5.0 Test Drive Meme

[wellie]

5.0 Test Drive Meme

Premise & Arrival ֍ FAQ ֍ Apply ֍ Navigation

Welcome to Well! See the first prompt for how your characters arrive in Well. Your character arrives with only a handful of memories, clad in a mix of Old Western clothes and clothes that might fit in at a renaissance fair, and no items from home.

Anyone is free to play on the TDM, but you need an invite to apply. Feel free to use these prompts, and interact with the arrival or locations. NPCs are around, but only say a certain set of phrases. TDMs can be considered game canon.

This TDM takes place from the first week of February onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during February and March. This will be the only TDM for February, March, and April.

Applications are open January 27th until February 1st, and February 24th until March 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.

Arrival: Six Feet Under

Content warnings: graves, being buried alive

You wake up in the ground. The hole you're in fits your body nicely. Just as you wake up, dirt spatters onto your face, into your eyes and mouth. Maybe that's what woke you up. Before you've had a chance to clear it, more dirt drops onto your body from above, again and again, in a grim rhythm. Until you get out of there it won't stop.

Unfortunately, you're six feet deep. You might want a hand.

More unfortunately, you won't get one from the person with the shovel. The gravedigger, silhouetted in black against the sky above you, will continue to shovel dirt onto you while you try to escape. Once you're out, she loses all interest and moves on to the next grave. She doesn't acknowledge you in any way.

Above the grave is a headstone: your own. It says your name and it might have your birthdate. The death date is unreadable. There may be an epitaph about your life. It doesn't look new. In fact, it looks as old and worn as the rest of the graveyard. Other open graves are scattered around in this graveyard, and other people are climbing up out of them, too. Maybe you want to lend them a hand, or maybe you want to get out of here as fast as possible.

A mossy wrought-iron gate leads out into greenery.

Now that you're out, you need to find your way... somewhere. Not here.

For current players, you're welcome to have your character wake up for the cycle like this.

tl;dr:

• You wake up in your own grave! Someone's burying you alive! Better get out of there.

The only way out

Content warnings: being eaten alive, carnivorous flowers, intoxication

The graveyard is in the middle of the maze: a sprawling hedge maze on the outskirts of Wellstone town. The ground is soft with recent rain, and the hedges are just blooming green like it's early spring. Your shoes squelch in the muck.

It starts easily enough. As you make your way deeper, though, you'll start run into things that make the maze… harder. Gigantic flowers block the way down one path, and they titter together as you get close, swaying and moving in ways that flowers shouldn't. If you do get too close, a flower lurches forward and snaps its petals around you like jaws. Are those teeth?! They're like foot-long cactus spines, sharp and deadly. You might want to get out of there, and fast. The teeth hurt, and the inside of the flower isn't a cakewalk either. It hurts your skin, and if you're in there too long, your skin may start to burn off.

Down another path are more flowers. These are smaller, and oddly fleshy in color and scent. At the center of each flower is an eye. Some of them seem familiar, although you can't figure out why. As you pass, the eyes roll, following you closely. If you make eye contact and any of these flowers, you feel a chilling wave of fear that roots you to the spot. Your stuck in its gaze, staring back at it as it stares impassively at you. You have the horrible feeling that if you stay here, something awful will happen. It grows worse and worse, more acute, but no matter how strong that fear, you can't move your feet. Someone, or something, has to break your eye contact with the flower.

At a final turn in the maze, the sweet, soft scent of lilacs fills the air. You're sure that scent means you've found the end, and that you should follow it. Naturally, it doesn't. It leads to a dead end. Again. This one, at least, is beautiful: it's a little meadow surrounded by hedges, blooming in lilacs and lavender and little purple-headed poppies. The scent is heady and overwhelming. It fills you up. It settles into your head like a haze, making it hard to focus. It seems like an amazing idea to just… stay here. Lie down, maybe, among all those nice flowers. Just for a little while, you tell yourself.

Only, it may be more than a little while. The longer you sleep in this lovely little meadow, the more vines and flowers will grow over and around your body. Eventually, they'll make their way into your nose, your ears, your mouth and start to pull you down into the soft earth. Someone's going to have to wake you up and get those vines off unless you want to stay in this maze forever!

When at last you find your way out of the maze, past the treacherous flowers, you set your sights on Wellstone: a town in the first bloom of spring, a light mist making everything dewy and bright.

tl;dr:

• After you leave the cemetery, you find yourself in the maze. There are flowers that are obstacles along your way.
• There are large, flesh-eating flowers full of teeth that want to eat you.
• There are fleshy flowers with eyes in the middle that, if you meet their gaze, hold you with fear.
• There are lilacs that lull you and make you want to lie down and take a nap. If you do, vines will wrap you up, making it very difficult to get out.
• Once you make it through all the obstacles, you can make it out of the maze into Wellstone.

Scent of death

Content warnings: bad smells, potential for body horror

It isn't just the maze blooming with the coming of spring: Wellstone itself has burst into bloom. It seems that everywhere you look, flowers have invaded the town. Sweet snowdrops poke their heads up between cobblestones. Violets wink from shadowed corners. Morning glories climb walls and line windows. They all smell wonderful, good enough to make you want to bend down and take a good, long sniff.

Except for one. Blooming in the courtyard of the Staywell, just in front of the door in a little garden circle, is a corpse flower. The flower is massive: over three meters tall, giant stamen thrusting up to the sky with frilly red leaves around its base.

It's hard to avoid the flower: any time anyone opens the door to the courtyard, the scent enters the lobby, the parlor, the cafeteria. It seems to permeate the Staywell at random times. And the scent is strange: if you try to talk to anyone about it, they don't agree with you on how it smells. And they won't agree on how it affects you.

Smelling the corpse flower makes you feel a little... strange. Its effects vary by person, and even when a person smells it more than once, the effect might change. At first you feel a rush of disgust, then nausea, then--well.

