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

[He should know him. He should know so many of them. Memories were failed and false though and faces were just at the edge of those missing memories. One moment things felt fine, perfect, connected, the next he felt like he was missing something. Like something was wrong.]

[It had to be the ocean, he thought, stuck in false memories. It felt... off.]

[the stranger leaned on the rail and looked over, but didn't seem bothered by the water. Genji frowned, looking down at it again, squinting.]

[Had he just imagined it?]

Death holds no surprises for me. [He said at first, wondering why he bothered to say that at all.]

Dread seems like the right word for what I saw, though I don't see it now. Perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me. [if only he knew the truth.] I can swim though, but this is the Titanic. Unsinkable. It shouldn't be a concern.

[The lack of knowledge was typical of whatever idiocy that Deerington had cooked up this time. Sodder couldn't keep her powers in check, and who knew why this place had come to be in the first place. They had survive this new environment, even if it potentially ended the way that history had once said it would. Maybe someone smarter was at the helm of the ship, but he highly doubted it. He wasn't a sailor, otherwise, he might have taken over the bridge at gun point.

That was his style after all. Usurping and hostile take-overs were part and parcel of Reaper.

He made a point not to look at the water, looking off towards the sun on the horizon instead. It didn't help the sensation of cold dread entirely, but he had seen things lately that changed perspectives.]

Death always hides surprises. One has to do it many times to learn it's secrets after all, and you seem too... lively to be someone who's felt death multiple times. [He knew of Genji coming close, nearly there that it was accurate to say he had died. Ziegler had reversed the effects.

He chuckled at the rhetoric, but the sound was deep, cracked and cold. It was used only for effect not actual amusement.] Any thing with stupid titles like 'unsinkable' and 'unbreakable' are looking to have the world stomp on such arrogance. And when titles are broken, people die. Maybe that's the dread you feel.

[Had he been of sound mind in all of this he really would have thought storming the helm would be a good idea. Or at least be there to give the warning to not hit the ice burg. But since he wasn't of his own mind, he just was happy to escape his crime lord family and go be free somewhere.]

[After all, that was his story, and it seemed a fitting one.]

So, how do you do it many times? You would think after the first mistake you might not do it so often. But yes, I like to think I'm rather lively still. I've ran into some close calls though, but this? This is my last one.

[He smiled big behind the scarf, looking at the masked man as he said that about the ship.]

Have a little faith my good man. It's not everyday a ship sinks. It would be rather horrific if this one went down, but as my master sometimes says, some positivity goes a long ways.

[Then he paused, drawing back a bit. His green eyes flicked for a second, from green to red and back to green again. Unease hit him for a moment. Master? Who even was he talking about?]

[Wasn't that just a trick question? Escaping death at all wasn't easy, and doing it consistently had once been a job they had had together. A small close knit team working together was how he previously had enjoyed operating at the end of his Overwatch tenure. It wasn't as if there was any way or any want to rekindle any of those old memories.]

Depends on your stamina, stubbornness and how deep you want revenge. [Last one, huh? He had no doubt that Genji would be eating those words in the not-so-distant future. It helped that the young cyborg was precocious and probably could swim or at least not freeze in the water if having to survive out there.

Too bad it wasn't his business to keep old colleagues safe from harm. They were usually on their own. Sometimes. Unless it was something worth killing.]

I'm not your man or a good one. Just remember how to swim because a positive attitude won't keep you afloat. Strong limbs will.

[He stared at Genji for an equal amount of time as it was to see the change. That had to be referring to the monk. Interesting... maybe the illusion was all that solid.]

[Oh yes, Genji would be eating those words, for sure. There is a lot of things he has said so far that he will regret in the time to come.]

Well, theoretically, if this ship did sink, the water would be too cold to survive anyhow, so stamina might not be enough. Stubbornness would have to be strong. Mine is. Revenge? I don't think that has much place in my own survival.

[What a weird thing to bring up, really. He chuckled and raised a hand though.]

Forgive me. It's just a statement. But yes, I think I have the strong limbs to keep afloat, if the cold doesn't get me first.

[He's still confused on the Master thing, but he didn't push the thought anymore. The illusion, it was not strong on him.]