October Test Drive Meme!

[reddosmod]

OCTOBER 2022 TDM

Another month, another test drive meme! Our test drive memes are open to anyone interested - regardless of whether or not you join our game!

All Test Drive Memes are game canon. Players can choose to keep their TDM threads canon or not. TDM threads can be used for AC and can be used as your writing sample for your application.

Our TDMs serve as a way to build into the actual lore and worldbuilding of Deer Country and we strongly encourage everyone to enjoy and participate! Current players are always welcome to pull prompts from the TDM to reference on the Network or bring into logs as well as tag out to new characters top-leveling on the TDM itself.

Characters will always be able to actively die during TDMs as this is an extremely dangerous world. You can still have this be game canon! Check out how character death in Deer Country works here.

If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask down below!

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: A snowy, rocky beach in winter. ]
[Image Two: Bowls of mushroom soup and bread. ]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Dali painting of the moon as a city]
[Image Two: Twisted, warped cityscape]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Monster choking a sleeping person to death]
[Image Two: Death hovering over a sleeping person]

BONUS PROMPT
[Image One: Liminal Space image of a nondescript room with strange ledges]
[Image Two: Cenobite woman with borg-like attachments to her face]

[NAVIGATION]

TDM Questions • Reserves • Taken • Applications • Full Navigation

[Jump to Comments]

STANDARD ARRIVAL

WHEN: First Week of NOvember
WHERE: The Farther Shores/The Boardwalk, Koz's Orphanage
CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A

---

You're one of the lucky ones. Your journey is smooth sailing and you wind up exactly where you're supposed to: on the Farther Shores. You grow out of your squid body without a hitch, either with the help of another Sleeper or one of the Wakers, and you get to discover this new world. All new Sleepers might take some time to find their bearings. It might be tricky to remember how to use your body parts the way you're supposed to. You might stumble around the beach or forget how to talk - but don't worry! It'll come back to you sooner or later.

Hopefully, you've found something to wear, either in your Welcoming Bag or otherwise, and can start familiarizing yourself with your surroundings. Maybe you help some other squids out on the beach. Waking up sucks! You feel for the little guys. And hey, maybe you're hoping one of those squids is a good friend...Stranger things have happened.

SEASONAL DETAILS ON THE BOARDWALK
This is not the greatest month to wash up on the Farther Shores. It's November and you'll pretty much immediately hate it! The waters are frigid but not quite frozen yet, but that won't make your arrival any less uncomfortable. Thankfully the Boardwalk seems well-stocked with heavy blankets and furs to give to newly awakened Sleepers. Barrels of hot chocolate and hot alcoholic cider are readily available to warm people up. There are several stalls selling hearty soups willed with mushrooms, potatoes, beans, and other filling components.

Fresh baked bread and pastries are sold on wax paper. Enjoy a steaming cinnamon roll or croissant or just your standard bread and butter. Many bakers have set up temporary stoves and seem to invite teaching Sleepers how to cook and prepare bread and pastries. Maybe knead some dough, learn some tricks of the trade. If you help out ab baker, they might even thank you with a sack of flour or other ingredients for bread!

Like last year, as the Moon shifts to Bone, whispers and hushed talk begins anew among the Trenchies about The Tower. There are whispers that something feels wrong. "You know Trench is his body, right?" one might say. "But look at what's been happening. Is everything alright?" There is nervousness, agitation. Trenchies can't seem to put a finger on it. One of the old fishermen mutters under his or her breath if overheard in this time. "Long time since we tried to leave the Tower's shield. Hope didn't bring anything back from out there. World's a strange place."

None of them seem to have anything specific to add. They just seem nervous for some reason.

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

IMAGE OF THE SELF

WHEN: Halloween through all November
WHERE: All of Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Distorted Reality, horrifying cityscape images, mounting paranoia, displacement

---

"They say that Trench is the body of the Tower." It is a saying so often repeated during the Bone Moon season that it becomes more of a mantra. Whether or not it is actually true remains a hotly contested debate between Arcane Scholars and Disciples, one of the few times that neither side fully agrees even with themselves. Yet, if it is true, what happens if the person whose body serves as a city begins to have an identity crisis of sorts? That certainly seems to be the case this month.

