JANUARY 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to January's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: OCEAN 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.

PLEASE NOTE FOR CHARACTER ARRIVALS: This month, all players can choose to have their characters wake up in the town of Deerington or on the Titanic.

CW: Ghost of a child, rotting corpses, drowning, hallucinations, paranoia
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

WHERE FEET MAY FAIL

For those who were left behind in Deerington while everyone else was whisked away in the flood during the New Years Eve party, they will find that the town is a little more wet than usual. The streets are still flooded, houses are damp, and the chill of winter isn't making it easy to deal with. Your hands can feel like ice any day of the week and it's hard to focus with how badly you may find yourself trembling from the cold.

But it's almost preferable to the visions. They start off while you're sleeping; large sea monsters roaming the ocean, waiting to pull you down into the darkened depths; or maybe it's a strange, ghost looking girl with glowing eyes and tattered clothing, her skin blue and rotting the way a body does when it's been submerged in water for too long. She's calling out to you, beckoning you down, and all around her are the strung up, floating corpses of the people who were foolish enough to listen.

It's just a dream though, right? Slowly you start to see the girl around town. She's still calling to you, watching you, waiting for you. If you get too close, she'll even be able to grab onto you, pulling you down into the waterlogged streets, and into what you thought was only a puddle of water. It's as deep as an ocean, and just as dark and cold too. Someone near by can grab onto you before she can drag you under and the vision will disappear. If no one does, maybe if you're a strong swimmer, you'll be able to struggle free, but when you resurface, there will be a bruise forming on your arm in the shape of a hand – something to remind you that maybe these visions are a little more real than you gave them credit for.

The only way to stay safe is to travel in pairs. The girl seems to keep her distance when there's more than one person around, but it doesn't mean she won't try to find the means to separate you. Whether it's increasing the flooding in certain areas of the street or trying to distract one of you long enough to put some distance between you and your comrade, she'll do whatever it takes to try and grab onto whoever she can.

GHOST SHIP

Those who are on the boat might find that life is a little easier, depending on what class you've found yourself in. The struggles between first, second, and third are certainly rough on everyone, but many seem to find themselves thinking this is just the way of things. Maybe your mind has been altered to just accept the class differences or your memories completely rewritten and you think you've led a completely different life so far; either way, only a handful of passengers seem to fully understand that this isn't the way things are supposed to be.

There's nothing anyone can do to change things, though, and so many find themselves getting lost in day to day activities. Whether it's working on the ship, enjoying the finer foods in the first class dining halls, or enjoying the rowdy parties in third class storage after hours, everyone seems to be finding something to keep themselves occupied. As the days pass, even those who know full well what's coming seem to forget the looming doom, and you might even find yourself feeling lost in the monotony of day to day life.

But those who stare into the water too long, who look at the strange, large shapes swimming just under the surface might find a sense of dread filling them. The paranoia will shake you to your very core, leaving you with a sense that all is not right with this journey. You can try to tell people, but most will look at you as though you're insane. Eventually, your fear will become so heavy that you start to see destruction all around you. Whole sections of the ship will look flooded, rotting wood and rusted steel taking over every inch of the once proud ship, and every section is covered in algae. You might start to realize it looks uncannily like an old shipwreck.

The ship is still floating, though, and the coarse steady. So it's all in your head, right? Staying away from the water will make the visions and paranoia eventually ebb, but any glance at the floating shapes will cause it to come back tenfold. Maybe just stay inside and away from the ship's edge. It seems a lot safer that way.

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

NOTE: Character's this month can wake up in Deerington or on the Titanic.

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

[Magnus snaps his fingers, once - twice in front of this new refuge's line of vision it's the lift of his chest that clues him in to the inevitable bout of illness and he side-steps it, pushing the green material with the point of his shoe away from the mess just in case he had intentions of keeping it.]

I'm glad your lungs and... your stomach work. You're lucky you knew how to swim, cupcake. Is it all out, or should I find you something to keep handy?

[ Jesse can't speak, can't even form coherent thoughts. He flops over onto his side, weak, trembling. He's a pathetic sight: Skinny arms, bony chest, protruding ribs beneath pasty white skin that rise and fall under his sporadic breath. The only clothes he has on now the dressing gown has been stripped off him is a pair of wet blue sweatpants that cling to him like a second skin. He's shivering, almost twitching. Tendons in his neck stand out hard like bridge cables from the force of his gagging coughs. Another heaving gurgle — vomit sprays out of his mouth again, salt water mixed with bile, splattering onto his cheek and on the hard sopping floor underneath him. The acidic smell floods his nose. Somewhere in the back of his adrenalin rattled mind, Jane ghosts through his thoughts — how she'd smelled of vomit and voided bowels while her glassy, lifeless eyes stared up into nothingness. That thought sinks back into darkness as he noisily sucks in another gasp of air into his lungs like his throat is squeezed shut in a vice.