When you smell the corpse flower, you might smell:

• The most delicious thing you can imagine. You're suddenly extremely hungry and feel compelled to eat as much as possible.
  
• The most wonderful, nostalgic scent. You feel compelled to proclaim your loyalty and friendship to the next person you see.
  
• The most relaxing thing. Your body feels loose and relaxed and you feel at peace. You want to spread the love and feel compelled to get everyone else around you to chill the fuck out.
  
• Sugary sweetness. You feel an intense draw of affection toward the people around you and feel compelled to compliment them in increasingly over the top ways.
  
• The scent of raw, rotting meat. Everything around you suddenly look strangely... meaty. Is that chair made of meat? That wall? You're very acutely aware that you are made of meat, and that everyone around you is made of meat.
  
• The smell of death. You feel a horrible, creeping sense of guilt and feel compelled to confess something awful you do or do not remember doing to the next person you see.

Comment below if you'd like a random smell (or feel free to select for yourself). Effects last anywhere from half an hour to an hour. Characters can experience different effects throughout the TDM. The corpse flower will be in bloom the first week of February and the first week of March, and closed the rest of the time.

tl;dr:

• There's a corpse flower blooming in the courtyard of the Staywell.
• When you smell its scent, you'll smell a scent that makes you do--something! Select from the list what you'd like to happen, or comment below for a random effect.

Comments

Questions?

[wellie]

Random corpse flower effect

[wellie]

Comment here if you'd like a randomized effect!

[thinkfirst]

give me a smell

[necrolord]

what does god smell

[kaientai]

gimme a smell please!

[guidemyway]

SMELL SMELL SMELL SMELL

[sighsheavily]

give me a sniff

[sculptedash]

Let's smell it up in here.

[shiftedshape]

sniff sniff

Mollymauk Tealeaf | Critical Role

[minorjourney]

Six feet under…again.

[Flesh.

Bone.

The emptiness inside that feels familiar. He doesn’t like familiar.

He is.

Damn, does it matter? He pushes himself up just as dirt is flung on him. He sputters and coughs, swiping it off his mouth.] Oh come on! Let me get out before you try to bury me again!

The Only Way Out

[He leans against a hedge and wraps a bandage around his arm. Behind him and to the right a flower lays twitching, large shards of ice jutting up through it like a fish on a hook.

Molly looks back and at his arm. Frost coats the bandage. He sighs.] Useful but what the fuck.

[He glances and around and finds a stick. He hefts it, swings it once, and nods.] You’ll do.

[He hears a cry from another hedge and takes off in that direction.] Fuck! Hang on! Don’t let the damn thing bite you!

The Scent of Death.

[The smell is unmistakable. Death is something he knows.

He sat across from the LADY as she shuffled cards. Her smile was like the glimmer of the moon through the trees. A hint of something wondrous.

‘Well, back again?’ He has made it a point to avoid looking at the fragments in his mind. He doesn’t want to take a look at the shards that look like the lights in a carnival tent.

He hears someone come in and his lips move.]

I was once someone else. And that man…went down a very wrong path.

Wild card.
[Got an idea? Hit me up in pms. (It’s Sam.)]

six feet under

[maidhem]

"She's kinda mean, isn't she?"

A very pink young woman, all frilly frock and sparkles in the wintry chill, offered a hand.

"She did the same to me, and didn't even apologize for it. I just don't get it."

noelle meinhardt | worm

[gastro]

0.0: closed to equivo

Before Noelle even has a chance to open her eyes, something hits her face.

"Ow," she mutters, quietly, and dirt works its way into her mouth. The taste makes her gag; her stomach churns. Noelle does not heave, but it is a very near thing. Instead, Noelle opens her eyes. She sees a shadow far above her and is suddenly, horribly aware of how small the space is.

The shadow, apparently, is the source of the dirt. Grumbling "could you not" is met with silence and more dirt. This time, Noelle does gag a little, sitting up as she coughs. Once she's somewhat vertical, she realizes these cramped quarters aren't that deep, after all. Noelle is able to reach her arms up - goodness, her arms are rather bruised and skinny, but Noelle can't imagine why - and haul herself up to a standing position. Fortunately, she hasn't been laid that deep. The ground only goes up to Noelle's waist.

"Excuse me," she says, privately annoyed at the fact that she's being polite to someone who's shoveling dirt on her, but what else is she supposed to say? Noelle expects to haul herself out of this hole with ease, at least. She'll just jump up, and swing her legs around, and then -

- Noelle looks down. She sees what's become of her legs. She screams.

1.0: the only way out
cw: body horror

If you encounter Noelle in the hedge maze, you might initially think that she's an obstacle, and not a girl. Noelle wouldn't entirely disagree with you on that.

She's almost impossible to miss. From the waist up, Noelle looks like an ordinary, if sickly, teenage girl. She's tremendously gaunt, with deep bags under her eyes and a pronounced hollowness to her cheeks, all framed by limp, greasy hair. She doesn't exactly hold herself with confidence, instead opting to cross her arms in front of her chest and bring her shoulders close together. At least her top is cute - a red peasant blouse, with delicately puffy sleeves and a little string bow in front.

But while Noelle's upper half doesn't cut an imposing figure, her lower half does. From the waist down, the towering, eight-foot tall Noelle is an analgamation of body parts: flesh, limbs, heads. Blistered, eyeball-filled tentacles stretch out in one direction, while something that looks like a cross between the head of a dog and the head of a pig takes another. A mammalian leg is made from shiny green, reptilian skin, culminating in a talon. Some parts of her lower half breathe, others blink, and one or two faintly groan. There is far too many teeth. She is made up of scales, of tails, of exoskeleton - anything fit for a monster.

When she speaks, her voice is quiet, tentative, and hoarse. She raises her human arms, as if in surrender. As if that makes her any less frightening.

