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

cw: animal death, gore

[tohell]

[ His eyes are the first thing that J notices. Pitch-black and wreathed in none of the typical colors, J sees nothing but a small silvery halo to light their depths. Their appearance stills him for a fraction of a second, even when his attention should find itself honed upon more obvious targets. John's bare frame, for one. How the blinding glow of J's flames lavishes it in gold, warming a face he doesn't recognize. Then again, had he been suffering some desperate hallucination or found himself curled up with this stranger in the quiet dark of a shared bed, only then might the shadows of resemblance become something more. Mirroring that which he had torn away in moments of bloody violence or cradled with unfettered adoration.

Intrigue over his abilities would have been a sufficient motivator in keeping this man company. But like the yawning chasm of twin black holes, those oil-slick eyes are what truly secures him within John's orbit. They transform that nagging bit of interest into a budding fascination. ]

Impressively executed. And all on your own, too. Well done. [ The sound of a steady clap as he applauds John's performance is swiftly followed by the foreboding rustle of a great many things traveling through the boughs above their heads. ] Too bad that's not the last of their lot.

[ The initial troupe of fat crimson spiders succumbs to their brethren's pointed fangs one after the other. But just as the extermination of the smaller arachnids had been met with replacements aplenty, the reddish spiders laid to waste by friendly fire are just as quickly replaced with a growing number of new recruits that tumble down from the trees. Powerful as John's necromancy is, the fresh surge of their living relatives stream forth at greater speeds and quantities than he can likely handle. It's a losing battle unless his strange companion has another trick up his sleeve. ]

As much as I hate to disrupt your little puppet show— [ While it's a risk to draw near to a man who has proven he can siphon the life from living things and then command control over the resulting corpse, J is his only obvious lifeline. Should John attempt to lash out at him, fearing that he might pose a threat, it would either spell the stranger's doom or leave him battling the oncoming hoard alone and outnumbered. Call it a leap of faith or just good strategizing, but he takes a risk and steps close enough to John to get a better look at his handiwork. ] I'm afraid we'll have to save one-upping each other for less dire circumstances.

[ All of John's hard work comes undone when J's wings sweep forward to fan the flames that rise up several feet beyond his towering frame. Fed by the gust of wind and hellish magic that manipulate the hellfires a short step away, towers of fire rage around the many-legged army. Reddish bloated fiends magnified to hideous proportions swell and harden as they're cooked by the heat until their distended thoraxes rupture like kernels of hairy crimson corn. ]

If you're not planning on sucking me dry too, I suggest we take to the air and skedaddle while we have the upper hand. [ With the successive 'pop, pop, pop' as some of the more well-roasted creatures burst to pieces, J's gaze lands upon John with a grin full of sharpened teeth. The hand that had brought searing flames into this once unsinged forest now extends out, palm up in expectation to receive the same hand John used to steal the very lifeforce from the living, only to turn their lifeless husks against their kin. Like this, one monster reaches out for the other. ] Shall we?

[unconscionable]

[ There's something so undignified about needing to be rescued, but already John can tell that he really can't stay and fight. If the spiders didn't get him he would likely simply burn, and he doesn't particularly feel like reconstructing his skin. It's only been six months since the last time he had to rebuild himself from particulate. (And though a long lifetime's confidence won't break easily he still isn't certain that he could do it right now, just as it feels like a stretch of his usually limitless abilities to keep raising and puppeting more spiders.)

All this to say: his hand is placed squarely in the other's. He'll take his chances.

Of course, that means getting closer to the wings and those teeth. Strong arms, the immense vulnerability of being lifted into the air by someone else's power. John can do a lot of cool things, but he can't fly. ]

Don't get cocky.

[ Mildly, as he loops his arms around J's neck, curls a bare leg around his waist, and makes himself comfortable. The nudity doesn't bother him: bodies are just bodies. ]

I could have handled myself if you hadn't set the fucking forest on fire.

[ They leave a column of smoke behind them, but John's ignoring that, would rather try and use the height to get his bearings, see if there's a transport dock anywhere nearby — but of course, there's no sign of spacefaring at all, no bright satellites to pick out amongst the stars, no radio towers on the horizon. ]

[1/2] makes it my mission to bully god.

[tohell]

[ J waits until John secures himself comfortably with a tangle of limbs around the demon's impressive frame. Patient up to this point, the moment his hands are free J promptly slides them under John's thighs to offer further support. The contact is soft as his hands press a pleasing kind of heat, lingering from the burn of fire magic, deep into bare skin. In contrast to that, there's a brusque sort of roughness in the way he simply manhandles what can only be an impressively dangerous necromancer of some breed like you would a garment. Adjusting John as though his body is a thing for him to mold and shape at his discretion. With a sudden pull, he hauls John's hips up a good deal higher from where they had previously settled. ]

A tall request after you chose to straddle me. [ There's a quiet laugh after that, landing softly to match the playful tone of his innuendo. ] It would have been just as easy to carry you in my arms.

