Entry tags:

March 2020 Test Drive Meme

MARCH 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to March's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: SOULS & SINS.

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: Blood (both normal and black), B&W GIF with implied bloody hands, possible murder, possible body horror, possible insanity, possible suicide, possible forced aggression, possible demons, mental health references, leprechauns, stalking, being slowly eaten alive.
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

GIVE IN TO THE BLACK BLOOD

Accidents happen. Maybe you scraped your knuckles against the lockers at school, or you got nicked in a sparring match, or your leg got caught on something in Rapture while you were away. Maybe you don't even remember how you got the small cut on your body, but it's superficial and nothing to worry about, right? Your tetanus shot is up to date (probably?) and even if it's not, it doesn't seem that bad.

You won't even notice the changes at first. The black blood is just like normal blood and you can't feel it as it invades your body, multiplying and taking over your regularly, healthy red blood cell count. It takes a day or two before your head starts to feel a little more chaotic than usual; thoughts start coming at racing speeds, becoming more and more violent as time passes. You can hear a voice that's not your own encouraging you, egging you on. telling you to just give in to the madness and embrace your destiny.

Under the effects of the black blood, you'll want to attack over the smallest things. Total strangers or casual friends will be the primary target as you seem to be able to at least recognize those close to you. You don't see these people as human, they're just a target, something to let out all those violent thoughts on. Even if you're weaponless, it won't matter; the blood in your veins can harden, burst from your skin and form its own weapon. Each one is unique to the person who is wielding it. Maybe it's a sword or two, a gun that is the perfect weight for you to hold, or a spear that's the exact length for the perfect throw. The weapons are indestructible and if they require ammo, they never run out. Those who are savvy enough will realize that they can harden the blood within their veins as well, usually in small concentrated areas, but it might be able to save you if someone gets the momentary upper hand and tries to strike a blow. While your skin can still be cut, any weapon will bounce right off of the black blood, and most blades might even crack if they don't have magical properties.

So how do you stop someone infected by the black blood? You'll have to get into their head. Looking into the eyes of someone under the effects of black blood will be difficult— their gaze is jumpy, staring at anything but the person they're attacking, and getting them to look at you long enough to enter into their soul will be a challenge because of it. If you manage to keep their head still, it only takes eye contact for three seconds before you'll be linked. You'll both end up in a small room, the one corner of their soul that hasn't been altered by the black blood.

The person under the effects of the black blood will feel weak, particularly if they've been trying to fight the effects of the madness taking over them. They'll feel defeated and might believe that fighting at this point is pointless. There's a small creature beside them, muttering to them these exact thoughts, that they're stronger this way, that it's the right thing to do.

The person who is trying to free someone from the black blood will have to target this ogre first. There are multiple ways to fight him, but the quickest is to find a way to shove him through the door you came in through and lock it. It'll give you a chance to talk alone, to try and encourage the other to keep going, to not give up, to take control. The ogre will be banging on the other side of the door the whole time, growing larger and louder with every passing second, so you'll have to do this quickly.

If the ogre ends up bursting back in or if you decide to attack right from the start, it can be killed— it's just hard to do alone. There's a glowing soul in the center of the ogre's chest, one you'll have to get a hold of and crush. Doing it by yourself is dangerous without weapons, but if you work together, it's not impossible. There is furniture throughout the small room you can use to attack with and if either of you are capable of summoning a weapon, you'll still be able to do so in this room. Magic will work so long as you're working as a team, but those trying to defeat the ogre alone will find their magic faulty and unpredictable.

Once you manage to pull the soul from the ogre, crush it in your hands, and the room will start to disintegrate. You'll end up back outside of the person's mind.

Purging the black blood from your body isn't pleasant; it will run from any open wounds and pour out of your mouth and eyes. It burns fiercely, evaporates as soon as it hits the ground, and sizzles like acid the entire time. When it's gone and your blood runs red again, you'll feel weak and disoriented. Maybe it's good to find someplace to lie down and recover for a while.

If you do not defeat the ogre or if someone fails to make eye contact with an infected person long enough to get into their soul, you will find the madness takes over all of your senses. The effects will last for two full weeks before you will collapse and the black blood will leave your body on its own accord. Death will also work to get rid of the black blood.

Note: Black blood can effect non-humans and those who don't even use blood. People who are usually incapable of getting cuts can still get infected with black blood as the wounds they enter through are supernaturally inflicted. The madness will affect non-humans the same way it affects humans and the weapons can be formed even if you don't have skin for it to come out of. You can still enter someone's soul even if they don't canonly possess one; it's the life essence that makes up any character. The black will pour out of whatever openings it can find when it leaves a body, regardless of if a character has a mouth or eyes.

