MAY 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to May's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: DARK FANTASY 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: Heightened mental health issues (anxiety & paranoia), auditory hallucinations, option for visions of canon death and violence, child death, corpses, possession.
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

DEATH'S EYE

Desperation and anxiety are things that come easily in a place like Deerington, but lately it seems like it's being felt in waves. Maybe you're feeling more desperate to get home, maybe you're afraid of what will happen when you do leave here, or maybe you're dreading what the month to come has in store for you. Some people might just start to feel anxious and terrified with no real reason behind it. The worries are plaguing your thoughts, leaving you unable to trust those around you. You keep seeing visions in your dreams of violent wars, senseless murders, and all of it seems to end with a stand in the middle of the woods with a single glass orb.

There's no rationality for it, but eventually, you'll feel compelled to find the orb. You'll find that when you leave the house to go somewhere, you'll forget where you were headed, only to end up at the edge of the forest. Sometimes you might sleepwalk and wake up in the dirt by the trees. If you decide to fight it and keep leaving, you will grow more and more paranoid, isolated, and violently aggressive to those around you. If you can wait out a full week, you might find the anxiety starts to ease, and slowly over the course of five days, you will begin to return to normal.

If you don't fight it and head into the woods, you will feel pulled to follow a long and winding path through the woods. There are multiple branches off of the path, but you won't feel compelled to go down them. Keep heading straight. Another personal will eventually stumble down the path you're on as well and the two of you will walk together through the woods.

Eventually you'll find a clearing. It's the same clearing from your dream with the same orb displayed in front of you. One or both characters will hear whispering throughout the clearing that grows more intense the closer you get to the orb. They're urging you to touch it, to free yourself from the pain you've been feeling for days on end. The strong can fight it, but most characters will be too weak from the lack of sleep and the constant fear to refuse to give in.

If you do fight it, you can leave the clearing, but the same anxiety and paranoia cycles will follow you for another full week before it begins to ease. If you don't fight it and you touch the orb, you will be filled with a blinding pain that runs through your entire body. There will be a quick and heavy sequence of images that runs through your mind; they will be images of the most traumatic experiences that your companion has ever faced and you will feel as though you were experiencing every moment first hand.

When you break free, the anxiety and paranoia will be gone and you'll be back to yourself. It seems you two will have a lot to talk about on the walk home.

Note: It does not have to be just one character who touches the orb. Both characters are welcome to.

NOW YOU SEE ME

The first few signs you're being haunted are easy to miss. Maybe you think you just misplaced your keys or put that book you were reading down on a different counter than where you find it. Things get a little harder to ignore when random objects start to fall off shelves or glasses shatter without any warning. Eventually there's no denying you've got a full fledged poltergeist on your hands; the walls will shake and screams will echo in your head that you can't block out no matter how tightly you cover your ears. Lights will flicker and bulbs will eventually blow from the power surges. Objects that fly across the room will barely miss your head— some might not even miss at all.

If you know any tricks for getting rid of angry spirits, none of them will work. Trying them seems to only make the spirit angrier. If you try too many times to get rid of the spirit, it will eventually possess you, filling you with a blind and violent rage that can make you attack even your closest of friends. The possession will last for one full hour and once the spirit leaves you, you'll feel completely drained for the rest of the day.

But there's hope! In your blessing's basket, your character will find one-half of an antler wreath. The trick is to find the person with the other half. Each wreath will have a unique set of flowers on them and you will have to find the person who has the flowers that match your own. Both of you will have been being haunted by the same ghost, it seems; they were a busy little poltergeist.

Once the two halves of the wreath are connected, it will begin to glow, before a faint wisp of light starts to travel a path in front of you both. If you follow the path of light, it will take you through the town, down the roads, through the playground at the elementary school, and eventually stopping near the edges of Koji Pond. Continuing to search will eventually lead to both character's stumbling on the body of a young child. Rest the wreath against them and the light will encompass the body, becoming blindingly bright, before disappearing altogether.

Both characters will be filled with a sense of peace afterward and will be safe from harm for a full twenty-four hours after the ceremony is complete.

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

"Starship."

He gapes a little at that - but not as much as he would have a few months ago.

"You're from space?"

Like Shiro then. And Maul.

"I'm just gonna make a wild guess and say that the medical resources will make you very angry. What, uh." Deep breath. "What year are you from?"

He grimaces, like it physically pains him to ask this. Magic is still his number one headache in this place but time travel is a very, very close second.

"Oh, hell no. I'm from Georgia, born and raised, thank you very much. I do work in space, though. On a ship, yes."

Probably best not to ask him too much about it, or else Leonard may go on a rant about the insane dangers of traveling across space in a tin can. (Excuse him, duranium. Or whatever the hell it's made of.)

"I had a feeling. Luckily a few of mine have made it here with me," he says, though at the moment the medical supplies are the least of his concerns. At least the talking is keeping him distracted from everything else. "2263. Guessin' you're from before then?"

"Oh, good."

2263. Luka's eyebrows climb and he gives a one-sided shrug.

"2003. And here I thought it'd be something stupid but what's a good 260 years, I'm sure I'd have a lot in common with a guy from 1743."

They share the vitriol, at least? He exhales, then shakes his head, rubbing his face.

"Sorry. I'm not a big fan of..."

He looks around, beckoning at the forest, at the everyting.

"This."

Leonard's brow raises at that, and a dry snort leaves him. He'd actually laugh and be incredibly amused by that right now, if it weren't for the fact that... well, like Luka says. All this that's going on right now.

"Hey, don't apologize. You and I are both of the same mind. I'm not lovin' this any more than you, believe me."

But how they feel about it isn't going to change the predicament they've found themselves in, so. Better to do something, rather than just sitting around complaining about it.

"Let's just get this over with and see what horrible fate awaits us at the end of the path."

Hey, no one said anything about keeping optimistic.

Luka grins. He can definitely get behind the gallow's humor here and now that the ice is broken it's kind of nice not having to face the evil enchanted forest by himself.

"How do they say, a problem shared is a problem sliced?"

He looks ahead as they walk, squinting at the path.

"Five bucks it's gonna add a new item to the things-to-never-talk-to-your-therapist-about list."

"A surgeon would definitely say that," he snorts, actually managing a lopsided grin. Even in a moment of tension, he's actually glad to have met a fellow doctor, who seems to have about the same outlook on all this as he does.

"Probably," he mutters. "But then I already don't want to talk to my therapist about any of this." Not that he's that keen on the whole therapist thing, but seen as it's mandatory in Starfleet, not much he can do to avoid it.

He tips his chin up at Luka. "What's five bucks? That a lot of money, or somethin'?"