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October 2018 Test Drive Meme

OCTOBER 2018 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to October’s Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: HALLOWEEN HORROR.

All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.

Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.

CW: Wet and rotting corpses/zombies, ghosts, violence, blood, knives, possessed dolls, options for underage drinking

Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

IT’S JUST A BUNCH OF HOCUS POCUS

It’s not Halloween if you don’t make a trip to a cheesy haunted house. At least, that’s what everyone in Deerington likes to say. The old Victorian stands at the top of a hill, rickety and in desperate need of a new paint job. The yard and porch have been decorated with what you’d expect for your typical haunted house; fake spider webs spread across the overhang, painted foam grave markers with cheesy names like “Here lies Richard Cranium” and “BEWARE!!” in creepy letter etchings. You can see the blinking of variously timed strobe lights in some windows and the shadow of what you’re pretty sure is a full-sized doll standing in the window, meant to look like someone staring out at you. The rocking chair on the porch near the door has a skeleton with a bowl of candy in his lap, and a sign is propped up against the wall next to him.

“ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. TOUCH NOTHING AND NOTHING WILL TOUCH YOU!”

Well that sounds promising.

The first few rooms you enter are appropriately cheesy. There’s the silly burst of air that you hear just before a plastic figuring pops out of a poorly constructed coffin, the clicking sound of the machinery inside echoing in the room when it starts to pull back and the lid closes once again. There’s fog machines trying to give the appropriately spooky air, stuffed sheets shaped to look like dead bodies wrapped up laying in piles on the floor with fake blood staining the white fabric, black lighting to show off words scribbled on doors like “TURN BACK NOW” and “SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES.” Nothing you haven’t seen before. It might be even worse than things you’ve seen before, over the top cheesy, boring enough to give a yawn. Each door seems to open on its own so you don’t even have to touch the handles.

As you make your way through the next automatic door, the room you walk into is different than those before it. It’s a regular children’s room. A bed against the wall near the window, a dresser in the corner, a small desk with a chair. Nothing out of the ordinary, save for the lights not being on, and the strange flickering light in the closet. You step towards it, figuring you’re in for another jump scare, but the door doesn’t open. Whether you’re naturally the curious sort or not, something in the back of your mind makes you want to open the door and see what’s on the inside.

If you fight it and walk towards the next automatic door, you’ll find you’ve walked out to the backyard of the house, those same foam decorations and a dozen or more jack o’ lanterns lighting your way on a path back to the town.

If you choose to pull the door open, however, it’ll take you into yet another room, with a flickering television playing nothing but static. Once you step past the doors of the closet, they slam shut behind you and whoever else dared to enter. The doors won’t lock no matter what you do, no matter how strong the person shaking the handles or pushing against the wood may be. You realize you broke the one rule; you’ve touched something. But can things now really touch you?

The only light source in the whole room is that television and it’s not lighting up much inside the room around it. If you squint when the TV is at its brightest setting, you can just make out another door. Your exit, you hope. But as you make your way towards the door, the flickering suddenly stops, the TV steadily bright, a low humming noise coming from the screen, and suddenly the door seems several more feet away from you than it was a second ago. Before you can reach the door, there’s the sound of trickling water from behind you. If you choose to look back, you’ll see something coming out from the screen - a girl with soaked clothing and pale, rotted skin. She emerges fully from the glass and starts to move towards you. You know it’s best to start running for that door. If you stay and try to fight, you’ll find that no regular weapons work on her, though special weapons and powers that are effective against spirits will definitely do the trick. For those who don’t have any of these at their disposal, however, there is one more hope besides just trying to run; two old school VHS tape sit on the table near by, a fancy machine between them that is meant to copy one to the other. Work as a team and have one distract her while the other records, and you’ll find that she disappears as quickly as she flickered on the screen and the TV will return to static.

Regardless of what you choose before carrying on, the next room you come to as the door slams and locks behind you is entirely different. Brightly lit and filled with what seems like hundreds of porcelain dolls, it’s almost hard to tell where there could possibly be another exit hidden among the massive shelves. You can start to wind your way through them, but before long, you start to hear the sound of running feet, the jingling of bells, the swish of satin, and most eerily the sounds of children giggling - but there’s nothing that sounds save about them. Some of the dolls you saw on the last shelf seem like they’ve moved and are sitting in the corner or laying in a new position on a new shelf. Sometimes you swear you can see their heads turn to watch you pass, but it has to be a trick of the light, doesn’t it?

