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AUGUST 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME
AUGUST 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME
Welcome to August's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: DYSTOPIAN 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: Physical violence, monster violence, creepy ogre-like monster in link, being hunted by a monster.
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!
BLOOD IN MY VEINS

But no one wants to train against a townsperson - it’s highly likely they’re not going to fight fair with the way they’re all glaring at the Sleepers, as though they’re to blame for everything that’s been going on. Unless you’re sparring with people in your own backyard though, it seems like there isn’t any space to get your own training in.
The Betties are starting to pop up around town pretty regularly, waiting until they find Sleepers on their own, and quietly waving for them to come closer. “You need to prepare,” they’ll whisper to you in hushed urgency, before grabbing your hand to try and get you to follow them. If you fight, they’ll insist only once more, before leaving you alone. But there’s something inside of you urging you to comply and follow.
They’ll lead you down an alley, pushing aside a large dumpster, and revealing a trap door in the middle of the concrete. You’ve never noticed it before, even if you’ve been down this alley a hundred times. The Betty leading you leans down, pulling it open, and the ladder that goes into the tunnel is long and dimly lit. You could leave now, but the Betty will insist this is for the best.
“Knock twice. No more or less. Show them what you’re made of.”
Once you get to the bottom of the ladder, there’s an equally long hallway that leads towards a closed metal door. You knock twice and the door shakes before sliding open. The light that comes through is almost blinding with how bright it is compared to the dim tunnel, but as your eyes adjust, you can finally step in to a fully stocked training room.
There are instructors in basics for beginners, areas for intermediate, and most abundantly there are one-on-one sparring areas. The moment you come close enough, you’ll be immediately paired with another Sleeper, and the two of you will be locked in the room together to be observed. You could choose to not fight, of course, but you’ll be stuck there for a good long while if you do. It might be best to just get it over and done with.
So feel free to help others who seem to be struggling or show off your strength for everyone to see. It looks like everyone is going to need to be ready for some kind of fight.
I AM THE GREAT UNKNOWN

It doesn’t take you long to realize you aren’t the only one waking up, too. Someone is next to you and it seems like you’re stuck finding your way out of here together. Literally. On each of your wrists is a metal cuff with a long chain connecting them. It can’t be broken, no matter how strong a person is or how powerful a weapon or spell they try to use against it. You’re in this together whether you want to be or not.
Once you can pick a direction to head in, it seems like this might almost be boring - that is until you start to hear the sounds of rustling leaves and breaking twigs. At first it seems like it might just be a trick to spook you, but the more you ignore it, the louder it gets, until finally you see it, charging down the row at you, scythe raised and ready to strike.
You can try to fight, of course, but it’s hard when you’re chained to one another. Learn to work together quickly and maybe you can make it work. It seems to go down with normal attacks, though it takes a long time to get the creature to fall unless you cut off the head. Ultimately your best interest might be set in running as fast as you can to get away. You can lose it in the maze if you’re quick about it. But then you might also be lost yourself.
If you do manage to lose the monster rather than killing it, stay quiet and you might not attract its attention again. It may take a while to find the end of the maze. The hedges feel like they stretch on forever and the sun is blaring down. You’d think there would be shade with all the height of the bushes, but there’s no relief from the heat. Hopefully you don’t burn easy.
When you get to the end of the maze, the two of you will come up on three doors. One door will lead out of the maze and back into the center of Deerington, cuff free. Another door will lead you right back to the beginning, forcing you to start again. And what’s behind door number three...?
The monster, of course.
Choose wisely.
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.
Wrench | FX Fargo
[It’s a strange honor to bear witness to the last moments of a person’s life. With all the pretense stripped away and the sinking realization of finality taking its hold, a man becomes more himself than he’s ever been since near to his birth. Wrench used to think he’d like to die in his sleep with eyes firmly closed. Since he’s been watching, though, he’s started to think that the end might be worth the greeting.
