Test Drive 001

[atonementmods]

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. premise | faq | taken | reserves | apps | hiatus/drop | network | logs | ooc | mods | requests

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[thereneverwas]

It's while Rufus is peering in an empty shop window that he catches a familiar reflection in the glass, and he turns quickly to see that he has company.

Was it a dream where he last saw Atticus? If they're both still walking around, breathing, functioning, it must have been, because there was no surviving that. Feeling a well of panic in his chest, the Captain forces it back to approach his employer, smiling in his well-meaning way and sketching a bow.

"Master Vedici," he greets, "it's good to see you here."

And it is, because Rufus knows little about magic or what it can do, and he now has reason to assume someone is here who can tell up from down.

[mysteriumtremendum]

Atticus isn't smiling.

"Basco," he says, all neutrality, all impenetrable mask. This place has none of the hallmarks of dreaming, for if it did, surely Atticus would not have brought himself into it wearing a gallows' noose around his throat. (He cuts his eyes to Basco's neck; there's some irony to this meeting.)

He takes a breath and reaches for his glasses, which are still cracked, of course, but serve him better than their absence. "Yes," he says faintly, turning around, "wherever 'here' turns out to be."

[thereneverwas]

"It must be some mistake, sir," Rufus reasons, glancing around idly, "even in my farthest travels I never saw anything like this place." The insinuation is there, not that he's bold enough to make it: a sorcerer fucked up, didn't he. Was it you.

[mysteriumtremendum]

Yes, he did--by not killing Basco well enough the first time, evidently.

"'Mistake?'" He turns from his studied examination of the red skies overhead, the dead grass around them, the derelict homes, the rusting bicycles in the lane, to fix his critical eye on the captain of his household guard instead. "No, I don't think there's been a mistake at all. I think we're exactly where we ought to be."

This is not remotely what he had anticipated the afterlife to look like, but this must be where they are. There is no other explanation, considering his present company.

[thereneverwas]

Unable to shake the memory of what he still considers a dream, Basco has a difficult time looking Atticus in the eye, and does a lot of nodding and glancing about instead. Surely this will pass and soon enough he'll go back to normal, with only the usual amount of trace awkwardness left over from decades-old indiscretions.
"Are we, sir?" he asks, quirking an eyebrow in an expression that attempts to be friendly. "Where's that?"

[mysteriumtremendum]

Atticus smiles. It's not a particularly reassuring expression.

"Why don't you think about it," he suggests. "Think hard."

[thereneverwas]

The smile is what clinches it. Rufus tries to think the best of people, even Atticus, most of the time; but that face tells him that Master Vedici not only knows exactly what's going on, but he likes it. He's not sorry.
A coldness comes over the captain's face, and abruptly he looks as large as he is. Now meeting Atticus' gaze squarely, the tension in his shoulders suggests he might be about to lose his temper.
"I tried to save you."

[mysteriumtremendum]

"No," Atticus replies, like he's addressing an obstinate student too determined to misunderstand to bother listening with open ears. His expression doesn't change, but there's a new coldness to his pale eyes that wasn't there before. (Or perhaps it was, and Basco is only now seeing it.)

"You got in my way."

[thereneverwas]

He's always seen it, but is only now acknowledging it for what it is: total absence of soul. Suddenly there is nothing in the world more loathsome than that pompous, sneering visage, and Rufus' heart lurches when he thinks what it took from him.
His fist slams into Atticus' stupid mouth.

[mysteriumtremendum]

In a shocking turn of events, Atticus gets punched in the mouth.

...well it's not as though he has time to duck.

He lets out a grunt and staggers backward, hand flying up to his bloodied lips and teeth. Tasting the iron tang, he draws his hand back to look at the smear of red on his palm, then shoots an incredulous look Basco's way. "There," he snaps, and spits blood (and possibly a tooth) into the dry, dusty road. "Do you feel better, having gotten that out of your system?"

[thereneverwas]

The word 'system' has barely left Atticus' lips when Rufus punches him again, with his other fist.

[mysteriumtremendum]

The hellscape in front of him flashes bright white in conjunction with the pain in Atticus' rattled skull, but he doesn't black out. This time when he staggers back, he on instinct raises a hand--not in surrender, but to bring it swinging back down again. A tongue of flames licks across the barren earth between them, providing an effective barrier against Basco's pursuit of him down the road.