"Hi. I'm sorry." The apology comes out like a reflex. Noelle doesn't think much of it. "I'm lost, too. I promise I don't bite, but. Um. You should be careful of the flowers back there. They do."

Noelle's cheeks flush. Honestly, this is just embarrassing.

2.0: scent of death
cw: body horror

It takes a while for Noelle to work up the courage to venture into the courtyard. Running into a stray individual in the maze was bad enough. The possibility of confronting multiple people, all at once, in a public space? Agonizing. But if she's going to have a shot at leaving this place, or fixing herself, or getting a bite to eat, she's going to have to enter the breach sooner or later.

She visits the courtyard at night. Hopefully, under cover of darkness, no one will look at her.

Noelle gets as close as she can to the large flower. It feels... important, for some reason, like a landmark or a shrine. She doesn't manage to touch it with her human hands, and her lower half squirms and writhes away from it, as if frightened. Its smell is awfully strong, like a butcher's shop, but that's important, too. It's all information she can use to build a strategy.

Noelle breathes in. She breathes out. Her lower half gurgles, and as she steps away from the plant, her human face goes stricken.

Her lower half, meanwhile, burrows itself into the ground, scooping up dirt and grass and stone and shoving what it can into its many mouths and other orifices. Her lower half swallows; the eyes in her upper face go glassy.

"Please," she begs her body, "stop."

Noelle gets her wish. Noelle's lower half - all of its mass of heads, teeth, limbs and tentacles - reach for whoever comes within a few feet of her.

Unfortunately, that may be you.

3.0: channel one

[ One fine mid-morning, all walkie-talkies tuned to channel one will broadcast the hiss of static, followed by the soft, slightly timid voice of a young woman. ]

"Hi. My name's Noelle. I'm new here, so I don't really know if these things work or not, but I was wondering if someone could tell me some things about the town?"

0.0

[equivo]

A headstone halfway across the graveyard vanishes. In its place is a stumbling, unsteady figure, pivoting to the sound of Noelle's screaming before he even straightens up completely. In the next instant, the gravedigger snaps to the head of that distant open grave.

The boy in her place is nearly as frantic as Noelle is, dark eyes wide in their sunken hollows. The top hat he was wearing when he snapped awake in the dirt is at the gravedigger's feet, leaving his cropped hair a wild mess around his drawn features.

"Noelle," Krouse croaks, voice creaking with disuse, "Noelle, it's okay, I've got - "

He looks down at what she's screaming at and blanches, already strangely pallid brown skin as washed out as a corpse. A ripple of clashing emotions contort his expression - horror, dismay, panic - a whirl so complicated it'd be easy to miss, in the moment, that none of them are shock. His eyes snap back up to her face.

"Noelle," he repeats, gentling and intent, "Look at me, okay? Just look at me."

He drops to his knees by her grave, reaching out to her in entreaty, palms spread open. Something snags in his brain, hard and hurting, but he ignores it. Nothing else matters except the girl in front of him.

francis krouse | worm

[equivo]

1. the only way out: entangled

As you wander the maze, you might overhear the sound of a struggle around a nearby corner. If you pursue the source of the noise, you'll find a corridor of the gigantic snapping plants, and from the looks of the boots kicking out the end of one, you aren't the first to find them.

"Fuck!" A muffled voice snarls, timed with the imprint of a braced arm shoving from inside the enclosure of the plant's bulging mouth.

2. the only way out: fear

Another another corner, at a different time, an explorer might come across a young man in his late teens at the oldest transfixed by a flower's staring eye. His shoulders are draped in a black cloak with a high, popped collar framing him up to his jawline, underneath which he sports a striped red scarf worn loosely. On top of his head sits a short top hat banded in red to match the scarf.

His face is set with roiling outrage that nearly eclipses the panic in his dark eyes, which meet the flower's bulging one with piercing intent. His hands clench and unclench at his sides, working uselessly at the empty air.

3. the only way out: dazed

Finally, you might stumble across that same young man sitting in the middle of a field of purple flowers, the sharpness of his gaze clouded over. He's halfway hunched over his knees, fists planted against the earth at his sides, and muttering to himself.

"Get up," Krouse tells himself, his frustration struggling to cut through his drowsiness, "Get the fuck up."

If he's aware of the tendrils snaking up around his wrists, he doesn't show any sign of it.

4. the scent of death

Out of the maze, Krouse had kept exploring. Discovering the lay of the land is the first step to understanding what's going on here, and how to deal with it. The manor seemed like a good place to start looking for answers.

Well, so much for that, because he's ended up hit by another of this place's fucking status effects. The putrid (familiar?) smell had filled up his nostrils as soon as he stepped into the courtyard, and he can't -

He can't go back to her until he deals with it. So here he's sitting on a stone bench with his hat on the seat next to him, hands locked together so he can press his nose and mouth against them as he stares at the spring turf, hunkered over and wasting time he doesn't know he has.

At the sound of footsteps approaching the courtyard from any direction his head jerks up, a flicker of frantic energy skittering across his features before they set into resolution. He straightens up, dropping his hands to either side of his legs.

"Watch out for the flower," he says, tersely, like it's not already too late for whoever's gotten this close. He has to open with something.

5. two player co-op | with gastro

There's someone new behind the bathhouse.

From the waist up, she's a slight, worn out looking teen girl with long brown hair that brushes over her cheeks whenever she bows her head. From the waist down, she's something else. A profusion of confused flesh spanning the animal kingdom, wet, denuded red entangled with expanses of rubbery bile-green, limbs and tentacles and misshapen heads jumbled together without order or grace. She towers against the backdrop of the stone wall behind her, several feet taller than the average adult human being.

Anyone who spots her or approaches might be forgiven for missing the smaller figure that hovers in her shadow, a cloaked and behatted young man who keeps looking up at her like he's afraid he somehow might lose track of where she is. Any such oversight of his presence is one he corrects as soon as he sees anyone else in the vicinity.