That is until one of those dolls runs by you, brandishing something shiny in their hands - something sharp. A knife, you realize too late, as it tries to slice at your legs and knock you down. You can kick them away and they’ll go flying, and when the porcelain smashes, the doll will scream in agony. You notice there’s blood pouring from the hole that formed, spreading quickly across the ground. The dolls are easy to kill, but are they really just dolls? You can take your time to contemplate that later, as now you have to fight your way through the violent and armed toys to reach the door at the end of the maze of shelves. Hopefully you can get out without too many severe injuries.

When (or if) you do manage to get to the next room, you seem to have a chance to take a breath and tend to any wounds. It’s decorated like the room of a small cottage, a large pot over the fireplace that isn’t lit, and several jars full of (possibly rotting) food and herbs on the shelves. You see a book on the stand in the center, latched shut and covered in dust. You can open it, if you want, but remember the warning you ignored that got you in trouble in the first place. It’s probably better to carry on to the next room.

If you do choose to open the book, though, there will be eerily glowing text lining the pages, the light will seem to poor out and fill the room, and you’ll be transported back out in front of the house.

Those who continued through the door will find themselves out in the backyard. Just like for those who got out sooner, there are dozens of jack o lanterns, but the graves don’t look like they’re made of foam this time. They’re real stone, engraved with real names and real dates this time. And the ground underneath them seems to be moving, like someone’s trying to crawl out of there. Better not to wait around. Soon as you start to move down the path, you’ll start to hear the sounds of groans as the undead start to crawl from their own graves, pulling themselves up through the dirt, and determined to get to the only food source they see - you. The zombies seem like they’re never ending, coming from every inch of the yard, but at least they’re just like normal zombies - completely incapable of being killed unless you cut off the head. There are shovels lying next to a few graves if you need a quick weapon, but there’s also still always the option to run as fast as you can up the stone path to the front of the house and back towards the street.

When you do finally manage to get back to the front, there’s a momentary blinding flash of light, disorienting anyone near it for a few seconds. When it finally fades, any leftover zombies chasing you have disappeared and the house looks like the same, cheesy haunted house you walked up to in the first place. If for some reason you decide to go and explore the backyard again, the grass will be back to normal, and the graves will all be replaced by cheaply painted foam once more.

Was that all in your head? Who knows. But maybe it’s best to just get out of here.

WE DID THE MASH

Somehow the street lamps have all been converted to oil based flames, the Authority are in witch hats, and every where you go there is music that seems to be playing from faintly glowing bats hanging upside down from telephone wires. The bats will open their mouths in succession, seeming somehow capable of producing the sounds of instruments and singers alike of popular Halloween songs.

Yards are decorated as thoroughly as the front of stores. Maybe you haven't bothered to decorate, but your neighbor sure has! Fake gravestones are propped up in yards, giant fake spiders in trees, and no matter where you walk, the ground seems covered in thick, rolling fog from machines. Or at least you hope it's coming from machines. Hell, you can't even find it in yourself to be too worried! Everyone around you is having way too good of a time! And God, there is food everywhere! Might as well grab a bite while you're out, huh?

It's tempting to break loose and dance. Jack-O-Lanterns absolutely crowd the streets. There's more than you can even begin to count, and all of them are lit all throughout the night. Even if you accidentally trip over some, they don't seem to catch fire to anything or go out! Some neighbors have camp fires set up with marshmallows to roast, while others have...are those broomsticks? Well that's kinda cool, you guess. Correction: it's really cool since you can actually pick one up and take it for a fly! Make sure to attach a little lamp to the front though because God knows it's dangerous flying at night. The brooms only work if you wear the appropriately provided hats, of course, but you can keep both the broom and hat indefinitely and have a readily available means of flight in Deerington after! Be forewarned though: the brooms are as easily broken as regular brooms and the hats easily blown away in the wind.

TRICK OR TREATS

At any of the events, especially the nighttime partying, you can find any number of the following treats (and their potential side effects):

Donuts (Will make you deliriously happy. Everything is amazing to you. May cause a lot of affection. A lot of affection.)
Candy Apples (You will eagerly tell someone everything you like about them. Talk about a sweet tooth.)
Candy Corn (Will make you extremely sad. Like god, you'll be wondering why you hate yourself so much.)
Pumpkin Spice Lattes (Causes suspicious amounts of obedience and a desire to do what you're told.)
Hot Chocolate (Can provide some minor healing. Best stuff to drink with a common cold!)
Hot or Cold Apple Cider (Nothing will happen. It's just really good.)
Alcoholic Cider (This isn't your grandma's apple cider. This stuff will knock you on your ass. Anyone who drinks this will get wasted regardless of whether or not they are immune to alcohol or even ingest regular food. It only takes one or two before you start to get tipsy, but any more than that and you'll be well on your way to drunk. Please drink responsibly. We don't need any FUIs.)

