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singillppl2025-10-06 11:02 pm
singmod) wrote in singillppl2025-10-06 11:02 pm
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October 2025 Test Drive Meme
OCTOBER 2025 TDM
PROMPT ONE — ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST: A new group of arrivals find themselves lost in the frozen wilds and vulnerable to the dangers of nature. With luck, they make it to the town of Milton, and to a friendly face offering food, warmth and shelter — and the current inhabitants, their fellow survivors.
PROMPT TWO — POWER IN WORDS: Interlopers gather around the campfire and decide to tell stories: only to find their stories begin to come alive right before their very eyes.
PROMPT THREE — FRONTIER COMFORTS: Interlopers come across a surprise baker in Milton, offering up tasty treats — with unexpected effects.
ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST
WHEN: Mid-month.
WHERE: Milton, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potential animal attacks, potential injuries, potential cold injuries/hyperthermia risk.
'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.'
It’s the last thing you hear. A dark, deep voice. Impossibly ancient. You feel afraid. Maybe you’re dreaming, maybe you’re wide awake. You saw the lights, and then your world went dark. But you hear it in the blackness, you won’t forget those words.
These are the words of the Darkwalker, you’ll soon come to find.
You awaken. You are not where you were before. It’s different for everyone, there doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern in where you find yourself. You may open your eyes to find yourself in a cold, dim and dank cabin. The air is stale, dust hangs in the rays of weak sunlight that shine through the tiny windows. Someone lived here once, but they aren’t to be found. This place has been ransacked, abandoned long ago. It is quiet. The wood creaks around you.
Or perhaps you may awaken to find yourself shivering in the yawning maw of a cave, the freezing stone below you. Or maybe you’re unfortunate enough to sit up to find yourself lying in the snow, in the middle of the wilderness. Snow lies thick around you. It’s freezing out. You haven’t felt a cold like this before in your entire life. Cruel and biting. You have no idea where you are, and what’s worse — you are completely alone.
The sun is bright, enclosed in light fog. It is a strange kind of twilight.
You may feel different, too. Any powers or magics you may have feel... absent. Disconnected. Things that may not have affected you previously now do. Something in you has changed.
You know you can’t stay where you are. You’ll need to move, try to work out where you are and how you came to be here. So you walk, head out into the unknown, in hope of finding a trail or a road. You’ll find one soon enough. It’s here you may find someone else in the same boat as yourself, equally freezing and confused. You’ll both need to keep going. It won’t be easy. You hear howls of wolves around you, and the terrain is difficult: slips and falls are likely. You’re completely vulnerable out here in the open.
Or it’s possible you may come across someone else here. Someone who looks far better prepared to deal with the freezing cold and frozen landscape, out hunting or gathering. They’ll likely offer help and get you into town. However, for the unlucky ones who don’t come across anyone, you’ll carry on until you see it: the lazy trail of smoke rising in the air. Fire. Not just one, but several. Civilization...?
Follow it, and soon enough the way you’ve taken will certainly become a path or road. Unfolding before you in the mountainous forests, you’ll see the most welcome of sights: a small mining town tucked up in the valley. Battered, rusted road signs will direct to “MILTON, POP. 947”. You’re almost there, you keep going, and it looks like other people have had the same idea as you. In fact, you’ll hear the muffled sounds of life. People! In the town!
As you head into the outskirts and then further into town, you’ll find it’s a little easier to walk but the cold has gripped you hard. You’ll find the buildings, both shops and homes, some are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up, some of them are occupied. People are going about their business, or stood watching from their tiny porches of their small, timber homes. For a town this big, there doesn’t seem to be many people. Several dozen at most, but no more.
Towards the center of town, you’ll find the building from which the biggest of the smoke trail rises: a school-house of sorts, or some kind of community hall. Perhaps both. You’ll find more and more people all drawn to this place, each and every one of them in the same position as yourself (and your companion, if you’ve found one). Some are in worse states than others: some are bloodied, nursing bite wounds or cuts; others might have some other kind of injury sustained in the journey here from falls. Others may look as if they could faint from the cold at any second.
The door opens, and you’re greeted by the gnarled, wizened face of an elderly man, dressed in thick furs. He has a kind face. He smiles warmly, and with pity, ushering you in with haste.
