![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
SUMMER TEST DRIVE MEME
⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:
Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
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, D/S mechanics, public sex, aphro, death, missing persons.
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
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
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, D/S mechanics, public sex, aphro, death, missing persons.
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.
IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE
The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the frost-covered mosses and ferns, the frozen soil cold and just a little damp on your bare skin. Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.
You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards emerging from a temporary retreat from the wintry weather. With your feet under you, and you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees, though much of the fruit has been picked clean. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, is running actively again as the weather warms back up from the recent snowstorm.
As you explore, you may run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike, and the weather isn't quite amenable to your lack of.
Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.
This quaint, historic town of five-thousand has cobbled street and signs lit by gas lamp. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street — a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer — while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. At the far end of the main street, visible about a mile to the north now that the trees and the enormous wall is out of the way, sits a castle with three towers.
When you enter, the streets are full of people, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available — the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.
breaking and entering
If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.
Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. Parts of the house still bear the dust of disuse, gathered on various furnishings — bedding, sofas, curtains, wooden tables. However, it's already full of people! Anyone who's already appeared in the village just as you did today lives here. Once inside, you may notice patchwork repairs have been made, and some scorch marks still linger from a recent fire, and some furniture is still lying around in splinters.
Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner of parsnips, pheasant, and squash. During dinner, they (and those outsiders who've already begun to settle) sit down at the enormous wooden dining room table and help orient the newcomers and answer their questions.
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.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing or other inventory items, asking questions at dinner/orientation, or staking your claim on a bedroom!
THE FESTIVAL OF SUMMERTIDE
Summer is in full swing, which means it's time to take advantage of the warm weather! Around the town, various games are being played, some sport-based and some more concerned with creativity, problem-solving, sex, or 'fun'. Each round begins with a prayer to the Duchess. Not bowing your head in prayer may get you a few stares from locals, or worse-- opponents may be extra motivated to defeat someone so disrespectful to her Grace.Each Thursday, buildings are festooned with wreathes of wildflowers, tables are laden with food and drink, and everyone is given colored sashes to wear over their clothes. Festival goers are not allowed to enter the main events unless they wear a sash, and to get a sash they must reveal their curse marks. Those marked with the curse of Wilk receive blue sashes, Diabel get red, Skala receive green and Niez are as ever adorned with grey.
Summertide, the locals are eager to explain, is a festival about adapting to the needs of others, and accepting things as they are. What perhaps isn't explained nearly so well is the expectations placed upon festival goers. Each event has a goal to be achieved, balanced on the point of competition or participation.
Tables overflow with refreshments, especially drinks and chilled fruit to cool the summer heat. Rubeans traditionally spice their foods with aphrodisiacs, something that is so culturally normal to them that they don't feel the need to mention it.
Throughout all of this, some of the implementation of these games may occasionally come across as either overly cruel or overly kind. The common people of Rubilykskoye are of two minds when it comes to the treatment of newcomers: some think you are beneficent, sent to fix their problems and free them of your woes. These people, called Blackguards, will do their best to make sure your participation in the games is not marred by cheating, excessive violence, or pain. But others, called the Zlatniki, think little of the outsiders coming into their lands, and will do their best to twist their native traditions toward cruelty and vindictive unfairness when it comes to the Void-touched.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try participating in events, having your characters go against opponents, be drafted into the games against their will, or watching others perform!
NIGHT OF THE HUNTSMEN
Rumor moves through town quickly: two nights ago, a hunting party went out into the wood, and no one has seen them since. Anyone who wants to prove their worth to the community is encouraged to join the search parties going out to look for them; in Rubilykskoye, those who provide food for the community are highly prized, especially when they brave the woods to do so.You see, the woods aren't entirely safe. Near the town, it's nothing to be alarmed by, and of course the search parties find nothing there. They must delve deeper, and that's where you end up. At the outer edges of the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day — eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches.
Many peel off, going back to the town proper. The searchers become fewer and fewer. Maybe some of them are going back home, but maybe they're getting lost. Eventually, you walk around a large tree, and you're alone. It's just you and the Void.
The air feels heavy, 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. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.
Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.
Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body — what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?
