rubimemes | SPRING TEST DRIVE MEME

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SPRING 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: murder, bondage, sensory deprivation, aphro, coercion, waxplay, whips, free use, and orgiastic behavior.

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

SPRING TEST DRIVE MEME

TDMs in Rubi are posted every quarter at the beginning of the season. As such, this TDM is open until the next TDM is posted in July.

Feel free to post on this TDM until the Summer TDM goes up. Please check the Calendar (linked above) for more information on precise dates.

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 dewy mosses and ferns, upon cold soil and feeling 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 to cast a suspicious eye upon this new creature appeared in the woods. With your feet under you, you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, is running actively again as the weather warms into full spring bloom, a hint of humidity in the air.

As you explore, you may encounter caches of clothing left in painted crates or placed in hollow tree trunks. They contain loose shirts and trousers, perhaps even a moth-eaten coat, along with a note that includes a bare-bones explanation for your arrival and a sketched map toward town. You may also 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 a couple thousand has cobbled streets and signs lit by gas lamps. 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. However, there's a stressed, ramshackle air about the town – multiple buildings in varying stages of disarray or construction, charred edges to wooden walls, as if some local disaster had taken place a few months back, and the townsfolk are still picking up in the aftermath.

When you enter, the streets are full of busy people bustling about, 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.

SETTING: CRIME

Fortunately, the most of the townspeople 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! Once inside, you may notice patchwork repairs have been made, some scorch marks still linger from a fire about a year back, and the place seems somewhat in disrepair

Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner: a thin stew 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. The town has recently been brought back from the brink of a terrible calamity, newcomers are told, and everyone is doing their part now to restore it to its former glory.

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!

SPRINGTIDE FESTIVAL

The flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, and what better way to ring in spring than with sweet blood sacrifice in its honor?

All around town, somewhat macabre decorations have been arranged... with a floral, spring-like twist. Animal skulls adorned with painted red-and-pink flowers hang from doorfronts, streaming flowing trails of woven ribbons and ivy. Garlands of dyed eggs are strung from lamp post to lamp post. Stalls line the streets, offering intricately worked leather masks for festival goers along with decorative bits of neckwear strangely reminiscent of a hangman's noose. In addition to satisfying the needs of the curse marks that afflict the townspeople, the overarching theme of the festival seems to be a celebration of communal endurance and defiance of death.

FAQ: CURSE MARKS

Festival Entertainment includes, but isn't limited to:

A wrestling ring in which naked, oiled up combatants are also offered a choice of weapon from a wooden mallet to brass knuckles to a tiny knife barely the length of a pinky. Nothing that's likely to kill anyone outright, of course, just enough to spice up the competition a bit.
Various competitions of endurance upon the stage, from lying perfectly still as hot wax is dripped over one's naked body to a whipping game where the first to yelp loses, and another where prone volunteers have clamps affixed to nipples and genitals, with increasingly heavy weights attached. Losers are hung upside down for communal use, thighs spread and notched for every person who partakes... but all in good fun and the spirit of shared pleasure.
A version of blind man's bluff where several kneeling participants are blindfolded and their wrists and ankles hobbled with a knotted length of rope. The first to crawl up to one of the circle of onlookers and bring them to orgasm is deemed the victor and may leave the ring, while the losers may be expected to play another round… and another… until they've succeeded in claiming their own victory.
A crude public shower and sauna have been set up to rinse off and relax after festival fun. Be careful to stay hydrated, because the temperature inside the sauna is steaming hot. Cups of cold tea are served to all in the sauna, leaving a refreshing tingle in your extremities... and an urge to put your mouth to use upon another person's body.

Almost all of the food and drink present are dosed with the Rubean's usual blend of stimulating aphrodisiac herbs, so common in their cooking as to be totally unremarkable – and not something they would warn anyone about before partaking. And of course, there is the ever-present orgy in the background, taking on a bestial, animalistic edge as festival-goers revel in pain and pleasure alike.

