MAY 2018 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to May's Test Drive Meme! This is our first Test Drive ever so let's make it a good one. This month's Test Drive's theme is: DARK FAIRY TALE.

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: Body horror, disease horror, eye horror, fungal horror, mythical creature gore, child-eating monster.

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

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Prompt Three
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE

You could be anywhere in Deerington when you first hear it. It's a soft, stuttering click. Like plastic being dragged across the ground. The moment you stop, it stops. When you begin to walk again, the noise picks back up, clicking its way softly after you. It doesn't exactly sound hostile, but it's enough to make your skin crawl. Something is following you. When you finally turn to look, you'll find a....thing. It looks like it might have once been a mannequin, but the eyes staring up at you are so hauntingly expressive that it makes you doubt that. Its missing a leg, and both its arms, and to move it is pushing itself across the ground, its head lolling up to look at you with unblinking eyes. The moment you make eye contact, there's a low, moaning noise that's faintly feminine.

"Please...." it says, its mouth unmoving, but you know without a doubt it's coming from the creature in front of you. "Please hold me."

The request takes you aback. The plea is desperate, fragile even, the voice trembling with tears not yet shed even though the eyes remain dry.

"I haven't touched something in so long," it cries, and with great effort, it pushes itself into an upright position. Its entire body is destroyed from crawling around, the "skin" scraped down raw. But from what you can see, there's a film of something that's infested most of its torso. Whatever it is looks like it could be contagious, and the stench of cat urine overpowers you for a moment.

"Please, I beg of you."

If you should choose to hug this poor creature, the thing will sigh in immense relief, its body shuddering against you before it simply breaks to dust in your arms. From the dust rises not one, but several large black ravens. They caw loudly, flying fast and hard. One lands on your shoulder, or maybe your head, or perhaps an arm, but either way it begins to croak gurgled words in random order: "Top!" "Fly!" "Drop!" "Comes!" "Crawl!" "Egg!" And it seems to be insistent that you hear it out. At least if you begin to pet it, the bird calms down enough to stop squawking. If you stick around long enough, you'll find that weeks from now, even months from now, this same raven will randomly seek you out with tiny little useless gifts like pieces of shiny metal and buttons it finds that it'll want to give you. Not really helpful, but you've clearly made a friend.

...But if you refuse the thing affection, it'll start to sob. That's when everything goes wrong. Your entire body will start to turn against itself. Your skin will begin to split apart, and any number of things may come out whether it be scales or fur, but your body begins to rip itself apart. To accommodate horns, to grow in fangs, to sprout tails and distort limbs. Any number of appearances can come out of this, but all you know is that every single fiber of your being is in agony, and by the end of it all, you're no longer the person you had once been. What stands in your place is now a horrible monster, and the thing that had begged for a shred of affection has vanished.

Thankfully, the monster skin will shed off whenever you finally go to sleep. But have fun waking up in a literal pile of gore of whatever fur and scales you had managed to grow from the encounter.

Regardless of whatever interaction you face, the Townspeople around you are trying to hurry away as fast as possible. It seems like none of them want to deal with the mannequin or you. Hopefully other people might be a little more empathetic...or not...to your situation.

DON'T LOOK BACK

One of the most striking things in Deerington would be its National Park. It goes for several acres of thick, lush pinewood and beyond it, a beautiful mountain. It's picturesque and the smooth, glassy lake makes it all the more ideal of a place to visit. The National Park even has a camp ground for people who might want to pitch a tent and spend a night under the stars. Surely a place so beautiful couldn't be as dangerous as all the warnings signs keep saying it is, right? One warning sign is particularly curious. It's a simple orange metal plate nailed to a couple trees on a few paths that show a few cartoonish mushrooms, and then in thick bold letters: DON'T LOOK BACK. KEEP LOOKING FORWARD UNTIL THE END.

They aren't particularly descriptive signs, but it isn't too hard to figure out what they might be indicating. But that sort of thing is the stuff from kids' books. Surely eating mushrooms is dangerous, but just walking past them? Taking to the trails made for hikers is nothing short of a dream. There's various difficulty levels for the trails, and no matter which trail you pick, you'll notice at some point that there is a cluster of bright red mushrooms growing along the trail. Not just one or two. Dozens of them. Enough to draw anyone's attention.

