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DECEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE

DECEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to December's Test Drive Meme!

This month's Test Drive's theme is: PROPHETIC 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: Possible death via exposure (freezing), Krampus imagery, possible vore, visual and auditory hallucinations, monster violence, stalking, decapitation

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

Prompt One Prompt Two Character Arrival Master Navigation

VANISH LIKE THE WARM STOVE

Winter has set in in Deerington and it’s as harsh as one would expect for the frigid mountains of inland Maine. There’s snow on the ground, icicles hanging off of most buildings, and black ice all over the roads. Better be careful where you step or you might just slip and hurt yourself while you’re walking around town!

But there’s something unusual about the cold. It feels bone-deep and no amount of layers or staying inside seems to make it shake. Your teeth are always chattering, you feel the need to hunch in on yourself to keep any heat from escaping, and if you look at your hands, you might see them go from bright red, to white, to even the slightest tint of blue throughout the day. You’re getting colder by the minute and it feels like there’s no way to stop it. Maybe you’re just doomed to freeze.

The box is waiting on a bench. You didn’t see who placed it, but there’s a small tag with your name on it, so clearly it was meant for you. If you ignore the box, it will start to show up on random surfaces around town wherever you might be; the kitchen counter, a desk or display case at your work, the floor of your bedroom… No matter where you are, the box is there too. Eventually, you might as well just give in and open it.

Inside every box are three matches. They’re relatively long, like the sort you’d use to light a fire in a fireplace, and they appear to be completely normal. People who can sense magic won’t get a reading off of the match and no amount of testing the wood or the tip will show anything other than the exact chemical make up one would expect. So maybe they’re safe! There’s a small note tucked inside the box with only two words written in childishly messy scroll; Keep Warm.

If you light the match, you’ll find that you’re instantly starting to feel a little less cold. It’s the first bit of heat you’ve managed to snag in so long that you’ll probably find yourself a little desperate to hold onto it. The matches burn at a relatively steady rate, not too fast or too slow, and the wind can easily blow them out, so be careful! You’ll have to protect the flame from the elements if you want to keep yourself toasty. The only strange thing that you might notice is that whenever you’re near another person who has a lit match, both the matches seem to burn a little stronger and stay lit a little longer. So maybe you’ll have to pair up and learn to share. If you’re smart, you’ll light just one of each of your matches at a time, giving you a total of six chances to keep yourself from freezing to death.

There’s always a catch though, isn’t there? Each match will come with a unique vision as the flame dies out. A vision that can be seen by both of you. The vision will belong to whoever’s match as burning and it will be as vibrant and detailed as if you were really in the middle of it.

The end of the first match will show you something you want. It can be anything; a warm meal, a new bed, an object from home you’ve longed for. You’ll be able to pick it up, taste it, smell it, do whatever you would normally do; but at the end of the day, it isn’t real, and ultimately you might find that you’re just chewing on your own (or your companion’s) hand.

The end of the second match will show a vision of someone that you miss. Whether it’s from home, a previous world, or someone who’s come and gone from Deerington, you’ll see them clear as day, calling for you and beckoning you to come with them. It’s probably best to not. After all, you’d have to leave your matches behind, and it’s cold out there.

The end of the third match will show you a vision of somewhere you miss. It’ll be like you’re standing in the middle of the very place you’ve been longing for ever since you arrived in Deerington — maybe even longer. It’ll look, sound, smell, and feel like the place you’ve missed most. It’s almost easy to want to stay and forget to come back to reality and light your next match.

If you both can make the six matches stretch until the sun sets, you’ll find that the cold has finally broken, and you’re able to keep yourself warm again. If you don’t? Well, it’s time to find someone else with a bundle of matches, and hope they’re okay with some basic invasion of privacy to stop you both from getting hypothermia.

BETTER WATCH OUT

Have you been a good person this year? Probably not! This is Deerington after all and everyone’s got a sin or two they’ve committed that they’ve been carrying around some deep shame about. Whether it’s something you’ve done here or something you did back home, the things your character feels guilt over will start to plague them more and more frequently as of late. Maybe you’ll start to see small little snippets of the memory flash before your eyes, or hear the voices of the people you’ve hurt calling out to you for mercy. No matter how it manifests, it’ll be gnawing at your insides, growing more and more impossible to ignore.

It might just be the paranoia from having to flashback to your worst memories at all hours of the day, but eventually you start to feel like someone (or something) is following you. You hear the scrape of nails against cement, the thud of heavy footsteps, or the sound of a heavy sigh by your ear accompanied with the smell of rancid breath. But every time you go to look, it seems like there isn’t anything there. No matter how logical a person you might be, you still end up feeling a little on edge, and you know you’re right about being… well, stalked. You may not be the sort who usually goes for comfort from others, but something inside of you tells you that maybe you’ll be a little safer if you aren’t alone. You seek out a friend, a colleague, or even a complete stranger— just someone who might make this creeping suspicion of being watched go away for a little while.