It might be almost funny to see him step between the girl-creature and a stranger with set shoulders and a hard line to his mouth. He's unarmed and unimposing, dressed up like the closet cosplay of a teenager short on spare cash and long on an overdeveloped interest in magic tricks. It's only the stark and somehow cornered intensity of the look he pins any observer with that might give them pause.

"Hey," Krouse says, with smoothness belied by crackling tension, "Can I help you?"

disclaimer
[ Just throwing him on here for fun; not apping. ]

fear

[toxicyuri]

A woman, or some creature wearing one's body, walks up behind the occupied flower without a word. She has a loose white shirt on, open along the stomach, and a pair of plain brown pants that tie with a cord drawn slightly too tight. Without so much as a word or a gesture or even a glance towards this captive person, she pinches a leaf of the plant that has him so transfixed.

It rots under her touch, the vibrant colors turning black and the leaves withering. The eyeball shrinks as though drying out, and the entire plant wilts within moments. Only when she's certain it's dead does she look up at the person it had entranced. Her gold eyes are calm, as though this is something she's done thousands of times before.

"Don't look so livid," she says, and her voice matches the way she stares. Her eyes are at the same level as his, which she takes as a comfort. If there's any fear in the way she's approaching this conversation, she thinks she's hiding it very well indeed. "They are only plants."

jessica richter blythe | oc

[toxicyuri]

a. the dancing flame on the funeral light [graveyard]

There's little more disorienting than waking up getting covered in dirt. She's not sure how she managed to pull herself out of it, but here she is, standing next to the headstone and the half-filled grave. Her coat is—she doesn't have one. That's fine. The frock she is wearing is plain and filthy white and open at the bottom to reveal scars along her abdomen, along the path of vital organs. She's brushing dirt out of her white hair so it smears against her black roots and accidentally forms a sloppy little gradient, and most of her attention is being directed to the headstone. Her golden eyes narrow as she tries to read it, and she's speaking it out loud in a raspy, tired sort of voice.

She mutters through the written there, then takes a clump of dirt and smears it against the first word. It's wrong in a couple different ways, but only one of them makes sense to her; the other gnaws at her in a way that she can't place. The epitaph is more viscerally frightening. "Died alone, unremarkably." Her breath hitches, but there's no time to focus on it. She snaps her head up suddenly, glaring at the latest movement in her field of vision like a predator.

"This is not mine." She's forceful, but certainly not trying to be impolite about it. "Explain to me what's happening here."

b. these darling angels singing in my ear [corpse flower]

She knows the smell of flesh. She's known for some time, it feels like, deep within her bones. Something that worms its way deeper than that, at times, as though it's encoded within her very soul. It's hard to remember where she's come into that little bit of knowledge, but whenever the door opens and the waft of the corpse flower floats to her nose, she finds herself with a sharp reminder.

She's sitting down, trying to get her bearings. Her skin is pale, and she looks somewhat sickly, as though she really has been dead for as long as the weathered headstone in the graveyard may imply. And, in a way that will get her no answers, she lifts her head and speaks to the first person who stops to listen.

"Did you know," she starts, ominously, "That you and I are nothing but meat with lightning running through us? Bundles of flesh and electrochemistry that spoils and rots and dies." She's smiling, though. Her teeth are flat but it's such a practiced gesture that it feels like it's still an implicit threat. "Everything has an expiration date. Everything has a time when it has outlived itself. Don't you think that's interesting?"

((here's some info about blythe! content warnings for death, disease, mortality, and abusive/controlling relationships just as a general rule for her.))

a

[maidhem]

"Sorry, I can't do that."

The young woman sitting in the dirt nearby, with a neat black frock and her pale pink hair piled into a high ponytail, smiled politely-- if vacantly-- at the other woman nearby. The furnishings of death around them, from the headstones to the silent digger that stalked the quiet rows, didn't seem to do anything to dim the spring-like cheer that she carried herself with.

Felicia, instead, was more concerned about the scars and dirty rags that her new companion was clothed in. Instead of properly explaining herself, she instead pulled off the thin cloak she had found herself in.

"Here," she said, "Take it. The cold doesn't bother me."

sakamoto ryouma | fate/grand order

[kaientai]

① SIX FEET UNDER

[ ryouma feels the sensation of warm earth underneath him and is aware of light somewhere above him even though his eyes are closed.

he's fallen asleep on the riverbank again, he's sure, but he's not sure why he thinks so. he doesn't even know where there's a river he might've napped beside at some point. in his mind's eye, a strangely familiar silhouette is standing above him before that unknown person throws sand in his face.

ryouma sits up, choking and sputtering on the soil he'd inhaled, just as another shovelful of earth comes down on his head. not a riverbank, actually, but a hole in the ground. a grave, an intrusive thought helpfully supplies. he is not typically a fearful person, but most people would be afraid of being buried alive, so the fact that he rejects every bit of this scenario with every fibre of his being isn't at all out of line. he wants out and jumps up to make a grab for the edge of the hole.

or... that's what he had intended to do, but there is far more power in that jump than he ever expected — the actions of someone who doesn't know their own strength. an average human can only jump so high, after all, even considering what someone might be able to accomplish with enough panic and adrenaline, and ryouma has no reason to assume he's anything but an average human. he overshoots the top of the grave by several feet before gravity kicks in, and he comes back down again, flailing and scrambling to grasp at clumps of grass and dirt along the edge of the hole so he doesn't slide back in again.

it's hardly his most graceful moment, but at least he'd (mostly) made it out of the grave. ]

② SCENT OF DEATH

[ ryouma eventually finds his way out of the maze only to end up in front of the corpse flower. he has no idea the plant bears such an ominous name, or he might wonder why it smells the way it does. he can't quite put his finger on exactly what it smells like, either. the right words to identify the scent always feel like they're hovering just at the tip of his tongue, but he can never reach them.

there's something warm and pleasant and comforting he feels in his chest when he breathes in the flower's scent, something he recognises as a sense of nostalgia even though he recognises how strange it is to feel deeply nostalgic for something you can't remember.

he ends up sitting down near the massive flower, still covered in dirt and mud, hardly moving until another person appears. as soon as he sets his sights on them, he gets up and goes bounding over like a large dog — entirely too close and very friendly in an innocent way. so extremely happy to see you!! ]

Hey! It's so funny; I feel like I've been waiting for you to show up...!

