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May 2018 Test Drive Meme

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.

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{ DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE }

[ The mannequin is horrifying in a way Elena hasn't experienced before, broken and worn and moving when it shouldn't. Magic isn't anything new to her, her entire existence is due to some mystical reason or another it seems, but this. She can't explain it and there's a part of her that urges her to run, to leave this thing behind and never think about it again. But there's another part that finds the mannequin pitiful, and Elena is nothing if not a creature of compassion. ]

Okay. Okay, just-- Please stop hurting yourself.

[ So she kneels there in the middle of the street, uncaring of the dirt that will end up all over her jeans, sparing only a glance at the eerie state of its torso, and reaching out to wrap her arms around the poor thing. The sigh of relief breaks her heart and she's about to say something soothing the way her mother would have--

Dust. Dust and birds are suddenly everywhere, the mannequin released from whatever had held it in that hell, and Elena flinches down out of the path of the ravens for a moment before she's struck by how strongly they remind her of London. (Minus the third eye, of course.) They aren't attacking, and when she stills enough for one to land on her shoulder, it speaks. She listens to its string of words and smiles before reaching up to carefully smooth a finger over the feathers of its back, a world of affection in her gaze and voice as she greets her new friend. ]

Hi bird.

{ DON'T LOOK BACK }

[ Elena is usually very good about following directions. Really. So long as it didn't involve leaving people behind or letting others suffer in her stead, or-- Okay no, she can pretty terrible at following directions. She should have known better than to wander onto this trail, where every instinct is urging her to both listen to those signs and also to do exactly what they said not to.

Just a little further, the trail can't be that long, she'll reach the end soon... But not soon enough. Curiosity gets the better of her and she turns, just a quick glance is all she needs. That's all it takes.

Whoever walks by will find her standing there, unmoving and unseeing, frozen in a state of dazed shock. ]

{ WILDCARD }

[ I can be reached via PM or taintedcrimson for plotting! Elena is a vampire who needs to feed on human blood and can heal others with her own blood (which goes terribly wrong in this setting), so let me know if you'd to play with that. ]

Edited 2018-05-05 06:25 (UTC)

This is ... a lot creepier than anything from the Station. And that's saying something.

[He'd been walking with Elena -- he wouldn't leave her. Not since finding her again. That feeling of connection sliding into place as easily as a key in a lock. Of course he'd be with her. Of course he'd stay close by.]

[But he's unprepared for her stopping.]

[All of the sudden, her footsteps stop. And she doesn't answer him. So he freezes too. Don't. Don't look back.]

Elena?

[ Oh Shiro. Even if they weren't as close as they are, she'd have welcomed having him around simply for the mental connection they share, but he's family and so she doesn't even give him an exasperated look when he insists on staying near her. (Not that she really minds it.)

Unfortunately, there's no response when he speaks to her. No sound of answering voice, no pull on their shared connection. Her mind is shrouded in fog and she's too far away to be reached. ]

[There's just nothing. No feeling of Elena. No footsteps. No return voice. His heart just hammers. It's tempting, so incredibly tempting, to turn around to find her. But if something's happened...]

[Looking is forbidden.]

[Moving, on the other hand...]

I'm coming back for you! Don't move. [As he starts... walking backward. Reaching a hand back behind them to see if he can touch her.]

[ She doesn't hear him. She can't, there's no awareness in her of what's going on around them. If she could hear him, she'd be trying to reassure him she's alright, even if it's not true, but they don't get to play that game this time.

When his hand reaches her, he'll brush against her stomach and dangerously close to things he probably doesn't want to be touching. Sorry, Shiro. At least she won't ever know? ]

[... oop.]

[It's lucky she can't see the face he just pulled. He keeps that expression, though, slowly moving his hand to one side until he can find one of hers.]

Elena? Elena, listen. Can you hear me?

[When he finds her hand, he keeps backing up, until he can stand shoulder to shoulder with her.]

Elen-- [Oh. Oh her eyes.] Elena! Listen to me!

(Eddie had been camped out near by watching all of this go down. He'd been scared stiff, and in his fear, he'd kept himself concealed behind a nearby lamp post. It wasn't quite big enough to hide all of him, but when you were twelve, any sort of barrier between you and the Bad Thing felt like a big enough barrier. A part of him wants to cry out when the woman bothers to touch the thing. Some part of him expects its jaw to unhinge, for a mouthful of teeth to open up, and he braces himself for that final moment-.

But it never comes.

He still jumps when the thing bursts into dusts, turning his face away as if thinking maybe the dust itself would wreck havoc. Instead, all he hears is the thick flapping of wings. Eddie peeks around the corner of the post, and instead of a disgusting creature, there was now a raven perched on the woman's shoulder. Was that...?

Eddie found his voice finally, clearing his throat.)

Did it-. Did it just become a bird? (He'd looked away- so he hadn't seen- but that was...)

[ The voice is unexpected, the pitch of it telling Elena immediately that it's a kid speaking, and she glances in the direction of it with an expression of surprise. He's so young, younger than anyone in the Nest had been, and for some reason that bothers her. With things going on like this... Kids shouldn't be here, plain and simple. ]

Yeah, it did. I'm guessing it's some kind of magic. [ She gives one last stroke to the raven's head before letting her hand drop and turning her full attention to the boy. ] My name's Elena. What's yours?

(For Eddie, being here is exactly about what he'd expect. He looks frightened, certainly, but what he doesn't look is surprised necessarily. At least he wasn't surprised about the situation. What was surprising was the apparent gentleness of this weird creature.

Eddie wasn't so used to things so scary winding up being so gentle.)

Magic? (He ventures, wondering if that was really true. Or was it a trick? Only it didn't make sense for the Mannequin to turn into a bird after the fact.

Slowly, he steps out from behind the pole, though he keeps a hand on it just in case.)

Eddie. What made you hug it? (A beat.) It could of hurt you.

[ When does magic ever make sense? Magic, curses, supernatural creatures, this place. None of it follows the rules you'd expect, so she's started just going with the flow, so to speak. Weird stuff happens, you just react and deal with it.

She gives a one-shouldered shrug with a small smile, careful of her feathered friend who's presently investigating her hair. ] It could have, but I can take care of myself. And I've learned that not all are monstrous.

[ A lot of them are, but not all. She likes to think she's proof of that. Caroline certainly is. ]

(A good point, really. Even Eddie's own experiences with strangeness were exactly that: strange. Undefinable and strange. But this creature? It was just gross enough to make Eddie paranoid.)

That's risky. (Eddie doesn't disagree though. Clearly this monster hadn't been some embodiment of evil. But still....

He walks closer towards her, his eyes focused on the bird.)

Be careful of the bird though. It could still make you sick. (Except...Eddie's fingers are doing tiny twitches. He. Kind of wants to pet the bird. He's never been allowed the luxury of petting animals. His mom would always wail about him having too severe of allergies to bother.)

[Arya doesn't understand anything about this place. The town is odd enough to her even without the oddities that seem to surround it. The path is long and Arya isn't really heeding the warnings either. But she's not looked back yet. When she sees the blank eyed woman standing in the path, any thought that she might look back leaves her.]

Hello? Are you alright, miss? [She steps closer, a bit afraid about what she might find, but she's not shying away. Reaching out a hand it falls on Elena's shoulder giving her a tentative shake. Is she even alive?]

Edited 2018-05-06 02:40 (UTC)

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