WISHING YOU A RAINBOW OF HAPPINESS

Throughout early March, you will be able to find rainbows randomly scattered throughout the town of Deerington. They'll arc through the sky, overlapping one another, and each will end at different points throughout town. If you follow one and manage to find the spot where the rainbow meets the Earth, you'll find exactly what stories have always said you would; a pot of gold! Amazing! You're rich!

Only that would be too easy, wouldn't it? Deerington always comes with a catch.

If you find the pot of gold and take nothing from it, you'll find you're blessed with good luck and happiness for a full three days. Everything will go your way, people will be kind and friendly to you even if they are normally your sworn enemy. You'll find people do what you ask them to without even thinking twice about it. If you realize you have this power over people, you won't be able to order anyone to do anything against their will, and you won't be able to make anyone hurt themselves, but simple, innocent requests seem to work just fine. Want someone to feed you grapes? You got it. Need someone to fan you while it happens? Absolutely! Live like stereotypical royalty for a day.

If you take a small handful of gold but leave the rest, you'll find that your day is pretty average. Congrats. You just got yourself some gold free of cost.

If you take a large handful of gold, you will find your day goes pretty crummy. Everything goes wrong in the most expected of ways. You spill your coffee, your car breaks down, you're late for work, you mess up even the simplest of tasks, you step in a puddle that's way deeper than it looked and ruin your shoes. Everything sucks and no one is being very kind to you to make up for it. This will last for three days or until you return your handful of gold.

If you decide to take most of the gold in the pot, you'll be outright cursed. Things don't just go typically wrong, things will go terribly wrong. People around you will be put in danger, the ones you love will turn against you and might even start to attack you, accusing you of controlling their lives and being greedy and heartless. No one will try to kill you outright, but things happen when people are driven mad by your very presence. This will last for a week or until you return most of the gold.

If you take all of the gold, you'll get the same effects as taking most, but with an added bonus: people will definitely try to kill you. You'll also find that a small man seems to be nearby when ever any of these attacks happen. He'll start popping up everywhere, just watching you. He'll be at work, in the restaurants you frequent, on the streets you walk or drive down, and if you wake up in the middle of the night, you might even find him in the corner of your room. Just... watching. It's creepy, right? Each night it gets a little closer. If by the end of the week you haven't returned the pot of gold, the leprechaun will attack. It's hard to fight off, quick in its movements and difficult to strike. If it manages to knock you down, you'll have to hope someone comes along and saves you, as you'll be frozen in place. The leprechaun will slowly devour you, starting with your skin, and keeping you alive as long as possible through the process.

Guess you shoulda returned that pot of gold, huh?

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

And just where did she think she was going? They weren't done with their little chat, as far as Neopolitan was concerned. Ruby had yet to babble her foolish little excuses for getting her boss and arguably the only person on the planet she actually gave two shits about killed. Oh, the blame rested heavily on Cinder but she remembered all too well who'd been on that ship that night, fighting him. She wasn't going to let miss motor mouth get away quite that easily.

When the darting started, there was familiarity in that moment. Neopolitan had fought this girl ample times in the past. She remembered what she could do, and she was already in motion, running and spinning a cartwheel to vault her way over and land on her feet, only to realize something.

Huh. She'd expected Ruby to be, you know, further away by now. She turned and put the point of her umbrella down, looking at her oddly, perhaps even a little offended. She'd better not be taking it easy on the girl just because she didn't have a combat-oriented semblance like her. Ruby should know better.

Someone hadn't quite figured out that powers didn't work right here yet. hers were almost all skill based, not semblance or dust based.

Ruby wasn't about to stick around let give Neo the advantage of having a weapon on her. Once her semblance went as far as it would push her, she continued in a run down and around a corner to hopefully get out of sight.

She was quick but she knew Neo would be expecting her to be quicker than she currently was. She spotted an alleyway up ahead and pushed herself to move and duck down into it. If she was lucky Neo might pass her right on by or she could at least get a message out on her fluid to let everyone else know who was in town.

Her eyes darted around to looking to see if she could find anything she could use as a makeshift weapon.

If she thought that ducking down an alley would be the easy way out of this little situation, she had another thing coming. A certain two-toned somebody was quick to recover and make a bolt down the next alley over. As fast as she could move, she'd get around to the other side just ahead of Ruby.

It'd give her time to find a two-by-four or something, but probably not much for that all too important call when Neo slipped out in front of her on the other end of the alleyway, smiling away amiably and doing her best impression of someone who wasn't breathing hard to keep up. Ruby was giving her a tiny bit of a workout today.

The two by four would have to do for now. At the very least it would serve as a basic weapon and maybe even a shield. When Neo appeared at the other end of the alleyway she held up the makeshift weapon and gave a determined glare.

"You might want to get out of the way. I'm not afraid to go through you to do it." That wasn't entirely true. She was nervous to go against Neo without her own weapon. Even more so with her semblance on the fritz.