[ whatever influence the plant has over him, the eager brightness in his expression is all him. no one ever has to force him to be friendly with people, but he'd probably be somewhat less forward if he weren't compelled. ]

Our spirits must be linked somehow because I can tell you and I are already good friends!

③ WILDCARD

[ ooc; want something else? throw me a starter or hmu @ koutenko to plot something out! ]

2

[thinkfirst]

Oh—!

[ It's a shame, really, that they're meeting this way, because under ordinary circumstances Flynn's proverbial tail would be wagging right back. That sort of friendly enthusiasm is par for the course for him, and best when reciprocated.

So it's really too bad that the cold spring air smells like death and Flynn, having stopped in the courtyard after his own harrowing adventure in the maze, is choking down guilt so strong it feels like it might burst through his skin. He takes a half-step back, his face stricken. ]

I'm not sure that I'm a good choice for something like that. Hardly a worthy friend— just a few minutes ago, I spilled a cup full of tea in the tavern.

vash the stampede | trigun stampede

[rootlessly]

i. six feet under

[He doesn't remember. He doesn't remember what happened, but he has a terrible creeping dread that might be for the best. Dirt falls on his face, and he thinks for a moment, about not getting up. Something terrible has happened, and he is responsible. That's how the stories are supposed to end, isn't it? With the monster defeated.

But he can hear things up above, the sounds of scrabbling and struggling, someone in need of help, and his body moves without thinking -- and before he knows it, he's up and dangling precariously from your grave instead, upside-down with a high-end metallic arm, scratched and dirty with dust and grime reaching out toward you.]

Need a hand?

[When you think about it, how badly do you need to be saved, really? It's probably fine for it to end here, right. You'd be spared This Nonsense.]

ii. a-maze-ing grace

[Vash loves flowers. He doesn't remember many, but he knows he loved them. So perhaps he makes a few...mistakes, trying to stop and literally smell the roses on his way out of the maze. He nearly loses his other arm to one of the one with teeth, and one of the ones with eyeballs keeps him trapped for a good hour until a passing breeze blows his hair in his face and breaks his gaze.

But he reaches the field of lilacs at the end of the maze, and the fear from before seems a thousand miles away. There was a beautiful place like this that he used to know, once. A safe place. (Home.)

It'd be alright to rest here, wouldn't it? He feels like he's been on the move for so, so long with nowhere to go. He curls up on the grass, and lets the scent carry him off somewhere far away as the vines curl around him -- almost protectively, it would seem, to anyone who doesn't know better.]

iii. the smell of death

[Nai is dead. You killed him.

It's the only clue he has to what happened. He doesn't know what it means, and at first, he tries not to dwell. What can he do about it now, after all? No amount of atonement can bring back the dead. Yet the smell follows him all over the Staywell, and somehow he knows he recognizes it. The guilt eats at him and he shoves it down with a smile; a habit of a century and a half is not so easily broken, even without memories. But it spikes one day at the tavern -- amidst some perfectly pleasant smalltalk or other, the words escape him like the contents of one's stomach after a night of entirely too much indulgence:]

I'm afraid of who I might've been. I know I loved my brother, but I killed him anyway. I think I did worse, too.

i

[thinkfirst]

[ What a strange sight to be familiar. Flynn blinks up at the face and the hand above him, silhouetted against the sky, and watches a little shower of dirt break away from the edge of the grave he'd been trying unsuccessfully to climb out of and trickle in a little stream onto his neck.

It slithers down his back. Flynn makes a face about the awful feeling, decides that the time for examining why this keeps happening to him is, in fact, when he's not currently standing in a grave, and takes the hand without a second thought. ]

Thank you!

[ Not the first metal hand he's grabbed, either— no, not the time— Flynn squeezes gratefully and readjusts the sword strapped helpfully to his hip.

The gravedigger looms on the other side, her shovel full of dirt. ]

I nearly had it— there's a foothold, at least, so if you could pull— you're braced on something, aren't you?

Tallisibet Enwandung-Esterhazy (Scout) | Star Wars Legends (Lost Carnival CRAU)

[stillwinningthehardway]

six feet

Scout tries to get upright and falls against the side of the grave, confused by her own feet. Are they supposed to be like this? Isn't she supposed to have human feet that fit in boots, with heels that plant on the ground, instead? It's hard to think around the immense, stomach-dropping feeling that something very bad has happened here, or is still happening. The dirt being dropped on her isn't helping. "Stop!"

It does not stop. Once she's set her... claws? sure? and can rise up on them (on the tips of her toes?) and straighten her legs, the top of her head clears the hole in the ground. Apparently, she's tall. Scout's feet aren't that well suited for climbing but she can reach up with her arms, and brace her... tail?? against the damp soil on the other side, and haul herself out, panting a little as she tries to look in every direction at once. "What is wrong with you?" she demands, but the gravedigger moves on like a low-function droid, not responding to that or anything else Scout says.

Scout looks like some kind of dragon-faun, with a very long spade-tipped tail and long legs ending in sort of hooves. Scales show down her throat and the backs of her arms and there's a bulge in the middle of her forehead, framed by small white horns, that looks like a third, closed eye. Her fingernails, and the hooves and claws on her feet, are shining brassy metal under the dirt.

