atonementooc | Test Drive 001

Test Drive #001

Welcome to Atonement's first test drive, and thank you very much for stopping by! Please refer to the prompts below for ideas, or simply make up your own, whichever is easiest for you.

Prompts

Arrival: You don't quite remember how you arrived here. It appears that you're suddenly in a dead land with eerily red skies. The grass is dead, the trees are dying, and there's absolutely no sounds of life beyond your own footsteps, even if it feels like you're being watched somehow. Eventually along the narrow path you follow, you walk through gates that seem to guard a quiet, abandoned town and a sinking feeling starts to settle in that you are far from home and there may not be an easy way back.

The sign hanging above the gates simply says "Welcome to Penance: Home Between Homes" and nothing more.

Within the gates, there are the leftovers of what may have once been a lively, welcoming little town, if it didn't look as if people either fled or somehow vanished in the blink of an eye. There are dusty shops that are still stocked with supplies, many with their doors busted out or left open. There are homes that haven't been touched in what feels like an eternity but they still have furniture and the remnants of the people who lived there previously. Cars and bikes are littering the streets that are in varying shapes of usability. The more you look, the more unsettling everything becomes...

First Punishment: As a show of good will, your hosts will give you a very easy, albeit potentially embarrassing, task to carry out for your punishment this month.

First: There will as few secrets in Penance as possible. Transparency is key to atonement. You will reveal at least one sin in a way that will be permanent, which means via tattoo, scarring, branding, or other permanent means somewhere on your person. For those who are unable to be injured or scarred, there will be enchanted items that will be able to pierce even the toughest skin, cut deeper than even increased healing can recover from. All necessary items will be available at the tattoo parlor in town. If desired, characters may also make an announcement on the network listing their sin(s) for judgement from their peers.

Please note that if the character insists they are free of sin, they will be provided a list of what they're guilty of by their hosts.

Settling: It's time to settle into a home in Penance, either alone or with roommates. There is comfort and safety in numbers after all...

Do try not to fight over housing if you've both accidentally chosen the same home... Your hosts will be very unhappy if you start a fight this early on over such a silly thing.

If settling down isn't something you feel like doing, you may go and explore anywhere that you'd like, including outside the gates. Please be aware that there may be demonic forms of all types of common animals living outside them that move swiftly and silently. They will vary in aggressiveness and tamability, so please keep this in mind.

As a note, all threads may be considered game canon if all parties agree. Hope you have fun and thank you! Game is set to officially open February 1st or when we reach a minimum of 10 players.

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Arrival

This is not how he expected the afterlife to look.

Granted, he anticipated the afterlife not to be nonexistence. Had hoped for it, really, because life in any sense was a terrible nightmare of a thing. But if there had been an afterlife, he’d have expected the one he ended up in to look more fire and brimstone, rather than the dead world he saw about him when he opened his eyes.

He was fairly certain, at least, that this wasn’t Heaven. At least whatever this world was, it had gotten that much right.

Now he just needed to figure out where he was.

He spots a pathway, not far from where he’s ended up. Almost unbidden, he starts walking towards it, heading to whatever awaits at the other end of the path.

It’s a certainty he’ll be asking whoever he stumbles upon about where they are.

—

First Punishment
Well, I personally feel like anyone who knows me for more than two seconds would be able to tell everything terrible I ever did in my life, but I suppose if we wanted to make it a properly immediate thing, I am hardly one to object.

[He shows the back of a hand, and it’s covered in fresh ink: “liar” is first on the list of sins, followed by “lustful, glutton, slothful” and “envious.”]

I am certain there’s more to add on there, but I went with the most obvious and then the most applicable from the seven deadly, for now. After all, I am more than capable of making the additions later, with all this intriguing— “technology” available in this world.

[A thin, exhausted flicker of a smile. The bags under his eyes are dark and bruise-like.]

Now, does anyone know where a man may be able to get a bottle of alcohol here?

He's waiting. He doesn't know he's waiting, but he is.

Enjolras is terrible at waiting.

It's just that there isn't a clear next step, now that he's standing at this unfamiliar gate. It's just that there isn't a 'to do' he can conjure up, now that his chest is filled with a deep hollow aching and his hands are oddly empty. His fingers flex and relax. His breath comes shaken and shallow. His feet can't quite move. There's no one else beside him. There's no one else before him. There's no sign that there's anyone at all to fight for.

The only task at hand is, apparently, self-preservation--and that's never been his forte.

So the sound of feet crunching up the path behind him is a relief. Another person, after all, will be an organizing principle. Another life, whatever this version of life is, will let him push himself into action.

There's hope in Enjolras's face when he turns to peer back down the path. It dampens as the figure begins to take visible shape.

Grantaire doesn’t notice him, at first, because it simply doesn’t occur to him to think Enjolras is there.

Enjolras doesn’t belong here in this afterlife, because whatever this afterlife is has Grantaire in it. He’s not certain he believes in Heaven, but he knows that if there’s anything like it, it’s where Enjolras and the rest of the Amis belonged.

It’s almost enough to make him wish he hadn’t slept through the failed revolution. He’d missed his chance to see them all a final time.

In any event, he’s almost upon Enjolras and still doesn’t quite process it’s him until the other man turns. Even then, it takes a couple heartbeats to realize that it is Enjolras, and not just someone that looks remarkably like him.

He halts abruptly when it properly processes that it is Enjolras. He can’t help the entirely baffled look in his eyes.

“—Apollo?”

There is, for want of a more satisfying turn of phrase, an internal logic to the moment. The last thing before the pain had been the unfamiliar roughness of Grantaire's hand catching hold of his own. The last moment of defiance had been with this man just beside him.

Whatever this is, it might be a hair more comprehensible with Grantaire just a half-step behind him. It puts the rest of their friends just a half-step ahead.

That's something worth working toward. Enjolras isn't sure Grantaire's appearance has ever relaxed his shoulders before, but somehow it does now. This is something to do. This is a reason to take the next step forward, not quite waiting for the other man to follow.

"You haven't seen anyone else?"

"Of course not."

It's an almost immediate statement. It doesn't really take thinking about, especially while still confused.

"I'd doubted they'd be here. Why are you here?"

[ Goodnight's arm too has a mark upon it. Not a list of sins. There are far too many and honestly, he can't actually put a name to the faces of most his ghosts for his sin of murder. His is not a word either. What he did transcends wrath or avarice. Instead, all there is is a number. Still fresh and bleeding, cut into his forearm in even crimson lines. 91. He doesn't look at it, at the white cloth wrapped around it, stained a red that spreads slowly into a spot. He can't begin to write his other sins. Can't bring himself to brand the D or the C on his face where it truly belongs. Instead, he sucks in a shaking breath and tries not to look too closely at the inking implements or that list of sins.

He looks at the younger man and risks a wane smile, thin-lipped, less charitable than usual. In a place like this, he can't force himself into his normal act. ]

Alcohol, mon bon homme? This is the most reasonable question I have heard all day. I believe I had seen something like a saloon coming over here. I'm sure I can trouble you to follow me and ease into a glass or two. If you will, please this way.

[ Goodnight just hopes that the bar was both open and had something worth actually drinking. Hard to say, as heavy drinking is also a sin. ]

Test Drive 001

Grantaire | Les Miserables

arrival.

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First Punishment