For every shared carnal experience during the Springtide Festival, partners will leave matching marks upon each other – a shared bloody 'X' carved on the left shoulder, a bruised imprint of teeth on the right buttock. These wounds are proudly displayed for all to see, with those who've accumulated many marks being treated like rockstars, adulation and cheers following in their wake, toasts raised in their presence, and people eager to approach and further add to their collection.

And of course, those who bear few-to-no marks are all the more likely to be propositioned by fellow Rubeans, and looked askance if they refuse. Everyone is expected to share in the springtime spirit, after all.

As a general rule, the Rubeans attitude toward the strangers among them, also known as Void-touched, is one of welcome, generosity, and social pressure bearing from gentle encouragement to actively overbearing, with an emphasis on conformity. Now that you're here, of course you'll want to start contributing and acting like a proper member of the community! But beware, for not all of the villagers are open and welcoming to the new Void-touched. Some, known as the Zlatniki, resent the presence of newcomers who don't respect their ways, don't offer proper worship to their Goddess, who flaunt their outsider status and lead members of their community astray. These villagers may resort to trickery, coercion, or even violence to ensure compliance.

WRITER'S BLOCK?

Join a competition on purpose to prove your endurance, or alternately find yourself 'helpfully' shoved into line to go up on stage. Find yourself dodging grabby villagers or swoop in to save someone else from being propositioned. Share awkward eye contact or a cup of tea in the sauna.

VESENYA LOVTI, THE SPRING HUNT

At some point, in the bath, while you undress, or even during the throes of passion, you might find the name of a stranger written somewhere upon your skin.

At some point, you might catch a glimpse of an act of wanton, inexplicable murder. A laundress toppling over with an arrow jutting out of her eye as her fellow washerwomen yelp and hurry to make sure she doesn't fall into the well. A farmer enjoying a pint in the tavern, only to fall out of his chair, coughing up bloodied bits of metal shrapnel while the barkeep looks on with a smile. In the aftermath, a shadowy figure skitters down the rooftops and rips a silver locket from around the laundress' neck, and the barkeep casually cuts the farmer's ear from his head. While most onlookers seem only mildly put out by the inconvenience, some even cheer or egg on the murderer.

At some point, you might hear someone asking around. Does anyone know who this is? With your name upon their lips.

If you ask around, you'll learn of Vesenya Lovti, the Spring Hunt and an annual cultural tradition among the Rubeans. For those not in the know, during Vesenya Lovti, a name of a fellow community member will appear somewhere on each Rubean and Void-touched's body. The Duchess has decreed that the goal over the month's standard festival revelry is to kill that person before getting killed yourself, and a trophy must be taken by the killer from their intended victim and cast into the festival bier in sacrifice. Worry not, for their benevolent Goddess will resurrect all who are killed just in time to catch the festival's closing ceremonies. And of course you'll be participating, right? Wouldn't want to disrespect your generous hosts' local customs, after all...

WRITER'S BLOCK?

Murder and be murdered. :') Or do your best to avoid both. Save a stranger from a knife attack, or whisper a warning into someone's ear about the poison lacing their meal. Ask around to find out about your target (feel free to make up NPCs), while trying to stay discreet. But be careful. Interfering too much in someone else's hunt or being too outspoken about 'barbaric practices' might earn you a trip to the stocks, at least until you've learned to be a little more open-minded about traditions that bring the whole community together.

THE FATHOMLESS DARK

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.

In 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.

In addition to the spiders, you may come across the sharp-toothed furred yetis that emerged during the snowstorm, still looking for a meal. Each one hunts alone, a fifteen-foot-tall shambling creature that drips black ooze and super-chills the air around it until your skin feels tight and icy. If it gets the drop on you, you're likely to be its dinner. It has emerged from a long summer hibernation to enjoy the colder weather, and it's starving.

FAQ: DEATH RULES

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?

In the fog, you may also hear the voices of those familiar to you – people you know from the town, or people whom you know with almost perfect certainty aren't here. these figments may recreate unhappy memories or force trespassers to hallucinate their worst nightmares. Nothing is as it seems in the void, and when you swing at these figments, desperate to silence them, it might not be a figment at all, but a friend in the flesh trying to help you. By the time you see their true face, it could be too late to stop yourself.

