soddersays | AUGUST 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

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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!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

BLOOD IN MY VEINS

With supplies low and food getting even more scarce, things in Deerington, Maine seem to be getting that much more tense. For those who pay attention to the habits of the townspeople, there’s something that might add to that feeling of stress; all of them seem to be involved in some kind of physical training, whether it’s archery, hand-to-hand combat, or fighting with firearms, they all seem like they’re getting ready for something and it definitely feels like it might be something big.

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

Maybe you got knocked out during a fight or maybe you fell asleep in your own bed - or maybe you don’t even remember closing your eyes at all, especially if you don’t usually have the ability to go unconscious for one reason or another. No matter the cause, everyone will wake up in the same place, surrounded by tall, thick hedges in the middle of a... maze?

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As the chain goes taut with Jean-Paul's movements, Kurt climbs slowly to his feet, his usual agility having deserted him for the moment. He frowns at the other mutant, annoyed but trying to remain pragmatic.

"No. At least, I don't think so. I seem to have.. lost the ability to teleport when I arrived here." He touches his chest with his fingertips. "When I try, it feels as though something is tearing me apart. Do you still have your powers? Perhaps if we had a little height, we could see over this maze.."

Jean-Paul scowls. "That's not good. Hn."

He looks up and sighs. "I do. As undignified as this is going to be, if we're going up you're going to need a lift."

He looks at Kurt and his lips twitch into the barest smile - he's trying to suppress it and failing. "I vote I carry you bridal style."

Kurt runs through a series of mostly annoyed emotions before landing on resigned acceptance. He narrows his eyes at Jean-Paul's smile, unable to summon the cheery charisma that would have ordinarily had him matching wits with the other man.

"Fine," he sighs, raising his arms in a beckoning gesture. "But if you drop me, don't forget I'm taking you down as well."

"Don't worry. I'm a gentleman. And besides, neither of us wants you behind me."

Jean-Paul bends his knees and scoops Kurt into his arms before he stands and lifts simply and easily into the air. They shoot upwards quickly, but not so quick as to take Kurt's breath away. The walls rise with them, no matter how high they climb.

Mid-air, Jean-Paul stops and hovers. He sighs.

"I had a feeling. This fucking place. Alright, going down."

He descends, carefully setting Kurt back on the ground. "Nothing's ever that easy."

Kurt suppresses a wince as they rise up away from the ground. He's perfectly used to flying and being carried by various members of the team, but not usually so soon after whatever it was that had happened to him when he had tried to teleport earlier. He's a little shaky as he steps out of Jean-Paul's arms, but does his best to hide it.

Instead, he frowns up at the hedges.

"Magic?" He muses aloud. "Or some sort of psychic creation? Perhaps it -- "

The snap of a twig somewhere behind them interrupts him. The rustle of leaves being pushed aside, and something breathing. Kurt glances at Jean-Paul.

"Did you hear that?"

Jean-Paul stares back at Kurt with wide blue eyes.

"Ouais," he whispers. "And knowing Deerington? I doubt very much it is friendly." He holds still, listening, but he can't hear anything more.

"We should go. Anywhere not here."

Kurt glances around them at the long corridors of the maze. The noise has stopped and it was difficult to tell where it came from, besides somewhere behind them. Any direction they pick could be running straight into the jaws of a trap. Or worse.

And there's another problem..

"Jean-Paul," Kurt starts, reluctant, lifting the chain with his hand. "I can't teleport. I can't.. run as fast as you can."

He pauses unhappily.

Jean-Paul stares for a second, and then he scowls. "Chrisse. Non, of course you cannot. Okay. Well. I'll carry you if we need to escape quickly, but - no offense - you're not light. So I suggest we walk as quietly as we can."

He starts to do just that, headed forward. If they are attacked, he's pretty sure he can get them out of harm's way. Provided, of course, nothing grabs Kurt first.

"Guess you can consider me your guardian angel. How hilarious is that?"

Kurt follows Jean-Paul's lead, glancing back over his shoulder as they move deeper into the maze. The sounds have stopped, but the thought remains that they're being watched or followed.

"I fail to see the funny side, mein Freund," Kurt murmurs, his voice pitched low just in case. "At least not while we are being hunted through a maze by.. something."

"Oh, please, aren't you supposed to be the fun one?" Jean-Paul is focused on moving forward, not as cautious as Kurt is in spite of knowing precisely how dangerous Deerington can be.

"I thought I was supposed to be the sourpuss." He glances over at Kurt, and his lips twitch in what might be a smirk. "...maybe we're being hunted by David Bowie. Chrisse, THAT would be a nice change."

He pauses at a bend and peeks around. Nothing.

"I have not seen you - any you - around. As much as we don't get along, I am... quite sad to see you here. This place sucks."

Jean-Paul is right, to some degree. Kurt isn't feeling his normal playful self, and it chafes at him. But this place, this dream and the pain, the strange people, being thrown from one situation to the next, it's all too much.

Still, he tries, for the sake of stopping Jean-Paul's complaining if nothing else.