“Ah. Once more, you poor souls come.” he nods gravely. No, this is not the first time that this has happened. “I am Methuselah. I welcome you, Newcomer, although I’m sorry for how you’ve come to find yourself here. You are not the only one, the lights are changing things. Come. Mother Nature has not been kind to you, but there are plenty here to help.”
The room is dim, lit only by natural daylight through the windows. A roaring fire sits at one end of the huge hall. It crackles, bright and cheerful... and warm. Even as big as this place is, the room is pleasantly warm. You’ll also find basic cots set up down one side of the hall, and while it seems there's a few people already living here, there's enough space for those in need of them. There's places to rest for a moment and get your bearings, or just trying to recover from the cold. Down the other side are tables and chairs, and long tables laden with food, drinks and bottled water similar to one might find at a soup kitchen. Once again, Methuselah offers a feast, aided by some of the other Interlopers.
There are canisters with hot herbal teas, mostly. But some coffee can be found. There’s also soup and stew and trays of charred deer and rabbit meats, plus some grilled fish. It’s very basic, but it’s hot and filling. A feast for those who have battled the cold to come here.
Methuselah will continue to busy himself, still; there is plenty to do. He will fetch blankets, tend to wounds, serve food and drinks — aided by a handful of others in the Hall. Your fellow survivors, but those who have been here for some time now. He does not have much time to talk. More and more people seem to be coming in from the cold. He will not stop to sit and rest until everyone is seen to, taking up a place by the fire to gaze silently into its flames.
He will encourage newcomers to get warm and eat, and when they are ready to — they can explore the town and find one of the many empty homes to call their own. He will not speak much, but gesture to your fellow survivors. They will have better answers than him.
POWER IN WORDS
WHEN: The month of October.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: reality warping; potential fourth-walling; horror monsters/creatures; potential character injury; potential character death.
They say there’s nothing more powerful than stories. Tales of caution told to little children to mind the great and terrible things out in the darkness of the world. Accounts of folk horrors or great adventures to thrill and entertain. Or perhaps stories of valour and hope to help inspire the hearts of the downtrodden and destitute. Words have been spoken over campfires for eons, passed down from lips to lips.
In the Northern Territories, there is plenty of time on one’s hands. The hours seem to crawl by, and there is very little in terms of entertainment to keep one’s mind busy after the chores and business needed to survive is done. Sometimes all there is left to do is to sit by the fire and talk. And with winter quickly approaching, huddling around a fire certainly isn’t a bad idea after all.
And certainly, Interlopers have found themselves compelled to gather around fires as of late. To spend time with their fellow Interlopers, to enjoy the sense of community and togetherness.
Considering the time of year, it’s October — a favourite time of year for some. Halloween draws close, and what better way to celebrate it in a world where nothing much can be celebrated by telling some of your favourite spooky stories for the evening? It feels like as good a time as any, after all.
So you gather around a fire with your fellow Interlopers and begin to tell one another stories. They might be retellings of your favourite horror movies, folktales from your country, stories that freaked you out as a kid. Stories of cryptids or the monsters under the bed. Maybe it might be some supernatural encounter you once experienced. Something to really spook your fellow Interlopers for fun.
… only it isn’t just for fun.
In a world where there are bigger powers at play, there is so much power in words spoken. As you tell your story, something… unexpected happens. Interlopers will find that the horror stories they tell around the fire will start to become a reality. The cryptid from your hometown may just start stalking you from the shadows. The werewolf from that favourite horror film of yours? You hear it howl in the distance. The ghosts you swear you saw once as a kid will appear before you.
You have brought these stories to life, accidentally.
How do you deal with such a thing? Well, how does it end in the story? Your creations only have as much power as the stories that hold them. Stake through the heart for a vampire, a ring of salt for ghosts, silver for werewolves. And you better deal with it quickly, less you become just another victim in the story.
Fortunately, if you’ve talked yourself into a bit of a jam, the monsters you’ve spoken into life will eventually disappear into nothing by the time the sun rises again. You only have to survive the night first.
FRONTIER COMFORTS
WHEN: The month of October.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: altered/magical food items; severely altered/warped behaviours; potential personality switches/animalistic behavioural characteristics; minor body horror; loss of senses; physical age changes; precognition/future visions.
In the month of October, Interlopers have been practically plagued by the delicious scents of homebaking that fill the air in and around Milton. Following their noses, however, has turned up nothing,and no one’s been able to find the source of those smells no matter how hard anyone’s tried to look. Interlopers aren’t exactly living on the most luxurious of diets, and often the most basic and simple of meals is what’s on the table for them in the general day to day. Whatever this is smells practically divine, and no one is immune to being enraptured by them.