At random times, it just happens. You're walking from one place to another with your friend. You just stepped out of a lantern network teleportation circle. You open a door. Suddenly, everything is just wrong. It feels like you are in a surrealist's nightmare. Walls appear to be bleeding concrete in all directions. Stairwells twist impossibly, as if M. C. Escher himself were the architect. The pathway to where you intended to go warps and transforms itself into a perilous, twisted monstrosity that you have to navigate. Worse? The way you got here is just gone behind you, leaving you only the path forward.

Navigating this isn't impossible, but you will definitely need help. It might be that one has to stand on another's shoulders to get over an obstacle and then help them up. Maybe someone very small has to crawl into an opening to reach the door handle so the way through can be found. It varies, and the effect lasts only as long as it takes to get where you're going, but while you're here the reality continues to shift and some of these twistings could easily crush you! Don't tarry too long!

NOTE: The physical danger here is from environmental hazards. Feel free to choose any you like, but they will all return to normal when your character reaches their intended destination. Trenchies know nothing about this, though if one asks one of the former wastes, they will ward themselves as if against evil. They know something, but they dare not speak and will whisper hurriedly that the sleeper had best not talk too openly about this. "Best not to draw attention right now."

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

WHEN: Last Week of October through the first week of November
WHERE: At Home, in your bed
CONTENT WARNINGS: Severe Insomnia, Sleep Deprivation, Deprivation induced hallucinations and mood swings

---

Something is clawing at your mind from the moment that the first signs of the cold coming. You can't put your finger on it, but even as you see the people of Trench preparing for the next month's arrival of sleepers, you can see they feel it too. Something claws at the mind and for a few people in Trench, this becomes a very literal problem. The thoughts are so overwhelming that you can't manage to find a good night's sleep. This problem is especially prominent for new Sleepers, who seem prone to arriving with terrible bouts of unexplainable insomnia.

That sounds simple enough to deal with, right? Perhaps some sort of sleep aid, or working oneself to exhaustion, and you can power through it, right? No. Nothing seems to work at first. Searches for a monster are futile. Warding and incense seem utterly ineffective, and no matter how hard you try, night after night you cannot sleep. You are terrified of falling asleep. If you fall asleep, you may never wake up! Even characters who do not fear a mortal death feel themselves compelled by this, and the longer that they do not sleep the more corruption risks them at its door. A night or two missed is one thing, but eventually irascibility sets in. Hallucinations may eventually start to crop up. The body needs REM sleep. It needs dreams, yet the horror that threatens the person will not allow them to sleep, for fear that it will come for them while they sleep. What 'it' is, they do not know.

There is only one solution. For those who already spend time with others? This is a simple thing, but they must still agree to do it. You can solve this curse only if you do not sleep alone. Another must stay awake for the vigil through the whole night. Simple enough given their insomnia, but they will be assailed by their own horrific lack of slumber. Only, after you have had a good night's sleep, be sure to care for the other who was so kind to you. Why? Because anyone so unkind as to not help their erstwhile companion sleep after they have finally gotten rest will find out that those fears were not unfounded and the next time they sleep, they really do not wake up!

Death, in this rare case, comes in the form of a heart attack. Its source is unknown, and all that the sleeper will remember is the worst nightmare of their life as they lay in bed, dying in soundless screams. So, be sure to take care of each other, sleepers!