The click of heels slowly and almost methodically echoed through the alleyway while the silent stalker walked forward, her usual confidence unchanged. There was an edge of a smile of satisfaction in the way that she smiled. Would she have liked a more exhilirating, fulfilling fight? Oh yes, but she was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

As she got almost to the range that either of their current artillery was usable, however, she paused. There was a sound from above. A very loud mewling. Her head canted and she caught sight of an extremely large cat that seemed to emit smoke and power. It almost reminded her of a grimm, but it was just watching the two of them. Waiting. She turned to lift her umbrella when she heard a low hiss and paused, looking at it again.

Really? What was up with this cat? Was it some sort of monster in this strange little town? For a moment, she thought of continuing, but this was just odd enough that she was testing the waters, trying to be sure what she was seeing here.

Ruby was about ready for the most haphazard throw down she could muster when the cat like creature started making a racket above them. She glanced up and could safely say she hadn't quite seen anything like it here or at home.

Still it was enough to distract Neo and that was enough for her to act. Ruby made a dash toward Neo and hurled the two by four at the multicoloured menaces face before she tried to slide past her and out the alley way.

For the moment? This was a punching match and the Authority weren't going to step into that. But they knew the difference between 'get away from me' or sparring and an actual intent to kill. They were, however, both watching them very intently, following with alarming speed to keep up.

The moment that the plank came at her, Neo's attention was right back at Ruby. Her arm barely got up in time to block it, and she had to twist around, casting it to the side as she turned her body. She reached out with her umbrella. The hook of it went out, aiming for the girl's ankle to try and trip her as she passed. Oh no, she was not letting her get away that easily. They had business to attend to.

Hey look. She was really hoping crazy cat and neopolitan nightmare could have gone toe to toe instead, Is that so much to ask? She's pretty sure her distraction had her in the clear as she moves to clear the heck out of the alley way. That was until something hooked around her ankle and sent her sprawling onto her belly.

"ooooff…" Ruby wheezed as she came to her senses. Trying to shake the umbrella hook off her foot.

It was easy enough to shake off, if only because someone was happy to yank it off herself, whipping it first down and then off as soon as Ruby hit the ground. Hush spun in Neo's hands, and she brought it up, pressing the button to make its blade extend. Reaching back, she had a look of immense satisfaction in her eyes as it came back for the strike she'd dreamed of for two years.

And that was when it happened.

There was a hiss, and one of the cats seemed to teleport like smoke down to the ground, landing right on top of Ruby and hissing up. Smoke swirled around Neo's hand and she staggered back, feeling her fingers go numb. Her other hand grabbed the umbrella, retracting the blade and she saw that the cats stopped approaching, just seeming to watch the two of them, to stand between them.

She brought the tip of her weapon down to the ground and stared with a narrowed gaze. Of course her life couldn't be that easy. Could it? The feeling was returning to her hand but she could see it in those things' eyes. They were dangerous. More dangerous than Grimm. Faster too.

Ruby hardly had time to react she felt herself flinch as Neo brought her hand back and the umbrella's blade extended out. She closed her eyes but before any strike could happen she felt a weight suddenly land on her back. She opened her eyes and saw the cat had landed on her and was currently fending off Neo with... smoke? This place just weirder and weirder.

"Good kitty!" Ruby said as it climbed off and continued to approach Neo. Ruby picked herself up to her fit and immediately stuck her tongue out at Neo.

"Ha! Better luck next time!"

The cats approached and stopped. Neither of them was trying to fight and Neo was clearly not trying to kill this girl right now, so they were back to being cats, perfectly normal cats... if cats were made of smoke, had glowing red eyes and were the size of a house dog.

Neopolitan took her injured hand down, reaching out and grazing the head of a cat as it passed by her, the thing rubbing up against her leg in the process. It purred but seemed bored compared to before. When she reached up, she could see the tendrils of smoke fading away, her fingers going back to normal. This bore consideration before she went further, much as she wanted to.

Ruby sticking her tongue out got an arched brow and a roll of her eyes. Neo concentrated and what looked like shards of glass started to form from the base of her feet, going up until they covered her completely. There was a green-haired girl staring at Ruby now, dressed in one of those white festival dresses everyone in town was wearing. Even on close inspection, there was no difference in the smile she now wore and the way the natives looked. She even looked taller suddenly, the illusion masking her height. Two fingers pointed at Ruby's eyes, and then back at her own right before she drew her thumb across her throat and looked like she'd laughed a little.

The message, she hoped was clear. 'Watch your back, Ruby. I could be any of these people.' And with a casual motion, she brought her umbrella up to her shoulder and made a 'hat tipping' motion where the bowler likely was before turning and starting to saunter away. Oh, she hoped that this would give the girl some serious paranoia for the next month.

Sweet dreams, Ruby.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only