One particular day, as you walk around Milton, the scent is particularly strong and this time you’re determined to find the source of the baking. Maybe whoever it is might be in a particularly charitable mood, or might be willing to trade for whatever it is you’re baking.
You see lights on in one of the cabins that had once otherwise been empty, or maybe you’d just never noticed someone lived there. But as you draw closer to the front door, the scents of home cooking are overpowering and you knock, hoping and praying for an answer.
The man who answers the doors isn’t someone you recognise. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about him: he is middle-aged and tall, with a thick beard. Behind him is a busy scene: a roaring fire and the ongoing process of baking. He chuckles at your staring and invites you in. Inside, you find the source of the smell: home-cooked pies of varying types; some more rustic than others, with golden pastry and rich-smelling fillings.
You’re not sure if the man is a fellow Interloper, or perhaps one of the folks from Silverpoint — a Milton native who’s returned home. Or maybe he’s neither. He doesn’t speak much, and only beckons you to pull up a chair at the large kitchen table and eat.
He offers a selection. The choice is yours, Interlopers. But trying out one of these pies might have you biting off more than you can chew.
STALKER’S PIE: A rich pie made with Bear and Wolf meat. Dangerous, mysterious filling. This pie gives the Interloper eating it an animalistic instinct. Your senses are sharp, keen. You hear, smell and see as an animal would. Your nails are sharp like claws, your teeth are now fangs to bear and snap. You see the world in black and white: predator and prey.
PREPPER’S PIE: A dense pie made from foraged vegetables. Rough around the edges. After eating this pie, you feel your mind is clear and untroubled. You feel prepared… in a way you didn’t think possible. For a time, you are able to see things in the immediate future around you. And with that, you are ready for anything.
DOCKWORKER’S PIE: A satisfying pie made from the day's catch. The taste of the sea. As you eat this pie, you feel a sensation of waves washing over you. A gentle rocking, as if you are a vessel on the ocean. With each gentle rock, you feel yourself shift. You’re still you, but another kind of you. Maybe if you’d made another choice, or maybe you hadn’t been chosen. In this world, this timeline, things had gone differently. And now so are you. Different. An alternative version of yourself, rippling through.
BREYERHOUSE PIE: A pie any meateater would love. Lunchbox-ready. Chowing down on this heavy, meat-filled pie reminds you that you too are just meat. And like the game butchered and broken down to make it, the same can be done to you. This pie will temporarily take away one of your five senses: sight, touch, smell, taste or hearing. You may find yourself feeling completely numb to touch; or unable to hear or see anything.
PEACH PIE: A pie filled with sweet, canned peaches. Reminds one of warmer seasons and brighter days. Eating this pie will change your physical age to a younger version of yourself. It will be of a time when things were simpler, happier. The world around you did not feel so empty and terrifying, and you now see it with eyes of wonder and an unbridled heart.
Afterwards, you’ll find you can’t find the man or his cabin again. Once you leave the area and try to return, you’ll find the cabin empty, with no trace of the man or his baking to be found.
FAQs
1. Arrival threads can be treated as game canon.
2. Items characters have brought from home can be found either strewn around them when they awaken, or in the community hall — as if someone left them out for them to collect. Methuselah will not know how they got there, and will be quite bemused by the happenings.
3. Reminder that all characters are now depowered upon arrival. They can choose not to notice it at first, or can immediately sense something is different about them.
4. If asked any personal questions, Methuselah will smile and say "Oh, you don't want to know about an old man like me. But I have lived all over in these parts for all my life." He will be more concerned with trying to help Newcomers, and is genuinely concerned for them and their well-being. Other Interlopers will say much of the same — there's little to know about him.
5. More information about Milton can be found here.
1. While any monsters are fine to bring in, we do ask that players are mindful of bringing in gigantic monsters (ie. Godzilla) that could potentially break the game's setting.
2. Players are welcome to go with monsters from their character's canons, or make up their own ghost stories or go with real-life examples of ghost stories.
1. The effects of the pies will last between eight hours to a week, depending on how much was consumed. Nothing can be done to alleviate symptoms. You will feel incredibly hungover the day after the effects have subsided, like you've eaten something way too rich, but feel completely fine after that.
