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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[intheashes]

[ If there is something Goodnight knows very well, it's how memories can haunt a person. How the smallest thing can bring him back to that personal hell were all there is is canon fire and blood and another nameless boy in blue dropping from his shot. ] University. Well, I'll be! That's quite the accomplishment. [ He wonders how she ever found an all female university that would take her. Surely not in the States, at least in his time. ] You should be prouder than a rooster on a sunny morning.

[ Goody find his way to the couch as well. He makes certain there is a proper and polite bit of space between them. ] Well, ma patite, you are in luck. I happen to be very good with numbers. So I'll be happy to help you with mathematics. As for languages, I know five. [ Six if she were to count his pretty spotty Korean. ] And I promise you, heaven is my witness, that that big room and it's big private bath are all yours. You're not being selfish at all.

[ He's still smiling when she corrects her name. He might be a little embarrassed, but honestly, he hasn't met too many from the Far East. The one he knows the most goes by an English name of his own making. ] Ray then. And no need for sleeping on the couch when there are perfect good beds for you. In strange places, we need to take what comforts we can.

[ There is another pause and for a moment, Goody goes silent. There is the slightest hesitation. He's trying to decide what he can and cannot say. He knows this is by all rights and purposes, his house, but there are things that he just doesn't talk about. Things that are too dangerous to put out there. And while he feels a little guilty about lying to her, they aren't his worst lies. If anything, they are half truths, omitting important details of the things he just can't say that lie somewhere beneath the surface of his words. It's there in the soft fondness he can't hide.]

I should hope so. Billy's been my business associate and traveling companion for nigh on a decade. He might be a little grumpy at first, since you are a stranger, but I can promise you that he won't turn you out. And even if you do find someone you know and decide to stay with them know that you are welcome here. [ It's the least he could do. Because he can't abide the idea of this young lady out there on the street all alone. ]

[paper_airplanes]

[Ray's pulled out of comparisons between here and there, then and now, by Goodnight's instant praise of her academics. Her mother was of the opinion Ray should have focused on finding a husband, her father out of the picture before she got to the point of choosing a university; all she had wanted was for someone to say congratulations. Her face burns, and she wishes she could say how much his praise meant.] Thank you. It took some work, but I think I'm at least adequate in most subjects except math by now. I spent a lot of time in the school's library. [Mostly to stay away from home, but. Details.

She eats, feeling whatever tension was still in her diminish as she does so. True, the food isn't anything fancy, yet it's warm and homemade, and that's enough in this moment, with another person's voice to drown out the roar of thoughts in her head and redirect her attention. It's almost comfortable.] That would be wonderful. Math may be hard, but I don't want to give up trying. If I'd done that with words, I never would have gotten anywhere, and now I speak three and read in two. [Technically four if Taiwanese Mandarin and mainland Mandarin were counted as two, which she didn't count on because that was kind of arrogant.] I'm just glad you're willing to put up with me at all. I know all of this is a lot to take in, but you make it look easy, just randomly ending up here.

[Ray's sure she'll mess up someone's name here if given enough time. There's little in the way of East Asian anything in this place, rendering it all foreign and surreal in the way only imported films were before.] This place could be worse. At least we're not completely alone.

I'm glad you have a friend here. [Sort of. She doesn't wish the things their hosts inflict on anyone, she wishes they could all just move on to the afterlife, cross the bridge to Heaven and leave Earth behind entirely. But a suffering shared might be a suffering lessened, if only for Goodnight and Billy, and for that, she really is grateful. Living with two friends seems like it'll be more peaceful than living with people who disliked each other, too. Waiting until she's done with the bite of food she's eating, she asks,] How many people are there here? When I was walking around town it all looked empty. It's a little unsettling.

[intheashes]

[ It's just not idle praise. College is the realm of the rich. Education isn't something most get. Those who go past the initial few years before giving up to farming or trades or whatever were very few and far between. For a young woman, so obviously foreign to him, to have gotten so far is indeed an accomplishment. Something he thinks she should be proud of, because he can only think of how much a woman like her would have been discouraged back in his time. ] That's the spirit. So long as you don't give up, I'm sure you'll get it licked in no time. [ He says it like he hasn't given up himself years ago. ]

Well, I suppose that comes from a life lived traveling. I've been drifting from town to town for quite some time now. You learn how to adapt in a new place because in a few days you'll just be in another new place. And yes...Though I try not to challenge the powers of worse, this isn't such a bad place to spend some time in. [ He's honestly been in much worse places, though he's unsure what their magnanimous benefactors have in store for him. Surely the wound on his arm is only the start of it. ]

Well, now I have two friends here. I have Billy and I have you, ma petite. I am a very fortunate man indeed. As for your question, I am afraid I can't rightly say. I've drifted through some ghost towns in my time, places where people just up and left for better prospects. This looks much like that in a way. The only ones I have seen are our mysterious hosts and those like us. And those I can count on both hands. I would say it's only a matter of time until you meet more of us poor unfortunates. Even so, you're always safe to come back here.