes to speak of and surrounded by nothing that looks familiar. ]

Wherever here is, at least.