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

THE VEINS OF THE TOWER

WHEN: November 1st (And only November 1st)
WHERE: Beginning anywhere, ending in A Nightmarish Place
CONTENT WARNINGS: Liminal Space, Disorientation, Hints of horrible monsters, Possible Death, Insane Zealotry, Mutilated Bodies

---

Rumors have lingered since the first encounters two months ago of a 'space between spaces' that people could accidentally fall into that this occurrence has not been entirely limited to the month it first happened in. Every once in a while, on unusual days, it has happened since that time. There appears to be little rhyme or reason to it, but it has happened again. Maybe you took an accidental step backwards. Or maybe you were crazy enough to have identified some spot you disappeared before and you were actually experimenting with the effect every day to see when it happened. You know, to chronicle the dates it happen, to keep a record, to understand it better, all of those sorts of things that cause some sleepers to poke things that are Better Left Alone because that's what some sleepers do with their free time, and then they touch the spot with something and suddenly they and everything around them are sucked in. How you got there is not important. You're here now, wherever here is.

Only this time its different. You're not in the spot you were last time, and in the distance you can hear shuffling of feet. Dread enters your heart, as you know that you do not have the means to fight whatever it is. You have an overwhelming urge to run, to flee at top speed. You and whoever is "lucky" enough to be with you must run as fast as you can, around corners, a roaring, inhuman scream echoing through the hallways, slamming into walls. You can't quite see it, not unless you want a swift, awful death at least. But around a corner there is salvation, an elevator shaft and the door is open. Frantic scrambling, running and jabbing buttons will cause the doors to close, just as something black like a giant hand grabs the far wall. You hear the rush, the scream. The elevator shudders three times as something pounds on it, but you're safe. Or, are you?

Instead of the usual moldy hallways, you see what looks like a hospital hallway. Anyone who lived through the nightmare may have awful flashbacks, but nothing is chasing you this time. The impossibly stretching hallway seems ceaselessly unchanging, each door locked, at least until you happen to notice a grate on one of the overhead air conditioners open wide. If you are curious enough to crawl up and into it, you're treated to a long scramble through the passageway, right up until you hear voices, menacing ones in the distance. Crawl quietly!

A grate emanating ugly, light is up ahead. As you and your companion work your way over, you're hopefully not heard. Through the grate, you see something awful. Two mutilated and disfigured figures speak while a third, calm and ordered looking woman listens. She seems to have mutilated her throat such that she should not be able to speak, and the other two appear have performed torturous experiments on their own flesh, their twisted visages that of the 'Zealots' that the Sleepers sometimes whisper about in fear. "It is almost time for the harvest. We made the quotas last cycle but only barely. The need is greater. Sacrifices must be made," one hisses. The other nods vigorously. "Yes. The situation is decaying. We have to move to stop this before it gets out of hand."

Before they can say more, however, the third woman looks up, directly at the grate. She smiles once, and a voice echoes from her throat as what appears to be a mouth inside of it moves, her own lips unmoving. "Continue this discussion later. It seems the problem has worsened. We will need to step up security in the meantime." She reaches out a hand and wrenches. The air shimmers around them and suddenly the duct you are traveling in collapses and breaks beneath you. Instead of falling into the farm, however, you find yourself falling through darkness for what seems an eternity, until you collapse hard to the pavement, in front of the entrance to the Gate, your breath coming back to you slowly, shakily.

NOTES: Death is possible should a sleeper assault the first creature. It is a being of impossible angles and blackness, is itself unkillable and will rend its victims to oblivion through brute force. Fighting the Zealots is not possible through this prompt. The grate cannot be opened in time to exit into the Sleeper Farm and engage them. However, the astute will be certain that there was for a moment an actual entry through and into the Sleeper Farm, somehow. Those familiar with these locations will recognize them as being Floor 1, the Stalls

[JUMP TO TOP]

CODING

Comments

[whowillmourn]

Everything smells strongly of humans and blood and corruption. Those tones linger in the corridor, but some degree of cleaning chemicals linger and clearly have reduced the human smells so much as they're capable. He nods at her assessment in agreement. It would be better if she knew the location, but his luck is rarely so good.

He makes a slight smile. "They're locked," Mayerling says. "We shall need other means of egress." He looks again at the locked doors. "Preferably a quiet one."