What he’s never wanted is for it to linger, the way it’s doing now. This purgatorial will-I, won’t-I puts him in mind of judgment, atonement, and absolution. If the dancing pins on the neon sign declaring BOWL-A-RAMA are his pearly gates, does that make the man behind the counter handing out synthetic leather shoes his Saint Peter? Wrench wants to stand and face him, to own his shit like a man too proud and privileged to apologize for his own choices, but he’s lost too much blood.
When he finally opens his eyes he’s flat on his back, wet sod in his nostrils and a thicket overhead. So this is his judgment, he thinks: pitched out and removed from grace, left to die on his back in the woods with an arrow in his wrist and no one to see how bravely he meets it. Or, maybe not no one after all. A shadow passes overhead, and a set of antlers prod his shoulders. Fucking Minnesota. Mauled to death by a deer.
If that were it, maybe there’d be a kind of poetry to it. It’s a good enough joke to drag helpless, frantic laughter from his lungs. It’s in that fit of disbelieving irony he fades out again, and when he wakes in bed he’s still laughing.]
↪ I AM THE GREAT UNKNOWN
[It’s not that he minds the tag team. Arguably, Wrench is better as half a dynamic duo, in line with some of the world’s greats: Pen and Teller, C-3PO and R2-D2, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. He doesn’t mind playing his role, but why do they always have to restrain his damn hands?
He remembers the crop mazes in his youth that were always a mainstay of late-season holidays. The Halloween he’d lost Grady somewhere in the middle of that 15-acre hellscape. After wandering for the better part of an hour he’d started to panic, and when the sun had gone down and the sky had darkened he’d finally given up and sat in the middle of one of the forked paths. Wrench had imagined Grady in the next row over, calling his name like a fucking fool. He hadn’t wanted to come in here in the first place, when he could’ve spent his money on caramel apples and a wooden roller coaster ride.
When Grady had finally found him his advice had been so simple Wrench had wanted to rattle his teeth: always make right turns. He’d meant right as in directionality, but with his rudimentary ASL what he’d said was right as in correct, as in accurate. He’d been so fucking smug about it too that Wrench had believed that’s what he’d meant. Just do the right thing, as if it was always so easy.]
Come on, get the hell up!
[The length of chain tightens between Wrench and his unwitting partner just as something bursts around the corner.]
↪ WILDCARD
[Wrench from the FX channel’s Fargo television series is a hitman, and the only character to have appeared in all three seasons thus far. His planned entry point into Deerington is in the midst of S3E08: "Who Rules the Land of Denial?" where he will branch off from his canon after entering the bowling alley following the attack in the woods. I’m very open to trying out whatever you’ve got, so if there’s another scenario you’d like to see him in please HMU through private message, or go ahead and drop a starter.]
I Am The Great Unknown
The fuck... Who the fuck are you?
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Plenty obtuse, too, if he fails to find motivation in their current situation. The hedges rise tall on either side of them, but to the left that disruption comes again. Something scrambling in or around the underbrush. The conifer gives up a tuft of its needles, and Wrench yanks the chain and points to the commotion.]
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Quit fuckin'— [And then he smells it. And hears it. And sees the bows bend as something down this corridor tries to pull itself through the thicket. Something uglier than Wade.] The fuck is that...
All right, all right, I get it. I get you. [It's not an apology but at least they're on the same page now. His claws come out with a snikt and he wastes no time going for the chain that connects them. It'll just be easier if they've got all their hands.]
[He pulls it taught between the and swings at it. But all he gets are sparks.] What fresh hell is this... OK. Fuck it. Move.
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Thank god the human honey badger finally finds his feet. Wrench is prepared to bolt when he feels the slack between them taken up again, and turns his head in time to see the sparks fleck off the chain. There's no time to rationalize what he's seeing or wonder were the man came by so many knives or how he's kept them concealed. With the two of them finally on their feet, he bolts toward the end of the hedge, where the path branches at two right angles. Wrench doesn't slow as he rounds toward the right.
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At the intersection the chain between them goes taut again and Logan's boots dig into the ground. "Left!" He barks impatiently and hauls on his involuntarily conjoined-twin. "Always turn left!"
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Now! he stamps his foot. Those ruby-red eyes have them in sight now, and the form of skin stretched over bone is moving at more than a shuffle.
