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Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE MEME 001
⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Her heart breaks upon spotting Alina. Genya rushes up and throws the blanket around her shoulders, at first unsure of what to say. Before she can decide, Alina regards her with such acute horror that Genya forgets where they are. It's not similar to her reaction upon Genya and Baghra's escape from Kirigan, it's the same. The cool, dark night around them solidifies into stone walls. The milling crowd fills with the possibility of further confrontation: the queen, the little prince, David.
Genya swallows. Her hands rest firmly on Alina; if freed, they'll shake. ]
You're in shock. [ Isn't she? Genya can't think of any other reason she should forget, but then Genya can't think very well all of a sudden. Of one thing she's certain: Alina isn't simply surprised to see her blind eye uncovered. ]
Come. [ she implores as she ushers Alina further from the gates. ]
no subject
[ she lets herself be dragged along for a moment, too bewildered to do anything else. her heart aches, yet her hands and feet and face have started to feel cold. not from the air or the exposure; it's not so different here from ravkan summers, even a little warmer. but yes. shock.
not of the sort, she thinks, that genya means. ]
Stop. Genya, stop. [ barely through the gate, alina stops walking. no. she's not going to just be led around like a child anymore. if she wants to have any say in what's going to happen in her life, then she needs to stop letting other people decide those things for her. that's how she wound up in this position in the first place, isn't it? ]
What's going on? What happened to — [ she doesn't want the answer, though, does she? alina realizes it before she can finish her question. to avoid making choices, to drift along with what others want from her, spares alina the ugliness of the truth. she gets her soft little bed and her warm bath and all the gilded praises of the boyars and the black general and all the crippling responsibility too.
she swallows thickly. her voice and her expression both shake as she finally musters a revised, targeted question, brave enough to face it head-on: ] Did Kirigan do this to you?
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When Alina speaks, albeit stumblingly, she listens. Her own questions immediately threaten to drown her out. Again? Must she do this again? In a situation no less hostile than her escape from Kirigan or his attack on the Spinning Wheel. In which she is no less lost, nor exposed.
It's disgusting.
Genya pushes it down. The sickness, the anguish, the offense. All of it. This isn't Alina's fault, and she can't help either of them by shrinking into the shivering wretch she was then. She shuts her eyes, shakes her head remorsefully. Her hands fall from Alina's shoulders as she meets her gaze. Unbreakable Genya Safin. That's who is needed now. ]
I tried to leave him. [ Her concern mirrors Alina's. ] Do you not remember?
no subject
she blames herself. how can she not? she's powerless to stop him and, worse, has been enabling him in some capacity. has offered him her power and played the little pet and it makes her sick. sick, now.
she shakes her head because she can't bring herself to speak. she'd known it. she'd known enough to ask, to be terrified of the truth, but to hear it affirmed aloud is something else.
some part of her, she realizes finally, had still hoped that baghra was lying. that she was wrong. that there was any other explanation for the portrait beneath his quarters. that some explanation could change the simple fact that aleksander kirigan was the black heretic, a monster, and he was going to use her to destroy ravka. ]
cw: SA ref
Sooner, and Alina could have seen what he truly was.
Delicately, but without reticence, Genya wraps her arms around Alina. She wishes someone had been there to hold her, not the first night the king forced himself on her but the day after. As she left the general's presence with new orders. As the scales fell from her eyes and her feet bled treading over the shards.
She says nothing, makes no noise. It isn't all right, what he's done to both of them, and it shouldn't be hushed. It should be screamed. ]
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she hates crying in front of people. she hates it. but even as it occurs to her to start trying to suppress it, she can barely hold in the sobs. and it's selfish of her and she knows it, hates it, because her pain is so much less than genya's, but it feels like she's taking it onto herself because it's her fault. it feels so much like her fault, for running first. ]
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
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[ Genya is the one who should apologize, but she won't take the space away from Alina. She might inadvertently create a trap in which neither of them can have their remorse respected. And she already knows that, somehow, Alina forgives her. She doesn't deserve that, nor has she ever wanted to hear it. What she did to her can't be undone, regardless of what Alina remembers. If she must carry it for the both of them, she will. ]
cw: some appearance-related sexist attitudes
[ she shakes her head, drawing back. she steadies her hands on genya's shoulders. her feelings should be complicated. in the end, genya is right. logically, alina knows this. genya was complicit in keeping her at the little palace, in trapping her there, no matter how kind she had been. if she had been punished for failing to do so, then it was only because she'd entered into the devil bargain in the first place.