Progressing at a cautious pace, Mayerling slowly looks through everything with his vision. It's a great deal of detail, more than is usually worth bothering with, but they need something. "There's an air duct system," Mayerling points above them. The vent above their heads is firmly held in place (a noise concern, again), but for now it continues above their hallway. "If we can access it."

A tight squeeze for him, but then he can always phase to be quieter. He could enter it now that way, save that he cannot bring his companion with him. Mayerling would rather stay, whatever the danger, than abandon Sharon.

[fogsong]

"How can you tell?" Sharon asks as they move down the seemingly endless hospital hall. Every few minutes, she checks one of the doors, groaning audibly when it refuses to give. It's not so much that she doesn't believe him but rather that she hopes otherwise. The endlessness makes her anxious.

The moment he brings up the air duct, she looks up and lets out a quiet huh. "Last time I crawled into one of those, I was trying to escape this awful creature made up of mannequin parts." Conversational. Back then, it had been a horrifying encounter, one that resulted in the death of two other girls. Sharon had tried to save one of them but she failed. She hadn't tried hard enough.

She looks at him, "Think you can open it up?"

[whowillmourn]

Mayerling glances over at Sharon. He wonders, once again, what people in Trench are used to and familiar with, whether people know that he is a vampire from the color of his eyes, the details of his outfit, and anything else they might know about vampires, whether the concept or reality of vampires bother them, what revelations might turn an erstwhile companion into someone who wishes him dead. Among other similar musings. Well.

"I can see them," he answers while he thinks about a creature that sounds like a particularly vindictive clotheshorse of a vampire (so, most any of them) made it. There do not seem to be many vampires in Trench fortunately, so likely not.

Mayerling stops beneath a vent and looks carefully around them and their locked empty hospital wing. He sweeps his cloak up, and it slides between the opening to cover the gaps and muffle the noise from the far side. In case none of this has been enough to tip off his companion that he is something other, Mayerling transforms one hand into living metal. As carefully and quietly as he can, he cuts through the connection between the cover and the ceiling like a noisy knife through butter.

When it falls, Mayerling catches it silently. He sets it aside, pulling his cloak back down around him. After a few quiet moments, Mayerling looks back at Sharon and the grate. "Would you like any assistance ascending into the air vent?" Mayerling asks.

[fogsong]

Mayerling can see them? Sharon lets out a curious, interested hum at his response. Her immediate, instinctive thought is x-ray vision, like something right out of a comic book. She's still tempted to try each door they come across but reigns it in.

He stops and she follows suit, watching him curiously. The way he uses his cloak is fascinating but her expression changes from curious to surprised when his hand changes. She knew he wasn't human already, that much had been obvious the moment he'd picked her up, but she was suddenly less certain about what he is. She'd initially guessed vampire. She knew enough about them and he ticked a lot of the boxes (dramatic, speedy af, distractingly beautiful) but she's never heard anything about an ability to turn into metal.

"Neat trick. Color me impressed." She's not fearful, just steps right up to him to look up into the vent and then looks back at him. She nods. "All right, boost me up."

[whowillmourn]

Though the brief phrase 'neat trick' belies the thousands of years of history behind the ability his family has gained and taught down generations until it ends with him, the last of his line, the last of the Mayerling family that once ruled the Western Sector of the Frontier, Mayerling settles his ruffled feelings quickly because the acceptance with it is rare.

That's perhaps one of the most notable behavioral patterns in Trench. The lack of bioengineering fear of vampires into humans' very DNA. Given his lack of resources with which to complete the opposite, to remove the fear, this one aspect of life in Trench is thoroughly refreshing. The rest—

D warned him about a lot of the rest.

After she accepts the offer, Mayerling nods and lifts her again, with the benefit of time. What a different even a handful of seconds can make. Mindful of the height of the duct, he slows down when she starts to enter it and supports her weight as she can work her way into the duct.

His eyes return their attention to himself—his tall frame, his broad shoulders, his broader cloak. Sharon may fit easily in the vent, but he knows from unfortunate experiences how it can go. In what is a far less impressive use of his skill, he melts the cloak around him until he takes up less space and leaps gracefully up into the space Sharon left behind.

[fogsong]

The air duct isn't too tight for Sharon but she has to take a moment to breathe through a sudden bout of claustrophobia. She's not used to such tight, enclosed spaces. The single time she's had to crawl through an air event, she had the addition of fresh adrenaline and fear coursing through her so her mind had been so focused on survival that the space was a distant worry. She finds a focus and manages it.

She army crawls forward, little by little until she's sure there's more than enough room for Mayerling. He's in before she really processes it. It's hard to tell from her position, head craned as it is, but she could swear he seemed smaller somehow. She'll have to ask him about it when they get out of this place.

"You good?" She asks, her voice kept deliberately low and even then it reverbs off the metal around them making her flinch. It sounds too loud in this space.

In the distance, some ways ahead of them, she can see a light. "There might be a way out up here."

[whowillmourn]

As grand as the City of the Night once was, as grand a title as it has, like every other structure, it has areas not meant for public consumption, the areas where the work and effort to create something goes on. As a sole occupant, Mayerling spent more time in those areas, often as tight as this air vent, than he did in once grand ballrooms and promenades.

Yes, Mayerling projects softly directly into Sharon's mind (and her mind only), so his voice does not contribute to the noise that could give them away. After a small pause, he adds, Should you even barely whisper, so low a human could not hear you, I will. Not a threat, simply a way to protect them both.

He is unsure whether he would prefer to be in front, to protect them from whatever dangers they may come across, or in back as he is, to protect them from what may follow them. There is no way to know which direction the greatest danger may come from. His cloak stays tensed around him, ready to spring into action, though Mayerling hopes no action comes.

[fogsong]

Sharon has more than a passing familiarity with telepathy, though often times she gets a bit of a warning before she hears someone in her head. His voice makes her physically jump, as much as one can when in a tight space, and she cranes her neck to shoot him the briefest of glares.

"Noted," she whispers a little icily before she continues her crawl forward. The movement is a lot louder than she'd like, or perhaps it just seems that way, and she slows down a little to help soften the sound.

It's not long before she reaches a grate and what she sees makes her stomach churn but she manages to resist gasping out loud. Mayerling can no doubt hear what's being said better than Sharon herself but she still scooches down the long duct so he can get a look at the people below them.

[whowillmourn]

With utmost restraint, Mayerling winces the moment the noise is made but stills his face by the time she glares at him. How wonderful it is for a glare not to come in fear or in the sort of anger that is followed by an attack on his life. An irritated glare!

That fades out to listening to conversation that could mean many things, few of them good. They remind Mayerling of vampire "purists" wanting to cull humans and treat them like livestock. Those words are the kind that come with killing. Mayerling smells Sleeper blood and corruption. The people that come into view are not ones he's seen before, not only in the sense of these exact individuals but distinctive patterns and characteristics not commonly seen in Trench.

Are they no longer in Trench? Surely, if another city or large settlement exists, people would be aware of it. Mayerling cannot jump to conclusions. He looks back across at Sharon and raises an eyebrow instead of sending a telepathic message. Does she know more? Does she recognize what is going on?

[fogsong]

Sharon tenses as she listens to the conversation happening below them, eyes slowly widening in horror as her breathing picks up. She couldn't be certain who these people were but she had a feeling. She's heard the horror stories about a Sleeper Farm and the zealots that ran it. It makes her feel lightheaded.

She catches the look Mayerling shoots her and she frowns at him, giving a slow shake of her head and mouths at him: later.

It's that moment that the woman brings the conversation to a halt and Sharon knows they've been found out when she hears the word "security". It happens so quickly. Sharon readies herself to fight, muscles tightening, fingers pressing into the thin layer of metal that makes up the duct they're in when the air begins to shimmer, and the metal whines as if it were under a strange pressure. They're falling and Sharon is screaming, fire blooming in her hands, still ready to lash out and fight, and then they hit pavement.

[whowillmourn]

They fall, and Mayerling flairs his cloak. He could slow his fall, but the fire provides no easy approach to reach for Sharon (altered somehow? she smells like a human Sleeper). He's sure the falling came first. Mayerling lets himself free fall, angling closer to her, to grasp her and protect her—

Save that the pavement greets him before a behemoth structure. Mayerling's healed by the time he stands and offers Sharon one hand. "Are you safe and sound?" he asks her. First things first.

They fell through dimensions, clearly enough. How close they landed is a question he doubts that they can answer. "Does this structure contain a hospital to your knowledge?" Mayerling asks. Something comes. Whether they are safe where they are, he does not know. So that is second.

[fogsong]

Sharon hits the pavement hard but no harder than a tumble. Her palms sting where she caught herself and pebbles of Coldblood form in the tiny cuts and scrapes almost instantaneously. She lets him help her to her feet, groaning under her breath as she straightens up.

It takes her a moment to process where they've wound up. She looks up at the Gate when he poses his question, blinking. Her lips press into a thin line. She still holds a grudge from when she was dragged here to fight D. "There's a clinic in there for quick checkups post-fights but nothing like what we saw."

"It's possible we were in a weird area of The Lumenerian but," she shakes her head, clearly uncertain, "I don't know. I think... I think those may have been the-the zealots people encountered last year."

"They torture people. Harvest them, I guess. I-I don't know why they didn't keep us, why they threw us out like that." This bothers her visibly and she grinds her thumb into her opposite palm.

[whowillmourn]

Safe enough for the immediate future. Mayerling lets himself focus more on the information Sharon shares. So little time here, and events are afoot. Terrible ones. He needs to know more. He cannot assume their definition of people excludes vampires (since they are themselves not vampires, the few they witnessed).

"Last year," Mayerling notes thoughtfully. Sharon has clearly been here longer than him but less than a year. That means these zealots have not been harvesting people notably in Trench during the time she has been here. She would mention otherwise.

"Perhaps we—the harvest—are not yet ripe," Mayerling suggests, whatever that means in the zealots' minds. Another subject matter to explore in the archives.

He glances at her hands, not because spilled blood is a temptation (though it is) but because it draws attention to the fact she is a Sleeper. Like him. Like the zealots. "Did you know they are Sleepers, at least in part?" he asks. The ones they saw.

[fogsong]

Mayerling's suggestion bothers Sharon to a degree, a frown tugging at her lips like a weight. It's not so much that it's a frightening prospect (it is) but it's the idea that someone might think of her as something to be harvested; a person to be used. She refuses to be that girl again.

She notices when he looks at her hands and she shoves them into her jacket pockets unconsciously. "Yeah. Yeah, I did. I've been told they're pretty powerful, masters of their blood magic." It explains the ease with which the woman had pulled them from the duct and transported them.

"I'm pretty sure they're dealing with heavy corruption, too. Though, I don't really know how they haven't succumbed to beasthood."

The Sleepers she knows are usually quick to end corruption in its tracks the moment they notice it, whether in themselves or others. People lose themselves to corruption and fall into beasthood because of it. The fact the zealots haven't is a mystery to Sharon.

[whowillmourn]

Young though she may be, Sharon has a storied history, Mayerling is sure of it. The dangers they face are problems, but fear isn't the strongest emotion to her body language. With a shallow well of sadness, Mayerling notes that she would make a good vampire hunter. At least, she has the potential. Perhaps there is no need here, not in the same way. How different is it to deal with an issue like masters of blood magic? Different dangerous prey. Otherwise—

"Dangerous on multiple grounds," Mayerling notes. He presses his hands together, as his mind pores over the texts he has begun to read. The basics, truly, not anything complex or advanced.

"While corruption and beasthood often come hand in hand," Mayerling recites, "blood pollution can influence the mind or the body independently. That which only pollutes the mind is corruption. That which only pollutes the body is beasthood."