Yet the further you go, the more convinced you become that the missing hunters are near by. You're sure you can hear them on the wind, their voices calling out between the trees. Did you just see something out of the corner of your eye? You have to find them. You have to make all this darkness worth it.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger! Feel free to find the bodies of the missing hunting party-- or hallucinate that you did.
RELEASE YOUR INNER BEAST
Something's wrong here.
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
Early one morning, alarm bells are rung. The people of Rubilykskoye are quick to explain while boarding up their windows and locking their doors: The Szymanskiy brothers have all transformed! Their inner beasts - duchozweirz, the natives call it - take the form of creeping, skeletal horrors. The beasts hunt and to kill, ripping their prey apart, but that's not all they can do.
Those who are lucky enough to escape one of the Szymanskiy triplets will leave feeling... changed. The psychic residue these monsters give off cause the afflicted to seek out danger with reckless abandon; they will run toward the monster, into fights, and refuse safety when offered. They must be restrained in a secure location to wait for the pheromones to wear off.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
someone else transforms
Early one morning, alarm bells are rung. The people of Rubilykskoye are quick to explain while boarding up their windows and locking their doors: The Szymanskiy brothers have all transformed! Their inner beasts - duchozweirz, the natives call it - take the form of creeping, skeletal horrors. The beasts hunt and to kill, ripping their prey apart, but that's not all they can do. Those who are lucky enough to escape one of the Szymanskiy triplets will leave feeling... changed. The psychic residue these monsters give off cause the afflicted to seek out danger with reckless abandon; they will run toward the monster, into fights, and refuse safety when offered. They must be restrained in a secure location to wait for the pheromones to wear off.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
you waited too long
At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
Eliot Waugh | The Magicians | Niez
WOODSVILLAGE SOMEWHEREThe walk through the woods had been long, harrowing, and drafty, given Eliot's lack of any kind of clothes. He was sure he had cuts on his feet, and he was none-too-thrilled to be stuck somewhere. He was reasonably sure it wasn't Fillory, but that just meant he didn't know where he was, or why.
Wandering into the village - and past the ominously looming wall - wasn't his favorite thing either. But he didn't have a lot of choice, so he wandered in, hands strategically blocking, as best he could.
Several people looked at him, and just waved or smiled, as if he wasn't currently flashing them. Eliot frowned, unsettled. It was almost a relief when he saw someone looking less than thrilled, but when Eliot approached them, they still greeted him and guided him to the boarding house - where apparently newcomers could get clothes and a place to stay and food.
Eliot didn't like the idea that "newcomers" came in the form of people who didn't plan to be here and weren't dressed and spent hours wandering woods. If it wasn't a singular event he somehow got caught in, it just got creepier.
Still, clothes were clothes. He pulled them on, finding them a little short for his tall frame but workable - even if it made him look like he was back on the farm, which made him want to shudder. He'd managed a little more color even in his stint out-of-the-current-timeline, even if he barely remembered that.
In the large main room he caught sight of someone in similar clothes that also didn't fit them and made his way over. "Are you new to our current bizarroland accommodations too?" Eliot asked.
THE FESTIVAL OF SUMMERTIDE - LOCK AND KEY
A festival sounded like a better time than trying to wander the woods and find a way out, or moping around the boarding house. So Eliot went out, putting on his gray sash obligingly and taking in the sights.
Which he continued to do until someone in passing grabbed his wrist and hauled him a few steps away, where he was tied to another stranger. Eliot immediately tried to undo it, both with his hands and with a spell, the intricate movements of his hands for the spell difficult with his wrist tied. Neither worked and he scowled as the person who'd tied them happily gave them the rules of the "game".
Blood. Wonderful. He looked at his partner. "I vote finding the key, or making the attempt at least. You?"
RELEASE YOUR INNER BEAST/NIGHT OF THE HUNTSMEN
Despite the new, unwanted, and decidedly not sexy enough tattoo Eliot sported, he didn't know how much he trusted the idea that he was now half-monster. He'd already BEEN a monster. It seemed unfair to go through that again. But he wasn't captive in his own mind, so he didn't quite believe.
He'd been wanting to go through the woods again himself, look for some kind of clues of how to get out of ... wherever this was. It seemed smarter to do it with a group, for safety. He could always disappear from the group if he needed to investigate. So he volunteered to go out with the search party. He was lent a sword (maybe SOME of his magical knowledge came over without the spell going), and hung toward the back of the party, looking for signs of people passing through - but also just for anything that stood out.