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!

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.

FAQ: MONSTER CURSES & TIMELINES

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

Abram, the potter, narrowly survives a poisoning attempt during the spring hunt, but the stress of it has sent him over the edge. The salamander shape of his inner beast – duchozweirz, the natives call it – rampages through the stalls of the festival, leaving a trail of char and ruin in its wake and spitting molten rock at those who might attempt to quell him.

(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?

RULES: CONTENT WARNINGS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"And we can always drink together, while the horrors are happening." He hasn't been nearly so beaten down by this place - he hasn't had the time - but there's a touch of morbid humor to his answer.

It's not the worst thing in the world, to think of huddling someplace with Vex and a bottle of whiskey, waiting for some unexpected nightmare to pass. Not much different from home, in some ways.

He longs to reach for her hand as he makes his way down the stairs with the diligence of a toddler learning to walk. He balances just fine on his own, provided he takes care, but keeping some connection when he can't see her still feels remarkable. Instead, he grips the railing. "When they yield...if you have the time, I could use an archery lesson or two. I can't think of a quicker way to start building up muscle."

Vex follows him down the stairs, moving slowly. She doesn't want to rush him, and doesn't have a problem letting him take his time.

Better that than fall down stairs.

When he suggests archery, Vex's gaze snaps up from Percy's feet to his face. Then a brow arches and she leans closer. "Archery, darling?" she asks, almost smugly. "You've finally seen the benefits of shooting something that doesn't explode regularly, hm?"

He'll gladly take a bit of ribbing; it feels natural in a way so much of their talk hasn't, since his arrival. Pausing mid-step, he meets her gaze with a smirk. "I've seen the benefits to having functional biceps - and it's been made clear to me that I'm a long way off from my own pepperbox."

They're as expensive here as at home, it turns out. He simply has to pay in time and gained trust instead of coin.

Edited 2025-06-07 03:54 (UTC)

Vex leans closer. Not close enough to get too much in Percy's space, but still a playful incursion. Her smile doesn't falter. "Well, darling, I will never discourage you from learning a weapon that requires a little finesse."

Not something that comes with a trigger, in Vex's mind.

"And at least I know you can aim."

"Fairly well, even." Flirting feels harmless right now - balancing, even, after learning a little more about her exploits. They've still got a connection, even if it's no longer what he's accustomed to. On some level, he's still something to her.

He's tempted to lean back against her. Instead, he makes himself continue down the last few steps. His voice remains bright and teasing, a this-side-of-bitchy bit of disagreement she'll investigation have a smart remark for in return. "A pepperbox has plenty of finesse when it needs to be cleaned, you know. I put in the effort when it isn't a life or death situation - much more efficient, when you think about it."

"What I'm hearing is that perhaps you need practice performing under pressure." Vex knows very damn well that's not the case. Percy is, if anything, the coolest head in their teams outside of the rare incidents where he's been—

Well, possessed by a vengeance demon.

Which is admittedly a fairly big hole to carve out, but also one that remained fairly specific, and is past them now.

"Should I try to distract you while you're shooting? To see how well you can keep your focus, of course."

For his own good.

"I am an exemplar of performance under pressure," he says airily, his stick clicking against the floor as he goes over to the sofa. "But if you'd like to distract me, you're welcome to try."

Despite his best efforts at delicacy, he sits down a bit more heavily than he'd like. Percy really is doing better than he has been, but it turns out he really is lacking in some of his old finesse. With time - and archery practice - it might come back. "I'd ask what you have in mind, but I assume it'd ruin the surprise."

"It would defeat the point of trying to distract you," Vex agrees. Once Percy is safely sitting, Vex ushers herself into the kitchen and recovers a bottle of win and—the height of civility—a pair of matching wine glasses.

She opens the bottle, then returns with both.

"But I'm sure your imagination can supply some possibilities. You're a smart boy."

