flawedmemes | TEST DRIVE MEME

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TEST DRIVE MEME

01. ARRIVING IN PELEA
A cold wind singing down from the white-capped mountains which hang blue-black in the distance stirs your cheek, the tall grass all around you. A bough creaks as the wind makes it tremble, and the dappled shadows drift over you, leaves rustling. As you blink awake, you hear the quiet hiss of water over stones. You are not where you once were!

You and a large group of strangers are blinking awake, pulling yourselves up off the dirt, grass, and rubble near a small wooded stream. There is no evidence of civilization in sight, and as you exchange stories you realize that you must decide what to do.

Will you head past the trees and towards the mountains? Deeper into the forest? Stay put and wait for help to arrive? You might even try to meet everyone else, and either convince them to band together... or head their separate ways.

02. CITY SLICKER
There are many cities throughout the world of Pelea, and in most player characters, the Flaws, are welcomed as curiosities. From the pastoral villages or bustling, grand cities of Shousal to the massive, sprawling bureaucratic centers of the Empire, your characters will find a wide variety of cultures and races to interact with and investigate. They could be seeking empoyment, answers to the mystery of their arrival, or a quiet place to drink away their worries.

03. WILDCARD!

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Arrival
[He came awake with a jerk of his body, an unfamiliar sound perking his senses and leaving him feeling on edge immediately. He didn't recall stopping for a rest, as he had risen just a few hours previous, and Ilai rarely took rests that soon. He pushes his legs beneath him quickly, hooves digging into the soft soil and he gathered himself, avoiding stepping on those who were nearest to him and hadn't yet awakened.

This wasn't the forest he had been traveling through. The stream was beautiful, but not the deep, rushing rapid he knew to be nearby the city he had been traveling toward. There we others here, but none he recognized. Some of them he had never even seen the like of. His tail whips behind him as his front left hoof stomps against the mud. He reaches up and pulls a twig from his hair that had caught itself in his braid. There was a flower on it, obviously from a nearby tree. He dropped it back to the ground, but took care not to step on it as he moved himself away from the group.]

What mystic wood have I stumbled upon? [It was the only explanation he thought possible. Enchantment was the only answer.]

Middlemarch
[The town was beautiful in its simplicity. It remind him more of home and small outlier villages that traded more frequently with his people as they were too far from the centers of their own Kingdoms. But after traveling for days across the beautiful, rolling plains, it was nice to find himself here. He hoped to gain some information about this place and how to find his way home.

If he found any others in the same predicament, he would look to find all he could from them. But first...

The building looked to be an inn, homely as it was. It would suit Ilai's purposes just fine. He ducked as he entered, but raised his head more once inside, hooves click-clacking against the wooden floor. Thankfully the ceiling was high enough he only had to keep his head a little stooped to avoid the rafters. He tries to keep his movements small and compact, but he might accidentally nudge someone's table or chair as he moves by towards the kitchen-bar. When that happens he stops and nods his head down, hand to his chest.]

My apologies.

[She turns her gaze towards him, one brow barely raised. Yennefer isn't sure to make him of right away and spends an extra second mentally sizing him up. With a small, curt nod she folds her arms over her chest.]

Merely someone who desires a few simple luxuries in life. [She shrugs.] I do not think too many women would go without it.

Oh, would that it were true, miss. But I've known more than a few, though not always gladly.

[But then, he was an authentic salt of the earth kind of person. The women he knew, well, sometimes life handed you a pig farm and you just made do.]

The first cat Legolas shot down, seemed to push through on will alone and it tried lunging at him, but with little effect. He sidestepped the attack, grabbing his arrow and ripping it out with little care for the beast. The sharp arrow head ripped through organs and veins even more on the way our than it had on the way in, and the bloodcat fell, twitching as the last of its life had left it.

There were more coming, however, split between the two they made the target of their hunt. Legolas spun, bloodied arrow in hand, and since there was no time to nock it to his bow and shoot, he simply rammed the sharp blade into the skull of the next beast leaping him. To sank deep, and for the moment he had to release it, least it broke, but that hardly left him defenceless. He moved like a snake, dancing almost with no effort and a great deal of grace between the attacks. Too quick for the cats to grasp, to precise for even a scratch. Legolas grabbed another by the throat, and using its own momentum, slammed it back first into a thick trunk of a tree. The crunch of spine was sickening, and the beast fell motionless.

