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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.

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The block was a little less graceful than she had hoped, but block she did . She tried to get a read on the girl's expression, but try as she might it was a no go. Winter had already learned that her summons behaves strangely in this place, so that was also out. If she could at least disarm the girl there might be hope and if she wasn't going to explain herself, so be it.

It didn't stop Winter from talking though.

"So what kind of strange circus did you escape from?" she taunted. "I've seen better costumes at yard sales."

It was risky to taunt someone under the influence of this place, but she was hoping to make her opponent angry enough to get sloppy or at least look directly at her.

It was risky, but she was already addled enough that it was seemingly washing off of her like water off of a duck's back. She actually seemed to laugh, though the tittering motion was just that, a soundless motion that she made in amusement while she followed up and slashed with her umbrella. Pressing the attack, she was trying to avoid eye contact, but that was harder in the throws of battle. As umbrella clashed with blade, there were moments where her eyes locked with Winter's, albeit just for a second or two at a time. They were expressionless, emotionally dead, deeply affected by whatever ran through her veins, even when one strike glanced over the skin and black blood oozed out of a shallow cut.

Did she dare try to maintain eye contact and enter her head space?

Winter's eyes locked with Neos and that was the start of the decent into hell. Suddenly she just ceased to be in the dimension she had started in. Instead she was in a room. The girl she was fighting had also been brought along.....and a ...

"Devil?" Winter said aloud feeling foolish the minute she did so. Her gaze narrowed and she leveled her weapon at it.

"Snap out of it!" she commanded the other girl in her best 'I lead here and I am in charge ' voice. "You're being controlled by that thing. Whatever it's telling you, it's been lying. You can't trust the creatures that live in this place. Fight your real enemy before it completely takes you mind. I can only do so much to help you."

And then she was there. Inside of her. In her mind. This woman was here, the one who looked like all of the Schnees, so prim, so perfect, so white and pure, so rich and spoiled. Neo turned her gaze towards her with naked contempt in her eyes. Here, unlike in the real world where it was all pretend, sardonic winks, little petty jabs and silent laughs, here she was unfiltered and there was nothing kind in the two-colored eyes that were there.

She raised an eyebrow and gave Winter a look of 'do you think I don't know I'm being used?' She looked, surprisingly, like she wasn't as weak as this thing should have been causing. Why? Oh, it was maybe because she hadn't fought it, not even once. It gave her something that she wanted, and she was playing along to have it.

So, here, in her mind she gave a reaction to 'your real enemy.' Her body shimmered, and it was like shards of glass formed over her entire length, working its way upwards to the top of her bowler cap. And then it wasn't Neo, but Ruby Rose staring back at her, pointing at herself. Then at the devil. Then at herself again, and she was smiling, drawing her thumb across her throat.

Why should she obey this woman just because she said it was an enemy. It would give her exactly what she wanted.

Winter would have screamed if she could read thoughts. For the love of all that was order and good she earned her own money. And she certainly had not been spoiled after she began to form her own mind and personality. She hated being treated like some pet in a pretty menagerie. She emancipated herself into the military the moment she came of age to do so. But, Neo's view of her was still a common one. It was hard to shake off Jaque's shadow.

The look in the other girl's eyes was different here. Darker. Much more threatening. But it wasn't surprising. What did surprise her was the girl's transformation.

"Ruby?" Her brows rose, her eyes widening.

She watched Neo's display becoming more and more disturbed as the pantomime went on. However, Winter's own gaze hardened. An enemy of Ruby Rose was probably also an enemy of her sister's.

"Don't be absurd," Winter said, in a hard voice. " You are willingly serving a monster. Even if it gave you what you wanted, it would come at a price you wouldn't want to pay. That's how everything works here. Even the damned gold is cursed. "

Gifts aren't really gifts when they come with strings attached. Winter would know.

Jacques did cast quite the shadow, didn't he? Such a terrible thing, so hard to escape that man's ambitions and his name. But that was neither here nor there. The sparkling glass filtered back down as her semblance dissipated and she stood there within her own headspace, staring at this woman trying to lecture her. She had the audacity to roll her eye at Winter, turning her gaze at the woman before trying to elbow the imp in the ribs.

"Hehehe, what do you know about the prices she's willing to pay, lady?" the imp said. Admittedly, for all that she looked healthy and intact, she wasn't nearly as strong here as she was outside. The Imp was taking a toll, even if she was playing along with it. But it might take a firmer hand than just words with this one.

Then it was going to be that way, was it? It looked like she was going to have to treat them both as hostile. She favored the impish creature with a look that was contempt personified. It wasn't feigned disgust. It was true that Winter probably could not fathom what had brought the girl in front of her to this state.

But, nothing, nothing was worth surrendering your free will to someone else. It was frustrating to see someone give into that even if they were an enemy.

"I wasn't talking to you, demon," she replied, a calm sort of purpose entering her eyes.

There was nothing for it. She would try to defeat the impish creature without harming the girl if it were possible. No promises though. She looked regretful for a moment as resolve took it's place.