-no, wait, she looks normal and unremarkable to anyone who doesn't specifically have iron on them or truth-seeing powers. Whatever 'normal' is to the onlooker, which might in fact still be a dragon-girl, or a human, or whatever else. Just a tall girl of eighteen or so with a broad, freckled face and a snubbed nose. Scout can remember the Ringleader (who?) giving her the glamour-spell and that it keeps outsiders from knowing they (who's 'they?') don't belong. It seems like a good idea to use it.

only way:

Another thing Scout still knows: how to manifest her dæmon, which she does as she traverses the maze. Her soul streams from her body as a mass of golden motes that coalesce and shrink down into a long-tailed, homely alien animal that resembles a badger, a warthog, a monitor lizard... It also has a lionlike mane and tail tuft.

"Was that a good idea?" he says softly, peering about, but he leans against her leg anyway.

You might come across them then, or see Scout having slumped in the lilacs, her lips moving and eyes half-lidded as she tries and fails to rouse herself. Her dæmon clambers about trying to fight the vines overtaking her. His heavy jaws and large teeth, his sharp claws, they seem to be more effective at scratching her clothes and skin than cutting back the plants. Even though she's "normal", any of her blood that gets too far from her seems to be turning glittery gold.

"Hey. Help!" the dæmon says sharply, glaring at any passerby.

only way

[more_magic]

By the time he reaches the meadow, Darlington's carrying his fair share of marks from his journey through the maze: a torn sleeve, a cut above one eye, the unmistakable marks of teeth at the heel of one of his boots, and smudges of grave dirt scattered over him from head to foot. The town has to be close, promising a return to the manor and a chance for rest--and more than that, an opportunity to confirm that the people he's already begun to think of as friends are still there after the bitter chill and terror of the month before.

He just needs to press on a little further, but as he rounds the bend and sees the young woman and her strange companion, he stops at the stern, sharp voice that hails him. "Okay, okay," he tells the creature, bending to get a better look at the vines encircling the girl's arms. The scent of lilacs is stronger this close to the ground, and he yawns. "Sorry. How long have you been here?"

astarion | bg3

[snackin]

1. six feet under
[ Astarion is on his feet in a moment, heedless of the dirt on his clothes--which he will heed, but momentarily. He glares up at the gravedigger, reflexively going for--something? A dagger, maybe, that isn't there, and he bares his teeth in a semblance of a polite smile. ]

My dear, you should really check that one's charge is indeed deceased before burying him.

[ Only, the gravedigger is still shoveling dirt, and he gets a smack of dirt to the face. He sputters and anger surges through him ]

Quite gouache, isn't it? Is this a new strategy? No one even bothers with a stake anymore--

[ Maybe he needs to stop talking because he gets another face full of dirt for his efforts and he lets out a furious cry, and starts scrambling at the sides of his dirt prison. It's taller than he is, but he can jump. He jumps, and grabs at the dirt at the sides. It slips a bit. More dirt hits his face. ]

Ah, so this is a common occurrence, is it? So common that you work to kill us? Then perhaps you should not be employed at this-- [ What to even call it? He looks around with narrowed eyes ] This!

[ Catch him in a shouting match with the silent gravedigger as he tries to make it the last few inches out of the grave, her dirt smacking him directly in the face every time he nearly gets out. ]

2. the only way out
What dreadful hells are these? [ Astarion is muttering to himself, his puffy white shirt a mess of dirt and ripped where a flower tried to take a bite out of it. Instead of meeting the eyes of the flesh flowers, he crushes one under his boot, making more of a mess with blood splattering his pants. He grimaces down at himself, then pointedly ignores the gaze of all of the flowers until he meets your gaze instead ]

Ah, another tormented soul? Or another horrific figment in employ of this place? Do tell me, what terrible fate do you have in store for me? A pit to the center of the world, perhaps? An awful beast that I must conquer with my bare hands? My dear, you have no idea what I'm capable of.

3. the scent
[ Astarion smells sweetness--sweetness he hasn't enjoyed in hundreds of years that primes his palate and endears him to everyone around him, everyone who he's gazed upon with a mix of disinterest and suspicion thus far. Only now, he sees them in a new light. Sees how the early spring light plays on a cheekbone or how the flush of life lights up one's face.

He saunters up to you (his clothes thankfully no longer the horrible, dirty mess they were from his arrival, and instead a vestige of finery that he gladly took from his closet) ]

Don't you look like an absolute treat today, my dear. [ He leans into your space, or sits down next to you, a little too close, his red eyes intent on your face. This is only the beginning of what's to come ]

2

[thinkfirst]

[ Flynn pauses on his way into that particular section of maze, his brows rising slowly at the sight he's presented with. A new face, he's pretty sure, but more than that, this man is... absolutely covered in blood and dirt. For a moment it's enough to even blot out the actual words he's saying. Flynn has to force himself to listen and take it in— does he really look like that much of a threat?

He glances down at himself—dirt-smeared and grass-stained, with a sword strapped to his hip—and then very quickly back up with his hands rising. ]

Not a beast, or anyone with a terrible fate— I'm trying to find my way out the same as you— um.

[ don't ask don't ask don't– ]

...are you alright?

abby anderson | the last of us

[strictpress]

i. six feet under (cw: violence):

[It isn't the first time she's woke up with dirt in her mouth. And it never precludes anything good.

Abby's eyes snap open and she looks up to see the grave digger tossing another pile of dirt on her. Instantly, she's scrambling to her feet and pulling herself out of the hole with an ease that might be surprising to any witnesses.

Immediately, she goes for the Gravedigger's shovel, wrapping her hands around the shaft, and pulling with all of her might before the Gravedigger's grip breaks. Then Abby is on her, somewhere between trained soldier and rabid dog. She presses the shaft up against the Gravediggers throat and pushes, shoving her back against a grave, trying to stun her with the force. Then Abby pulls back and brings the shovel down on the Gravedigger's head. The corpse explodes, coating her with blood.