All the while, he tried to remain aware of how his companion was doing. The very moment he could, he nocked another arrow to his bow and sent it flying.

They were desperate, starved perhaps, it must have been a long while since they had eaten last. That hardly meant, however, that either of them should become their next meal.

[ For Legolas, forests are a second home. Easy to traverse, offering shelter and anything else that an elf would ever need: food and water, ample entertainment, peace of mind. Though given the circumstance of his presence in this world, he does not wander them as often as he normally would. There's ever work to be done, after all, investigations and learning of any possible ways to return. Beautiful as this world is, and in need of help, he still does not belong here and he feels it starkly each passing day.

Thankfully, those same passing days do not make him grow weaker, in spite of his distance from Arda.

He was resting high up on a tree, one leg hanging down and swinging back and fro, his garb making him difficult to distinguish between the leaves and the branches. Initially he discarded the movement down below in the thickets, at least until he heard someone speak. ]

You will have better luck finding scholars in the cities rather than among the trees.

[ He remarks with some amusement, staying right where he is. ]

Unless it is the trees you wish to learn of, or the manner of plant and beast life that lives among them.

ARRIVAL
[Pariya had been sucked through the tear between worlds. And so, it seemed, had the baked goods that she was working on at the time. She slowly pushes herself up from the ground into a sitting position, but seconds later she's greeted by a shower of Uzbek flatbread following her through the void.

They land on her head. THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD.]

Ow ow owwww...! Hey! What's the big idea?! [She seems to be shaking her fist at the sky...]

FOREST
[She can't live off bread forever. In search of something else to eat or trade other than bread, Pariya takes her bow and goes hunting. The problem? Well... she's not very good at it.

For starters, her clothes are brightly coloured, covered in rich, embroidered patterns from head to toe. She also wears a lot of jewellery-- it catches the light, it tinkles and chimes with her every movement. And if that weren't bad enough, Pariya also doesn't know how to move like a hunter. Despite her progress in lessons with the bow, she doesn't have a hunter's grace or patience. She lets out a colourful swearword as yet another animal hops away the second she draws her bow, before she can even fire a single shot.]

Oh, come on...!! Stupid animals... tch. I had that one.

OUTSIDE THE CITY
[As Pariya approaches the city for the first time, her eyes widen with awe and her mouth actually drops open. She's never seen anything so grand or magnificent in her entire life. She actually stops in her tracks.]

It's huge... [She murmurs it as if to herself-- but then she turns to whichever poor soul seems to be nearest and demands:]

H-Hey! Why is it so big?!

[Patrick had been among the small procession of people headed to the city because, as most people did, he was simply interested in finding a place to work and earn some coin. When it came right down to it, there wasn't a whole lot else he could be expected to do. A man like him had to eat, which meant he had to work and the last he'd checked, the British Army wasn't really around.

But he did so like to loiter about. Just enough to be standing nearby to hear the young lass's amazement.]

It's a popular destination, so it is. You put a city on the sea like this one, you'll have lots of people keen on coming to it. That's basic economics, miss. [This was a point of pride for Patrick to say, because he could smile while saying something that he had absolutely no knowledge about. What was economics? He wasn't sure, but it seemed to be big cities.]

[This guy... is he being smug? Is he putting her down?? She frowns.]

Well-- obviously! I mean-- I've seen a port town before!! [No, she hasn't.]

But there's no right for it to be as big as that! It's just-- being obnoxious! Yeah!

[Patrick lifted an eyebrow as though it might help him get a better picture of her. It did not. Instead he only bobbed his cap a bit in mild apology.]

That's an awful big accusation. I'm sure the city here is only trying to mind its own business. It could hardly expect to be so popular among people like us.

Oh yeah? Well-- how is anyone supposed to have a town meeting in a town of that size, anyway? There must be... [she tries to size it up] ... more than five hundred families in there!

[Charles' eyes follow her every move sharply, his entire focus on her as he leans against the nearest wall, trying to make it look nonchalant. He can deal with pain, but with none of the drugs he's used to taking, he finds it difficult to keep his thoughts on anything else; watching the girl assemble a number of herbs in a wrap helps.

She grabs his hand and drops the wrap in his palm, looking up at him with a look that tells him there's a lot more to this girl than she lets on. He tilts his head as he studies her. Their hands are still touching, her pale, unbroken skin against his much rougher, sun-darkened fingers.]