People began to disappear, going back or peeling off, Eliot didn't know which. He felt ... strange. Detached in a way he hadn't been.
Still, when one of the search party he'd been partnered up with suddenly became an enormous bat-like beast, Eliot dove out of the way as it whipped around back on the party, knocking the person beside him out of the way too. He quickly cast a bolt of battle magic toward the bat, knocking it back, and called to the person next to him as Eliot got his legs under him again. "I think we run?!"
Wildcard
[None of these grab you? PM me and we can plot something else! Or just start something and I'll roll with it if you'd rather.]
IN THE WOODS VILLAGE SOMEWHERE
She follows this with a sympathetic grimace.
"You weren't wandering too long in the forest, were you? The trails out there aren't exactly clearly marked, even when you're lucky enough to find one."
no subject
He shrugs. "Honestly, I can't even tell you how long. It all blended together. I know it wasn't short. I'm not meant to be a forest nymph, I got turned around a few times." Eliot lowers his voice. "What's your take on this place so far? The people are ... friendly. It feels strange."
no subject
It's a complicated question, and one she doesn't have a ready or an easy response for.
"As for the people... some are friendlier than others. I'm still getting the lay of the land myself." Those pointed ears stay pricked and she cuts a quick glance across the boarding house common room. "I think everyone here has plenty of reason to be sympathetic. As for the locals, I imagine they have their own purposes."
no subject
"I'm inclined to not trust friendly locals. In my experience with alternate world trips, the locals are usually hostile and frequently homicidal, even if you're technically their ruler." He waves a hand. "Long story. But same here. I'd say priority one is getting out, but I'm guessing that's priority for everyone who comes here, and there seem to be a lot still here." He looks at her again, quick glance searching for a mark she might wear. "Did your entry ticket come with a shiny new, unwanted tattoo too, or are they full of it when they say everyone has them?"
no subject
She saves those questions for later, then.
"I can speak to at least one person who's been here almost a year trying to leave without luck," she says, on topic this time. "Someone I'd trust to be able to leave if there were a way. Safe to say it's not going to be easy."
Not that it will stop her from trying. She wasn't here before.
"I don't have any reason to doubt the tattoos are as mandatory as we've been told. Or to doubt what that means." Dancing around the curse somewhat. "Still having some trouble accepting it though."
no subject
"A year isn't exactly promising. But maybe they just haven't had the right set of abilities yet." Still, a year is disheartening at best. The last time he'd been stuck in one place for years, he'd volunteered. He doesn't want to be stuck without consent. "There's a way in, stands to reason there must be a way out. Somehow."
He wrinkles his nose. "I have every reason to doubt anything they say, since I don't know any of them. But they seem sincere enough."
no subject
Vex gestures to an empty chair across from her in an invitation, head tilted to a curious angle. "I can respect the healthy suspicion, I suppose. It would be very good news if they were lying. The stories I've been hearing... aren't optimistic."
no subject
Eliot smiles at her again, then takes the seat, sinking down and tucking long legs beneath the simple chair. "I'd rather they were lying, I'm not thrilled with the stories either. And how accepting they are of occasional lapses into monsters."
no subject
"Occasional might be underselling it." Not that she's been here long enough to see it for herself, but she has been here long enough to hear anecdotes that go beyond vague warnings, things that feel a little too personal.
It feels like a threat, something looming in the shadows.
"I wonder how quickly that becomes normal."
no subject
The idea of spending every day trying to safeguard against flipping a switch to monster was nauseating. Eliot's mind always goes back to the monster he'd already housed, and wondering if that's what it would look like.
At least sex keeps it away, supposedly. Eliot is good at that - one of his few pertinent skills, aside from magic. "I can't imagine it becoming normal. But I'd probably be surprised by what you can get used to here."
no subject
She follows with a dramatic sigh.
"Though it's all hearsay and speculation at this point, even if the source seems trustworthy." And they could talk in circles about that all night. "I'm Vex, by the by. And you are not the long lost prince of Rubilykskoye, I'm guessing?"
no subject
"Yeah, it is. And the only way to test it is to go without doing what they say you need to, and risking it to see if it happens. I'm not sure I want to go that far."