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

There is not a collective "all these characters showed up at the exact same moment" occurrence in Deerington. Since characters fall asleep, die, or pass out at various times throughout all their worlds, it wouldn't make too much sense if they arrived in game all at the exact same time. There should be some discrepancy between character arrival, whether by a couple minutes, hours, or even days up to a week.

The players are entirely in control of how/when they want to play their characters arriving in Deerington. For TDMs, you can play it like your character has just arrived and that can be maintained as your game canon, or you can wait until game events for that moment. Or you don't need to acknowledge it at all. The flexibility for character allows a bit more of an organic feel to the character arrival situation, so please play it to whatever feels right for you.

If you are interested in having an "arrival" introduction for one of your TDM prompts, you are more than welcome to explore that option.

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( hocus pocus. )

[ Touch nothing, the sign had said, but Steve isn't past the first room before his fingers start itching to. The place'd be a marvel for anyone, but seeing it through an artist's eyes is definitely something else. The machines pumping out fog, the fake monsters popping out from behind corners, the glowing writing (how the hell did they manage that) — all of it wouldn't be out of place on a film set. Or some kind of fair, anyway; that's what this whole thing feels like, rickety old haunted house though it might be. A carnival. Even the doors are opening on their own. ]

Holy cow.

[ In the next room, a lot plainer than the last, the curiosity Steve's feeling increases to a sharp intrigue when the closet door doesn't open on its own. Something in him whispers to open it himself, and Steve frowns. The suddenness of the urge is what gives him pause — that, and the look of the room itself. Too ordinary, too plain, especially considering what he'd just walked through beforehand. Too ... unsuspecting. And nothing will touch you, he remembers, taking his hand away from the handle just before his fingers make contact.

Ain't taking any wooden nickels here, he thinks, vaguely smug as he walks out into the backyard, and then stops in his tracks when he catches sight of the gravestones. The ... very clearly not-fake gravestones, this time around, and the shifting dirt, and the — oh, Christ. He feels the blood drain from his face at the sight of the arm that shoots up out of the dirt, and the thing that clambers out after it.

No longer even remotely smug, or curious for that matter, Steve lunges for one of the nearby shovels, hefting it up and holding it in both hands like a baseball bat. Hey, if he's going down, he's going down swinging. ]

( the mash. )

[ Okay, fine. Steve has two left feet, but that doesn't mean he doesn't like music — doesn't mean he's never thought about dancing. And it sure as hell doesn't mean those same left feet won't be tapping to the beat, strange as it is, while he walks down the brightly lit street. If this is all just a, a hallucination of some sort, if he's really asleep somewhere back in Brooklyn, then it couldn't hurt to indulge. Right? Just a little. Just ...

Listen, it's free food. And drink. And maybe Steve might've had a donut, and some hot chocolate, and a little bit of the hooch, and is now tipsily wandering over to take a closer look at those funny-looking hats, bumping into some folks along the way. He doesn't mean to, promise. ]

( byoa. )

[ ooc: bring your own adventure!! feel free to do any of the options, incl. the tv and doll rooms in hocus pocus — maybe steve did take that wooden nickel after all. ]

Edited 2018-09-30 08:09 (UTC)

[The haunted house itself isn't so bad, but coming outside and seeing some kid about to go head-to-head with the rising undead isn't exactly good. Add to that that multiple graves are opening up, soon making a squadron of zombies, and Bruce can't hesitate, green filling his vision and his body expanding with a quiet growl slipping past his grit teeth.

The Hulk stalks forward and grabs Steve around the waist, surprisingly gentle in picking up the small figure and putting him aside with a grunted:]

Stay.

[ If all this really is a dream, it looks like he'll be waking up sooner than he figured. There's just too many of them; walking corpses, rotting flesh and the inexorable sense of death and malice lumbering toward him, and Steve can hear his blood rushing in his ears as he prepares for impact. Prepares to swing at the first one to get to him, as hard as he can, because dream or no dream, there's no way he's going to just let these things eat him.

Which is when a hand, larger than any hand has a right to be, grasps him around the waist and Steve yelps in a mix of shock and fear that even the zombies lurching his way hadn't evoked in him. Stay booms in his ears, and he looks up at what has got to be some kind of ... giant. Green. Making the earth shake with each huge footstep forward, and it occurs to Steve that the grip he'd had around his waist had been careful, almost gentle, which means he doesn't mean Steve any harm. ]

Wait, let me help!

