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soddersays2020-03-25 05:21 pm
sodder) wrote in soddersays2020-03-25 05:21 pm
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APRIL 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME
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!
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.
no subject
But she'll dwell on that later.
Tilting her head curiously. ]
Reacting... how?
no subject
[ 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?
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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"?
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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 looks wrong on his face. ]
Jon...? What's wrong?
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.) ]
no subject
She slips into talking about that day, her voice soft and shaky as her fingers curl around the hem of her shirt and the old ache in her chest for lost friends makes her shoulders slump.
Maite could have made it. But the tiles had been slippery. ]
We were stuck at school [ she remembers how the teachers had herded them all in the classrooms on the second floor, ] it was raining. Seasonal monsoons.
[ There's a hitch in her voice just then: ] I always liked it when it rained because that meant I could wear sweaters.
[ It's an echo in her ears and at the fringes of her vision: the flashes of lightning, the sound of thunder like a gunshot. She'd been sitting by the window overlooking the field. The school head groundskeeper - Manong Bernie had wandered over by the benches with one of those small nets he used to take fish out from the prestinely maintained freshwater aquariums. ]
They told us that the second graders' classrooms were flooded. They were lower than any other part of the school, built close to the gates.
[ She shuts her eyes. ] I don't know why no one thought to wonder why the fish were all fleeing for higher ground.
no subject
Direct Statements are something else altogether.
He Sees it, as she speaks. He feels the rattling bang of thunder in his bones, he is deafened by the pounding of the rain, he relishes the weight of her skirt soaked with rainwater. ]
Go on. [ God, it's satisfying. An electric thrill of experience and power, more real than anything else. This must be what the Hunt feels like with hot blood between its teeth. ]
no subject
There's a crate set against the wall that looks sturdy enough, so she sits down just to give her legs a rest. ]
The lights went out first. They said it was because something had caused the transformer down the street to blow.
[ She says something but she knows. She overheard what the adults said later, after they'd been saved. After the monster went away. It's still out there. She thinks that's why she still has nightmares. Why she told Brigade and Captain J that she wanted to learn how to fight, even if everyone says that she's not to pilot a havezen until she graduates. ]
We didn't-- [ lips pressed together now ] --we couldn't walk on the first floor. We had to find another way around. The water was warm in the high school building. But none of the teachers could get to the breakers.
[ Her school was old. Built decades and decades before the hundred year war. The buildings were all still connected -- except for the newer ones like the gym. ]
We didn't think it would scale the walls. But maybe we should have. It was built like a squid or an octopus except it's tentacles were made of bone.
[ She wipes furiously at her tears. She's fighting her need to cry. She doesn't know why she's telling him these things.
Kaya always told herself that she didn't want to forget. But that doesn't mean that remembering doesn't hurt. ]
cw: grown man invading personal space of distraught girl trapped in alley + enjoyment of suffering
The terrible part is not that Jon has a little girl all but pinned in an alley and he is feasting on her fear.
The terrible part is that, for just a moment, he is allowing himself to not care.
It is the best thrill, the most satisfying meal, it is exquisite. They are both swept along in the current of the compulsion, now, and he Sees it as she gives voice to it: its tentacles were so sharp, so thin and white, like fish's bones. ]
cw, just to be safe: body parts, death (children)
Deep Ones are loosely accounted for in terms of size and weight, and a Class 3 falls to the middle of the spectrum.
It had bad eyesight, but they had learned too late that it paid attention to sound and vibrations, capable of tracking them by tasting the echo of their steps in the air and ground.
It moved silently, not unlike a spider maneuvering on a web. So she only noticed the sudden lack of weight behind Maite's arm when she stopped and the hand she held in hers was too light, the fingers curled around her own as if the nerves had not registered the other girl's death.
It's difficult to breathe when you can't scream for fear that the monster will find you.
Her first friend - her best friend was gone. Swallowed whole without so much as a peep and the thing was hunting her. And she was now alone, her small and wayward group picked off like a food off a plate.
She doesn't see Jon anymore. Doesn't notice that he's come so close or that the pull of yes, tell me the story is coming from him.
Instead, Kaya draws her knees up, tight against her chest; hands cold and body shivering from the remebered feeling of the wind roaring, the rain pouring, and the sound of the creature moving a floor beneath her.
She starts to pray in the tongue of her hometown, a soft and lyrical sound memorized from years of practice. She's still young enough to believe that there's an omniscient being looking out for all of humanity, but old enough not to hope that whatever It is, it will intervene. ]
cw continued enjoyment of tasty tasty suffering
The experience winds down into the rhythm of her prayer. It's funny: he can now perfectly understand Mandarin and Sanskrit, apparently, but he doesn't have the first idea what she's saying. The gist of it, though. That he Knows.
As the story fades— and the compulsion with it— Jon looks down at her with the bone-deep warmth of satisfaction written across his face. He knows that he had been distantly dizzy with hunger before this, weak and irritable and frazzled with a familiar gnawing exhaustion. That is gone now; he feels thrumming with life and power. He feels incredible.