"Sadly I do not think either of us quite have the figure for Sarah's dress," he murmurs, smiling a little despite himself.

As they reach the bend, he steps in close to Jean-Paul, ready to run if necessary. But they're safe for now and the other mutant's words are surprising. It's rare to get such a display of honest emotion from Jean-Paul, and Kurt finds himself appreciating it for what it is. He offers him a thin smile.

"So I have heard. I.. saw Logan. Before I ended up here again. He said much the same thing."

That actually gets a snort of laughter from him. Apparently he does possess a sense of humour, deep down.

Jean-Paul looks at Kurt and for an unguarded moment he looks deeply pained. "...ouais. Yeah. He's the second one."

He faces forward again, expression smoothing out into its usual I'm-better-than-you-and-I'm-very-busy mask. "Multiverses are a bitch. I'll tell you this, but don't you dare go all priestly on me or I swear I will run and dislocate your shoulder... I thought maybe this was purgatory, for a while."

He shrugs. "It's not. This maze shit I've never seen before, so we're both lost, it seems."

Kurt catches that look of misery and frowns to see it. He hadn't realised Jean-Paul would care so much about his fellow mutants. It makes him wonder what this place has done to him, what it's taken from him.

He holds onto that thought for the moment as Jean-Paul expands on his theory.

"At least this one isn't covered in snow, ja?" Kurt offers with a slightly pained smile. "There are worst places we could be lost. And we've been though most of the worse places and survived."

Edited 2019-08-03 07:09 (UTC)

"Hey, I like the snow," he replies. "You forget, I--" He stops suddenly, one hand coming up.

"Shh!" Not that Kurt was saying anything, but apparently Jean-Paul is just used to being bossy.

There is the delicate sound of a breaking twig, the soft rustle of leaves. Then silence once more. Standing still, Jean-Paul strains his ears. A droplet of sweat runs between his shoulder blades and he shivers.

"Thought I heard a noise."

More than used to taking orders from teammates, Kurt stops dead the instant Jean-Paul does. He grabs the chain with his tail to still its movement and stop the links clicking together. The memory of his failed teleports rise up in him -- what will happen if he tries again, in this place? If he needs to for the sake of Jean-Paul's life or his own, he will try, of course, but what will it cost him?

A cowardly part of him shies away from the thought of that pain. Another part, the larger, faces it down and bares cold fangs in defiance of it.

"I --" he starts, then freezes as the noises come again, unmistakable. It's as if whatever is following them is just the other side of the hedge to their left. The hedge which, as Kurt follows it with his eyes, has a large gap in it, not ten feet away.

There is, of course two paths of action: forge ahead, or retreat as quickly and quietly as possible.

He's never been much of one for a strategic retreat.

So he keeps walking forward, brow set in a determined scowl. "It might just be a rabbit," he mutters.

The scythe that wickers through the air the instant Jean-Paul is beyond the edge of the hole does most assuredly not belong to a rabbit. The only reason Jean-Paul isn't decapitated is his superhuman reflexes - he flails backwards with a startled cry. He turns, moving faster than his brain, and crashes right into Kurt.

Kurt isn't entirely sure of this course of action, but given the chain he can't exactly hang back. He follows Jean-Paul, glancing back over his shoulder every other step, not entirely trusting his own senses but unable to stop himself.

So he almost misses the scythe as well, noticing only Jean-Paul's shocked yell and then the crash of the Canadian into his body. Tired and still recovering from his adventures in teleportation, his usual balance has deserted him. He falls with Jean-Paul onto the grass, the other mutant's weight driving the air from his lungs.

But he manages to hold on to enough to hiss out a breath as the creature steps into view around the hedge, wrinkled and gnarled and far too tall, red-eyed and with a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. A monster from a nightmare, something wizened grandmothers use to warn off naughty children.

"Mutter Gottes," he chokes out, instinctively scrambling back over the ground.

Scrambling is, of course, much more difficult when attached to someone. Jean-Paul gets halfway to his feet, stumbles, and nearly lands on Kurt again. The creature swipes at them with the scythe, aiming for Kurt's vulnerable belly.

Jean-Paul curses and yanks at the chain as hard as he can. The scythe buries itself in the earth as the creature wielding it screeches with animal frustration as Kurt is hauled out of the way. Jean-Paul pulls him to his feet and half turns, half shoves him.

"Go, go, you dumb--" he interrupts himself with a shocked cry as he feels something hit his back below his left shoulder. The entire area suddenly stings badly, but he can't really check to see how bad the damage is. He starts to run, but remembers that doing so will at the very least dislocate Kurt's arm.

"Run!" he shouts instead, hoping that the other man can at least keep up at a human pace. His back is hot and wet, and he wonders exactly how badly he's been cut. As he tries to move, he also realsies that trying to lift Kurt in this state may not be possible.

Kurt isn't used to such an undignified exit. He stumbles as Jean-Paul shoves him, his wrist and shoulder throbbing from the other mutant's yank on the chain -- painful, but it had undoubtedly saved his life.