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Logan throws up his hands and shoves the other half of this three-armed race in the direction he is insisting. “Fine! Go! I swear to whatever circle of hell that thing crawled out of I will feed you to it myself if you take us somewhere worse.”
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The maze might be a couple of acres, or several hundred miles. From this vantage point either seems likely. Backed into a corner and watching its approach, Wrench can think of little to do but rush it. Maybe with the length of a chain between them, they can turn this into a sadistic game of Red Rover. Topple the thing at the ankles. He swats at his partner and mimes pulling the chain tight.
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“Right. Nice plan,” he grumbles for the sake of grumbling and the claws snikt out again, raking a chunk out of the well groomed hedge walls. “No, no more rights and lefts and fun house bullshit—” he starts in when this stranger is pantomiming at him again, but stops himself when he smells it. Not so close as before. But not as far as he’d like either. Logan goes still and holds a finger to his lips finally paying attention enough to understand what his counterpart is saying.
Clothes-line it. He nods. They’ll have to get the jump on it though. And maybe they can if he can sniff it out before it hones in on them. He taps his nose and points in the direction he’s positive it’s coming.
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And jesus, even in this fever dream he's being shushed by a stranger. He doesn't want to imagine what that illuminates about his own psyche. Automatically, he nods his head and tries to slow his breathing. Resume a posture of control, bring himself back around to neutrality. If they can't outrun this, they're going to have to outthink it. He's been in worse situations than facing a freak in a loincloth with an archaic weapon. Stranger ones, perhaps not, but certainly worse.
What's that? He frowns at the man and shakes his head a fraction. Wrench mimics the point and cranes his neck, but the hedges give up nothing this time. He shakes some amount of anxiety from his shoulders and exhales to steady himself, the breath passing through his lips louder than either of them might like.
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It’s not until he heaves a sigh that Logan makes up his mind. Deaf. It’s gotta be deaf.
Hauling the blond by his coat, Logan stretches his palm across the younger man’s face insisting his silence just for a moment. Until he can hear the things own laboured breathing and snuffling somewhere beyond the wall ahead of them. Making it’s way around. Circling in on them.
He wracks his brain a moment and tries again, this time making a wafting gesture in front of his face instead of pointing. Tracking it’s slow movement with two fingers as if to mimic his gaze he holds their chain to silence it and ushers into another alcove and grabs a rock off the ground.
Hunkering down in to the ground he drags his finger in the sand to write:
Behind it.
He readies himself for its appearance— facing forward and ready to run before tossing that rock into the hedge opposite their dead end.
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The second time around, the gesture is apparent. He might be less inclined to believe it, but with the slack of their bindings taken up between them Wrench can't help but note the flare in the man's nostrils and the way he picks up his head toward the faint current of air. It's all painted in too brilliant detail now to be a dream, but if this is hell he thinks he'd prefer the burning.
Maybe it's a parable on cooperation. It sours Wrench to think the afterlife is instead some test of mores off a kindergarten rules chart. Share and work together, help your neighbor... Is this what he has to master before they'll let him rest? He gives his partner an understanding nod and tries to balance urgency with stealth as they scramble into the next hedge and crouch low. At least it's a plan, and a better one than arguing the strategy of a maze whose dimensions they don't even know. Wrench steadies himself for the way that thing scrambles at the diversion, then puts his boots to the ground and runs like hell to rush it from behind with the length of impenetrable chain clacking between them.
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cw: gore, gore, gore.
CW: blood, decapitation
cw: less blood. still a headless monster.
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↪ ARRIVAL
Only makes the disappoint twist his stomach when he sees how they missed in the blizzard. It's not the first time but it grates nonetheless. There's an added fear that crawls into the frustration; this man is dangerous. Dangerous even for them. If they don't end it, he will. Grady is just as sure of that.
It's not the first time they have been separated during a job. The damn snow makes it virtually impossible to see and they can't stay together and chase after the bastard. He's following a trail. Or at least he's sure it is one. He doesn't hear the approach as much as he feels it.
And then everything goes black. There's nothing.