[ He can't just let the — the guy go at them on his own, ten feet and enormous though he might be, strong enough to lift Steve like he weighs about a feather's worth. There really is too many of 'em, and Steve knows numbers can sometimes make the difference. ]

[Hulk's taken the time to roar in warning at some of the zombies beginning to lurch their way to the living, angrily swatting one hard enough to send its head flying and... splattering against a tombstone. The others are still half in their graves and he's about ready to start playing whack-a-mole with them when the voice registers and he looks back with a confused squint.

He leans in, crouching low enough to rest on his hands as he gets closer to Steve's face, as if he needs to scent the young man as well as examine his features.]

... Cap? [No, he has another name, not just Cap, what's the other one...] Steve.

[ Okay, maybe numbers won't be making much of a difference in this situation. Steve's eyes go wide at the force with which the, the green giant smacks one of the zombies; hard enough for its head to hit a gravestone so hard it looks like particularly gruesome porridge. Still, it doesn't sit right with him to just stand aside and let the guy who saved his life do all the work on his own.

... The guy who, apparently, knows Steve's name. No, wait, Steve thinks, frowning. It's more than that — there's recognition in the gaze that's peering into his own, close enough that even Steve's poor eyesight can catch every little detail of his face. He doesn't just know his name, he knows Steve. ]

Yeah, that's — I'm Steve.

[ But this doesn't make any sense; this is one ... person that Steve would absolutely remember meeting before, at any point in his life. He shakes his head, bewildered and apologetic. ]

I'm sorry, but I don't know your name.

[He squints himself, leaning in even closer and examining the tiny person in front of him, even cautiously poking Steve in the chest with a huge finger. Definitely real, but not Captain America.

Hulk even takes a deep inhale, sniffing at Steve and completely ignoring the zombies approaching from behind. He even smells off. The 'Steve' scent is there, but over it is... almost nothing. A bit of illness, city-stench but... off. Not enough metal, leather and sand and that otherness he'd absorbed on a cellular level.

Weird...

But even the Hulk can acknowledge some manner of basic manners (now), and grunts:] Hulk is Hulk.

[The zombies are getting too close though and Hulk's nostrils flare, catching their foul odor and making him growl deep enough to nearly make the ground rumble with him.]

Steve stay back, Hulk will protect.

[Whoops! Clara fumbles the - largely defunct - cell phone she had been distracted by, and steps back to see who she's collided with.]

Sorry.

[Oh, he's a dear, and he looks... quite inebriated. She's been avoiding the concessions herself, more out of distraction than any specific paranoia, but she can tell from the people around her that the drinks must be stronger than they look. She'd prefer to keep on her toes, in a place like this.]

You alright, there?

[ If Steve was in his right mind — that is, not sloshed, not oddly happy despite having zero reason to be — he would be properly mortified at his conduct right now. Drunkenly bumping into fellas is one thing, almost knocking into a girl is another. As it is, though, he only feels a moment of contrition, like a brief shock of cold water over his senses, before he's stumbling upright again with a faint but apologetic smile. ]

No, I'm sorry — 'm fine — shoulda been more careful. [ The world tilts again and Steve has to hold onto the broom in his hand to keep upright. There's an uncertain second where he wonders why he's so drunk this quickly when he'd only had a little bit of the alcohol. ]

Are you okay, ma'am? I didn't step on your feet or nothing, did I? [ He squints down at her feet as if he'd be able to see for himself if he had, which drunken logic posits should be entirely possible. ]

Edited (forgot to remove the subject line!) 2018-09-30 20:23 (UTC)

[She follows his line of sight, down to her own sneakers, but instead just notices how unsteady his feet are looking.]

Not at all. [If he did, his weight wasn't even enough for Clara to feel it.] And you can drop the "ma'am" - you're not one of my students.

[The gentlest of chastisements, as she reaches up to steady him by the shoulder.]

How many have you had?

[Skye is standing by where the brooms were, watching in awe as someone takes off into the sky on one of the brooms. She's a glass and a half into the alcoholic cider and she's feeling good. Honestly, this has to be most carefree she's felt in months, well before she's even arrived here. She hears someone get cursed out for bumping into them, Skye turns to see if things are about to escalate and ends up even more shocked than she had been a moment ago at seeing people actually flying.]

Holy shit. Has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like Steve Rogers? You know, minus the height and--

[Skye's eyes drift over his small frame.]

Muscles.

[If she wasn't on her way to getting completely shit faced, she might've realized that he is actually Steve Rogers.]