It's hard not to think back to those signs you had seen before. Don't look back. Keep looking forward until the end. Until the end of what? Looking ahead, it seems like the mushrooms go on endlessly. Surely that sign didn't mean until the mushrooms were no longer on the sides of the trail? Who knows how long that could take?

The paranoia sets in naturally. Grinding its way into weary travelers. Or worse: the curiosity. What happens if you look back? Maybe it was just some Townspeople playing a prank. You'd seen kids around. You could always just peek back.....

But if you do, you'll instantly be struck into a daze. Your eyes won't just glaze over- your iris will vanish entirely from existence, instead leaving in its wake a network of fine red veins. Your jaw will hang open and you'll remain completely motionless. That is until someone finds you anyway. If you're lucky, they won't just walk by. If you're lucky, they'll try and wake you up. It doesn't take much. True love's first kiss is all....That or a really firm smack across the face. People who come out of this coma will find themselves disoriented and dizzy. The world around them will see a little too colorful and everything will feel soft.

Getting this person to turn back around and keep walking is the tricky part. If you can only both make it to the end of the mushroom trail, you should be okay....

On a few of these trails, people might come across those who weren't so lucky to be saved. These figures have been around for God knows how many days, weeks, months, maybe even years, but they're shells of former humans. The worst part is that splitting open their skin and growing out of every inch of their skin are the same, bright red mushrooms sprouting along the trail. Their mouths are filled with them, and while you can't see much, you'll be able to see those blank, white eyes staring endlessly, and if you walk past this figure...It'll feel like they're staring endlessly at you.

DON'T EAT THE FOOD

It's a Betty that gestures to you suddenly. Perhaps you were just trying to explore the town, but suddenly there's a woman in a strange mask beckoning quickly to you. "You're new here, right?" she'll ask, "Do you want to find a way out?" She's looking around, as if to make sure no one is paying attention to either of you, and then she will lead you to a nearby alley. It doesn't seem sketchy, not when the woman seems in a rush to pull out a small velvet bag. "Here," she'll say, pushing it into your hands.

"You need to draw a square into the ground here. It'll make a door you can climb through. There will be a...." Her voice will tremble for a second, but then perk right back up. "Just don't eat any of the food and you'll be okay. You'll see a red door at the other end of the room. Go directly to it."

It seems a little absurd, but after everything you've been through, it's worth a shot to try. Besides, it's not like you can ask too many questions because as soon as the Betty has finished talking, she's rushing away. You're left with a simple decision: draw a square or to not draw square.

Those who draw a square will find that the woman was telling the truth. A door will be made in the ground that you can slip through and you'll find yourself in a very...curious room. It's dark and filled with paintings of a horrible creature eating babies lining the walls. A long table sits in the very middle of it filled with beautiful, rich looking food that smells heavenly. And there's goblets of your favorite beverages sitting everywhere. The food has everything you have ever craved sitting on it ready for the taking, and while you might have the best control, you'll find that it's extremely hard to look away. And why are you suddenly noticing how hungry you are? It feels like you haven't eaten in days. But there is one thing that is a little more attention grabbing than all that food. It's the occupant sitting at the head of the table.

The Pale Man is motionless. That's when you notice you're not alone in the room. There's another person there with you.

And then there's the door the woman had mentioned. Now all you have to do is just get to the door. Simple.

Right?

Unfortunately for you, the door is locked and there's no way through it.

If you stop to eat the food that is tempting you so, the Pale Man will awaken. He's aggressive towards all. He'll aim to kill adults, but he will actively try and eat children. Either way? He doesn't seem stoppable. Any wounds inflicted on his body merely slide back together. But his eyes...Those are vulnerable.

That or you have an entire bag of chalk. Drawing a way in means maybe drawing a way out? At least you're not alone either way. Maybe if the two of you could somehow manage to tag-team this thing.

Character Arrival

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

[what he runs into is a tallish boy - or rather, a young man. said young man is broad, muscular, wearing a pale aqua polo shirt and cargo khaki shorts with a pair of beaten up old boating shoes. someone who should be on a yacht, not in a forest, except everything about him exudes comfort with the trees. he catches eddie gently by the shoulders, an automatic mom-move sort of thing. his face in profile is handsomely youthful but when he looks at the younger boy his eyes are filled with something odd. it's not frightening, but it's as if he's older, somehow.

then he smiles, and that's all gone, he's just a handsome guy walking through the woods.]