but alina had, too. and the pain in her chest demands some kind of solace. that pain blots out any inkling of resentment, any complications to her relief upon seeing someone that she knows, someone who she can take some comfort in — and her grief, in realizing that the very person whose presence was this day's only balm had been ruined because of her. ]
Did he bring us here?
genya: 😎
She shakes her head in response to Alina's question, her hands coming to bracket her shoulders.
Genya nearly says, "He doesn't have that power." As if it would matter if he did. As if he were alive to wield it, planting himself at the heart of another evil in their lives. That's how difficult it is to imagine that he isn't, despite raking through his ashes to shatter every remnant of his body. His darkness, like his reign, had limits. ]
He is dead, Alina. Beyond any doubt.
no subject
[ she repeats it, incredulous.
it is impossible to imagine death coming for aleksander kirigan. he isn't just a man. even before knowing him as the black heretic, she'd already felt that he was more myth than man. what is the second army without its black general? what are the grisha?
she steels herself and thinks, free. this is good. the people of ravka will be able to sleep safely, with him destroyed. he poses no threat to them, or to her.
but he hadn't always been a threat. and somewhere, buried under her righteous anger, is a sense of real loss. the kind that had come with seeing genya's face, and knowing that there was no turning back, that there was no salvaging the harm he had done—to her, or to anyone else. whatever small part of her had hoped that baghra had lied, that savored the way aleksander had made her feel, it aches with the certainty that no one will make her feel that way again, and that the one who had is gone now. ]
I don't understand. [ how he can be dead, how she can not have heard about this, even near tsibeya where she'd fled. surely news had reached that tiny town, as news of her had. ]
no subject
Let's find someplace quiet. [ This time, she's patient. She waits for Alina to lead or to indicate that she desires Genya to, in which case she'll take her hand. ]
no subject
the town is worse, somehow. spiders feel suddenly preferable to how unfamiliar the culture here is. people walk around in next to nothing. the dancing and sharing of food and festival souvenirs are almost normal, but then there is the nudity and the sexual overtures that would make alina blush if she were anything but numb. ]
What is this place? [ genya had come out of it, so she must know at least a little more, right? ]
no subject
I wish I knew. [ A small group of barely-clothed passersby eye the swaddled Alina curiously, an amused shade of judgment on their faces. It's the same and yet the very opposite of how one would expect strangers to react to such a sight. Genya has at least been here long enough to gather that they think she's wearing too much rather than too little.
Self-consciously, she adjusts the skirt-like sash fluttering around her leg. To deter attention from it, she looks up and asks, ] Did you encounter anyone in the woods?
no subject
There were other Grisha. Or, I think they were Grisha.
[ she grimaces a little. none of it fit quite right, to be honest, but that's the closest point of comparison she has, and they were similar enough for it to feel right. ]
There were women who could summon, like etherealki. And a saint named Ianthe who could shape bone, like Sankt Ilya.
no subject
Which begs a new question, which pushes to the side all others. (Ianthe is not a name known in Ravka. She called herself saint? What kind of etherealki are these women? What does the name Kirigan mean to them?) ]
Did they recognize you?
no subject
No. I don't even know how to describe it. Ianthe ... Ianthe said she was from another planet, she was talking about houses and she understood Grisha power as thalergy and thanergy.