[ As a five foot four nobody, Steve ain't exactly used to being addressed with any sort of familiarity or interest by a pretty dame. Right now, though, he looks merely pleasantly startled — maybe a bit shy — and smiles vaguely, like he's amused instead of shocked. She looks as tipsy as he feels, for that matter, and Steve steps a little closer in case she stumbles and he needs to hold an arm out to keep her from falling. It easily slips his mind that he himself is stumbling around and had, in fact, just been cussed out for walking into some guy. ]

Sure. I am Steve Rogers. [ Then the rest of her words register in his whiskey-fogged brain and Steve frowns, blinking. ]

Wait, wh—? [ Muscles? Height? Yeah, that ... huh. Definitely not him. ]

—uh. Maybe not the Steve Rogers you've met, though.

[ He smiles again, and shrugs like he's sorry he's not the guy she's looking for. ]

[Skye's expression goes from excitement to confusion, and then giddiness.]

You're messing with me, right? Is this some sort of prank? A trick instead of a treat. Did someone put you up to this? You even have the voice down. I mean, from what I remember when 'you' were on TV.

[And then, suddenly, she remembers that he used to be like this. Before the experiment.]

Holy sh-! You are Steve Rogers. How-?! Oh my God!

[It's fine. She's fine. She's just really excited and happy right now.]

[ Bucky would like to think that he knows better than to fall for a haunted house attraction around here. Months of near-death disappointments have left him more than a little cynical about the whole "fun" thing in this town, but he also knows the town is full of people who will absolutely go to a haunted house. There are too many kids around and Bucky's not going to sit back and let one of them get hurt for trying to have a good time.

Speaking of kids-- ]

Hey, kid!

[ He jogs the rest of the way to the house, hand gun out but he's not sure what use it will be against those things. He's in a hoodie and jeans with his long hair down and about a week's worth of stubble, looking a lot older than he had in the 40s. His metal arm is rarely hidden here and while it's just his hand that's showing today, it's unmistakably not made of flesh and bone. ]

Jesus, what are you--

[ And he freezes with his gun at his side, because this isn't fucking funny. Of all the cruel fucking jokes this place has played on him, this takes the cake. ]

[ At the shout behind him, Steve's first reaction is to look around, alarmed at the thought of there being a child with these goddamned things coming out of the grave, ready to spring to the kid's side immediately. Then his brain catches up with whose voice he just heard. A voice he'd know among a hundred others, a voice he'd recognize even in his sleep. But that's impossible, it can't be —

He turns. It is. ]

... Bucky?

[ It's him, his gut reiterates stubbornly, but Steve doesn't understand, can't hear beyond the blood suddenly loud in his ears. The world narrows down to one point, and it's the man in front of him: long, dark hair, stubble, wearing an odd hooded sweater, and the face of Steve's best friend. The face, yeah, the face is right, but the rest of him — Steve squints in the dark, eyes straining as they go from the firearm Bucky's got in his right hand to the strange glint of his left. It's like he's wearing some kind of ... glove?

Frozen with shock, distracted trying to figure out why Bucky looks so off, Steve doesn't sense the approach of one of the undead behind him until it grabs him by the back of his shirt with a rotting groan that makes his hair stand on end. He turns around with a strangled yell, aiming a haphazard kick at it, both his legs going out from under him when it makes contact but at the wrong angle. ]

[ Bucky doesn't let himself worry about whether Steve is really here like that. If it isn't Steve, he'll deal with it, and if it really is Steve, Bucky has to keep him safe. Having Steve's back is like breathing. He just does it and he doesn't know where to begin to not do it.

Feet planted, his right arm comes up fast and sure. As Steve loses his footing, Bucky's bullet flies past him to hit the zombie in the dead center of its neck. He takes two more successive shots, driving it back a few steps before he runs full speed to close the distance between them. ]

Stay close.

[ It's his left hand that reaches down to help Steve up, the right one busy gripping his Beretta as he kicks out at the zombie with a little more success than Steve had had. He's not even thinking about the fact that it's metal right now. It doesn't matter. He just has to get Steve out of here in one piece and he doesn't have enough bullets to take these things down. It's not exactly an unlimited resource around here. ]

[Airy has a witches hat on her head and a broom in her hand when she's suddenly pushed from behind. As slight as Steve is, Airy topples over and ends up staring up at the winking stars.]

Ouch. [She rises to her feet and fixes her hat.] I would have gotten out of the way... [Or tried too. Airy hadn't really been paying attention.]

Are you trying to get a hat? I can get you one easily.

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