soddersays | APRIL 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Entry tags:

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

[ Jon is not, in fact, a 3-meter-tall monstrosity. He is a scrawny monstrosity less than two meters tall. And he does not feed on children.

So he follows the relentless pull into that alleyway, and stands there in the mouth of it, in front of nothing but a dumpster and empty space. He sighs heavily.

Well. Seems unlikely the compulsion would leave him here. That means she is either invisible, capable of scaling alley walls at startling speeds, or hiding behind the dumpster.

All three seem feasible, given his luck— her nervousness in public could have been feigned; she could be tugging him along on purpose— but he'll attempt to assume the latter. Anyway, all of these options would indicate that she's noticed him. ]

Excuse me? I, I'd like to speak with you, please. I don't mean any harm.

Why are you following me?

[ She's still hiding behind the dumpster, trusty bin cover in hand. Her voice comes out a little too high-pitched for comfort, but she's fourteen and small voices are the thing of teenagers.

Sorry, mister. Just because you say you don't mean harm doesn't mean she has to take you at your word. But talking is okay. You can both talk like this first. ]

[ Muttered: ] I wish I knew.

[ Ah. Dumpster, then. Another point towards the "just a human teenager" theory, which is... more awkward but less alarming than all the others. Probably.

There is a gnawing, terrible fear in his gut that he simply needs to feed, and that the inhuman parts of him have decided she's to be his next victim. That he has no choice. That he left it too long, and now he has to trap the first unfortunate to cross his path, child or not, and pry her secrets from her.

Except he's decided not to do that. He's decided. He has control. ]

I... just wanted to talk to you. [ Said reluctantly. Talking to him is a dangerous thing to do, of course. He wants to walk away. He wants to walk away, but his body will not move. ]

[ Talk. Talk is a good sign. She can do that. ]

Um. Okay, uh. Sure?

[ She can feel her swear cooling on her brow. The guy at least... sounds(?) normal? Friendly, maybe?

There's a faint eek eeek eek and she looks towards the source of the sound. It's overhead and lo and behold - another one of those Sleeping Beauty spinning wheels is sitting about a floor up on the landing of what looks like the next building's fire escape.

She wishes she could just put her hands back in her pockets. That spindle looks sharp. But that feeling is there again. The one like when you're curious about putting your finger on an open socket just to see what might happen.

Maybe she's going out of her mind. ]

Um. What did you want to talk about?

[ That rhythmic sound sort of... prickles at his awareness, and he looks up to see the new spinning wheel. ]

Those. I touched one of those. [ And it made him bleed, which sounds logical but isn't, really. ]

And now I am... having difficulty, with... not following you.

[ Yes, very reassuring. Good job, Jon. ]

I think it's exerting some kind of compulsion.

[ Or a familiar god of spiders and manipulation is toying with him, nudging him into getting his next meal. Or he's simply a monster. He'd rather it be a cursed spinning wheel. ]

Oh.

[ Not that it doesn't sound creepy af but... ]

So... you haven't been following me on purpose?

[ Good job, Fajardo. You sound as young as you look and not at all like a CDF pilot in training. ]

Not intentionally. I would prefer to be on my way.

[ And yet. Here he stands. In an alleyway with a teenager he's trapped behind a dumpster. ]

But I can't... seem to move away. From, um. You. [ This continues! To sound creepy! ] T-that is— I'm not sure how to break the compulsion. The... spell. [ You can basically hear the air quotes. For all that Jon has his own strange abilities, he's not fond of magical terminology. Makes everything sound a bit... frivolous.

But he's faced with a cursed spinning wheel and a frightened child, in a world of dreams and omniscient deer, so it seems to suit. ]

[ And this is one smol child peering out from the corner of the dumpster - trash lid still in hand. ]

I believe you.

[ Shedding a quick and wary glance at the spinning wheel and it's creepy come to me vibes. ]

I saw that thing - and others like it - a couple of times. And I didn't like the feeling it was giving me-- [ the same one she's feeling now, but it helps to concentrate on something else ] --so here I am.

[ A beat, then: ] What's your name?

[ She's not going to be much help with figuring out how to fix what it's done to you, but at least she'll have something to call you besides "hey, person". ]

[ How long has it been since he did something as mundane as introduce himself to a stranger? Not that these are... really usual circumstances, are they. ]

It's, uh, Jonathan. Sims.

[ Now that she's come out, he attempts to crook a reassuring smile, but it's not really his strong suit; he just continues to look pained. ]

And yours?