It's the lack of cold that registers, first. The tingling rush of pins along his skin as feeling comes back with warmth. As if his blood decided to start moving in his veins again, for real this time, etc. The next thing is the sound. Or lack of. The voice is not a blizzard and it sounds both loud and muffled at the same time. What the fuck is going on?
He's moving. Or being moved. He's not sure which.
The rocks under his body dig into his back through the coat and he squints his eyes open, the smell of pine almost burning in his nostrils as he breathes in. He sees the creature - a deer? a stag? - the voice is barely discernable now, like trying to hear underwater. He sees the dark figure of the creature lean in, antlers looking like they are going to stab his face, his eyes. He can't even move his arms to stop it. They are too heavy as if they are weighed down. He tries to open his mouth, tell whoever that voice is to get this fucking thing away from him. He just coughs. The pain across his throat biting, spreading. Feels hot and cold, spreading to his lungs. He can't breathe.
Until he suddenly wheezes awake -- in a bed. One he definitely hasn't been in before. The room isn't at all familiar, either. He's still breathing heavily when he hears... laughter. Is that--it sounds like Wes. He looks around the room again, this time more aware of his surroundings. Still not a place he recognizes. But his coat and scarf are gone. His body is comfortably warm instead of the distinctive sensation of warmth just starting to sink in. He's been here more than a little while. He spots his gun on a dresser and waits a beat before getting up quickly to grab it. His shoes and socks are gone, too. He moves away from the immediate entryway of the door to check if the bullets are still there.
It's only when he's armed that he leaves the room he's currently in and tries to find his partner. He knows that voice, however rarely it's used. He presses his ear near the wall, then a door. In there.
One, two, three--
He barges into the room, gun up and ready as he scans one side of the room and then spins to look behind the door. He rushes over to the closet and does the same thing. Once he's satisfied no one else is in the room, he closes the door back and lowers the gun. He looks as ruffled as he feels, signing to his partner: ]
Where the fuck are we?
[ What happened to Malvo? The fucking blizzard? ]
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When you kill for a living, you can't help but wonder about the afterlife. Back when he was still green and things like that were more liable to turn his stomach, Wrench poured over theories in the hopes of finding something he could stomach. In the end he never found the kind of hubris it must take to think he knew for certain, but the one thing he can bet on is that he's never been bound for any sort of Heaven. There's no great reward waiting for him, after what he's done. If this is Hell, though... Well, he's been doing some folks some favors, hasn't he?
Eventually he does open his eyes and sit, if only to test the weight and dimension of this body he can remember almost having left. He flexes his arm and rolls his shoulder, and finds the wide bandage around his wrist. The dull pain triggers a familiarity that almost turns his stomach, and he stumbles to his feet at the same time a figure bursts through the door.
At first, Wrench doesn't recognize the shape of the man before him. Or maybe he just doesn't want to believe it, because there's no surer sign that this must be a kind of Heaven or a kind of Hell. It's been nearly five years. An agonizing half-decade, and he never got to say a real goodbye.
It was Malvo who told him his partner was dead, and Fargo fallen. Malvo who'd done it. Wrench had sworn to kill him, but someone else had gotten there first. And with the whole world crumbling in on him, he'd had to run. It was the hardest fucking decision of his life to leave with no closure. For the first year he'd checked the papers and watched the news and held out hope, but Grady never reappeared. Life had continued, shit had happened, and now this?]
You're here, [he replies, baffled. Wrench wants to rush forward, but he keeps his distance.] You're alive? Where have you been?
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What?
[ Of course, he's alive. Unless he actually was killed by a fucking deer of all things... ]
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Don't tell me you don't understand me. Are you out of practice? I'll ask again: Why dod you never tell me where you were?
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He spares a glance for the door again, listening, before he finally sets the gun down on the nearest steady surface.
He holds his hands up in a placating gesture before he starts over again: ]
I understand you. But I don't know what you're talking about. We were in a blizzard, looking for Malvo. Next thing I know, I'm waking up here. That's all I can tell you.