"We don't have to do this," she said, addressing Neo again. "But if you insist upon being a puppet for that goblin I will utilize all the deadly force of my training."

The ice that had entered her voice and demeanor left little doubt that Winter Schnee was bluffing. She would defend her own life.

Edited 2020-03-05 05:17 (UTC)

Oh such a display! Neo made a yawning motion as she listened to it all. She'd heard this sort of prattle before. The woman really liked to hear herself talk, didn't she? She sounded almost like that stupid little girl with her stupid little ideas of what was right and wrong in this world. But a thought occurred to her and she rather suddenly smiled.

A flip, a sommersault and she settled herself back into her chair. When she did, the ogre whipped its head around and glared at her. "What the hell do you think you're doing girl?!?" It shrieked, only to get an eye roll from her and a flippant hand motion in Winter's direction. If this thing wanted her service to its whims? It could earn it by ejecting Ms Schnee from her head like a good little shrieking demon. If it couldn't? Well, then the deal was clearly not worth it because it wasn't good enough or the job.

The thing snarled and spat back at her. "you're going to regret that, girl," it said before turning to face Winter. "Right after I'm done with you."

Edited 2020-03-05 05:29 (UTC)

Confused, Winter watched the silent exchange between the two. Her brow crinkled and then her brows rose slightly when she realized what was going on.

Petty and petulant. But if works for me.

She got some satisfaction from seeing the reaction from the nasty little creature. She also didn't give it much time to snarl at her. The statement had barely left its ugly mouth before she pierced the ground with her blades and a swarm of birds burst for the from the glyph she summoned with all of the elemental fury of the season she was named for. She was not here for banter with this thing and she meant it. Whatever reservations she had about killing another person she didn't have it for this little pest.

It reacted quickly, but not quickly enough. The betrayal it had suffered had been anything but expected, as willing as the girl had been up until that moment. Now, without her being outright supportive, it was forced to fight for its hold in her soul, and the flock of birds had it on the immediate defensive, lunging back.

It weathered them, batting at the brittle white things and shattering them with its clawed hands before it started to lunge towards Winter, baring its fangs. The glowing light in its chest was visible even as it snarled like a hounded beast, moving with alarming speed and ferocity.

Neo, for her part, rested her hands in a steepled fashioned, a mockery of so many criminal masterminds. She looked like she was chuckling very silently, giving her best impression of Palpatine. If only she could say 'good, good, let your hate consume you' the image would be complete. But, well, she wasn't really very talkative even in her own mind was she?

What is that?

She wasn't sure what the glowing this within the creature was, but it did draw the eye. She didn't have time to think about it much either because of how swiftly the demon moved. She only had time to follow here instincts and lift her blade. It pierced the creatures chest causing it to shriek out terrible profanities. Black blood gushed from the core and a speck landed on Winter's cheek. It burned and she winced, however, she kept her grip true and kept twisting the blade.

I'm not your prey, you little bastard.

Edited 2020-03-12 04:18 (UTC)

The creature howled. "YOU BITCH!" it shrieked, balling its hands together and bringing down a heavy, nasty blow at the shoulders. But, when it did, the blade still held inside of it and it dropped to a knee. It breathed through its fanged teeth with a snarl, trying to claw back at Winter with such ferocity that it was keeping her at bay for now, but only through that raw rage. It was attempting to wear the seasoned warrior down with blows before she had the chance to recover.

Neo, meanwhile, frowned. Slowly, she started to get to her feet with an almost bored look in her eyes, annoyed very obviously. One step after another, she started to draw near to them, her eyes on the beast that currently held her, one hand letting the umbrella drop near to the ground. No words, but it was obvious that she wasn't happy right now, and its attention was entirely on Winter to keep her away from that light.

Winter threw back her own battle cry at the creature. She huffed feeling the force of the creatures blows. She would have bruises, but at least nothing broke skin. She couldn't be sure she wouldn't start oozing that black stuff if that happened. But she did have to go on the defensive, parrying and blocking and flipping out of the way.

This wasn't good. She had no time to make glyphs and the last time she tried to summon it had gone poorly. Something about Deerington undermined that ability. She didn't notice Neo's movements. She was focused on her more immediate threat. She hadn't missed that focusing on that growing core seemed to trigger the demon's rage even more.

One moment, there was a flurry of raking claws. The next, the demon froze. It looked down, where a blade pushed through its chest from behind, right next to where Winter stabbed through it already. On the tip of the blade was the golden light. It sputtered, coughing up a gout of blood while a gloved hand reached out, plucking the light and ...

Stamping on it.

The light burst and the thing started to just melt away into black, viscous ooze, flowing down and onto the ground. Neo stood there with a nasty sneer on her face as she looked down at what had been left of the thing. Clearly, it had not been worth working with, not if it could be bested that easily.

A shudder, and with a heavy force they were both being ejected from the state. Neo collapsed to her knees, starting to hack out thick gobs of black blood while the false umbrella simply bled into the cobblestones.

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