He raises his brows at her at that last comment. No doubt he can, and everything that springs to mind first is entirely inappropriate. If he's lucky, nothing from his imagination shows on his face, especially once he busies himself with reaching for a wineglass.

"Let's make sure I can draw back the bowstring first," is the best rejoinder he can muster just then. "Then you can give me your worst."

She's teasing him, of course, falling back into an old pattern of flirting that's too irresistible to avoid entirely. It's habit, and he seems to be as inclined to it as she is.

That means, of course, that what he's picturing is more or less exactly what she's thinking of.

By the time he's actually up to the challenge, she figures she'll have come up with some distracting ideas that don't involve her tits or her lips.

"Darling, at your fittest I'm not sure you'd be up to my worst. Though it would be fun to try."

If things were different, if she'd been brought here just a few months after her time, he'd assume that her mind's eye was filled with filth. Her lips, her tits, her hands - she'd find plenty of ways to test him. It'd be torment of the most delicious sort, and as long as he didn't stab anyone in the process, they'd have a fine time. As it is, though, he assumes her distractions might run towards less charged ideas. More's the pity, really.

"You wound me," he says, clinking his glass lightly against hers once they've each been poured a bit to drink. Cheers. "You'd be surprised at what I'm capable of, when I've got my full strength."

Vex lifts her glass, flashing a slightly lopsided smile that compliments one lifted brow.

"Pleasantly surprised, I hope." She takes a sip and shrugs. "I think I do know you well enough not to expect to be disappointed."

"I don't do anything by halves," Percy answers dryly. At least when it comes to the topic at hand, veiled and plausibly deniable as it is, he's heard no complaints. "But I do take complaints, if you have any you want to register."

It's a joke, but also.

"You know I'm going to make you regret that, don't you?" It's a joke, but also a fact that she won't forget.

A little twinkle comes into her eye.

She's missed this. The easy banter. Not that she's had no one else to talk with while she's been here, but gods, she's missed Percy.

"Do the complaints have to be in writing? Lipstick on the mirror?"

"If it's going to be written, I'd prefer it on parchment, in the nicest copperplate you can manage." No one here is serious at the moment, and it'll only get worse as they drink their way through this wine. "And if that's not possible, I think you're going to have to - say it to my face."

He nearly says something about orally, catching himself just in time. The Scanlan in the back of his mind makes certain turns of phrase unwise.

"Lipstick," he goes on, after taking a sip from his glass, "will only be acceptable on alternate weeks, once a month at maximum, and you'll have to limit your complaint to whatever you can scrawl onto my forearm before I get away from you."

"Nothing but the best, hm? As good as it is to have you here, darling, I am afraid most things here will be rather beneath you." What good is coming from money when there is no money.

Though Percy is skilled in ways she's sure will make him popular, provided he doesn't get in too much trouble with the Zlatniki.

"But are you sure you're in such a hurry to have the complaints directly from my mouth."

"They're beneath both of us." He's already made up his mind on that front: Whatever the world thinks of Vex, whatever she thinks of herself, she doesn't belong here any more than he does. She's done nothing to merit the torments of this place.

And you hardly know what those are. But he's not planning to plumb the depths today. This is a pleasant conversation, one he doesn't intend to ruin.

"Quite sure," he adds, when she goes on. No doubt there are things she could say that would hurt him, but Percy doesn't imagine she will. And if she does - well, he'll likely deserve it, in that case. "You don't have to make anything up out of thin air, but if you've already got a complaint in mind, I might as well save you the parchment."

"Hm." Vex doubts that's the case. There is a complaint, and one that comes readily to her tongue. She keeps it there; better than to risk more disappointment. She's already assumed once, and... well, she always has tried to be a quick learner.

And she's not nearly that deep in the wine.

"I think I'll save that invitation for once you've started neglecting yourself over some new project," she quips instead, then sidesteps entirely, flashing a new topic in front of him. "You know most people here can't read the same languages. The curse translates our words for us, but if I were to write something in common or elvish it would be gibberish to almost everyone."

