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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Kill them with a smile. That's something X'rhun has done much in the past both literally and metaphorically.

And he's not about to stop now, though he hopes he wont have to draw his blade.]

Mm. [X'rhun follows anyway-- he's never been good at following orders, more of a man who gave them, in his younger days. His tail raises just a little, a relaxed curve to its end.]

And what shall you do once you find such things that are not meant to be seen by others?

[He wasn't particularly bothered about being followed, aware that he could lose most tails (no pun intended) that he managed to pick up. That the cat-man decided to follow him away from the mingling people wasn't anything he even cared much about, though it might give him an opportunity in future to test the limits of the items that he had brought with him.]

Depends on what's there, obviously. Blackmail comes to mind.

[He didn't glance back and had awareness of the distance between them.]

What would you do with them? [Not that the cat-man's opinion mattered to him.]

[X'rhun gives a deep rumble in his throat, as if considering the response and his own answer to it. It's half that-- but also half knowing that perhaps he should stop that plan before it truly takes flight.

Or at least mitigate the damage. He of all people knows just what may happen if someone gets too deep into the bottle of a drink with... unusual side-effects.

Still, he keeps his amiable smile on his face.]

Oh, simply keep them. What need do I have with the secrets of others, after all?

Build a farm? Nay, I'm no good at botany.

I thought we were talking about skeletons.

[Those were always good for gardens, or so he had been told. Calcium in the soil and all that. He was certain that someone would have thought of it. Of course, bones were evidence. Best to mulch them up first.

He wouldn't imagine cat people were good for much but being annoying. That seemed to be the case right now anyway.]

You're annoying. Go away.

[Never show weakness to a natural predator, with hunting in his blood. And this admission is practically a weakness, where X'rhun is concerned.]

Mmm, no! Did I not say-- I shall be the tail to your tailless self.

[After all, if this man is too busy being annoyed at the Miqo'te, he would not have any time to do whatever nefarious deeds he's planning. Or even simply terrify the populace.]

[Never show one's back to a natural predator as well, unless one considered themselves to be bigger and better at it. Hence why he was walking away, not at all perturbed to be showing his back to the cat-man.]

Why don't I just pull your tail and we'll see where that leads us, hmm?

[He was confident he could just leave. That was how he normally operated, but having a tail now meant positive deniability later.]

[The Miqo'te laughs, cheerful and bright as the sun he worships. He's enjoying this, in some fashion, and his relaxed gait and tail show this.]

Ah, but that is an activity for children, we are not kittens in a playground, are we? [Perhaps the metaphor would be pulling pigtails for Hyur, but for his kind, they use something entirely different.]

I'm not a cat, in case it's not obvious. [Perhaps all that scarring extended to being blind too. Who knew. Or maybe it was just a cat thing to be annoying at all times possible.]

I've been told a tail pull injury isn't kind. [Nerve damage and all that. Either way, he was leaving the park now and heading up the street, intent to see if the other would just return to the festivities.]

[If he's worried by the threat, he doesn't show it.

Sometimes X'rhun knows exactly what he's doing. But sometimes he can just be... stupid. Whichever this situation will turn out to become, only time will tell.]

Perhaps! But a tailless man wouldn't know, hmm?

Unless the tailless man had pulled many tails and seen the results.

[It seemed that he was going to keep having the cat follow him. It made him wonder if there was any place that he would actively be stopped from going. A little game of cat and mouse, perhaps?

He skulked in the shadows better than most, barriers were made to be circumvented and people needed to stay out of his way in general.

He easily ducked down the closest alley as well, easing into the shadows and continuing onwards. He fingered one of his Hellfire shotguns, but there was no need to pull them yet. Instead, his legs simply dissolved into mist and he glided forward in near complete silence, just a gentle shush sound as he increased his speed.]

What a godsdamned heartbreaker you are.

[He's already having difficulty in this dark... But X'rhun's ears twitch the moment he loses track of the man's footsteps. This is slightly troubling, because he doesn't know what just happened, and he's left just a little bit wrong-footed, because he's been using those footsteps as his primary method of tracking the man.

Well then, a chase-- a hunt.

He's no Keeper of the Moon to be truly efficient at hunting under the vast night sky, but he still has his nose, and he's spent enough time here in Deerington to know this like his own territory.

And he also still has his nose, and knows the man's scent, even if he's no hound.

X'rhun scales one of the walls of the alleyway and bounds along the rooftops, following the scent as closely as he can, as silently as he can. Though his steel heels may make some noise here and there due to his illness, much to his chagrin.]

That's the truth on so many levels.

[Now this was a bit more interesting when it became clear that kitty had lost track of him if those ear twitches were anything to go by. He glided away, a low whispering on the wind as he rounded the corner at the end of the alley and off into another, holding the glide for as long as he could.

The last of that ability propelled him up to a rooftop, slipping into the shadow of a chimney as he reformed, picking a spot where he was down wind. He tilted his head back as he listened for the sounds of pursuit.

Cat and mouse indeed.]

[Despite the silver-blond fur, the long red coat and cape, the long leather boots and steel heels, X'rhun knows how to be quiet and stay relatively unseen by prey, moving in ways that would make his footsteps barely more than light taps, his clothes soft rustling. He hasn't hunted in such an open area since his younger days, but it's in his blood-- this is doable.

Truly, his biggest issue is his inability to see properly at night, in the dark. But he has more senses to make up for that.

And he craves a challenge. Has been for a while, stuck in this town and unable to leave. He's never done well with just sitting still and waiting for something to happen.

But he's almost lost scent of his quarry and he's sure the other man is looking for him as well. So X'rhun presses himself against the roof access stairs and tugs his cape out of his belt, pulling it over his shoulders to let the black fabric cover the red of the coat. More camouflage in the night.

Not to say he's lost all traces of the man, just that the scent has weakened.

X'rhun stays low as he creeps towards where he believes the man is hiding, softly and carefully, movements deliberate and measured to make as little noise as possible to keep his quarry from bolting-- or at least bolting too early and he cant have any chances of catching up. Though perhaps he should tag the man in some way. Maybe singe his robes with magic, which is much easier to leave a trace, and track off of than simply scent and sound...

But he catches both again, so faint and soft, and X'rhun makes a beeline for that roof. His fingers will begin to spark with red magic as soon as he makes it close enough.]