[ Hey, no judgement on her part - this is hardly a usual way for meeting new people. But well. ]

I'm Kaya.

[ She's staying put for the moment. You seem... harmless? Ish? At least this conversation seems to be going well. ]

Kaya Fajardo.

[ And he... feels it. A lessening of the pressure, like the invisible line between them is going slack. Jon blinks at her. ]

I— hold on, I think that's working.

[ He takes an experimental step back. And another. The line begins to draw taut again, but— it's improved.

A giddy, somewhat hysterical little laugh bubbles up in him. He doesn't need to flay the minds of the innocent? He just needs to exchange names? Has his patron dramatically reduced its standards?

But, no. He's still as hungry as before. This might be unrelated to his... hunger, then. This might just be a quirk of Deerington. ]

Where, ah... where are you from, Kaya? For how long have you been here?

[ If the whites around her eyes are showing, don't mind her - that laugh just caught her a bit off guard.

But anyway. Blinking at that question before she clears her throat. ]

Um, [ what could it hurt, right? ] I'm from Silay. I got here... a couple of hours ago, I think?

[ Brows knitting together a little. ] How about you?

Silay— [ For an instant, he's trying to place it on a map and not entirely succeeding. Jon's research usually focused closer to home. But then there's a familiar little shift of static in his head, and he Knows just where it is.

The perks of being bound to an eldritch god of knowledge. ] I'm from London. And the same.

[ There it is again, the lessening of tension. He takes another step back, just enjoying that he can. ]

London?

[ There's a bit of uncertainty in her tone. Like she's never heard of it. Jon's accent reminds her a little of some of the other imports for the CDF. No one she's spoken to directly, but then again, she listens in - even when she shouldn't.

It's only then that she notices that he's taken another step back. Curiosity gets the better of her and she shuffles out from behind her hiding place to stand.

( For your reference, Jon, she's a little under five feet. Thereabouts. ) ]

Are you... okay? [ Have a frown. ]

[ He blinks at her, bemused by her tone. Yes, London. He's abruptly and thoroughly certain she's from the Philippines, which is far away, yes, but of course she knows where London is.

It's London. ]

If we've been dragged into this place by evil deer, it shouldn't come as much surprise that we came from different places.

[ Jon has maybe half a foot on her. It's a bit novel, being taller than someone. ]

Yes. I... I think the bond reacts when we share information.

[ Which is. Baffling. And fascinating. ]

Evil deer. [ Her ankle hurts instinctively, and her mind wanders back to the odd dream she was having before she woke up.

But she'll dwell on that later.

Tilting her head curiously. ]

Reacting... how?

Edited 2020-04-07 02:12 (UTC)

I, I can move further away now. It's as though there's an invisible thread...

[ He reaches out to touch the space between them, frowning at the air. He can't see anything, and by this point, Jon can See most things no matter how invisible they're meant to be. Again: perks of an eldritch knowledge god.

So it's worrying, that he finds nothing in the air at all.

He looks up at her again, and keeps his voice polite and careful. He could push some power into a truth compulsion, but he strongly does not want to, and it takes some attention to prevent it from slipping out accidentally. ]

And what, uh, do you do, back home?

Edited 2020-04-07 02:34 (UTC)

[ She nods slowly, even as she's dusting off the knees of her pants. This is all very strange, but then, seeing a spinning wheel show up like a cat that's convinced that it can bribe you with food (food being your blood or something) isn't exactly normal. ]

I'm a student [ she offers Jon a tentative smile ] but I'm also a trainee on scholarship at this place called TALOS.

[ It wouldn't hurt to share information. She doubts anyone from home is around - so the NDA she had to sign for the trouble she caused shouldn't apply. ]

They uh, they build and test havezens [ saying that like she expects that you'd be familiar with the term ] and I get to work on them while supervised by some of the senior engineers!

[ There's a note of barely restrained enthusiasm in her voice. Clearly, she finds it more fun and less work. ]

[ He nods, testing the pull of that invisible thread again. No improvement as she's speaking. Hm.

So, a young girl who wants to go into engineering— simple enough. Not a clue what "TALOS" might stand for, and he has half a mind to ask out of simple (constant) curiosity. That thought is overridden when he blinks, curious and clearly unfamiliar, at the other term. ]

Right. What is a "havezen"?

[ It's the question about what a havezen is that makes her pause, because while the technology certainly has terms in different languages, she'd grown up with the impression that it was universally known. ]

Um. They're big mechs. [ That's accompanied by gestures implying that it's fairly large, but vague enough to leave out how big she means.