2. Dockworker's Pie can be any kind of AU, whether that's a canon AU (ie. Endverse in Supernatural) or a player-made up AU. Genderswaps would also be acceptable in this instance.
3. Peach Pie is flexible in how it can be played out. Characters can keep their normal mind/memories, or they can revert themselves to their literal child stage. Or even an in-between point where they find others around them (ie. CR/canonmates) familiar but can't really truly suss out their current situation.
arrival | i hope evening is ok because vampire lol
Louis misses home. He misses—
"Nous sommes à Milton, au Canada. Amérique du Nord."
It doesn't matter here where everyone can understand everyone as if by magic. But sometimes Louis latches onto something and it matters a great deal to the immortal vampire. Is this how Lestat felt when he first heard Louis speak it that fateful evening?
"Louis de Pointe du Lac. Can I help you...?"
evening it is!
"D'Artagnan."
It's offered amiably, as he makes further assessment of Louis, certainly dressed more appropriately for the snow and the cold that...
"I should hope so. I've... I appear to be lost, and I'm uncertain how I came to be here. How far is this Milton from Paris?"
Though he asks of Paris, his accent is not Parisian and his words more tinged with a rougher edge of someone from the southern reaches, as his name might suggest.
his skin thanks you
"Thousands of miles, across the Atlantic. You're in the New World. It's frigid here—dangerous to walk the woods alone, especially at night. There's more than wolves and bears to worry about."
Cold as hell is another way he might put it, but he's not yet comfortable enough around this stranger, wayward and vulnerable though he appears to be. (He's the perfect victim for a vampire, alone and unknown in the dark. No one would yet miss him. Under different, hungrier circumstances, Louis might simply drain him dead. He doesn't want to think too closely on that.)
"Community Hall or General Store? There's a warm drink for you at either, and they're both close. Small town. More people in the Hall." Louis leaves it up to the man whether he would appreciate onlookers or not. As for Marché du Lac, guests can have some tea because Louis says so; he owns the place.
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"Perhaps I'll try the store."
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The GENERAL STORE sign is old, but the subheading Marché du Lac is more recent. He's neglected the store of late, so the stock is thin, little more than a counter with whatever dry goods are left and a surprisingly well-stocked icebox in an adjoining room. A few tables and chairs catch the thin moonlight at the windows.
"It's not much, but it's..." It's his home now, but not by choice. He preferred to sleep away from his place of business, but the places he might bed down in his coffin are now burned to the ground. "It's mine."
He pokes the wood stove to life. There must have been an ember in there among the logs, for he reaches for no fire starters. It slowly begins to heat the room and the kettle of water on it. Louis works off his gloves. His nails are glassy and pointed, something his mother silently turned her nose up at when she first saw them. Louis pulls a blanket from one of the shelves and drops it on the back of one of the chairs.
"Sit. You're half dead on your feet." He frowns critically at his frozen bedraggled state. His eyes linger on D'Artagnan's neck and the opening of his shirt as a matter of course, but he turns away to busy himself with the tins of tea. "It's only bags, but this one claims to be a breakfast tea. Or do you need somethin' a little stronger? It's a miracle we still have whiskey in town with Miss Wynonna around..."
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"You own it?"
The question isn't necessary, but he's not a man who avoids conversation, and it's a point of discussion less offensive than as if he'd remarked on the man's nails, something he sets aside as an effect of such frigid environments, though he knows it to be false. His own still-gloved hand on the back of the chair offered, he scoffs under his breath, near to protesting that assessment, but he has no intention of collapsing and embarrassing himself, so the blanket is taken, pulled around him as he sits heavily, more stiffly than he tends towards, the cold keeping his muscles coiled tight. If he notices Louis's lingering glances, it's not addressed, and soon regardless, he's preoccupied with the tea and how it's presented, 'bags'...
"If you've whisky, I'll certainly take it. Thank you."
The latter is rather tacked on a bit belatedly, as he might've sounded demanding in his appreciation by the nature of his monotonous drawl with little inflection.
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"Yes." He can tell when someone is simply prompting for more information, but Louis isn't about to cast doubts on the legitimacy of his store "ownership." Louis pours him whiskey in a glass and for himself as well because it would be strange if he didn't. He almost immediately drains it with a slight grimace. All food and drink besides blood tastes like nothing to a vampire, like sand or soap. The effects are the same though, and the burn on his throat is bracing if nothing else.