[ all of this is at least as strange as waking up naked in the woods, about to get eaten by spiders, really. yet still not as strange as seeing what has become of genya. ]
no subject
[ Testing them out lends them no greater meaning, but she'd like to remember them. Witness Ianthe's skill with them, eventually. Genya doesn't have the energy to feel acute apprehension about her tonight. She would have to see the power for herself, and she truly doesn't want to right now. Already wary, this new information is just another drop in the drowning tide. ]
And what did you tell her?
no subject
she shakes her head. ]
My name. That I'm Grisha, from Ravka. Nothing important. [ surely this will never come back to bite her : ) ]
no subject
I gave my name, too. [ Genya, the Grisha who poisoned the king. The catalyst for an open crusade against every single one of them. Perhaps a bit of a leap, without providing her last name, but one plenty of Ravkans would be willing to take. She tried not to engage anyone she felt she couldn't fight off.
At last. the path they're treading becomes less busy. She checks over her shoulder to find they've a berth of several feet behind them as well. Fingertips to Alina's arm, Genya gestures to a quaint bench in front of a darkened bakery. ] Here.
no subject
it's all just familiar enough to be bizarre. no one seems to look twice at her or genya, no one seems confused by the stink of grief or the haphazard nudity and the leaves in alina's hair. maybe they're just too caught up in their reveling to notice. ]
I thought if I ever saw you again, I'd be furious. [ it sinks in how much circumstances have changed since she left os alta, and even moreso since she left the woods in tsibeya. ] I found Mal. He said he wrote to me.
cw: culty behavior mention, victim self-blaming
She'd like to pluck those leaves from Alina's hair but holds her hands folded in her lap. ]
I was to isolate you. Make you dependent on his attention, the adoration he garnered you.
no subject
anger is easier than what lies underneath it, the shame of how pathetic she was, to roll over and show her belly to the first person who showed her attention. how humiliating. and not only had both aleksander and genya known it, they'd used it. and she'd fallen for it.
no wonder baghra had been so insulting that night.
she wipes her cheeks, draws a breath and steadies herself. ]
None of it was real. [ that's the most important thing to accept now. no matter how desperately some part of her missed the way he'd made her feel, how remarkable and seen and important, it was all a lie. a strategy, so he could use her like a tool. just as he had used genya.
she'd kissed him. she'd wanted to give him everything. she can't bring herself to share this grief with genya now, to draw attention to her indignity. ]
no subject
Ruination. ]
When I tried to warn you, that was real. [ He hadn't asked her to do that, as some sort of test or gauge of Alina's affection. She still wonders if he suspected her of saying something. She was integral to his scheme, at that point. Little he could do to her but express disappointment (as a threat). But he could have also kept it to himself, watched her more closely, tested her. For one reason or another, Genya knew what it was to want Kirigan's approval more than anything. ]
no subject
[ alina shakes her head, staring off into the road. ]
I was so stupid.
[ she really let herself believe that there was anything special enough about her that might justify aleksander's attention, that might make her simply worth it. that it didn't need to be suspicious, as genya had warned her, but that it could just be deserved.
it didn't matter that he only wanted her because she was the sun summoner. she was the sun summoner. that was still her, still some fundamental piece of her that no one else possessed.
but he'd only ever wanted that piece. he'd have torn it out of her in the field on the way to os alta, just as she'd asked him to, if he'd had the power to do so. she rubs at her face. draws a deep breath. ]
It doesn't matter. He's gone. [ saying it feels surreal. draws attention to a hollowness in her bones that echoes around the statement. she can't bring herself to be glad about it, even now, and that only makes her hate herself more. she should be unambiguously relieved. he'd maimed genya. he'd created the fold. he'd been ready to do so much worse. yet alina can't help feeling like she'll never be able to recapture that feeling of importance. ]
no subject
And it was.
Genya takes a quiet breath, putting aside her grief. Complicated mourning like that is easier to sublimate. ]
As is she. [ Genya stares ahead, as well, but will meet Alina's gaze if it's turned upon her. ] He found you, after the Fete. And the stag. You were amplified together, connected, against your will. That link remained even after you broke free of his control. She severed it.
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