[ There's a practical reason for the shameless way he handles this complete stranger. An important lesson buried in the immediate friction, dragging sensitive skin against his in a way that might stir something in John like a Pavlovian response; humiliation or unexpected heat. Whatever his reaction might be, the point is: J does it simply to show that he can. Because there's a certain level of power in telling someone else without saying a word where they stand in the pecking order. ]

[2/2]

[tohell]

[ If there's going to be any protest from John on this matter, then that's to be heard while they're airborne. Never one to waste time, his leonine paws kick off from the leaf-littered ground to spring them up towards the sky beyond the dark woods. His wings, massive in their span, do the rest of the work as they beat to propel the pair higher. Another cast of hellfire scorches anything that might impede their escape, blowing a hole through the canopy that peppers its edges in golden embers. And if he weaves them into a nearby spiderweb that might catch upon John's dark hair as they pass, surely that's by accident when he makes a (suspiciously) belated warning of it. ] Whoops! Do be careful to watch your head.

[ J's petty antics finish by the time they clear the forest proper and his wide crocodile grin eases away into something less roguish. J is an unrepentant prankster when the mood calls for it, but there's also a deeply pragmatic side to the demon that rears its head as he takes a survey of the strange land left in miniature scale as they take to soaring over it. ]

Where to, now? Can those unique eyes of yours see what I can up here, or do I need to point out our options?

cw: wound fingering.

[unconscionable]

[ More than anything, John hates to lose control. Hates it to a violent extreme. As a kid he just hated change — as an adult if it was draw twenty-five or lose control he'd be sitting with a handful of cards. He's committed terrible atrocities in the name of holding onto control of a situation, avoids sleep and death at all costs.

So putting himself in the arms of another and getting fucked with almost has him launching himself back down to the inferno of spiders. Would he burn to death? Maybe, but it would feel better than the experience of having his frame just moved and shifted like it didn't belong to him.

(He's hard as a steel bar against J's chest or wherever his hips ended up, and it wasn't just the friction of his naked body dragged against another's, though that didn't fucking help.) ]

Give me a sec.

[ Distracted, humiliated, talking himself down... or maybe just afraid of heights? He has his eyes closed. Except when he opens them he looks unerringly East: it's all dark canopy to him, but he still points, able to sense the way life concentrates, the convergence of humans in the distance. It's the death of the spiders — human death would be better, but their thanergy has given him a little range. ]

Drop me off at the town, yeah?

[ And he points. But to keep his balance, his fingers dig into the meat of J's shoulder like it's wet sand, giving himself a grip in the flesh because he doesn't trust this asshole not to drop him. No blood escapes around where he simply creates himself a handle, but he doesn't bother to make it anything less than excruciating. J's body, he makes it clear, is in service to him. ]

cw: descriptions of vore, gore and cannibalism

[tohell]

[ As John's fingers sink into him, J's approval takes the form of a sharp hiss sucked in between the clenched teeth of his fearsome maw. It's completely out of sync with the abuse John treats him to, but pain and violence are perceived with a different lens by Hell's denizens when they don't experience it the way mortal creatures do. In fact, sex for their kind often includes the implementation of it. Even cannibalism mid-coitus is a regular occurrence met with great enthusiasm by its participants.

For J these things are like a childhood memory that's turned indistinct, with its details left fuzzy around the edges. At best there's a dull sense of pressure or discomfort over the worst of it when limbs are shorn away or insides brought into the light of day. And John's antics don't come anywhere close to what J had endured when his last paramour had decided J's body was his own banquet. Makoto had taken his sweet time with his flesh, stretching his first exploration of that fetish over the course of a full month's time. But being consumed inch by inch had brought about neither screams nor sobs throughout the duration. ]

I was wondering how far I'd have to push for you to show your true colors. [ At some point J's face draws near the crook of John's throat, breath hot and foreboding upon every inch it lands. A turn of his head, mindful of his forward-facing horns, leaves him whispering against an ear the confirmation of what he'd suspected when this man had barely flinched in his presence. ] You really are a vicious thing, deep down. Aren't you?

[ A kind and decent man wouldn't think of sinking their fingers inside someone's skin. They'd scream, yell, or use their hands in the instinctively primitive curl of fists to deliver pain. But this? This is torture, microdosed to obscure the inherent sadism folded into the act. At its core, the way J's skin gives under John's touch, parts as lips might take and swallow, it's all a careful manipulation meant to wring agony from him. J would know, when he's done similar things more times than he can count.

