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

( she's very surprised when it happens, hand moving to her mouth but he might also notice something else from her, a sort of longing that she hadn't even realised )

Perhaps we should sit down.

( she gestures back to the booth where she'd been, the steps back there brief but enough to compose herself just a little when she faces him again )

You're telepathic.

[ Most people are. He does pick up on that lingering sense but doesn't follow the trail of the emotion to find the source. The temptation is always there, certainly. ]

Of course.

[ He follows after her, taking a seat across from her and nodding. ]

I am. And you hardly seem as surprised as most by that.

You're not the first that I've met.

( thanks to jean. angels themselves weren't telepathic but she'd been able to read things about people before, a sort of similar power )

The first that's perhaps so open about it. ( to a stranger no less! ) What's your name?

In a town with such strange happenings daily I don't find that incredibly shocking.

[ Though he would be pleased to know it was Jean. He has enjoyed their time together so far. Even if it is strange to know that she knows him from further in the future. ]

Thank you. [ His mouth twists with amusement. He would say it is simply this place but that would hardly be true. He uses his gift quite often and boldly. ] Charles Xavier. You?

Mrs Sheringham.

( there's something about his manner that she can't quite figure out, confident and bold but-- something )

I took a lot of these children under my wing when it started happening, wanting to make sure they could at least have a meal until this was over.

A pleasure.

[ Their tit for tat, batted back and forth like a birdie in badminton, is refreshing. No set expectation to be found. It just is. ]

Kind of you, certainly. I expect many of us to find we have to lean on others here even if we may not be used to it. From what I gather so far, things of varying, stressful natures happen quite regularly in this place.

I've heard similarly.

( though she's certainly better at offering out help than taking it herself, though perhaps certain situations here will make it so that she has to take help. if she can )

I haven't been here too long myself, this is the first of those unnatural events that I've seen but I've heard of others.

[ Charles can relate to that. It's been so long with just himself and Raven that to find that there are others who he might lean upon and especially other mutants is a lot to take in. ]

Having only just arrived I know of this one and the one with people turning into pigs. Which sounds absolutely mad when I say it out loud finally.

I suppose no madder than being brought into a dream world or people's ages regressing.

( in the whole scheme of things it was all mad. and she sounded especially calm for someone who hadn't actually been there that long )

I suppose little of it would typically be believeable.

Quite right. I suppose that is one way to keep things in perspective.

[ He's already spent a handful of years thinking he was going mad. He'd rather not return for a repeat of such things. ]

I think that might also depend on where one came from before all this.

Where?

( she looks slightly amused by that question, though perhaps he isn't far off something )

I'd been living in York. Just for the last few years. And yourself?

Some people seem far more at ease with these happenings. Nevermind the actual townspeople.

[ He chuckles at her amused expression and offers a small shrug. ]

I actually just graduated from Oxford, though recent events have brought me back to New York.

And you believe where they were living is directly related to that?

( it was certainly a curious idea. and certainly some places might host peculiarities that others didn't though that was a concidence )

I think it's possible that there may be some worlds that experience a far more vast variety of things than what many of us might be used to. The human genome itself allows for infinite variation, I see no reason to think that other worlds might be restricted by our own lack of experience.

[ If Hank were here he could do far better at explaining or even coming up with theories. He's far more interested in science fiction than Charles is. ]

Some worlds like yours?

( considering that he had powers and was open about them she assumed that it wasn't just him in that world with a power )

I agree that some worlds would have such variations but there are others where it doesn't exist, where only humans live.

( and whilst that could sound incredibly naive she knew it for certainly in her world )

My world has it's quirks, certainly. Not so many as I think this place is capable of producing, though.

[ There could be a mutant powerful enough to do something like this, he imagines. He hasn't met them yet. ]

I imagine that is also possible though it sounds like an incredibly lonely existence.

It wouldn't be lonely if it's all you've ever known.

( and certainly has nothing to do with the loneliness that he might pick up from her )

But I'll tell you what I told the other telepath. She believed that it might be a powerful mutant who had done this. I gave an alternate thought, that there might be another powerful entity that had created this, that created worlds. God.

( and whilst she doesn't know if it would be mr mountjoy or a god of a different world it's an idea that she really does believe in terms of the power )