He probably shouldn't look so much like he desperately needs it. It ruins the effect of him removing his coat and settling into another chair with the grace of a gentleman. The general formula of menswear is the same, but instead of linen shirt, jerkin, and breeches, he wears a cotton button-down, wool sweater, and trousers.
"Travel is impossible due to... the weather. I'm stranded here like you. I didn't know what else to do, so I opened a store. Saves me the trouble of livin' like a woodsman." How does he approach the subject of their disparate centuries? Louis is reluctant to. "France... owned some land way south of here where it's warmer and the mosquitoes will eat you alive. Sold it to the Spanish, then to the Americans, who are always tryin' to change how we do things in La Nouvelle-Orléans."
He belatedly clinks his glass against D'Artagnan's with a sigh. He could switch back to American English and still be understood via the magic of this place, but he doesn't want to scare the man.
"Where are you from? Not Paris..."
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"Owned and then sold, and again? I've not..."
He cuts himself off with a quiet grumbling noise as the clinking glass sounds too loud over the rush of blood in his ears.
"A farming village in Gascony, near the border with Spain, where the French are trying to change how we do things."
It's meant to be in amusement, truth of it aside.
"How we're to speak, comport and conduct ourselves... I've been in Paris for several months, not yet a year."
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"I've never been to Paris. You there for work or pleasure?"
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"I'd a little of both, but it didn't stick."
D'Artagnan's voice grows a little softer upon the admission, as he tries not to sound hurt or angry, when he is both. Sighing, he has another drink of whisky, a shrug of his shoulder as he catches Louis's eyes, his own reflecting more darkly.
"Revenge. That's how it started."
It had started as taxes, but that isn't as dramatic, and he might claim it his father's reason and not his own.
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He suddenly dissembles with another one of his charming smiles not out of place in a fancy parlor. He learned that from his mother.
"...You don't have to impress me, you know. But no one starts their story like that without wantin' to tell it."
There's his invitation. Louis doesn't start his story with quiet dignity like this man here. In the unlikely event he does, it's like the lancing of a boil, or more accurately like the messy confession of a sinner.
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"I seek to impress no one, Monsieur."
Dry and without much inflection, it is falsehood not too perspicuous, for he doesn't understand himself that he desires such things in more unpretentious ways. A pause before he leans forward to place his elbows on his knees, glass of whisky set aside.
"I left Gascony with my father. We'd gone to seek an audience with the king on behalf of the village, to protest largely immoderate taxation. No one could afford it, and we were... Well, he was to represent them, if the king would see us at all. It was raining, terribly, and my father wished to continue on through the night to Paris once we were close, but I'd... insisted we stop at the inn."
Twisting his fingers together a bit, D'Artagnan looks off to the side, reining in the tears that spark suddenly, hot and stinging, at the corner of his eyes. He'd not spoken of it like this, told anyone past those who were part of it, what came after, and even then they'd not been subjected to his lingering travail in the months since, brought forth again so sharply in recent days.
"He was killed there, murdered. I was in the stables with the horses and I didn't know until they'd road away, the group of them... he stumbled out into the rain and died in my arms. I left for Paris myself to find the man responsible."
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"It was up to you to find these murderers? Why couldn't you call for justice? Take them to court? Did you ever find out who did it?"
There is no derision or judgment in his voice, only curiosity. Lestat once called him an exile in his own country, and Louis couldn't even say that was wrong. Didn't the other businessmen shut him out when it came down to it? Didn't the police smash his windows? Louis has little trust in his own country's justice and no love lost between him and the police, but he wants to know about the Gascon from 1600s(?) France.
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"My father named him as he died, the one he thought responsible. None other than who I might to go for justice, one of the king's own guard. It was a misapprehension, I learned. This man accused was being framed for it. His fellows helped me find the truth, and we were to... set the murderer to the courts. I did intend to..."
That night is both a hazy remembrance and a sharp one, in different ways.
"I had him beneath my sword, but I let him go, to face justice. I turned my back, he thought to attack me, and I killed him in defense of myself."
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"A lesson in not turnin' your back. Then it's... neatly resolved. Unless it was an important man? Is that why you left Paris?"
Louis had to leave New Orleans for different reasons, but his hasty departure is still on his mind even after so many months in this frozen land. There was murder involved.