Careful there. When you're in a magical forest, you should probably keep a good eye on where you're going.

(These two boys aren't dressed too dissimilar. Eddie's too young to have reached the effortless quality of a practiced dresser, but he's clearly in the making of such style with his own neatly pressed salmon colored shirt and dark brown shorts all complete with suspenders snapped over his shoulders. His clothes are obviously a bit aged, the socks up to his knees and his sneakers perhaps the most telling things that he isn't from Gansey's own period. Eddie wobbles under that hand steadying him, both to gain his balance, and both to gain his sense of self. He hadn't expected to run into an older boy here.

Alone.

In the woods. Like that old refrigerator Patrick used to keep....

Something like fear scratches its way up the back of his throat and he instinctively shrugs Gansey's hand away, no matter how kind its intention had been. He takes a step back, but thankfully does not turn around. His own eyes are a bit odd, though not older. Just.

Elsewhere, maybe. They're flat, gray, and bore into Gansey without blinking.)

I was. I tripped is all. (Which...kind of contradicts the part about him looking where he was going, but details. His eyes skirt over this guy. He certainly doesn't look like Henry Bowers, but that doesn't mean anything.)

Who says the forest is magical? Maybe it's just haunted.

It happens.

[the boy is defensive, wary. probably not wrong to be, although gansey's eye places his clothes as 'era appropriate' instead of 'god, gansey, wear a t-shirt like a normal person'. there's something about the distance in his eyes that reminds gansey of himself around that age, after the accident. someone things have happened to. he takes a half step to the side, gives the kid his space.]

I say it's magical, because I've been in a magical forest before. Not like this one, but there's a feel to things that are magical, if you've got a knack for it. Like a tingle on the back of your neck, except in the mind.

[or maybe it's because of what he is now. but he'd felt cabeswater before that, too, sensed something in the things ronan made.]

Also, mushrooms don't usually grow like this. In little clusters, sure, but not paths.

Well I have been in a -.

(Eddie stops, frowning. He hasn't actually been in a haunted anything. IT didn't exactly haunt. IT wasn't a spirit. He mulls over what he'd describe the feeling as. A ...corrupt place? That's kind of what the rest of Deerington felt like. Like trying to put two blocks together, but the pieces didn't line up. But the forest was different. Maybe this guy was right.)

The town feels off. That's mostly in my gut though. Besides. Magic doesn't automatically mean good.

(Not that Gansey had said it did, but Eddie felt like the clarification was important. He regards the mushrooms. He didn't know much at all about them, so that's enough to make him frown.)

You think the signs are serious then? About the not looking back thing?

Agreed entirely, on both counts.

[gansey nods. whoever this boy is, he seems to have some sort of connection to...something. he's not going to try and posit what in the middle of a magical forest. later will be soon enough.]

The good or bad of magic is in the wielding, after all. Nature itself isn't particularly moral.

[for a moment he looks at the boy solemnly, taking him in. so young. or maybe gansey just feels old.]

I don't think it's a very good idea to test them. A bit ago I passed something on the path that used to be a person, facing back the way I'd come.

[it's stated calmly. not casually or without care, and not in any sort of coddling way. just something that's the way it is. magic isn't good or evil, after all. it just is.]

(Gansey would of had a better idea of all that than Eddie himself. His self-awareness was poor, and he would sooner accept that he's a regular, boring person than anyone with any kind of connection or- ability. He regards the mushrooms with a bit of a look.)

Like dogs.

(Which was a sort of short, kiddish response, but it's simple enough in its delivery. He gets it. Nature doesn't bite at you because it hates you. That's just what it's meant to do.

His eyes flick to the boy and he swallows a little thickly.)

What do you mean used to be?

A bit, yes. Although a dog can be trained, and I'm not sure magic can. I was never the one with the knack for it.

[gansey tilts his head a bit curiously.]

We can't exactly go back for me to show you, but like as not, there will be another ahead of us.

[and he starts walking, clearly expecting Eddie to follow.]

Oh, I'm Gansey, by the way.