Tilting her head in curiosity. Maybe Jon's never seen one? Though she's not sure how that could be. ] They're um. [ She glances upward, trying to gauge the height of the buildings that stand to either side of the alley. Since both appear to be made up of four floors, she points to the middle of the third one. ] They're about as tall as... see the top of that window?

[ Glancing back at him she adds: ] We use them to fight the Deep Ones.

[ If her voice shakes a little at the end of that sentence, it's only because she's remembering the distant echoes of screams cut off by unearthly shrieks. ]

[ Well.

Fuck.

It's like something shifts, in a way he doesn't entirely comprehend, and abruptly he can See it in her. It's always been there, but now he Knows it. She has been touched by something vast and terrible, and the story of her horror will be delicious.

Every speck of awkward, polite Englishman has dropped from John's expression. Instead, his stare has gone intense, and it has gone hungry. ]

The Deep Ones. [ He'd been doing so well— he's had nearly an entire conversation with her— she is a child—

But, oh, that shake in her voice. There is no way he can walk away from it; he can almost taste the shape of the fear in her mind, of something immense and unknowable. He Knows that the tape recorder in his pocket has clicked itself on. (He also knows, distantly, that Martin will be so very disappointed with him.)

There is a tight, strangled pause where he says nothing at all, but he looks at Kaya as though she is prey. He doesn't even realize that he's stepped forward again, blocking the mouth of the alley. ]

Edited 2020-04-07 23:25 (UTC)

[ Funny, for someone she's just met (or maybe it's because he's one of the few she's encountered here so far), she really likes talking to Jon.

So when he goes quiet and there's that... look on his face, she can't help but take a small step back. ]

J... Jon?

[ She knows that look.

It was luck that she ducked into the music department - the old building at the far end of the school field where kids her age rarely went because it wasn't a place where most kids could run around.

She feels the ominous cr-cr-crack of thunder reverberating in her bones as she makes her way up the steps, her body heavy because her uniform is drenched all the way down to her skirt. The main corridor is narrow and lined with plaques and photographs. But there are stairs that lead up into the concert hall's balcony area.

She'll be safe up there. She hopes she'll be safe up there. Maybe it won't find her here--

--and she'll do her best not to throw up because she can't get the image of Miss Alvarez speared through by snake-like bone tentacles out of her head.

It looks wrong on his face. ]

Jon...? What's wrong?

[ He can almost taste it. Christ, god, damn it. Martin will be so disappointed in him.

She's afraid of him, he registers hollowly. It should make him feel guilty; it does. It should snap him out of it, make him backtrack, make him behave like less of a monster; it doesn't.

There is no way he can explain to her that he wants to dredge up all her horror and that she should hate him for it.

There is also no way he can turn away. The threads between them are nothing compared to the hunger of the vast and terrible thing living in his mind. ]

Tell me— [ He bites off the heavy, warped resonance of power in his words. Tries again, every word careful. No compulsion for the gritty details of her trauma, just a bare question. ] Tell me about the Deep Ones.

[ The first words out of his mouth feel strange. But then she watches him try again and it's nothing weird - just a request to explain what the Deep Ones are.

Kaya crosses her arms loosely over her chest, her shoulders slumping a little. She looks askance and tries to keep her voice light and wills herself to figuratively take a step back from the echo from her demons to set them down in front of her like facts and nothing more. ]

No one knows for sure what they are. [ A quick glance up at Jon - to check, her hindbrain seems to tell her - if he's still there. ] They've been around for as long as people have - and maybe even before that.

All the adults I've ever known compare them to natural disasters; really scary storms, earthquakes, flash floods. That is [ she breathes, tongue in cheek as she speaks slowly ] if natural disasters could hunt.

[ It already has the ring of a Statement. He is, Jon realizes, already too far in. And too hungry. The thought of subsisting on nothing but written scraps makes him go cold with apprehension; he wants this.

At the word hunt, he trembles: just a moment's taut-wire tension. Her fear is so apparent. There's so much for her to tell him, and it's all new— these are things he's never heard before, things his patron has never seen—

He wants to be better than this. He's not. He's got a little girl in an alleyway and he can nearly see the tentacles in her dreams. ]

And you were... hunted.

[ There it is: that resonance again, prompting her, urging her to speak more freely than she would. It gives a strange weight to the air. Tell the story, it says.

(Sorry, Martin.) ]

APRIL 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

YOU UNCULTURED SWINE

GOOD ENDURES

Character Arrival

eeexcellent

huhuhu why is jon adorable

he is trying so hard

huhuhu poor jon

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject