draino | "𝐓𝐇𝐔𝐒" ▣ MAY TDM

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!tdm

"𝐓𝐇𝐔𝐒" ▣ MAY TDM

MAY 2024 TDM

Welcome to SALTBURNT, a panfandom smut/thriller game based off the film Saltburn, where characters are encouraged to indulge their deepest desires. The money never runs out and the liquor never stops pouring, so you may as well indulge from the bounty. Of course, things are rarely what they seem, and the manor itself seems to have a consciousness of its own. Throw parties, trash the house, engage in youthful merriment, but remember — dangers come out at night, and no one, no matter how rich you are, is safe from demons lurking in the shadows.

Threads can be considered game canon, provided the players agree. Players can also start fresh upon acceptance into the game. Prompts on the Test Drive can be used for in game logs.

WELCOME TO SALTBURNT

It's the hangover more than the light streaming in through half drawn curtains that wakes you up, your brain rattling in your skull, your mouth dry and cottony, your stomach churning with whatever it is you drank last night. If self preservation is your strong suit, you might turn over in bed and see a few painkillers laid out for you on a silver dish, accompanied by a glass of water. If it isn’t, stay in bed and wallow — eventually a maid will be in to tear your curtains open, saying, "Breakfast is served," and scurrying out quietly, invisibly. Breakfast? Maybe it’s normal for you. Maybe it isn’t.

You're drawn from the room, either by the mystery, or an undefinable urge that could be supernatural in origin, or could be your hunger catching up to you. It's almost nostalgic, the walk to the dining room — have you been here before? Were you drawn up to this estate in a car? Haven’t you done all this already? Maybe you mosey around a library, maybe you run into your suite mate in your adjoining bathroom. Regardless, seemingly all hallways, covered in priceless artworks and ancient relics from times long past, lead to the dining room, where a comically long table houses the Balfours and their many guests, who seem just as disgruntled and confused as you. No matter. "The breakfast is self-serve," they say. But not the eggs.

If you want to leave, you’ll have to tell Giles, the housekeeper, who will arrange a car for you that mysteriously, or perhaps suspiciously, never arrives. Unfortunately, confronting Giles about it is near impossible, as he’s as good at being invisible as the rest of the house staff. Of course, there’s no reason why you can’t just walk out. The front gates are easy enough to jump over, even if the walk towards them gives you a strange sense of foreboding, or just outright discomfort, as if the ground itself doesn’t want you to leave. Those more sensitive or fragile might find they can’t make the jump, no matter how physically able, or desperately wanting. Still, a strong person could continue on, over the fence and into the lush English countryside. The feeling doesn’t dissipate, though — this sense of wrongness, almost sickness, like a weight on your back. Walk into the evergreen, carry on, but the strongest will make it perhaps a mile or so before the weight of dread and paranoia brings you to your knees, and then to your face, flat in the middle of a dirt road. What were you thinking? Is this really better?

Wake up with a hangover, in a bed, the curtains drawn, the maid saying, "Breakfast is served," before scurrying out. The painkillers are there, just like you remember. In fact, it’s all exactly how you remember, as if you never left an imprint the first time, or any mess you made was cleared away while your back was turned. Walk to the dining room, find everyone there eating away at their breakfast. It’s self serve, naturally. Just not the eggs.

"We dress for dinner," says Portia, with a kind, if discerning smile. "Black tie."

LET THEM EAT CAKE

CONTENT WARNINGS: sex, drugs, alcohol.

Up until now, the outdoors of Saltburnt have seemed immaculately well groomed, landscaped until not a leaf is out of line. However, on the night of a planned party you were all informed of, the grounds have transformed into a psychedelic fever dream before your eyes, with very little resembling the polished exterior you’ve become acquainted with. Large fixtures have been erected around the grounds in a paid homage to Roman architecture, huge columns set up in invitation to the party beyond. Everything is bathed in pastel colors of pink, blue, yellow and green, opulent and gaudy in equal measures, everything decorated with golden filigree. The theme? Rococo. And yes, you’re expected to arrive in costume. (0 points awarded for historical accuracy — this isn’t school, you aren’t being graded on anything but your appearance.)

Vanilla flavored cocktails line elaborately decorated banquet tables, and while alcohol seems readily in supply, any food other than snacking Doritos and caviar with mother-of-pearl spoons is hard to find. Of course, that’s other than the dessert table, which is sorted with an arrangement of confections: macaroons of all colors, cupcakes, cookies, and of course, cakes. Some are imperially designed, with frilly icing decorations and sprinkle pearls on top, but the real showstopper cakes are the anatomically correct ones, shaped in the imagine of naked bodies. On first glance, the lifelike realness of them makes the bodies look like peaceful corpses laid flat against the sugary delights — some, potentially, with an appearance uncannily like a guest like you, currently residing in Saltburnt. But, when someone cuts into one, it's plain to see the flesh is just fondant, the insides all cake and cream and jam. There is enough detail on the inside of the cakes that gives the impression, if you were to cut one horizontally down from head to toe, you'd see the perfect snapshot of the inside of a human body, organs, bones, and all.

Seeking other entertainment? In homage to the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, small diamonds have been hidden around the party, in red solo cups, in full liquor bottles, in plain sight, in trees and bushes. Collect, steal, and pickpocket as many as you can — anyone with diamonds at the end of the party has been guaranteed a special prize from Portia herself, but you'll have to win to figure out what it is. (A replica of the Queen's necklace, lucky you!)

In addition, on the grounds there is a lifesize version chess, alternating colors between light and hot pink. Anyone interested will quickly be informed, this is SlapKiss Chess, where the rules are simple enough to follow. Chess as usual, only when one piece steps on the square of another piece, the first person to step off the square loses the ground and is kicked from the game. You can knock your opponent off however you like, through whatever means available to you. Naturally, things get pretty bloody and pretty PDA, depending on your poison of choice — with the name of the game comes two very frequent weapons against your opponent.

Of course, the night does come to an end eventually. Pass out where you are or drunkenly make your way up to you room in a drug-induced stupor. Either way, you'll wake up hungover, in bed, trying to fill in all the blanks from last night.

A MIDNIGHT'S DREAM

CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror, cannibalism, sex.

Things feel normal, for awhile. The first day after the party anything brewing inside feels like the byproduct of intoxicants ingested, so it's likely you're expecting to feel a little off. The next day, you wonder just how long this hangover is supposed to last. By the third day, something feels indefinably wrong, and you ache down to your bones.

Did you eat the cake? Probably, yes — but did you find it a little… addictive?

There's an urge inside you, to taste it again. What part of the body did you eat before? The fingers? Suddenly, you need to sink teeth into whoever has fingers closest to you, even though you know what'll happen. You'll find flesh, blood, and bone, hardly any of it appetizing. And yet. The compulsion is undeniable, and once you get what you want, you bite down on someone's body where you feel the need and, shockingly, it tastes good. Sweet. Moreover, it feels good to be consumed. Eater and eaten alike, all of you want some more, gluttonous down to your core.

It seems a curse has overtaken Saltburnt, turning everyone who ate cake into cake. Bones turn to cracked caramel, blood into loose icing. Oddly, it seems the only people safe from the curse, other than the people who didn’t eat anything, are the ones who won and wear their gifted diamond necklace, though that doesn't necessarily mean people won't try to take a bite out of them anyway, and it doesn't mean they wouldn't like being eaten too, depending on what they're into. It's all a frenzy, a fever dream. You eat and eat and eat and are eaten, shocked by how much flesh — well, cake — someone can lose.

On the fourth day, you wake up in your room again, as you have every other day, whole and unblemished, offended by the scent coming from outside your windows. Look, and find the sight of rotting cake abandoned in heaps, taking the form of errant limbs, spotted with mold and decorated with buzzing flies. Look for long enough, and you might once again find some weirdly similar to your own body, feeding hornets that flock to your sugary sweet flesh.

Weird dream, right?

DIRECTORY

taken
activity check
setting

reserves
rewards
rules

applications
hiatus & drop
faq

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

John does the shot before he turns, considering this guy with an easy smile, glitter on his teeth and tongue. He no longer needs to rely on a touch to scan his thanergic body: undead, in a glossy sort of way.

"Hi," he says, like a reminder that it's rude to start a conversation asking what someone is. "I'm John, I'm a necromancer. Come to be nec-romanced?" Grinning at his own joke, pitch eyes wide. Hips and toes moving a little to the beat like he wishes he was on the dancefloor. Not particularly intimidated by telepathy or apparent teleportation.

Those eyes. Deep black pools circled with white like shadows of the midnight sun, like the eclipses that would in the old days send scholars and peasants alike to their knees in wonderment and fear. Across the room, they had been strange. Up close, they draw Armand's attention with an almost physical pull. But the heart in his chest beats with a human rhythm, and he smells mortal and vital.

A necromancer. Legends and tomes of witchcraft lore speak of the practice, but Armand has never actually met one before. He doesn't know of any vampire who has.

Armand's expression sharpens somewhat, taking him in. There's a hint of a smile on his face, thoughtful and amused.

"That," he says, "was terrible. Does it work, on mortal men?"

"Sometimes people laugh," says John. "Then I get to use my actual pick up line, which is generally 'meet me in the bathroom in five minutes.' I appreciate anyone who thinks puns are funny, mortal or otherwise."

A slight pause before 'otherwise', a twitch at the corner of his mouth like a shared joke.

"So are you gonna introduce yourself or leave me hanging?" It's not like he has to ask 'what are you' of Armand, even if he's curious about the details given Iggy and Eddie and Astarion had all been very different.

"My name is Armand," he says, with the French inflection. For the moment, just a name, just in case. This creature may have the ability to read his thoughts, may even be able to track through the darkness of his soul and find his way to his deepest core, but Armand knows it pays to be cautious.

The world around them has disappeared, as far as Armand is concerned. The humans surrounding them seem to no longer notice them, but they're keeping a careful distance, a perfect circle of space in the crowd.

"Tell me, when you get them in the bathroom, when you have your five minutes. Do they leave alive?"

"Yeah?" says John, looking a little offended. A puzzled squint of a smile, and he scratches fingers through his beard; he's wearing Danny's bone again by now, which probably doesn't really do much for his credibility. "Listen, mate — Armand." Mangling the French, the d landing sharp and hard sand sardonic. "You've got the wrong end of the stick. I don't kill for fun or food or whatever you've got going on. I'm here to fuck around and eat doritos." And he's not yet out of Doritos. There's a big bowl of them on the table; John takes one to make the world's most irritating crunching noise.

Those Antipodean syllables are an interesting quirk; Armand hasn't met many, lingering as he has in sheltered circles over the last couple of centuries. The amusement in his expression fades somewhat with John's response, replaced by a twitch of distaste as John scoffs his snack, scattering the scent of fake cheese and deep fried American corn.

"You are? And nothing else?" He tilts his head. His eyes are pumpkin orange, brightened with interest, pupils contracting. "This place is surrounded by something unnatural, and dark. It's not your doing, then?"

"Nope," John says, so cavalier it's impossible to read. He doesn't seem surprised, though. "I thought maybe I'd been pulled into some new world, but it seems pretty likely we're just in the Void and this is conjured out of someone's imagination. Either way I'm just gonna have a good time until the next shitty thing happens."

The yawning void in his eyes speaks of a kind of madness Armand is probably familiar with; by refusing to acknowledge the past or the future John lives in an enjoyable state of nihilism that stops him from losing his mind. He has no interest in puzzling out their predicament - what would be the point? At least this universe/hallucination has showers.

That, Armand can understand. He's had his moments, over the centuries. Hedonism and nihilism intertwining in an effort to plumb the depths of his own capacity for suffering, for love. Feasts and orgies, often both at the same time, or one after the other, blood-soaked and terrible, making ritual of the horrors that the village folk muttered to themselves beside their fires. The Rome coven had been particularly notorious for it, having inherited a love of gluttonous sacrifice from their ancient forefathers.

Still, he's moved on. These days, his indulgences are carefully orchestrated in an effort to stay hidden, to shelter his love from the world. Louis was far more important than any frivolous fuck.

But Louis, he's forced to acknowledge, is not here.

Tucking away the references to the void -- a real thing, or simply a figure of speech? Armand intends to find out -- he adopts a thoughtful expression.

"A good time," he repeats. A tilt of his head, catlike. Then he raises a hand, palm up, extended not towards John but to one side. From that direction, a young woman turns around. Golden body glitter shines on the dark skin of her bare shoulders and between her breasts, a crown perched on her afro. She smiles, but her eyes are blank. Her companions don't seem to notice the loss as she steps away from them, into Armand's arms.

With gentle hands, he turns her around so she's facing John. He leans down a little to kiss her cheek, bringing one hand up to hold her throat. Then, eyes trained on the necromancer, he sets the sharp point of his thumbnail to her skin and draws it across, sharp and hard, so her heart's blood spurts forth in a sheet and she shudders, blood spilling out of her mouth, across the front of her dress, pattering to the floor between them.

John watches, quiet and unimpressed, as blood gouts sharp enough to splash his face, his shabby shirt, and the woman's legs kick autonomically as her thanergy starts to cascade and her body goes into shock.

He clicks his tongue, like he thinks that's a shame. Lifts a hand and all the blood lifts in a fine mist from the carpet, from his clothes and hers, from the place it sprayed onto a tablecloth and the legs of someone nearby, he pulls it all in together, one perfect red orb — spend enough time holding onto the sun and orbs just sort of become the default shape. He can feel the presence Armand spoke of hungry for her ghost, but he freezes that death, too, pins it firmly into her chest, putting her in a terrible living stasis; she hadn't seemed aware when Armand had called her to him, but he knocks her out for good measure, turns her consciousness off while he deals with this.

"I don't think this is that kind of party," he says conspiritorially; funny when he can already spot the exasperated servants heading their way, annoyed to once again find John in the middle of a gory mess. He waves them off: he's got this, guys! "You know, I did come out to have a good time, but I'm feeling a bit attacked right now," he adds, the blood still spinning like a red moon between them.

The girl in his arms becomes, abruptly, dead weight, literally and figuratively. Armand catches her automatically, holds her in one arm as if she's simply swooning, her head lolled back against his shoulder. Her heart stutters with a febrile beat, but he no longer cares about her -- his attention is all on John, that gently revolving orb of blood. Her friends, surrounding them, are a blank-eyed wall of privacy, their dancing stopped so they can stand in silence and guard against the intrusion of the servants.

"A deliberate gambit to see how you would react," Armand admits. He reaches up his free hand to draw it along the wound in her neck, pressing out a little more blood onto his fingertips, which he brings to his mouth. Not strictly for show this time; sustaining the mind gift to such a degree is a significant draw on his energy reserves, and the girl's blood is a sweet boost on his tongue.

"Thank you for enlightening me. What should I do with this?" He glances down at her, stroking the backs of his fingers along her jaw. "Do you have a preference?"

"That's my question to you. I can fix her, but she might scream. Cause a fuss. Tell everyone what a cunt you were, go after revenge ... it's a hassle, man" There's a faint note of complaint in his voice. He hates it when people ruin his image.

A sigh, thinking of Murphy promising to keep him in check. Of House whose devotion to life was so intense he'd actively worked to cure the Duchess. Jem telling him to maybe think a bit about his decisions, be a little more human, and a little less inconvenient. He doesn't really care what answer Armand ends up giving: he pushes all that blood back into her and starts the engine back up like he's revving a tricky lawnmower, clicking all the processes back into place and finally sealing up the neck wound, though she'll have a scar. Unconscious, dehydrated, but alive.

It feels good. To work miracles, to really exert himself again. He's not back to full strength but he can feel that the monster and the Duchess and the absence of Alecto aren't working to actively inhibit him anymore. It's nice, like a long stretch or a hard workout. He wipes a little necromantic blood sweat off his forehead, and turns to leave Armand with the consequences of his own actions and find a drink that isn't in jello form.

She won't scream or cause a fuss; Armand can take care of that and does so, stroking the girl's cheek as he watches John turn away to push through the unresisting crowd. She'll wake up with memories of dancing with strangers, drinking too much, falling into bed. Perhaps she'll have nightmares, occasionally, of a red sphere, hanging in the air like a sun.

He hands the girl off to one of her dead-eyed friends to take to her room and tugs his own clothes straight before he heads off to follow John -- with conventional means, this time. John isn't the only one feeling the limits of his own power. Thanks to that little display Armand will have to feed tonight, if he wants to maintain his strength.

It's not difficult to find him again. Armand follows at a distance this time, allowing him some time. An hour, perhaps, before he approaches again.

"Considerable power, but no way to effectively cover your tracks. That must be quite inconvenient." Vampires, at least, have the mind gift to allow them to tidy up their messes more effectively.

"I just don't cause messes," John says, like a liar. He seems surprised to see Armand again, like he forgot about him. Not very flattering, but there's a lot on his mind.

He's outside, has drunkenly decided this is a great time to have a go at the maze, though the glowsticks and glitter make him easily trackable in the dark. "Did you know that woman? The one you killed." Almost killed. John thinks he knows the answer but still wants to hear it.

Striding over the lawn beside him, Armand offers a light, graceful shrug. He slips his hands into his pockets.

"Does it matter?" It doesn't, to Armand. "She would have died the same way, choking and drowning on her own blood. My knowing her name wouldn't have made it any easier for her, or any more satisfying for me."

He skates a glance over to John in the darkness, his pupils reflecting the small sources of light.

"Do you believe her death would have been insignificant to me?"

John would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that he has never asked to be a part of. Still, he says, "Yeah, if she was your hot glittery girlfriend who's into being killed in front of an audience, or maybe your worst enemy who bullied you all through school — of course it matters, fuck. But nah, you just don't value human life. That's it, right? Like picking a cow to barbecue. No judgement, I get it, I still eat steak even though I have it on good authority that cows watch sunsets together or some shit. Though I do try to eat my steak instead of just throwing it in the trash."

This metaphor is getting away from him a little bit. There's a huff of breath in between his words, as he strides across the lawns, putting some effort in. His socks are dew-wet, and he's sweating lightly, real sweat this time rather than blood. He doesn't look at Armand at all.

This, Armand thinks, is what comes of spending too much time around humans. Outwardly, he accepts John's speech with the calm thoughtfulness of the considerate disciple, his attention drifting to the cords of John's throat. His heartbeat is also distracting; Armand can't stop wondering what he'll taste like. If he'll even be allowed to get that close.

"I would have drunk from her, if you had allowed it," he points out. "Her blood would have sustained me and she would have been a small part of me for the rest of my immortal existence. In that way, her life would have had meaning, and value. As it is, I now need to drink from someone else. So, you have saved one, and doomed another."

"Do you need to kill to drink?" John asks, like a casual rebuff, but his pace has slowed, and he's looking at Armand now. Some dark shifting of consideration, mapping out the movement of his limbs in the dark, the strength of his thanergy, the whole of him. Like he's turning over a puzzle in his hands, looking for the place to put his thumbs and twist it apart.

"To drink enough to make it worthwhile, yes. Small amounts will sustain me, but not for long." There's no need to let John know that he doesn't actually need to drink or kill very often, at his age. "Unfortunately, the amount required usually ends in death. At least, for most mortals."

When John slows, Armand slows as well, until he's standing still and allowing himself to be judged and weighed by those impossibly black eyes. Marius used to look at him the same way.

"As you said, humans often hold grudges against those who harm them. So death is also convenient. And less.. messy. It's how we've learned to survive."

John steps in close, fascinated by the way Armand has gone still for him.

"You know," he says quietly, almost contemplative, as he lifts a finger to touch just the tip of Armand's chin, dark eyes boring into him. "My husband is human. My daughter is — basically human. Most of my lovers are human. I don't really give a shit about that girl back there, but I think you'd better be pretty careful about who you put your teeth in."