There's a tension between them, taut and vibrating like a plucked string, but she doesn't try to snap it, and he doesn't offer. Perhaps that's cowardly; he's honestly not sure, when the alternative feels actively cruel, not to mention liable to put them both in positions they don't want to be. Drop everything for me doesn't seem likely to work out in his favor, and it certainly isn't fair to her.

His instincts are right, is what all this means, but he's not exactly overjoyed by that. Fortunately, she steers the conversation on, towards more promising subjects.

"That is interesting," he says, eyes lighting up at the thought. Celestial for his most private notes, then. A diary, even, someplace to record all his particular worries and anger. Unless someone else here comes from their plane - and Vex would have mentioned as much - it'd be as good as unbreakable. But for materials the three of them can access, they're well set up. "All documents in Elvish, then. If someone from home arrives, and we don't trust them, it might be more secure than Common."

Or it might not - there are plenty of elves who could wander out of the woods - but it can't hurt to take the extra care.

Vex would advise being careful. It's hard to say who might have tricks or other ways know read through the language.

But—well, she did mention it for a reason, and the thought has occurred to her as well. Especially with three of them here now, it could certainly have some utility. Better than nothing, right?

Mostly, she likes seeing the light in Percy's eyes.

She takes a slower sip.

"You've been here for a few weeks, and you're already plotting secret codes," Vex says fondly. "You're not wrong to, though. We can use all of the advantages we can get."

There are always other potential protections. Physical security, codes built into the Elvish, writing in lemon juice rather than ink. It's hard to know just what they'll need in terms of precautions, but for now, he's willing to take on faith that their writing will be secure. Potentially conversations as well, if they can find a way to break the magical translation for longer than a word or two - but even just the written word is a start. If they have to communicate entirely through letters, they will.

"I have a lot of ground to make up," he points out. "You've been here for months, Vax for over a year - if I don't learn quickly, I'll be behind forever."

There's no serious concern there; Percy has no doubt of his ability to catch on fast. "And from the sound of it, we need to be as discreet as possible. I've been spending a lot of time nodding and smiling and seeing what kind of information I can pick up. I'm still only just getting a sense of the political climate."

"I wish you didn't have to. There's no reason it should be your problem—it shouldn't be any of our fucking problem." It's an empty complaint and they both know it, but one Vex makes anyway. This isn't their home, and it isn't their fault. They aren't even being paid to be here.

"It's complicated, though. And very good reasons not to... well, put your foot in it. Stay neutral as long as you can."

"If I could whisk us away to Tal'Dorei, I would do it without a moment's hesitation." So would she, he's sure, but it's still worth saying aloud.

Is he allowed to put an arm around her? It feels overly revealing on his part, but he thinks it might have been defensible of him when they were friends. At the very least, he can settle into his part of the sofa, one arm resting along the back of it. (The wine hasn't done too much so far - he's not Keyleth - but it's enough that he has an excuse.)

More importantly, he's adept at biding his time. "At some point, I'm sure I'll have to publicly take a side, but I'd like to put that off as long as possible. Your brother's made enough of a splash for all three of us."

"So he has. It's been able to blow over after enough time and a few conciliatory gestures, but..." She trails off, unhappy with the uneasy compromises that she's made, and that she's been responsible (directly or indirectly) in her brother making.

They all sit uneasily on her.

She tells herself it's worth it to have found some manner of peace. And the need for that is highlighted by Percy's presence here. What position would it put him in if she and Vax were living like Khoriya in the wilderness?

"If I have my way, we'll be able to pick our time to make any kind of public statements."

Percy nods, expecting no more in the way of explanations. Conciliatory gestures aren't any of their strong suits; Vox Machina as a whole isn't a group that enjoys the taste of crow, nor humble pie. If it worked, it still wasn't pleasant...and there's no promise that it worked with everyone.

He doesn't doubt that some of these villagers hold record-breaking grudges.

"Then I'll hope you have your way." Has he already drained his glass? Nearly. Perhaps he needs more liquid courage for this conversation than he'd expected. "It'd be wonderful if we could go into a fight with a plan, for once."

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