The blood isn't unfamiliar and the killing blow was natural, like she's done it hundreds of times. And she's pretty sure she has. Though she's not sure why she's in this place. She looks back at the grave to the gravestone, where the epitaph reads:
Abigail Anderson
A piece of shit.

Abby's stomach clenches and she grits her teeth as she looks around. She's missing someone. But she can't remember who. And anyone else around... she doesn't think she knows them but there the only one around.

Awkwardly, she wipes the blood off her face but it mostly just smears.]

So uh. Do you remember dying? Because I sure don't.

ii. the only way out

[Abby does not remember killer flowers despite being quite certain that a lot of things have tried to kill her in the past. Flowers are new. Thankfully, she's kept the shovel from the gravedigger, unable to resist the urge to carry some kind of weapon, as she makes her way through the maze. She stays low, carefully looking around every corner to make sure the way is clear. Then she comes across someone else, you perhaps, encountering the deadly flowers.

It's a good distraction, allowing her to move through without being detected. She starts to move and then hesitates as a churning feeling of guilt stirs in her gut and keeps her feet in place. If she leaves... will that person die.

"Fuck."

She mutters to herself before standing up and charging, full speed, at the flowers and clobbers one with head of the shovel as she makes contact.]

Hey! Back off!

iii. the smell of death (cw: torture mention)

[The smell of death isn't unfamiliar to her. It makes her feel unanchored and miserable but not surprised or even afraid. She's been around death.

She's caused death. A lot of it. Part of her feels justified, stubborn, as if daring the world to criticize her. Another part feels nothing but disgust and loathing.

There's a sharp inhale and a swallow before she speaks.]

I think. I think... I killed someone. And they deserved it. But I don't remember why. And I don't know why part of me regrets it.

iii

[anglophone]

[ Warm dust. Jasmine body spray. Melted vanilla ice cream. Alec likes the smell of the flower much more on his second brush with it. The pervasive sense of calm unknitting his peripheral awareness is far more appealing than most of the shit this place tries to pull on him.

That makes it worse than most. It's the shit that makes you let your guard down that fucks you up, as the new stranger spilling her guts to the first random teenager stepping out into her line of sight will probably be figuring out pretty soon. ]

Because you're not a psycho?

[ Alec suggests, with a little rising inflection at the end. The short, slight boy in fairy tale princeling cosplay turns to face Abby, one hand on his hip as he tilts his head of tousled black curls. ]

Current character - Diluc Ragnvindr | Genshin Impact

[searingwing]

Six feet under

[He wakes up in a grave. The dirt begins to burn. He sits up. Dirt from above puts it out. He raises his head. He needs answers. He needs to know. His hair still glows with the full, unfettered power he used to survive what felt impossible.

He doesn’t know what it means to ascend, but he feels on the edge of it. He reaches up and climbs the side. The dirt puts out any flames that flare up from the previous shovel of dirt. He gets up and stares at her. His eyes glow.

It’s almost demonic. His voice comes out cold and raspy.] Leave.

[But she is already turning away. He closes his eyes for a moment and starts walking. His footsteps leave faintly burning patches of dirt that quickly go out.]

The only way out

[A flower leaps out at him. It gets punched right in the nose. It still gets a scrape in but Diluc is beyond words. He walks down the hallway of green without a pause.

His body has cooled and he has had time to take a few minutes of a nap. But his hair still glows. He needs true rest. How he is still going? Will.

There is something about that. Something important. He discards the thought before pain can come. He doesn’t need it. He doesn’t need emotions. He needs to reach his destination. Another flower raises and he twists out of the way and brings his boot down in a classic brutal stomp. Another scrape. More pain.

He keeps walking on. It’s all inconsequential.]

Wildcard.

[Got ideas? Hit me up in the usual channels.]

way out

[sighsheavily]

[there! that particular shade of red amid the lush greens and peppered pastels of flowers both fair and feral.]

Diluc!

[the call is distant, but unmistakably Cecelia's. the question is from where.]

vic | the princess beard (tales of pell)

[masculinitea]

a grave tea party

Uncool. Uncool, was she this mean before? I unno why, moisture's better for your skin!

[Standing up, Vic - as a Clydesdale centaur with a big, ogre-scale human forepart - is tall enough to have his head and shoulders out of his plus-sized grave plot. No matter how swole and beefy his arms are - and they really are - he's not going to be able to lift himself out of it. And he can't climb it. If he had a running start he could probably jump this high but the plot's not even large enough for him to turn around.

He can't quite manage to get at the gravekeeper with his hands. She's posted at his tail end heaping dirt over him, and his furry back is shivering the dirt off, tumbling it to the bottom. Presumably this would get him out eventually, but Vic now gets this guilty wince on his face as he realizes his awful, unspeakable powers might be of use. The gravekeeper won't care but anyone here to watch? probably would.]

Heyyyy, bro, look, could you just... turn around? I can get clear but like... not while someone's watching.

[alternately, you're in a grave and a wet, muddy, tannic smell suddenly permeates. The soil around you may become damper, and there's a scrambling squishing noise as saturated ground is trod on. An enormous centaur whose entire lower body is covered in mud lurches at the edge of your grave, plate-sized hooves probably dislodging pieces of the edge, barely keeping from falling in! Vic scrambles back, pawing at the earth in an agitated horse way.]

Whoah! Jeez! Bro! Sorry!

bare back out

[Vic peers down a corridor of maze, seeing at least two hazards, and switches his tail. He looks back down at you, and assuming it looks remotely possible, Vic sighs gustily. The skin on his horse flanks twitches and shivers as if to dislodge the drying mud on it.]