Eliot gives her a slight smile. "Eliot Waugh, previously the High King of Fillory. Currently a professor and definitely not the lost prince of Monster Town. Nice to meet you.
no subject
Fillory means nothing to her and that only raises more questions if she thinks about it, but it does confirm her impression to some degree. If nothing else it's a reminder that while things are strange, strange things are hardly new.
Even if this is a new kind of weird for her.
"A professor, hm? You don't hear of former kings often. One way or another, stepping down usually doesn't end well for them." If Sovereign Uriel's last moments come to mind, she does her best to keep it off her face. "Can I ask what you teach?"
no subject
"I teach physical magic. In theory. Most of my students are incompetent, so it's more of an attempt than an actuality. There's also the possibility I'm not a very good teacher." He smiles. "Oh and my former kingness was official, I was deposed and everything. Attempted to have my killed, but it didn't take." He switches topics easily. "What about you, what do you do when you're not being kidnapped to strange, unsettling places?"
no subject
The instinct is there not to trust people, but it's mostly reflex. Besides, there's not much risk in sharing either.
"I suppose the short version is that I recently went from killing goblins and bandits for money to killing dragons for slightly less mercenary reasons.Though I do usually have a little help with that." It's a glib answer, and she injects it with more confidence than she feels, glossing over the details.
no subject
Dragons are generally known as hard to kill. Eliot assumes that applies to most different worlds. They're magic and size and breath and enormous teeth. If she's telling the truth, Vex might be a good ally to have.
"If someone has scales in their monster time, those skills might come in handy." Eliot tilts his head. "I guess then we'd find out of the resurrection part is true too."
no subject
"On my own, most of what I'd be able to do is track them. I lost most of my gear when I showed up naked, too." And not having her weapons might have her feeling more exposed than being nude did. "I'm hoping no one ends up that monstrous. Though the one person who's talked to me about their curse did end up with scales, so I suppose we'll see."
If they do have dragons, that would be a handy little insult on top of injury.
no subject
"Naked and lacking anything too," Eliot agrees. He hums a little. "Well if they do, I can back you up. I'm a magician. From the back you understand. Up close isn't really my style in general if it can be avoided."
It doesn't hurt to have an ally, and if she's not lying - which Eliot doesn't think she is - a dragon hunter could probably come in handy. "We'll have to figure out how to get you weapons, though, I'm guessing?"
no subject
Theoretically.
"A bow would be excellent. I don't suppose you can enchant arrows?" Because that would be one way to make up at least some of what she's missing.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
lock & key
Khoriya had been talking to a shopkeep when someone had looped something around his arm. When a casual tug had not dislodged the bit of rope, he turns to stare down upon the confused looking human beside him and the smiling Rubean patiently explaining the 'rules' to them both, wolfish expression set into cold, hard lines.
...Blood or key, is it? The look he casts Eliot is utterly flat, with a slight curl of black lip to reveal the glint of fangs.
"Why bother? This won't take but a moment." It's clear that Khoriya is thinking about where best to take a bite right out of the human to resolve their little 'problem.'
no subject
The fangs don't really convince Eliot that he wants that option, either.
"Because I generally like my blood to stay on the inside, where it belongs. Preferably with a tolerable blood alcohol level." He sighs. "Maybe if we just each give ourselves a little scratch, then?" he says hopefully.
no subject
Khoriya doesn't so much as cast the man a second glance, dismissing the idea entirely out and exhaling in a contemptuous whuff of breath before - giving the bindings between them a jerk, fully intending to reel Eliot in a step closer.
"Then hold still. Unless you have a better plan."
no subject
Eliot, with his lanky, long frame, is stronger than he looks. But he's not stronger than an imposing wolfman, and he wasn't expecting the tug exactly, so he stumbles forward, within easy distance.
He does not, in fact, have a better plan. Although. "I could use a spell to cut you and save your teeth the biting. I've imbibed enough that's terrible for me that I probably taste awful."
no subject
That, and... well, Eliot isn't wrong. He has no particular fondness for human blood, and especially none for blood run bitter with cheap ale and whatever else he might have consumed, to heat the flesh and drive away inhibition.
"...What sort of spell?"