Do you know how to stitch up a wound? [His tone is gruff, midway between a question and an order. He's not planning on roughening her up - he can still cauterize being applying the herbs - but he'd prefer stitches. The scars feel less like a brand. He's had enough branding to last him a lifetime.]

[He gave the city a considering look, then shook his head.]

If I had to guess, I doubt they bother to invite much of anyone to these town hall meetings of theirs. Just a lot of rich bastards coming together to say who's who and what's what.

[Walking through the market with a thumb in his belt and a hand on the hilt of his sabre, Charles finds himself mostly inconspicuous; a sailor ashore for the time being. As ever since he landed in Pelea, the thought makes him slightly uneasy - he's not yet used to not being recognized and feared wherever he goes. He used to be able to get bigger, stronger men than himself stand down just by mentioning his name and his ship.

Here, he's nameless. Clenching his jaw at the thought, Charles squares his shoulders and stops at a stall selling toiletries; he's in need of a razor. By his side, a dark-haired woman sneers at the different bottles of perfume in front of her, muttering about necessities.

Despite himself, Charles snorts loudly at the notion. She's probably one of these ladies that thinks the smell of fresh sweat is unfathomable.]

Oh, that old story. "Money talks," huh...

Tch. See. I told you the town was showing off! Well, I'm not having it. I'm not impressed by you, town!

[He has a good chuckle at that.]

Now you'll just go and offend the poor thing. It's a terrible thing to have to make a city go and be self conscious about itself, don't you think?

Hmph. It'll survive. I bet people coo over it every day! "Oooh, it's so tall, oooh, it's so pretty."

Do they now? And here all this time I thought it was myself, they meant. And now I've got this swollen head for nothing.

Charles grunted as the voice pierced through the foggy clouds of sleep that he was still clinging to. He felt like he was waking from an opium dream, but, last he checked - last he checked he'd just grabbed a prize and was on the Ranger, on route back to Nassau.

As he wakes, he spreads his hands, and. Grass? Dirt? Cold and wet, and the smell. He grunts again.

"Doesn't smell like the ocean," he says, his voice raw as it always is. Then, it comes to him - he didn't recognize the voice that spoke to him, and he certainly knew every single voice on his crew, on his ship. He blinked his eyes open, squinting at the sun above.

He's on the ground. And the man, sitting next to him, is not only a stranger, he's also wearing the most peculiar outfit Charles had ever seen.

"The fuck are you?"

[The joke flies right over Pariya's head as she takes it quite literally.]

... Huh? Are you dumb or something...?

It wasn't the ocean at all, which was just as well. Harper had been on the ocean before and it had never suited him. It had a peculiar way of sending him off to places he didn't want to be, filled with Frenchmen in need of having a few pullet shoved up their arses. A great big bloody forest view was just as well.

"Irish," he answered proudly. "Here, no doubt you'll be wanting some of this."

He held out his rum-filled canteen to his new friend. Share and share alike, as they might say. On the other side of him, his baker rifle was lying in the grass with one hand firmly resting over it protectively.

Could be I am. My grandmother, god rest her, she always said as much. But I was never clever enough to take it to heart. I suppose it must take a wiser man than myself to be be properly dumb and know it.

... Oh.

[Awkward.]

... There there.

I'm sure you have other skills.

[He doesn't show a hint of being bothered by this at all. If anything, he seems all the cheerier for her misplaced pity.] Plenty of them and more. And what of yourself, miss? What do you mean to do in a grand city such as this?

Ah! [On this point, she becomes quite excited. From her cloth totebag hanging across her body, she pulls a large, round piece of flatbread.]

I'm going to set up a bakery!

Still squinting, his head pounding, Charles sat up, taking stock of his weapons. His musket was gone, but he still had his dagger and his sabre. Will have to do.

Irish had a canteen in front of Charles' face, and he took it, sniffing it before taking a swig. That, at least, was like home - cheap rum was apparently universal. Deliberately, he pulled the lid on the canteen, handing it back to Irish.

And the next second, his dagger was out and digging straight between Irish's ribs, right under his heart - he'd bleed out in a few hours - as Charles pulled close, whispering straight into Irish's ear.

"I'll ask again. Who the fuck are you, and what did you do to me?"

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TEST DRIVE MEME

Zadh'Ilai | Original Characters

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at least this time it's not raining! wraps around like a facehugger

forest!

pariya | otoyomegatari

outside the city

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Cities;

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Arrival;

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