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Wrench can't think of a person on earth who knows him better than Grady. Others have come and gone and none have gotten nearly as close. Never mind the language barrier; those boundaries have been self-imposed. Losing the other man nearly killed him, so yeah. Maybe he wants to make it hurt. White-hot rage isn't nearly as frightening as terror, and Wrench doesn't think he can get through putting himself back there a second time.]
Five years ago! [His closed fists beat each other so loud it sounds like it must hurt, the number thrown backwards as if discarding all of that time. An open-handed toss of what happened in the interim.] 2006. He told me he slit your throat.
I didn't want to believe it, but I waited as long as I could and you never came.
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He feels his chest tighten at what he's told. That Malvo killed him. The pain he experienced across his throat before waking up here... He resists the urge to reach up and touch his neck. He knows he's alive. He knows his throat wasn't slit. But he also sees how firmly Wes had believed him... Anger burns in his stomach before twisting into hurt and he snaps verbally, loudly, where the other man can see even if he can't hear it. ]
Hey!
[ He holds his own hands up, both of them taking on short, angry movements in turn. ]
Do you really think I would just leave you for five years?! After everything--you think I would ever do that you? That I would choose to?
[ He has no fucking idea what is going on but he does know that is something he would never, ever do to Wes. ]
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He'll never forget being handcuffed to that hospital bed, or the earnest expression of the officer who first explained his partner's death. He'll never forget his tears, or the animalistic rage he felt when Malvo admitted he'd done it. Wrench hasn't known pain like that since. How could any of it be untrue?]
No, [he mouths, feeling for a moment small and unsure. Of course he doesn't believe it was a choice. But it happened. Whatever this place is, whatever it's trying to do to him, he can't let it give him hope for something that isn't real.]
I came here from the woods. I was on an ambushed prison bus, and someone was hunting the woman I was shackled to. I was shot with a crossbow. [Wrench holds up his bandaged arm demonstratively.]
/barfs feelings here i'm sorry
The next chance he got, he found a book on sign language in the library and practiced for hours, neglecting his homework, just so he could say "hello" to Wes. As well as "forget those jerks, we can talk".
He had always been pretty mouthy to adults and a smartass to kids his own age. Something about Wes made him want to slow down and pay attention in a different way. It didn't matter if it was just the two of them. Grady found that he didn't mind that.
Years later and he still felt the same way. Sure, they had their arguments and even fights. But it never broke their bond, never lasted long. Only death itself would be enough to make him leave Wes's side for longer than an hour of "silent treatment". It's what makes all of this that much more painful for Numbers to see in the other man.
He looks closer at the bandaged arm, making sure nothing was bleeding through before asking: ]
Did you kill them?
[ Adding: ]
What were you doing on a prison bus?
how dare you make me cry my own tears
He's always been good with ranged weapons. Firearms, naturally, but you don't grow up in the rural Midwest without some initiation to a bow and arrow. Wrench feels comfortable in that space. He has a sharp eye and a steady hand. But this fight was desperate, bare-knucked fisticuffs. He didn't have the upper hand, and surviving had come at cost.
If he had, in fact, survived. The thought nags at the back of his mind persistently. Grady died. He accepted that long ago, and there's been no evidence to the contrary. He died in that snowstorm, so if he's here now... does it mean Wrench died in the woods?
He shakes off his partner's question and gestures around them instead.]
We need to figure out what this place is.
weh these two bring it out
He moves to pick up the gun again and points to the door, ]
You go out behind me.
no subject
The music swells outside of the room. Wrench doesn't notice, of course, but he finds himself pulled in that direction as if by some unseen force. The home looks normal, almost cookie-cutter in its particular blandness. It's exactly what he thinks of when he imagines the noun: house. A place to make one's life around. Except that it's been a long time since he's thought of any particular space by that definition. Wrench could almost imagine a family living here, but the picture belongs more to a storybook. It's an artificially-constructed sort of reality that he's learned to scoff at.
The kitchen is bright with the sunlight that streams in, and he frowns at its impeccable presentation. It looks almost untouched, save for a bundle that seems placed for them line an offering. He tugs Numbers' sleeve and regards it suspiciously.]