Except the moment that the two of you are together, Krampus finally arrives. He seems to fall from the sky, landing in front of you with a ground shaking thud, his long tongue hanging out of a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. He’s ever bit the demon you’d expect him to be and he looks hungry. You can try to run or you can try to fight, but he’s quick and strong, certainly hard for any normal human to take down. And if you look into his eyes, then things are about to get a whole lot worse.

Whoever locks eyes with him will have the very thing you have been feeling guilt over put on display for both you and your companion to see. It’ll be like you’ve been transported directly into the memory, Krampus’ clawed hand gripping your shoulders and forcing you to watch whatever your shame is play out in front of you all over again. The detail is striking and there’s nothing left out, no matter how hard you or your companion try to stop it.

When the memory stops playing, Krampus will start to move his tongue around you, wrapping you in the long, blood red muscle like it’s a snake. You can try to break free and it’s possible to cut the demon’s tongue with a sharp blade if you or your companion happens to have one; whatever you do, it’s best to do it quickly before you end up a snack.

Krampus can be taken down in one of two ways; either the person who is experiencing the guilt must confess their sin out loud and profusely apologize, begging for forgiveness for their misdeeds or he can be taken down in a somewhat simple ceremony. The chains dangling from the Krampus wrists must be grabbed and somehow secured into the ground; this will weaken Krampus greatly and leave him more vulnerable to attack. Once he is secured, you must take off his head. It doesn’t matter if it’s cut off, ripped off or blown off, the moment the neck is severed from the rest of the body, the Krampus will turn a deep black, like coal, before crumbling into dust, leaving only the head behind.

A little messy, but definitely efficient.

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

Loser. ( he wants her to be that. can't she just do what he wants for once in her long, long, long life? is it that hard to just give in and give up? damon raises his eyebrows at her. he's waiting. except he already knows he can't win with her. she's katherine pierce. he lost this game with her a long time ago. back when he got shot trying to save her in 1864. back when she picked stefan as her escort. back when they played catch and he stupidly thought she wanted him chasing after her. back when he was naive and innocent and she came into his life and he thought she'd be his everything. what a pathetic sucker he'd been. if anyone's the loser here, it's him. he lifts the bottle up and drinks, attempting to drown all of that bitterness with something pleasant. )

[ you is the first word that comes to mind, but it's far too abrasive. she doesn't want to fight with damon. she simply wants to…

she doesn't quite know what she wants from damon. but this is familiar in a distant way. he's playing with her, even when he doesn't want to. it's almost like that jadedness that had taken him from her hasn't grown like a callus over his self-inflicted wounds yet. ]

Sore.

[ with a pointed look at him. she can never help but needle him. ]

( nuh uh uh. ) Wishful. ( he can do this all night long. )

[ can you, damon? can you?

pursing her lips, she looks thoughtful. ] Thinking. [ the way she says it is loaded. ask her about it in two words or more, dickmon. ]

Considering. ( --plenty of things. none of which she'll know about because again: limited vocab and all. )

[ too bad. if you can't say it in one word, well... ]

What?

You. ( more like: what's her angle this time? and also: does he really care if she has one? they're passing time. he's not focusing on the freezing temperatures. it's working. gotta get out of the tub though. the water's cold. turning the camera away because katherine doesn't get to see this! she can get a good view of the large windows and the blurry reflection on it instead. )

[ where did the view go? katherine rolls her eyes. typical damon to be a tease and to only snatch it away when things were getting good.

he does have nice windows, though. ]

Harmless.

( he lets out a derisive snort at that. ) Hardly. ( neither one of them are. he definitely knows he isn't. everything he says or does ends up hurting someone eventually. it's just a thing that happens. )

[ with a pointed look, ] Judgy.

[ she's harmless! if she wasn't harmless, she'd be berating him, digging her nails into his skin. she's tried numerous times before simply giving up—damon wasn't going to budge, but his head in her fish tank surely made her feel better. deerington's made him more pliable to playing with her.

she misses him. the damon she's been forced to endure in the last day in pennsylvania, the one who's allegedly grown-up, wouldn't play this game with her. ]

Realist. ( he accepts who he is. what he is. what he can't deal with are people's expectations. do this. do that. don't do this. don't do that. be this. be that. it's endlessly frustrating. anywho -- now that's he's all dressed, damon will turn the video back on to selfie mode. )

[ is damon grounded in reality? in 1864, she had thought him up in the clouds with all of his dreams and fantasies. now that he's smacked down onto the earth, she wonders if he ever truly got back up again.

well, she's grateful for the view. she smiles. ]

Cute.

