APRIL 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to April's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: ENCHANTMENT 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.

CW: Enchanted food, possible body horror, mild finger injuries, magic based mind control, rapid aging, possible death
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

YOU UNCULTURED SWINE

Pork is on sale!! Time to buy it up for all your family meals. It also means anything with pork in it in all of the restaurants is on special and super affordable for just about anyone. New arrivals can even get a free meal of bacon, sausage and eggs at the diner! Seeing all the low prices, you find yourself craving pork more than ever. But who doesn't love bacon, right? Maybe you had ham and pineapple pizza at Peter's or those delicious and mouthwatering pork dumplings at the Hot Pot. You could have cooked a nice pork loin with your friends and family for a large get together. Candied bacon is a real treat to munch on in the park!

You're cooking it yourself or getting it from the local restaurants, so nothing bad could happen with a little self-indulgence, right? Just about everyone has learned not to trust the food at a giant feast in Deerington, but short of the lunch and dinner menus at the diner, the restaurants and the grocery store have never done a Sleeper harm! At least, that's the way it's always been before. Two years is long enough to start taking things for granted.

Anyone who has any of the specials from the restaurants or who cooks any kind of pork related product at home will find that once they have finished their meal, they will slowly turn into... pigs. It seems to vary on how fast a single person turns, some moving slowly over the course of days while they eat more and more food, and others will turn into a full blown pig in a manner of minutes. At first you can still talk to others and display your usual personality in pig form, but the longer you stay a pig, the more boarish you'll become.

So how do you break the curse? Locals say there's a magic stream up on the mountain that will stop these kinds of enchantments, but you can't go alone. Someone will have to carry you up and sing to you while you drink. It might be a friend or a lover or a complete stranger, but whoever you can nudge into it will have to physically carry you in their arms up the side of the mountain looking for this stream. It can take a while— the walk is fairly long, a few hours at best, but you'll know it when you find it. The stream sparkles unnaturally in the sunlight and it seems like none of the animals are willing to drink from it's unnaturally cold waters. The moment you take a long sip while your companion sings whatever song pops into their head, you'll turn back into a human. Hopefully your clothes turn back with you.

If your character does not eat meat/pork, then they'll be safe from this event!

GOOD ENDURES

Mirror mirror on the wall...

The pork doesn't seem to be the only enchanted object around Deerington this month. There are several of them cropping up all over the place and each one has a different outcome for those unfortunate enough to run into them.

Spinning wheels seem to be in the most random of places. Some of them will even just appear in your house. Sometimes multiple spinning wheels show up. Anyone who gets to close will have the strong urge to prick their finger on the spindle, the needle very easily cutting the tip and making you bleed more than you might have expected. Hopefully you have a first aid kit around.

Anyone who pricks their finger will find that they are forced to follow the next person they see around everywhere. They'll follow them to work, to school, to the bathroom, to the kitchen, even to bed. It doesn't matter if it's someone you've never spoken to in your life, you will follow them like a lost duckling every hour of every day. It's enough to drive anyone bonkers.

Mirrors will also suddenly be being displayed in every home and every shop, even if you never had them before. It doesn't matter whether or not you have a reflection, any person who looks into the mirror will find that they are forced to imitate the next person they make eye contact with. This can be their personality, their posture, the way they speak, their basic movements— you'll start to become a total mirror image. If it goes on too long, you might even start to find the two of you start to look more and more alike...

Apples start to pop up in all the stores as well as in your fridges. They're bright red and look so delicious, you can't resist taking a bite. Even if you don't like apples or are normally allergic to them, you'll want to eat these, and you'll find they taste delicious and don't bring harm to anyone. At least... not at first.

A few hours after eating the apple, you'll start to notice differences in your appearance. Your hair has start to thin and become gray and limp, your skin is wrinkled and covered in spots, your hands become frail and shaky. You're aging, and rapidly at that. Before you know it, you've turned into a hideous hag, one that would frighten children in any fairy tale book. But how do you reverse it?

The cure for all three enchantments is to tell three facts about yourself. Even just introducing yourself will show improvement if it's to someone who never knew your name before. Those who ate the apples will have to seek someone out, but anyone who pricked their finger or looked in a mirror will specifically have to confess these three facts to the person they're enchanted to follow/imitate. Once three facts have been shared, you'll be able to leave, return to normal, and age back to your regular self.

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

Nobody's telling me to do anything. It's like... a physical... problem.

[ Even as she says the words she knows they sound completely stupid. Then again, everything that's happened so far today has been stupid, starting with when she poked her stupid finger on a stupid spinning wheel in the middle of the stupid street. So, whatever. ]

[For a moment, Syd just watches her, brows furrowed and eyes suspicious. A couple of old women exit the nearby bank and bustle away from the stand-off, and as soon as they pass-

Syd takes off running.

She's never been athletic or agile, but she's at least not half bad at hauling ass for her life. It's a straight shot down Main, but she zips a quick right behind the pet store, and then another down the side of the spa, not daring to look over her shoulder. By the time she sees the hulking brick of the apartments where she'd woken up, there's a stabbing stitch in her side, and she's choking on rain-damp air, but she doesn't stop. Not until she's thrown open the heavy front doors and clamored into the stairwell. Not until she's panted up the flight of stairs, wiping sweat out of her eyes, and staggered to the door she left out of half an hour ago.