But that's not all that's on the menu tonight. John deals him clear retribution for all his antics while staring unblinking, unaffected, elsewhere as the conversation carries on behind the inherent violence. That is the mark of someone intimately familiar with dealing out harm to the point it's practically rote, moving neither heart nor soul. ]

Hmm, you know what? Maybe I'm rethinking this whole free-ride thing. [ J realizes he was right in his first impression when he'd considered the possibility that John might kill him. That would put a terrible damper on how much fun he's currently having, riling the man up to the point of breaking his well-constructed facade. ]

How do I know that you won't just do to me what you did to our many-legged friends down there, the moment we arrive?

[unconscionable]

[ It's not all that deep down; ten thousand years waging war and building an empire out of flesh and bones has worn his humanity thin, though he still likes to keep the mask of it around other humans.

This guy, though. This guy is definitely not human. ]

Then let go.

[ Indifferent; it will hurt, of course, but he'll survive. They're away from the fire now. And J will hurt just as much (or so he thinks) given John's handhold.

— All right, so he's bluffing a little. He isn't as sure of his immortality here as he'd like to be, and survival has never stopped him being afraid of death. There's still an unpleasant swoop in his stomach at the height, and that fear only intensifies at the idea of being dropped. But he doesn't want to show it. ]

Or you could shut up and play driver and I'll tip at the end — well, I don't actually have money on me, but I'm not going to kill you.

[ Belatedly dismissive, like the idea is silly. For one thing, what reason would he even have. He doesn't kill people just for annoying him. (A thought which causes a momentary pang of emotion, tangled grief over the recent loss of his best friend who was prone to simply dropping people for having a funny cough or not using her titles in the correct order.) ]

[tohell]

Make it worth my while. [ This is what you get for dealing with a demon. Even the smallest interaction becomes conditional, with terms that are usually more beneficial to the monster that set them in place than anyone else. ] If I'm to safely escort a man who just proved himself to be a dangerous liability to those around him, then you can figure out some way to compensate me for the risk.

[ Throughout the duration of this dispute, their travels away from flame and fang alike have taken on a more vertical course than anything that might directly steer them forward. Strong wings gather up every thermal that breezes their way, and it stands to reason those strong winds are more readily found at greater heights than if the pair were skimming above treetops. But a search for momentum-driving winds can't be all at play when soon they're so high that even the plumes of smoke spiraling up from the forest floor are mere streaks against a sea of green.

Soon enough it should become clear that J has been purposefully directing them to unnecessary heights all while John was focused elsewhere. The obvious threat J slates himself to be is an excellent diversion, drawing attention away from the danger that comes with propelling them to dizzying heights. John is clearly no ordinary man, but a fall from thousands of feet above the ground would still probably reduce his fleshy body to a smear upon the forest floor. Try necromancing yourself back from a goopy puddle of viscera, sweetcheeks. ]

Do try to come up with something quickly. My patience is far from limitless.

Otherwise— [ The grip he's maintained upon John's frame begins to slacken noticeably. Gravity works its magic and should alert his co-pilot to the sudden perception that he's growing off-balance as his source of support is siphoned away. While J doesn't renounce his claim on John quite yet, there is the sense that he might let go at any moment. ]

I may give in to your persuasive demands and simply drop you off.

[unconscionable]

[ From up here, John can better see the shape of the place: the curve of the planet, the castle in the distance reduced to a promising speck of grey, the treeline: and the void. Void behind them, void above them, even if he didn't have his distance from Alecto and Dominicus to judge by, this little upwards jaunt makes him very aware that he is not in Kansas anymore.

Being somewhere he doesn't remember coming to, unable to access the River or the main batteries of his power, John is uncertain enough that the threat resonates. (Though he's also very good at playing scared, faking humanity. He would prefer to be underestimated than admit that yes, less than a year ago he was atomised to nothing more than a fine mist and he came back from that just fine.)

His legs tighten, trying to keep his grip on the demon in the face of assistance lost, though he doesn't doubt that if J wanted to drop him he would drop him. ]

A dangerous liability — you're going to hurt my feelings with that sort of talk. What do you want? I don't have anything on me.

[ Literally, he's still naked. ]

I could give you an IOU for money and power but how could I guarantee I wouldn't just kill you before you cash in? There's sexual favours, but who knows if you're interested in fucking around with a human.

[ Especially a male human, though John sort of forgets that homosexuality is taboo. ]

I could grow you an extra body part — make you a cool bone weapon — share some of my infinite wisdom...

[ Just listing stuff off the top of his head now, uncomfortable with the swooping fear of hanging nearly his whole weight on his own arms, wants J's hands back on his ass again. ]