Or else what? The solution to just kill the vampire now, save all the other lives he might take, is right there. But he didn't do that for Danny, and he won't for Armand. He's flexed his power enough for one night, anyway, so he just leaves it at that.

To stand still under the necromancer's touch is a risk, but also a pleasure. To offer himself and know that he's guessed right when the only contact is a warm fingertip to his chin. Armand tilts his head up slightly, just so. He could be killed here. He won't be.

"Your husband. Your daughter. Your lovers." He lists them off as if recording them to memory, though he doesn't know who any of them are. Yet. He's already planning to find out.

"But nobody else you would like to add. The rest of them, they're just.. cattle."

John's mouth twists a little, but Armand doesn't say it like an accusation, the way that Murphy did. He's still aware he's not supposed to agree, though, and doing so even to someone who seems to feel the same way is handing them a weapon that could ostracise him.

"Mortals die," he says instead. "People hurt each other and get hurt. I don't have time or capacity to get upset about it every time it happens." He's tired of the expectation that he should care about more than his people - when he had power he had a lot of people who he considered his. Now it's just that short lost, and he's pretty sure the only one on it here is Danny. "You're not an exception to that either. How old are you, vampling, a hundred? Two hundred?"

Vampling earns an infinitesimal twitch in the corner of Armand's mouth, not quite a frown. He's used to hearing that kind of disrespect from mortals by now, courtesy of Mr Stoker and his ilk turning their stories into gothic romances and bawdy tales with far more success than his poor theatre troupe could ever have achieved, but it still grates on him.

"Five hundred years old," he offers freely, "by my last count, more or less. I have seen many mortals die in that time. Thousands. I've watched empires rise and fall. Surely you're not surprised that such a life could result in a certain.. distance."

Edited 2024-06-02 11:40 (UTC)

"Yeah?" John grins, sharply wry. "Does it? Only if you're a pussy, I think. I mean, sure, at about the three hundred to five hundred mark it's probably easier to start pretending you're not human anymore. That you don't need to be sad for them because you're, like, better than them, right?"

With the obnoxious condescension of an adult speaking to a teenager who thinks they've seen everything, he stops touching Armand's chin and ruffles his hair a little. "You have to fight that, though. It's not good to lock yourself away." Paps his cheek gently, suddenly fond. Those horrible bright eyes remind him of Mercymorn — of Cristabel, who had turned passionately suicidal at five hundred, which kicked off the whole Lyctorhood thing.

The condescending words are enough to make Armand's eyes first widen in shock, then narrow with distaste. He endures it, having endured far worse from less gentle hands, while training his gaze on the steady throb of John's pulse in his neck. The touch to the top of his head, to his cheek, is not so easy to ignore -- he starts, his eyes round with outrage, and snaps up a hand to grab John's wrist before he can pull his hand away.

"I do not need your advice, necromancer," he hisses, digging his thumb in hard against the collection of veins and fragile bones, feeling the stutter of his pulse. A small point to prove, against a creature who can stop death with a gesture, but Armand's pride is a thing made of jagged glass.

He sends a hook into John's mind, trawling for vulnerabilities. It's like sinking his fingers into oil-drenched sand, like tuning into queasy static on the radio. He can only get fragments, scraps of humanity floating in a tar pool of grief.

Armand's face changes; his grip slackens.

"What are you?" He repeats, now far more wary.

John has to admit, he probably deserves this reaction. Nobody likes to be treated like a kid; five hundred years is pretty respectable compared to anyone else. So he lets Armand do whatever he needs to do to feel assured.

"I'm a human. The question you're looking for is more like the shaky little how long have you been seventeen, right? I'm ten thousand and forty-two. The precision is important. There was a day and a year you were born into the world, just like every other kid in that big house."

Says the man who has forgotten his birthday. He's lecturing because it makes him feel good to pretend he knows what he's fucking doing, to be casual and patronising about the horror of simply living too, too long. His blood beats steady under Armand's fingers, an ancient vintage.

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cw: blood, throat injury, attempted murder

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