Only then, once she's twisted the lock behind her, does she drop to the floor and suck in a deep, aching breath.]

[ Clarisse lets Syd go, watching as she disappears behind the pet store and heads for who the fuck knows where. She enjoys a brief, singular moment of relief—that's over, weird as it was—and then, as she's turning to walk in the opposite direction, pain explodes in her head, sudden and sharp enough to make her gasp and raise her hands to her temples.

It subsides, a little, and she begins to walk. Sort of aimlessly, at first, but as the headache grows, thudding and nauseating, behind her eyes, she decides that home is the place to be. Her heart is racing and thoughts are flitting here and there, strange thoughts, things she shouldn't be thinking about.

She's gonna die. The realization comes all at once and it scares her, the suddenness and surety of it. She's gonna die if she doesn't find that girl, and she has no idea where she went, and she'll die here in this horror town where she barely knows anyone and her mom doesn't even know she's here. She'll just be another demigod who disappeared and they'll all think she probably went out fighting some monster, because that's how it should be, but actually she just had a bad fucking headache.

The apartment building looms ahead. She skips the elevator, because that's one of the first things you learn. Take the stairs. She makes it up to the second floor and has to stop, crouching with her head in her hands. Deep breaths that don't feel like they're even reaching her lungs. She lashes out blindly with one hand and punches the wall, trying to jar her brain back to what it's supposed to be doing, but all she can think about is strawberry fields and her dorm room back in Arizona and the mark of Daedalus. ]

[Syd is off the floor in half a pounding heartbeat. The front wall of her apartment is thin, just old plaster and moldy wood, and the punch shakes it in its frame. She covers her mouth, as though that might somehow stifle the fear in her veins, and scrambles back across her kitchen.]

Go away! [The cabinets start to shake on their hinges, and she flees into the empty living room, further from the intruder.] I don't wanna hurt you!

[A threat, and a plea.]

[ Clarisse recognizes the voice. Sort of. It's more a mental pull than real recognition. Her head snaps up and she hauls herself back to her feet, edging down the hall toward the girl's front door. ]

Hey. [ She rests her forehead against the door and shuts her eyes, trying to soothe her pounding head. ] I didn't follow you here, I swear. I live here. There's... an entrance in Phoenix... You need to open the door or I'm gonna die. [ She swallows. ] Please.

[Okay, that's probably not an excuse any home invader has used before - but that doesn't mean it's going to work. Syd glances around the barren space, trying to find something to arm herself with, something cleaner than her usual weapon, but she comes up empty. There's nothing but a mattress and some kitchen appliances, and she's not about to throw a microwave. The spinny part inside, maybe, like some kind of glass frisbee?

You need to open the door or I'm gonna die.

She swallows. She scrunches her eyes. She walks back into the kitchen.

-or I'm gonna die.

Shit. Shit.]

Touch me, [she says as she flings the front door back open, arms crossed protectively over her chest, ] and I will kill you.

[ The door swings open and Clarisse is too busy gripping the frame with strained relief to worry about touching anybody. She looks rough compared to when Syd saw her earlier, pale and sweaty and sick, but the sight of Syd eases her headache a bit. She has another fleeting thought about Delphi Strawberry Service, but it's easier to come back from it. She doesn't try to step inside, though it's tempting—getting closer would help, she thinks, but she doesn't want to fuck this up and have the girl disappear all over again. ]

I don't—know what's happening. [ It's a struggle to get the words out, more from embarrassment than anything else. ] This is really screwing with me. My head—

Your head?

[Panic shoots through Syd's stomach, and she clenches her fists, trying to tamp it down. Ragged nails dig into her palms, hard enough to cut, but she refuses to let anything else happen. She refuses.]

And being around me... helps? Somehow? [She still sounds deeply dubious, but not derisive; the pain in Clarisse's face is real enough, right in front of her, and she's long since stopped thinking this is some weird ploy.]

[ Clarisse lets go of the door frame, testing herself, seeing if she's steady enough on her feet. She seems to be, so her hands slip back into her jacket pockets. ]

As soon as you ran off, my head started to hurt. It's been getting worse since then. I've been having... weird thoughts. Feeling like something bad's about to happen. [ Even as she says it, she hears how bizarre it must sound. ]

Look, I know I sound crazy. But it's getting better now that I found you again.

[This is officially the worst romcom ever.]

Great. I'm honored.

[Bitten and sardonic, but defeated. Syd pulls back from the door, face pink with anxious adrenaline, and gives Clarisse space to step through if she'll take it, cursing herself inwardly for what she knows is a reckless move. But she just keeps picturing it - Brad on the floor, his head a fucking puddle - and she can't let it happen again, whether or not it puts her in danger.

Not that she's feeling particularly threatened by the girl in front of her, but she is a bit... intimidating.]

[ It's the least cute meet cute ever.

Clarisse steps inside, head down. It's irritating, and embarrassing, and what makes it worse is that she feels better being near Syd. She's being forced into this by something she can't control and it pisses her off, but how can she fight it? This isn't something she can just point a spear at. ]

Yeah, so... I don't know how to reverse it. Obviously.