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

( Ben ushers them both inside, guiding the man up out of the street and onto the front step of the Book Store (that's it, that's the name of the book store in town, despite nearly everything else having a cute moniker, often a pun related to deer, no this doesn't trouble Ben what are you talking about) while looking past his shoulder...to make sure that girl isn't in view, isn't coming back to reclaim the man she nearly took down all for herself.

they shuffle inside, their clamoring movements alone deafening in the sleepy, quiet shop. it's warmer in here, certainly, and much to Ben's relief at least — thus, he can only imagine how the other man is doing right now.

there's a petite sofa near the window, a cozy spot for avid literature enthusiasts — just don't mind the copies quite literally...spilling up the opposite wall and out across the ceiling like a tripped paint can gone wild. the pages flip and sigh idly above them like some JK Rowling atmospheric oddity. Ben doesn't give it any consideration as he urges the man to sit, pulling a knit throw draped over one end of the furniture. it goes around the man's shoulders immediately. )

I'm Ben — are you...sorry, I don't mean to be presumptuous, but. ( Ben sits beside him, but his gaze goes right back out the window in paranoia; Christ, the girl, the one from the dreams, or have they been visions? he hasn't been able to decide since they started. it should be no surprise that after multiple nights of disturbed sleep, the presence would begin to manifest here in the town. ) Have you been in Deerington very long? ( hardly as if Ben is some local socialite with all the 411 on Sleepers in the area, but — he's an info-hoarder, and he's vaguely aware of most of the stolen people brought into this strange place after studying the town for months. this man's face is...unfamiliar.

perhaps that's not quite it; this man's is painfully reminiscent of Ben himself, and it's moreso that he thinks he would just...know if there were other bookish, nervous, English stereotypes like himself. it's like looking in a mirror, and it feels like a cosmic punchline. )

[Wesley huddles into the throw. Should he get rid of the wet clothes? He can't decide, this looks like a store, is he in a store? Cannot get naked in here, definitely and decidedly not. The warmth makes him dizzy, his vision swims and he looks around blearily. Books. That's... good, he likes those. They help him calm down, remind him who he is, anchor him.]

I have not.

[That much is clear, he's very new to this world and that is something he knows, something he can answer and that feels good, too; helps him get a grip, to shake off the general sense of terror, regain some agency.]

I was... out, exploring, getting a lay of the land. [His voice starts faint but grows stronger over time. Talking. It does him good, putting things into words, finding his voice again even though every breath is still raspy, reminds him of the cold, wet death he almost suffered.]

I saw her, in the streets, a girl. She had come to me before, in dreams, in... visions but when I approached the specter it... reached for me. Pulled me down.

[He holds up his hand, showing him the arm, marked by the unmistakable handprint.]

She's out there. W-we have to warn people! Is there a phone, is there-- [He reaches out, his eyes wide again as he grabs Ben's shoulders in sudden insistence.]

They need to stay away from the water!

( Ben can't tell what part of this fact, of the stranger's recent arrival, is good, or not. the newness means this is only his first horror to be subjected to by this ridiculous place, and that's something Ben can draw some envy for. unfortunately...Welcome Baskets really do nothing to help prepare a newcomer to handling the sorts of things they will undoubtedly be subjected to here on the every-other-day basis.

'—had come to be before, in dreams,' and that's when Ben perks up with a force that is nearly a whole new presence amongst them. recognition lights his face like a fire that sharpens down his expression as he focuses on the other man's explanation, detailing his narrowly-survived encounter. she's calling to Sleepers in their — well, sleep. can she hypnotize, or lure them? both synonymous with water, in fact.

pardon Ben while he pulls away to dip his hands into his coat, into his blazer pocket for a small notebook and a pen. girl, dreams/visions, attacks, water.

the water. Ben looks him over once more with a renewed keenness for the details: he's sopping wet, but it isn't raining or snowing outside. he racks with the man's leverage where he pins him with his hands, his energy urgent, but Ben just stares at him as if calculating some math formula in his head. )

—Pulled you down where? Was it Lake Tomie, or Koji Pond? ( posed in a tone that suggests those two locations are just as well the only two options available for answer. )

What?

[It's puzzled, he's puzzled. His eyes dart down to the notebook, up to Ben's face again and he's not quite sure what's happening here. He's too used to filling that role, to taking notes, to assessing and now that he's not there is a moment in which he is at a loss what to do and doesn't he understand how very urgent all of this--

Focus.]

No, it wasn't a large body of water, it was more like... a...

[His mouth opens, closes. His hand comes up gesturing, goes down again.]

A puddle?

[It's really not fair how ridiculous that sounds, so he clarifies]

A scary puddle. It was deep. ... Despite not being a large body of water which, I meant, I referred to the extent of the--

[-- he stops long enough to ask--]

There is a Koji Pond?

( Ben can see it, the absolute careening through confusion, a free fall without direction as one grasps out in desperation for anything to hold onto.

he's about to leap in and center the man again, because he sees it and subsequently relives the very reeling shock that comes with this place, the things that occur in it, that happen to all of them. the man, however, in a singular moment does it on his own — Ben watches the shift in his demeanor, his expression more neutral, focused. good, this is good, they're talking now and the man says it was a—

oh. um. )

A...puddle. ( a scary puddle... Ben flatly echoes, in part to confirm what he heard was correct, in part because it's...difficult to conceptualize. until, his own expression flickers and he jerks out of that thought and onto a new track, one with a wider scope, complete with eyes squinting shut and hands shaking briefly into the air before him. ) No, sorry— I know better than to think anything sounds ridiculous in this town. ( and yet, some days, the things he hears about reach ever new incredible heights of impossibility. )

Erm, yes, there is. ( Ben's own associations to a pond and Koji are a little personal, admittedly, though hardly niche to the world at large; have we another travel enthusiast in our midst, as well? blinking again, Ben decides a tentative pursuit: ) It's quite...scenic.

—Perhaps not now, though, with this ominous girl haunting the place. I've seen her, as well. ( right, back to the part involving visions and a girl and attempted drownings. that's like, the important part, right? ) Only just...not so up close as you did. ( said apologetically. ) If you and I have seen her, then I suspect the rest of the Sleepers are seeing her in their visions, as well.