Look, I don't usually do this and it's kinda weird, so don't make anything of it. But you could uh. Just get on my back and I could just run us past everything, you know?

bare back out

[kaientai]

[ ryouma has probably been staring long enough to be noticeable, but not because he's afraid of the centaur — dazzled might be a better word. what an interesting person! he doesn't remember much of anything, but there's something that feels comfortably familiar about hanging around with someone who definitely isn't human. ]

Hmm? Yeah, alright, that sounds like a good idea!

[ he doesn't wait to find out if vic intends to kneel down, though, just planting his hands on vic's furry back and hoisting himself up. or that was the idea since ryouma ends up lying across his back like a sack of potatoes with no easy way to get a leg over instead. ]

Wait—... hold on, I've got it...

[ so much for not making it weirder? apparently, having a riding skill doesn't apply until you're actually on. ]

Cecelia Ardenbury - an OC

[sighsheavily]

o1.

From the crushing, relentless cold and suffocating darkness, Cecelia is roused by the breath in her lungs, a gasp no longer filled with snow, but air...

And dirt.

The confusion is fast, the panic relentless, and it comes well before her eyes can finally see light dappled by the falling dirt being shoveled over her. Cecelia screams and keeps screaming, even as she finds limbs can move freely, because the dirt keeps pouring and no one is telling her things are alright.

Things are not alright.

With a mix of the common tongue and elvish, she pleads and demands that the gravedigger stop, STOP!, but even clutching at and pulling at the blade of the shovel, nothing changes. She can't climb her way out of here - she's not strong enough, she's never been.

So she yells. Cries. Dignity be damned, she'll roar like a beast before she can accept being in this hole; she won't go back in that awful box.

Her cries are accented by pain, because that's precisely what strikes her right in the head in the midst of the struggle to wrench the shovel free from its owner. Her hands, now scaled talons once more, cause a shrill scrape along the metal as they drag down and fall away to clutch at her head, piercing her scalp and giving her a more tangible source for the pain.

At least the screaming has stopped.

---

o2.

Free of the pain, free of the grave, and free of...just a lot of care, somehow, Cecelia Ardenbury actually lets herself lounge in the lounge. Why? Hell if she knows; she'd been busy investigating the changes around the manor! Like that hideous flower out front...

"Ah, there you are," she calls to those she knows.

"Ah, are you new?" she calls to those she don't. Either way, her tone is light, inviting, her gesture just the same.

A Cecelia Ardenbury devoid of stress...what a strange creature.

2

[vibing]

Yuri pauses at the sound of a familiar voice, and does a double take. He wracks his brain for a moment--the doubles are gone, right? They have to be, but this...

He steps into the parlor with a small frown on his face, looking at Cecelia. She looks different. The little lines of stress in her forehead are gone. She looks lighter, somehow.

"And here you are. Everything, uh, okay, Cecelia?"

Loki (Variant L1130) | MCU/Loki D+

[shiftedshape]

1. Six Feet Under

[He thinks it's snow, at first. It's the only thing that makes sense, although his surviving the collapsing roof doesn't make any sense at all.

But it isn't cold nor heavy enough and his eyes open to near silence and blue skies. Brushing the accumulated dirt from his face and clothes, he stands and just the top of his head sticks out of the hole he's apparently been dropped in. The gravedigger stares blandly through him, as expected, and he mutters, "Oh, right, you're one of those," under his breath before dragging himself up out of the hole, ignoring her best efforts to continue to bury him.

As she walks away, he opts to roll onto his back and stare up at the sky, panting slightly from the effort. "So that's a cycle, then. Lovely."

He's just going to lay here for a while.

2. The Only Way Out

As Loki rounds yet another corner, he looks a mess. In addition to dirt and sweat streaks across his clothes and face, his hair has seen better days. He smooths it out at the sight of another person, but it does little to hide the fact that there appears to be a decent chunk cut off at the back.

He raises one hand in a wave, conveniently hiding how he lowers the other to conceal the dagger he's got in the other.

"I think I preferred when this place just kept you lost. The new gardener has very poor taste, even if their flowers' taste is excellent."

Which probably explains the impromptu haircut.

3. Scent of Death

Even days later and with his hair trimmed into something presentable, Loki looks worse for wear. His skin is paler than usual, the circles under his eyes darker and his movements slower. This morning, he's sat at a table in the dining hall, staring dubiously at a single biscuit on a plate. Despite everything about him screaming weakness and exhaustion, he's barely perched on the edge of the chair, his posture painfully straight in his attempt to touch as little as possible.

Whenever someone crosses close enough, he catches their attention and, tentatively, asks, "This probably sounds daft, but well, with how things are around here, um. This is just bread, correct?"

3.

[kaientai]

Hm?

[ ryouma looks at the stranger, down at the biscuit, and then at the man again. ]

Yeah, of course it is. But what do you mean "with how things are around here"?

[ he is fully aware that he wasn't invited to stick around, but he's already sat himself down on the opposite side of the table anyway. ]

Dax | Star Trek

[d9x]

[ Dax is still coated in a healthy layer of dirt form her own recent grave-exhuming adventure, brushing grit from her clothes. She watches the gravedigger leave her for another grave; she's quick to move when she hears someone spluttering.

So appears a woman to block out the sun, reaching down to offer help as if the gravedigger isn't a threat, or even there at all. ]

Want a hand?

Light Yagami | Death Note

[pereatmundus]

[Light closes his eyes as soon as he opens them, half-convinced he's still asleep. Somehow, this feels vaguely normal, like a dream he's had before. Then a heavy clod of dirt hits his face, and he jolts upright, sputtering.]

Hey! What do you think you're doing?

[The gravedigger doesn't acknowledge him, but another voice does. Holing an arm over his face to shield his eyes, Light peers up at the woman warily.]

I'd appreciate it. Would you mind telling your friend to knock it off?

[Dirt flies into his mouth, and he coughs it back out. Well done, Light. Very smooth.]