He suddenly lurches, rolling onto his front with a jellylike flop of his limbs. The girl that had been after him, the one who'd dragged him down into the undertow — she's still there. Right? Shit. Shit, he's gotta get up and get away from— His palms slap onto the floor, into a puddle of watery vomit, and he tries, tries, to push himself up. He manages, only just, to lift his head and chest off the floor and starts dragging himself onto his knees to get onto all fours — and collapses face first under the trembling strain on his arms. ]

Th— [ A sickly gulp. His voice is an airless rasp stuck in his throat. ] Th-That girl—

[An ominous apparition that could ultimately be avoided didn't stir concern in Magnus until the entity preyed upon those incapable of handling it. This young stranger was every bit that right now, a mess of fluids and what he could only assume was fear. From what he can make out of this pale tawny-haired stranger - he's gaunt, sickly-looking without the putrid scent of him to help that belief along. Squabbling around on a deck filled with his own refuse is no way to come back to awareness and it makes him that much more of an assault on the senses.

It's not the first time Magnus has had to deal with a panic-stricken mundane, but it's been a very long time since a rescue was met with the throes of such a violently ill reaction. Despite it and the visible glances, other patrons are passing them as they walk by Magnus is more or less unaffected. He stays out of the line of his purging and off to the side, heavy-lidded and a little morose now that he's had time to understand how poorly this man is taking things.]

Yes, that girl. She's real. Ish. How familiar are you with the occult? Well, not that it matters but she's an angry spirit think Poltergiest - and it looks like she's got herself quite the collection down there.

[ Everything is warping in and out of focus. He's finally starting to catch his breath — his throat keeps spasming with urges to cough, which he's starting to fight down with gulping swallows — though, every breath in is still a laboured wheeze. He hears that same voice talking, telling him something, though he can't focus on what the words are. The voice sounds so faraway, so distorted. God, everything hurts. Everything hurts. He needs to get out of here. He doesn't know where to, he just knows he needs to scram.

He starts trying to push himself up again — his skinny arms shake under the effort, his whole body trembling — and it takes every ounce of strength he doesn't have to shove himself onto all fours. He winces, and grunts like he's in panicked pain, and manages to clamber onto his feet. He lurches, staggers, and his weak legs buckle underneath him. Losing his balance, he tips forward; he catches himself with his hands slapping on the ground, bent over double. He's a mess; a sick, heroin withdrawing mess. He starts shoving himself unsteadily upright again, and he coughs another gagging cough as he takes a stumbling step forward like he's trying to break out into a run. ]

[This is hardly the first brush Magnus has ever had with addiction and its consequences. Every downworlder creed had its own synthetics and strains that led to problems but it is the first time he's seen someone so unfortunate as to make their way here still struggling through such a circumstance.

While Magnus can't read his mind, pain is a universal language and so he decides upon action rather than repeating the same method of communication.]

You're in no position to be on your own.

[This stranger is a half-naked, disgusting mess and there were individuals among the ranks of this vessel that would be far less kind. Magnus relinquishes the moral high ground all too easily, and moves to guide his hand out only so far as to stop him from causing any further damage to himself.]

I just pulled you out of the water, the least you could do is listen.

[ Jesse yanks his arm away from that hand, startled, and flings about-face on the spot. He trips over his own cold, bare feet, nearly sprawling backwards in a heap, and catches himself unsteadily just in time. His hand shoots up to clutch his throat as he drags in another rasping breath into his still burning lungs while he gapes wildly at the guy. ]

B-Back off, asshole!

[ Feverish panic is scribbled all over his pasty face. Wait, is... Is this person real? He can't tell; the shock of nearly drowning still has his pounding head in a dissociated fog. Is that a real person standing in front of him? That girl — where is she? Jesse darts a manic glance all around him. Seeing nothing, his attention snaps back onto the guy. ]

Th-That girl—! [ He's shrieking but his voice comes out strangled and hoarse. ] Wh-Where'd she go?

[Okay, rude, Magnus makes a mental note to choose the people he saves more wisely. This one clearly wasn't in his right mind and was definitely on the wrong side of his own hysteria. It's with a long-winded sigh and a look of true apathy that Magnus steps back and holds his hands up, making it clear that he meant no harm and had no weapons.

Never mind the fact that he was the weapon.]

I just saved your life. That girl wasn't a girl at all, but that's a conversation best kept for another time.

She's probably back in the depths, waiting for another victim.

( ooc; Sorry for the slowness! Internet has been really spotty the last almost week, I'm assuming due to the bushfires nearby where I live. ☹️ )

[ "Probably back in the depths, waiting for another..." huh? What is that supposed to even mean? Confusion rattles its way through Jesse's pale, gawking stare. He's still clutching his throat, still trying to get his breath and his burning, breathless lungs under control. ]

...I— N-Nah, man, she-she was stalkin' me, yo, she's been following me ever since I— [ A wild and nervous glance all around him. His throat strangles out another hoarse cough. ] E-Ever since I woke up in... [ Attention snatching back onto the guy. ] Ever since I woke up here, yo. "Deerington". Wherever the hell that's s'posed to be.

[ooc; don't worry about it. i'm slow also and i never mind backtags. are you okay? i hope all is well.]

She's stalking you because she's a monster that wants bloodshed.

[His bloodshed specifically, or anyone stupid enough to allow themselves to be swept under. She has a collection, that much he's heard. Vengeful spirits didn't trivialize themselves with things as simple as belief. It didn't matter whether or not this man believed in what she could do or not.]

We're supposed to be in Maine. I'd ask if you needed a glass of water but I think that might be insulting given what you've been through.

Edited 2020-01-06 01:32 (UTC)