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Information that doesn't further anything in his tale, but perhaps sets the tone for how complicated and political things might be, and how a man without connections might find himself inexplicably entangled in it through circumstance. Setting his glass aside, D'Artagnan leans back in his chair, lifting his hand dismissively.
"I hadn't left, not yet. I planned to, ran out of money and what I was... hoping to accomplish wasn't to be. Then I found myself here, and it's as good as anywhere else."
The latter comment is dry, droll, and doesn't hold hope nor disappointment. Louis seems to have done alright for himself in this store, with what they have in this town, and it's aspirational if nothing else to a young man without direction.
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He regards him quietly with a searching look. He thinks there's something D'Artagnan isn't telling, avoiding it like someone gingerly feeling around but not touching a fresh wound. Then Louis remembers to drink from his glass, and he does, swallowing what is to him tasteless but burning all the same. He sets it down with a businesslike clunk in an effort to dispel whatever heaviness was in the air. Louis has his own walls, and he isn't so interested in prying at another's so early.
This isn't the first time a young man without direction has found himself shivering in Louis's place. At least this one didn't break in.
"Well. If you ain't got nothin' to do, I am lookin' for a day shift worker here. Clerk at a grocery might not have the glamor of Paris, but there are dangers enough in these parts. Got shot at for walkin' in the woods, and my house was set on fire. Then there's the beasts. Anyway, think about it... and don't travel at night." Pretty sound advice for a place so close to wilderness. He tells everyone this. Then he adds, "The night's mine."
Louis works here only when the sun has gone down because he has to. He leaves out the lies that dog his sentences like shadows, mainly the parts where he bit people and fed on their blood until they died.
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Flippant as it is, Louis's explanation does have him thinking of what might've been happening elsewhere, unbeknownst to him, perhaps a plot in the works. D'Artagnan hadn't held any power, or position of leverage, but he was close to those who did. Intrigue he won't return to as it is, and best forgotten, he feels. The immediate reaction to Louis's offer is a quiet indignant noise. A clerk. How utterly tedious it sounds, especially in the midst of the unknown and its certain adventures. D'Artagnan's expression shifts to one of sympathy on the surface, but anger simmers beneath it, and his fingers curl into his palm as his eyes flash with a anguish tightly controlled.
"Was there anything left, of your home?"
Though quiet, his voice has taken on a rougher terseness to it. He'll return to the offer of employment in a moment, but this is of a personal concern.
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After he lost his main business, the life of the idle rich didn't suit him except he was kept occupied with the raising of his daughter. Louis has neither his daughter nor his emotional comfort capitalism here. What's a business owner to do in a new world but start another business, especially since he doesn't want to do all of his scavenging? Being bound to the night has its travel restrictions.
"Not a damn thing. Moved in with... someone else for a while. But the store's still here, so there's that."
He was shaken and angry, but he had his revenge. The people of Milton won the battle against the twisted cult the Forest Talkers had become.
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"A tax collector burnt mine down, razed the farm and fields."
He'd found out just yesterday, or today... It makes no sense presently, how one comes to be here in a different season, in a different time D'Artagnan doesn't yet fully understand. Clearing his throat to rid himself of thoughts of a home he can do nothing about, he regards Louis with more thought to the suggestion. The man has his store, and why shouldn't D'Artagnan help where he could. It's something.
"As for your offer... I'm not good with idle pursuits, and I'm terrible with numbers. If that suits you, we might make an arrangement."
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It's not about collecting what's due, it's about sending a message. Even back home Louis did not know the full scope of the consequences of his actions when he stumbled through the burning streets and met a girl who almost died in the fire he caused. She would become his daughter. Why is it that fire follows Louis wherever he goes?
"The job. Oh, you'd be anythin' but idle." Businessman that he is, why would he employ someone to just stand around?
"I do the books. It's just simple math for you, takin' what people barter and writin' it down. If you ain't good at hagglin' now, you will be. I'd be more worried about runnin' errands in the woods. Scarce as everythin' is, I try to keep somethin' on the shelves. Got a freezer full of meat, but it's foragin' that takes time I don't have. Bring a weapon. You had a farm, but wolves are different here. They attack people when they wouldn't before. Whole world's gone crazy. Bears too, and... other things."
no subject
"That sounds dangerous. You've a deal, Monsieur."
What is he to be paid in, he's not asked, nor does he truly care to, the excitement, whether true or imagined when he's to forage amidst waiting wolves and other beasts, might be enough.