Forever. ( he knows she doesn't mean it as a compliment and that she doesn't fancy this face because it's not stefan's, but who cares. he'll take what he wants out of this little game they're playing. )

[ she singsongs happily, ] Me.

[ take that with a big, smug smile, damon. that deserves a least two words, doesn't it? ]

( well, her. she's problematic and he should really say so, but instead: ) Fun? ( because is this fun for her? messing around with him? trying to toy with him again? remind him that he's a fool? )

[ with a press of her lips, she shrugs. ] Bored.

[ if it wasn't at all obvious. why else would she give damon the time of day? it's not because she's interested in talking to him or knowing anything about him…

he's simply a means to an end. a piece of entertainment. there's never been anything to gain from damon salvatore other than ire and immaturity. he's the one who answered her call to play a game; she simply wants to play. ]

( likewise. also, he already said bored first, kathy! doesn't this mean she should forfeit right now? right this instance? but he kinds of wants to keep this game going, so he'll let it go. not be petty enough to scrawl it on a piece of paper and tell her that he said it first. besides there are no rules. not with her. )

Deerington? ( what? bored of being in this town already? there's so much to explore though. so many mysteries. it's a hoot. )

[ there's no rules for repeating words, damon. didn't you read? can you?

scrunching up her face in an expression of uncertainty (and not that she's smelt something gross), ] Weird.

[ katherine may have been around for a long time and experienced more things than most do with 1,000 years on the planet, but even this has thrown her off kilter. ]

( he has to let out a nod in agreement. it's the strangest place. most days he still can't believe it's all real-ish. ) Uncanny. ( she's yet to experience just how weird it can really get though. she's in for a surprise alright. every month is a different hellish adventure and this crappy weather is just the tip of the iceberg. speaking of that bad weather, he'll just crawl into bed and get comfortable under the warm blankets. he'll leave the fluid on the bedside table and turn on his side so he's facing it, one hand tucked under his pillow. he shouldn't want to look at her, but what can he say? she's a familiar face from home. one that he knows. one that he's even kind of missed. sort of. he's had a rough couple of months. he'll pull himself together in the morning and remind himself that katherine is... katherine. this one word game between them is a one time thing that's never to be repeated. )

[ he's still playing with her. it gives her a little flicker of hope, even though she knows not to fan it. damon's a predictable wildcard—she knows he's going to give into his need to be emotional and cut off their connection soon… she simply doesn't know when.

tilting her head to the side, she looks curious. ] Scale?

[ 1 to 10. 1: meh, kind of like mystic falls. 10:... run. ]

Extreme. ( he's not even exaggerating. he almost turned into some kind of a zombie fungus type creature very, very recently. should he suggest they stick together? work as a team? it's a one word game they're playing though and he's already had his turn so the opportunity's gone just like that. quick as lightning. easiest excuse he can use to not fixate on the idea basically. it's a bad one anyways. he can take care of himself and katherine clearly doesn't need him watching her back. she made very sure of that over a century and a half ago. )

Edited (gonna edit like there's no tmrw!) 2020-01-02 15:33 (UTC)

[ katherine doesn't appear too happy about that. her face falls into something more pensive as she frowns. ]

Dangerous?

[ for them? or for the mere muggles they play with? she has a feeling damon's level of extreme is just a touch more than katherine's. (she's capable of surviving the worst of the worst, after all.) ]

( katherine should be worried. especially since she's big on being the ultimate survivor. is he taking a bit of pleasure in telling her life's gonna suck real bad from now on? maybe. definitely letting out a cutesy little smile. she can take him at his word or not trust what he's telling her. either way she'll find out for herself soon enough because this town is extra mean and extra crazy. )

Deadly.

[ she makes it a point to ensure her expression doesn't showcase any worry for him to read. it's doubtful he even knows how to read her, but one wrong wrinkle of her brow and he's got his fodder for the next six months.

appearing neutral for a few moments, katherine then rolls her eyes. she breaks into the character of being cool, calm, and collected. she's goddamn katherine pierce.

with a twist of her shoulder, she smiles smugly, ] Me.

[ she can take it. just watch the queen conquer. ]

( mm. will you look at that smugness. who knows how long it'll last. ) Careful. ( best not get too cocky. he did have to help her out once already with the whole klaus thing—handing her that vervain and all. it kind of sucks that one of the last few things he did before ending up here was to save her ass. so much for thinking he'd wiped her off of his 'to give a fuck about' list. reminder to self: get to work on that asap. )

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