[thereneverwas]

Figures he'd cheat.
Though he's already reared a fist back to continue, Basco lowers it, because he knows he's no match for magical flame. It's as good a time as any to relent, but he's got a final parting shot before Atticus can make his full escape.

"I fucked your wife," he announces, then turns and walks away.

[mysteriumtremendum]

The goal wasn't to beat a hasty retreat so much as stymie Basco's advance, and Atticus takes the respite offered by the flames to again spit blood into the dirt. He fetches a kerchief out of his pocket and wipes the rest of the blood from his lips onto it--

"I fucked your wife."

It's like missing a step, or stepping in cold water, that retort. Atticus stares after him. Then he dismisses the flames, which part before him as he strides through them and seizes the back of Basco's shirt. He whips him around--or tries to, at any rate.

"What," he starts, "did you say to me?"

[thereneverwas]

Being somewhat used to physical combat, Rufus isn't swayed by the seizing of his shirt, and rather than resist he lets Atticus spin him around. It's an opportunity to shove him in the chest, potentially hard enough to knock him down, and step toward him once more.
"I fucked your wife," he snarls down at him, "Ophelia, remember her? The marvelous, kind, beautiful woman you squandered while you were off amassing more power or whatever the fuck it was you did." In spite of himself, his temper is running its course, and melancholy has begun to creep in.
"I love her."

[mysteriumtremendum]

He is shoved but not to the ground, for despite being a lean man, Atticus is not slight. But Basco has the edge on him where physical strength and brawn are concerned, and so as he advances, Atticus has no choice but to step backwards, stealing one swift look over his shoulder to ensure he isn't about to backtrack into lingering embers from his spell. (He isn't.)

That allows him plenty of energy to devote exclusively to the piercing look he affixes upon Basco now.

His upper lip twitches, betraying the depth of his outrage. Icily, he wonders out loud, "If I kill you again in this place, I wonder if it will stick this time."

[thereneverwas]

Meeting Atticus' gaze once again, Basco responds with a grim smile, all teeth and no warmth. "You can try," he growls, flexing his fingers in and out of fists, "but I wouldn't expect me to be so foolish a second time."

[mysteriumtremendum]

"No? You've always exceeded my expectations in that regard."

He draws back a fist like he's preparing to throw a punch--but instead, the earth beneath Basco's feet abruptly gives way as though he's just discovered a well hidden below a layer of thin topsoil.

[thereneverwas]

In the moment that Rufus flinches, he realizes his error: and then there's nothing to do but fall, crumbling through the ground with a yell of angry surprise. He lands heavily on his back a good ways down, and props himself up with a groan as he takes stock of his body and ensures nothing's broken.
It's not, or at least, not physically. The wind knocked out of his lungs, Rufus simply glares upward at where he knows Atticus will be.

[mysteriumtremendum]

No one could ever accuse Atticus of engaging in a fair fight.

He tests the strength of the soil around the lip of the newly created sinkhole and, finding it satisfactorily solid, leans over the edge to peer down at where Rufus lays, scowling up at him. Hm--not dead. Perhaps an additional twenty feet or so, next time.

"You always were a colossal idiot." Then he kicks a mass of soil into the hole, sending it scattering across Rufus in a shower of dirt and rocks, and walks off, leaving him there.

[thereneverwas]

Though he sneers back up at Atticus, Rufus is in pain and shock both and is also beginning to realize just how stupid this is. He growls when the dirt hits him, and feels his temper flare again, but that's all this was: a temper tantrum, from both of them. A flash of anger covering something else.
Something like... the desolation of being...gone, dead, whatever he is. Rufus rests his head back against the wall of the pit and sighs, his brow knitting unhappily. Ophelia has long since moved on from him, but he still feels the loss keenly, and moreso that of Octavius; is it possible he had held out hope, that someday the boy might know, and that they might all be a family?
Is that why he never moved on?

Gazing up at the small hole that is the red sky, Rufus acknowledges that he'll have to try to get out, but for now it's time to slump here despondently. And reflect.

It's about an hour later that he uses a bit of debris to carve "IDIOT" on his hand, which he presses against his forehead to form the word backwards on his face. It seems appropriate.