He says, softly: ]
Statement ends.
[ There is some guilt in it. He feels it rising. But it is so distant, somehow. ]
Thank you. You told it very well. I'm sorry it was painful. [ He's not, though. But perhaps he wishes he was. ]
huhuhu
Kaya's never told anyone about what it was like - has never gone into detail like that. Not even with the counselor they'd assigned to check in on her once TALOS brought her on.
She used to feel hollow and disappointed, even when he was kind and patient, explaining to her that what was important was not the memory, but how she moved forward. ]
What... what was that?
[ She hugs her knees to her chest, wariness lining her features and body. ]
J-jon...?
[ She wants to say but doesn't: What did you mean by "you told it very well"? ]
no subject
It's... strange, and difficult, to regain a human sort of groundedness. He has to let go of the expansive, freeing power of it. He has to cram himself back down into a cramped, brittle little body and mindset and emotional state. Into the limited here-and-now. A part of him always hates it.
But her voice is so small, and so young.
Jon swallows, and steps away— steps back, a respectful distance, gives her space. He breathes for a moment, trying to regain himself. He doesn't want to focus on the guilt, but he needs to. He knows that he needs to. It's painful, and bracing, and it helps wake him up. ]
I'm sorry. [ It sounds a little rough around the edges, and a lot more human. ] I'm... sorry for asking so many questions. For, for— for making you talk about it. I'm so sorry that happened to you. It's horrible.
[ He's not sure he means it the way he should. He's not sure he's feeling it the right way, right now. But she's so young. He can regret doing this to her, at least. And—
Martin.
He can regret letting Martin down, too. ]
no subject
--she can't stop shaking. ]
It's okay. [ But is it? Is it really, Kaya? When you can still hear the rain in your ears and the cold of this town brings back memories of waiting and waiting and waiting just praying for someone to come and save you. ] It's gone.
[ But not dead. Not dead, Kaya. The people who'd swept the school hadn't managed to kill it. And with the whole of Nilar practically under water there were too many places for it to have slunk away to. ]
It's gone and I'm here and alive and I'm never-- [ she bites the word out, like she needs to believe it ] --going to be it's prey ever again.
no subject
He tries to find the part of his mind still able to ache with horror, and leans into it, like poking a broken tooth. He thinks of Martin. It hurts. Good. ]
Thank you, Kaya. For telling me. Stories like these are... very valuable for me to hear.
[ When he shifts away again, he realizes the difference: no tug of an invisible thread between them. He is free.
Ha.
Yes, that would do it, wouldn't it. Further proof that the Web is behind the wheels. That something, somewhere, is pulling his strings with intent. ]
I think I can go, now, if you'd like to be alone.
no subject
Good, good. At least he's no longer compelled to follow her, because it can't be fun being forced to follow people. ]
I... [ but does she want to be alone? She's met one other person around here so far and while Martin had been nice enough to make sure she found a coat to keep warm, she also hadn't wanted to impose on his company. ]
Is there a way we can... keep in touch? [ The sound of her voice is uncertain. As if she already expects that Jon will say no.
Softly, she adds: ] I've never told anyone else about... about what happened. I don't know anyone here. And I don't know how I can get home.
It would be... good... to know a friendly face.
no subject
The look in Jon's eyes now is pained, and dark, and complicated. Mostly, it is sad. ]
I... [ He shouldn't run from her. When she comes to him demanding to know what he's done to her, demanding to know why he haunts her dreams, perhaps he should let her. He owes her that, doesn't he? She has given him her story, and she is so horribly young. ]
Y-yes. ... Yes, all right. If you like. I'm going to... show you how to contact me, on the phones they give us here, all right?
[ He draws his out, but he doesn't come closer. She is a little girl hunched in the alleyway of some strange city, crying where no one but him can see, and he feels suddenly and acutely dirty for that fact. He should never have been be allowed near her, Jon is miserably certain; he is too much a monster. ]
JON ;;
She approaches, tentatively, to stand a foot away as he's fiddling with his phone. ]
A BAD + SAD MONSTER MAN
As if such things have any relevance in the nightmare of his life, these days. Or hers, apparently; it seems he's pulled her into the mad nightmare with him. (She was already living one, of course. He wouldn't have been drawn to her story, otherwise.)
Jon continues to think bleak, tired thoughts as he shows her the messaging client and his handle. If she's trapped here, too, now... maybe he'll be able to help her, someday. ]
i cry
Something is wrong. Jon looks sad. She's not sure she wants him to look sad. ]
I left the phone back at the apartment I walked up in. But I'll remember your handle.
[ For a moment, she wonders if she should pat his arm. She normally would, if he'd been someone not-so-much-a-stranger. Like Hank. Or Brigade. Or Isa and even Zane. ]
I promise I won't be a bother. But I will message.