He has to bite down on the instinct to teleport which beats at the inside of his skull like a bird in a cage. It's harder than he expected, forbidding himself the very thing which he has spent so much of his life perfecting.

It only gets worse as Jean-Paul cries out and Kurt turns in time to see the scythe come down, the blade trailing droplets of red as the monster advances on them, slow but steady, roaring.

But Jean-Paul doesn't let it stop him; he charges forward and Kurt lunges as well, falling into a loping run and thanking God that the chain is at least long enough to allow him to all fours without pulling Jean-Paul over, which enables him to move more quickly. But it's clumsy and difficult, constantly keeping part of his awareness on the chain, trying not to foul Jean-Paul's steps, worrying at the blood he saw dripping from the scythe.

Desperate times..

"I can.. teleport us, Jean-Paul, but.. it will hurt.."

Kurt is not slow by any stretch of the imagination, but to Jean-Paul it feels as if they are running through molasses. The creature behind them is huge but fast, and he can smell the stink of its breath as it barrels down on them.

"Fuck it, sure!" In the face of danger, Jean-Paul manages to sound more exasperated than frightened. No matter how much it hurts, he figures it beats being split in two by a scythe.

He stops running, turning to Kurt instead. I hope this isn't going to be a Cronenberg situation, he thinks.

Kurt skids to a halt on the grass, trying not to imagine the swing of that horrible blade cutting into them both.

He wraps his arms around Jean-Paul, feeling the slippery heat of the blood from his shoulder through his clothes. For a single brief second he holds the other mutant, feels his weight; he sends up a single desperate prayer to God.

Please, let this work.

Kurt closes his eyes and --

BAMF

They reappear in a cloud of purple sulphurous smoke in a different corridor of the maze, a way behind and a turn or two away from the monster. It's impossible to tell the difference between the hedges, but it has worked, although it hasn't taken them as far as Kurt had wanted.

As the monster's frustrated roar rises into the air, Kurt collapses to the grass with a moan, pain tearing up through the center of his body, ratcheting up his spine to the base of his skull. He tastes blood in the back of his throat, but turns to look at Jean-Paul. Logan had survived a similar jaunt, though it had cost him with dizziness and fatigue. He hopes his elfin companion was as lucky.

Edited 2019-08-06 13:32 (UTC)

Jean-Paul sprawls against the grass, the wind knocked out of him. He lays there for a second, eyes wide and staring at nothing, before he hisses air in over his lip. "Ah," he gasps quietly. "Oh. Ah."

Groggy, he pulls himself into a sitting position through sheer force of will. Jean-Paul sits there a moment, breathing shallowly through the pain that seems to come from everywhere all at once. He nudges Kurt with his foot.

"Hey," he whispers. "Kurt? Can you stand?" He isn't actually sure if he himself can manage that, but he knows they can't very well sit and wait.

Satisfied that Jean-Paul is at least alive, Kurt lowers his face back into the grass and makes a low groan in response. If he was the type to curse, he would have done so freely. As it is, he slowly pushes himself up onto his elbows, wincing. A trickle of blood runs from his nose over his upper lip. He dabs at it with his fingertips and then examines them, frowning at the sight of the redness against his indigo fur.

"Ja, I just need.. a moment," he murmurs. "I feel like a Sentinel has used me as a football."

With those words, a thought occurs to him and is on his lips before he can stop it. He turns his head to look at Jean-Paul.

"Why.. why is this happening to me, but your powers are unchanged?"

Jean-Paul shrugs and immediately hisses with pain. He reaches to gingerly feel at the gash on his back.

"Mine are a little off. I can't generate light properly, and I don't heal as quick as I did before. But why I got off lightly and you did not? I don't know."

His lips quirk into the ghost of a smirk. "Maybe this really IS hell and the devil likes me more."

His fingers come away from his back wet. He examines his fingers and sighs before he starts pulling himself to his feet. He's clearly in pain, but it's just as clear that he's not about to succumb to it.

"I can help you walk. Just stay on my good side."

As much as he wants to, Kurt doesn't quite have the energy to roll his eyes at Jean-Paul's quip. He lowers his head for a few breaths, trying to suppress the pain that rolls through him with every movement, then forces himself to push up from the ground.

Grimacing, he moves into a habitual crouch. A tickling in his right ear has him reaching up to touch it with a fingertip. It comes away wet and red. He studies the blood for a moment, then sighs and glances up at Jean-Paul.

"Here," he says, shrugging carefully out of the light cotton hoodie he had been wearing on the other side -- how long ago had that been? -- and that had somehow survived his journey so far. He offers it to Jean-Paul. "Tie this around yourself tightly, to help stop the bleeding."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

AUGUST 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

AUGUST 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

BLOOD IN MY VEINS

I AM THE GREAT UNKNOWN

Character Arrival

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oh my god

sorry not sorry

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cw: blood

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shoulda put that cw here so... cw: blood

cw: blood

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cw: blood

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cw: blood

cw: blood

cw: blood