Though Sharon may know that lore, it's worth pondering further. "As a remarkable anomaly," Mayerling says, "to remain corrupted but not a beast, the answer may provide some clues to how they operate." He's intrigued and pleased that the answer may come from spending more time in the archives. Surely, as a group Trench has dealt with repeatedly, as a primary concern to Trench (blood pollution), more information is out there.

[fogsong]

The frown lifts as he begins to recite and she raises a brow at him, mildly impressed. Not everyone goes out of their way to do research on these topics even weeks after their arrival. It says a lot about Mayerling and she briefly wonders if he has an eidetic memory.

"Been visiting the Archives, huh?" She's not big on Gaze and has never adjusted to the constant sense she's being watched in the area; she often avoids the district unless she needs something. "You might be right. Now it's just a matter of finding it."

[whowillmourn]

Mayerling's whole face lights up at the way Sharon recognizes how he's spent his days and even some of his nights. It is not merely idle curiosity but the need to understand his surroundings and, as always matters, himself. Nothing has made him feel so young as to come to a new world ignorant of its workings.

"They work in most curious ways," Mayerling shares, "If there is something you wish to find, you can... intuit your way toward something relevant, usually." He has not yet sought particularly rare answers to complex phenomena. It shall be a true test.

"I shall devote myself to learning more, before the harvest comes."

[fogsong]

Mayerling is an interesting sort of man. There's something dangerous about him, something that puts her on edge just a little bit, even after escaping that place, but there's something soft there. Something affable and mild. He's someone to get to know. Someone to pay attention to.

"I'm not big on of the archives myself but I'm glad someone is getting use out of it," she admits with a tight-lipped smile. Gaze was uncomfortable, for certain, but it was the memory books she'd encountered there that really made the archives a place to avoid.

"Listen, if you happen to discover anything, would you be willing to give me a call? Or even a text?"

[whowillmourn]

He doesn't miss a beat, despite the admission of ignoring one of the richest veins of information Trench has on offer. Much of the rest resides in people's minds with all the complexities associated with it. The Frontier is full of people who lack the time, inclination, or resources to utilize such options.

"I would be pleased to do so," Mayerling says. He hesitates, unsure if he wishes to say more—such as, so much as is within his power, he will avoid these zealots and physical proximity to their harvest. Life among humans is hard enough without a setting awash in blood. He holds his tongue, no need to frighten someone away.

"How may I reach you on our local network?" Mayerling asks. Remarkable, really, that it still stands.

[fogsong]

"By my username: sds. It's just the initialism of my name: Sharon Da Silva," she informs him. Unlike many others, she chose a username that wouldn't give her name away entirely; one that provided a tiny bit of cloaking should a member of The Order wash up on the shores. Even months into her arrival, she's still wary, still nervous that one will one day turn up and destroy everything she's managed to build here.

[whowillmourn]

Mayerling gives Sharon a broad bow, his cloak flaring out to provide the grandeur the gesture deserves. Neither of them gave full names before this moment, a sign of common ground and understanding—that it is not for every person that they meet. Sharon's trust in him is generous, even should it be a test.

"Johan Mayerling, at your service," Mayerling says. He does not offer her hand a kiss, sure that a kiss from her knuckles, rather than a curtsy, the more likely response.

[fogsong]

The bow and added cloak flare catch her off-guard, so dramatic, and she smiles in response, even letting out a tiny huff of laughter. He's definitely much more old-fashioned than what she's used to.

"They don't shake hands where you're from?" she asks but quickly continues, "I'd try to curtsey but I would definitely just embarrass myself. Still, it's nice to meet you, Johan. If you need any help in this place, let me know."

[whowillmourn]

"... no," Mayerling answers softly. At least, no one shakes hands with him. With any vampire, it's a vulnerable move for someone to make. With a Mayerling, the family known for their claw, it is practically an invitation to be at a disadvantage.

"Every skill takes practice," Mayerling says. While true, he's not pressing Sharon to learn how to curtsy. The sight they spied upon provides more pressing priorities.

"I am still learning my way," he admits, "I am sure I will need help come some point. Thank you."