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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.

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( she moves and he stays where he is. for what reason, he doesn't know. he should turn, walk away, forget this encounter happened but he knows that's just a lark. he wouldn't be able to forget no matter how hard he tries so he just stands there, watching her come closer to him like he's done so many times before. )

So noted.

( she's in front of him when he finally speaks, eyes flicking down to the box in her hands (his, his mind supplies) and then back up to her face. )

Should I even ask what you're going to do with the box? ( she could kick it into the sun for all he cares. he just doesn't want to open it and risk whatever's in there causing chaos. )

[ katherine rolls her eyes. ]

Give it back to you, Stefan. [ she sounds a little tired when she says it, even though she tries to inflict it with a tone that suggests she's talking gently to a child.

she holds it out for him to take. it could've made an easy bargaining chip to have him do her bidding, but he has nothing that she wants. she has the cure and consequently her freedom almost in her pocket—there's no space for stefan salvatore. he can't make elijah appear and trust her. ]

You're going to need it. No matter how many broody layers you try to wrap yourself in, you're never going to be as warm as you will be with these.

Color me surprised.

( that doesn't change the fact that he doesn't really want the box. he doesn't want to open it and be beholden to whatever...things are in there that she's alluding to. still, he reaches to take it from her, tapping his fingers against the sides idly. )

Does that mean you've opened a box like this? How long did you hold out before doing that?

[ she gives him a pointed, unimpressed look. ] Half an hour. Granted, I didn't kick it across the street.

[ instead, she took it to what is going to become her favourite cafe and spoke to it.

looking down at the box, her demeanour changes slightly—she's less katherine, all uppity and in his space, and more like someone he probably refuses to see. pulling her thick coat more tightly around herself, ] Make sure you're with someone when you use it. Like Damon.

[ or her, but she knows she's not invited and she doesn't intend to insert herself where she no longer belongs. something funky happened when she lit that match; she wishes she'd been with someone when she had. ]

Why?

( he doesn't immediately dismiss the prospect of finding his brother and making sure someone was around when he opened the box but he doesn't embrace it either. )

What happened when you opened the box, Katherine? What did it do you?

[ for the briefest moment, katherine considers telling him. she can imagine doing so, describing to him how she'd seen a little girl run from her in a game of chase, who looked like her and felt as if she was a part of her. katherine had felt as happy and free as the smaller version of her—a pair of feelings she hasn't felt in a long, long time.

but then she remembers who she's talking to, and how much he allegedly despises her. giving him this piece of herself has never been on the table, no matter how tantalising putting it there might have been.

composing herself, she easily slips back her mask, although katherine clearly looks uncomfortable. ] Nothing close to what's already been done to me. [ just far worse.

a little easier, ] You may just see something that haunts you. Perhaps your choice in going back to school over and over might be what it shows you.

( there's something she's not saying but he doesn't press. he considers it, just for a second, but he'd press, she'd press back and the civility they were both showing each other right now would be a thing of the past.

so, he doesn't press but he does give her a somewhat significant look to let her know that he's noticed she's held something back. it's not his place to ask, though. not anymore. )

Or maybe it wouldn't show me anything. ( not that he wasn't haunted by a century's worth of choices. ) It could just be a box.

[ with a shrug, ] Sure. [ it's flippantly said, and flippantly followed with, ] Because everything is just how it appears.

[ if it doesn't show him anything, then it means the box targets specific kinds of people. perhaps ones who are damaged? lost? angry?

fortunately for them both, stefan fits those descriptors, too.

but what she says represents far more than that. what she refers to could be herself—easily perceived as something she's not, simply because someone needs it. katerina petrova, katherine pierce—the box makes her think of elijah and how he sees katerina covered by the lid and not katherine.

feeling angry herself, she ensures that pesky box is in hands. not allowing any of that anger to ripen, she appears like she's in a hurry to leave with how jerky her movements become. ] Now that you have your box... [ katherine turns to take her exit. ]

Katherine...

( he can't just let her walk away when he can see something is clearly wrong, can he? she shoves the box in his hands and he takes it but refuses to look down at it. he keeps his eyes on her. )

Are you all right? ( he expects a sarcastic retort in answer to his question because, if there is something bothering her, she's not going to tell him. he's not the guy she confides him but he can't let her walk away without asking.

because there is something off and if it's tied to this box, he's certain that he doesn't want to open it and light another match. )

[ SHE'S FINE, STEFAN.

it's always been a little wish of hers to have stefan call back for her, but the months of separation have made her realise how little she desires it now. when he calls back to her, she stops and tilts her head back, closing her eyes for only a moment before she opens them again. composed, "katherine facade" back on, she effortlessly pulls herself back together again.

she turns on the spot to face him, allowing him to see her annoyed expression. it's what he's used to, isn't it? an impatient katherine who has little time for the boy she always said she had time for. ]

Why? Are you going to run to my rescue if it isn't?

[ it does look like his steed is in the dry cleaners. ]

( it's about the reaction he expects. she's annoyed but he merely drops his gaze down to his feet and takes a breath before looking back up. )

Do you need to be rescued? ( he doubts it. if there's one thing that katherine pierce is good at, it's survival. above almost anyone else he knows, that's something she excels at. )

You're usually pretty good at rescuing yourself. ( he tucks his hands into his pockets. ) It's just a question.

[ there was a time where she fantasised about stefan rescuing her—from klaus, from running, and from loneliness. putting that on a 17 year old boy who could barely rescue himself had been her first mistake.

while he has great disney prince hair, he's not her prince. he can't help her out of her tower, nor does she want him to.

she turns around and takes one step closer to him, regarding him with a tilt of her head and a less sharp arch of her brow. then she shakes her head and quietly, ] No, Stefan. I don't need to be rescued.

[ her second mistake's not rescuing herself. lighting that match showed her as much.

narrowing her eyes, her entire being lacks its usual condescending sharpness. ] It's not just a box. Don't be stupid.

[ her third mistake involved not saving this boy from the monster that had been in his bed. she wonders if he lit that match if he'd see her in the way he's always seen her; the thought of that bothers her. ]

I figured as much. ( there's no answering prickliness from him because, despite her words, there's no edge of the words, no usual air of underlying sharpness. so, he doesn't respond in kind.

he can only assume she's seen something with those matches, something that's shaken her and him asking if she was okay shook it loose. )

Thank you for the warning nonetheless. ( he doesn't know if she'll feel that a genuine piece of gratitude but it is. ) Whatever happened you saw, I'm sorry about it.

( he's not so self absorbed to think it had been about him but it had been about something that had given her pause. )

[ it's the very same kindness he'd shown her in 1864 that he shows her now. underneath all the anger and resentment, stefan's still the boy who went against his father's wishes to find his own happiness. at least being a vampire and the struggles that's brought him hasn't snuffed out that flame. that'd be a shame.

she gives him a small smile, stepping back with an almost skip in her step. ] You take care of yourself, Stef.

[ open the box with damon around—at least he can bring his brother back from any brink it pushes him towards.

arms behind her back, she appears at ease. ] Maybe I'll see you around.

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