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

( mmhmm mmhmmm mmhmm keep going Wynonna, Waverly is really loving this moment of spluttery indignity

~~but it all changed when the Fire Nation attacked~~
but she finds her eyebrows slowly and steadily rising as Wynonna talks about other people doing them. And then other people having moved in. And two kids, basically, at that. And Frank?

By the time the ramble is done, her eyebrows are as close to her hairline as they can go, and her mouth is a little open, before she shakes herself. )

Sorry, I think I blacked out for a second and hallucinated that you'd made a like, commitment.

( Wait, that came out badly, but also, still kind of accurate. And maybe, just maybe, there's something a little bit hurt that Wynonna was pulling together family without her around, even as the part of her that saw her sister sobbing over giving Alice away knows that it's not that simple. ) I mean— like living together living together? Like Brady Bunch family coming together living together?

[ There was a part of her — a whole big, annoying part of her — that had wanted to sidestep this whole subject, fast-forward until they'd just gotten to the moment where Waverly could've moved in and everything would be fine and officially No Big Deal, but Wynonna knows there's no avoiding the truth when it comes to her sister. Eventually, all of it would've had to come out, and that includes the fact that she's sort of only just agreed to let her maybe kind of boyfriend and his maybe kind of adopted daughter live with her on a maybe kind of permanent basis. ]

No, I know, it's just — what?

[ That's... not at all what this is. Except for the part where it actually is and oh my god she's living out an episode of the Brady Bunch right here in Deerington.

Cue Wynonna looking a leetle overwhelmed by the revelation because she sort of is, because maybe she made the decision to say yes based on the fact that Frank and Laura came as a package deal these days and she was secretly tired of having an empty farmhouse, especially after the town had gone all Purge mode and the house had been brimming over with people who didn't have a safe place to go — but she can't explain all of that to Waverly, not in so many words, so she might just be blinking slowly for a little while before steadying herself with a breath, lifting an index finger in preparation. ]

Okay, in fairness, wait until you see the house. It's huge. Way too big even for all this ass. And secondly — no, God, you're right.

[ She slumps forward against the table, bringing her head to rest against the table with an audible thunk (though thankfully, nowhere close to that dwindling fry pyramid).

Shortly after, slightly muffled given that her head is still smushed against the table: ]

I totally made a commitment.

Edited 2019-08-12 23:32 (UTC)

Uh oh.

( No no no no she just broke Wynonna. Thankfully they're on the same side, so she doesn't need to try and shimmy into the seat and force Wynonna to scooch over with her head still resting on the table - it's a feat she's accomplished before, but not necessarily an easy one. Leaning against her sister, and kind of draping herself over her back a little, Waverly gently strokes Wynonna's hair. )

Hey, it's a good thing. ( Aside from her own quiet unhappy jealousy/envy situation, but that is being compartmentalised to be dealt with at a later time, ie. ignored for as long as possible, preferably forever. ) Wynonna, it's a really good thing.

( Preferably she'd have liked to do a background check on the dude involved before he moved in, but hey, she can work with this. ) You made a commitment because you wanted to, without me or anyone else being involved or making you feel like you had to or running our mouths about it. That's badass, Wynonna.

[ She's okay. She'll be okay. Her brain might be a little broken but she'll be fine, because it's no worse than any of the other damage she sustained during the literal worst parts of her adolescence, and you don't get to be Wynonna Earp without finding ways to let your problems completely slough off your back.

But really, as much as she's coming to this conclusion with the help of her sister, she's also having the joint realization that it is what she wants, insofar as what carving out a life for herself here looks like. She's not under any illusions that it will be permanent, that she won't wake up one day to find one or any of those people she cares about are gone — but she also can't deny that she hasn't wanted people around, close by, since shit went down here. Maybe she can make Waverly understand that, to some degree.

The hair stroking is definitely helping, though. ]

You think so? [ And then she finally lifts her head, slowly so as not to headbutt Waverly or anything. ] I mean, it was my house to share with other people, and I guess — I guess I just wanted to share it with them. With Frank, and Laura, and Cliff. And you, babygirl. It wouldn't feel like a home away from home without you in it.

( Accommodating Wynonna being able to move doesn't mean her big sister is going to escape Waverly resting her head against hers. It's a lot to take in, like a real freakin' lot, but it's also kinda lots for Wynonna to process too, it looks like. And while part of her is freaking out, and wants to be dramatic as heck about it and, you know, try to get her head around being in another world dimension thingy let alone all this, the fact is that Wynonna needs reassurance. Wynonna needs her, and when that happens then everything else kinda just has to deal with being shoved to the side, because her sister is so, so important.

Wynonna having a house and needing to fill it with people, build a family and a home, that was a big deal. And hey, if there was one thing that made all kinds of sense, it'd be the void of losing Alice being amped up like a bazillion times over by losing all her friends and everything familiar to her and being dumped in this place. No, that was it. Her meltdown just needed to wait for a better time.

With a little smile, she kisses Wynonna's forehead. )

Of course not. None of the people you picked had "W" names, it's all wrong. I got it sorted though, don't even worry: Waura and Wiff and Wank just need to adjust to their new lives, is all.

( She should have sounded those all out in her head before she said them. Her regret, it is immediate. )

[ There are times it's easier for her not to miss things, but there are other days when it gets really freaking hard. Mother's Day here hadn't exactly been a picnic, but she's also not going to be the one who brings up Alice in random conversation — the only person in this town who knows the truth about that is Frank, and only because she hadn't been able to shift that sad look off her face long enough to convince him she was Fine.

The only consolation she has is that as long as Alice is away and safe, nothing can touch her; a part of her had hoped that, for however long as it took her to accomplish what she needed to in Deerington in order to go home, that no one from Purgatory would get swept up in it too. But now Waverly's here, and that means her priorities are going to shift, because she's not going to let anything bad touch her sister if she has any say in what comes next.

Inviting Waves to live with her is as much about wanting to keep her close as it is to circle the wagons and make sure their enemies only have one route to the Earps. Who knows? The next person here could be that shitheel Bobo Del Rey.

Wynonna sighs, leans into her sister a little more, but then it's just a bit of blinking again. ]

Yeah, maybe we can try and workshop that while we're moving you in.

Yeah.

( Barely audible, spoken with a sheepish kinda exhale, as she hugs her sister closer, hand rubbing Wynonna's arm. It's maybe a little self-comfort, as well as being meant to comfort her best favouritist favourite. ) "Moving you in" makes this place sound so— permanent.

( To be fair, Wynonna living with a guy and two kids also sounded like things were being treated as pretty permanent, and it's making a quiet panic start to tangle knots in her stomach. It sucks, it super, super sucks, but she really wishes their friends were here. That doesn't seem like something she can bring up with Wynonna right now, or maybe ever, because Wynonna's already been here alone for so long, and she doesn't have Alice back home, so Waverly being here a half-day and already just wishing Nicole was here? Wow, Waverly. She swallows it down, boxes it up, and just kinda— just kinda puts it away to try and deal with later. )

Um. So, is this where you take me on the grand tour?