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

If she were talking to just about anyone else she might have chosen another story, something a little softer to ease them into things. She had traveled with Jaune long enough and they both knew what they were facing back in their own world. She trusted him and knew he deserved to know what exactly they had gotten into.

She gives him the time he needs to process things. She can't help but smile a little at his first comment.

"Thanks. I lucked out and had a helping hand. I've made some good friends while I've been here." Her smile warmed up a little there. She hadn't really expected to get quite as close with the person who had helped her out of that spot, but that's what had happened.

"I tried to do what I could to help out and stop them... But everything was so chaotic and it was hard to be everywhere at once." Something made only harder by the fact that her semblance drained her way faster than it did back at home.

"Death kind of works differently here than it does back at home. It's not any less awful or terrifying but people do come back from it after a few days. As hard as that is to believe."

He tries to hold on to that sense of relief he feels when Ruby says she's made some good friends -- friends that have helped her clearly. Neither of their teams are completely here, so it's nice to know she's found new allies to support her in this crazy world.

But's it's hard to focus on the little bit of good, when there is so much more to worry about. He's learned the hard way that you can't save everyone -- but that hits home a little different when it's your friends on the line. Not to mention the fact that just because he knew not everyone could be saved didn't mean they shouldn't TRY. What was even the point otherwise?

She doesn't straight up answer his question, but then again what she does say is answer enough. He sighs, but his resignation quickly turns into confusion, "People...come back?"

She didn't like not fully answering his question but she was still coming to terms with what happened that month herself. She wishes she could have done more for everyone there but she could only stretch herself so thin. ...Not to mention that she had been caught up in a pretty terrifying ritual herself.

She gives her hand a wave when he gives her that confused look.

"Yeah. I guess it's one of the perks to this being a weird dream world? When you die you kind of show up a few days later back in bed. Most people wake up feeling sick but that passes after a few days. I think the more you do it the worse it gets, but I haven't really done it yet to know for sure."

"It's weird and not really natural... But I guess we've been getting used to that back at home anyways. So it's not unheard of."

Jaune has to take a minute to process that one. In a way he supposed it made sense. This was a dream, right? A very real, very scary, very messed up dream -- but still a dream. Of course, he couldn't think of a dream where he'd ever died (didn't there used to be an urban legend or something about what happened if you died in a dream). No, usually his dreams were maybe about OTHER people's deaths and he wouldn't exactly call those dreams. Dreams were supposed to be pleasant after all.

He blinks, shaking his head from that line of thinking. Now wasn't exactly the time to be thinking about his trouble with sleep. It had been getting better since they'd visited his sister, having an actual bed helped, but still.

"Good, no, even if we do come back let's try to keep avoiding dying, okay?"

Ruby frowned at that reaction. It made perfect sense but she felt a bad that she had give Jaune so much bad news. She knew it was far better to do it this way than to hide anything from him. She wouldn't be able to live with herself to do something like that.

"Well I've managed to go on about five months now without it happening, even if there have been a couple close calls." She tried to smile and brighten up the mood.

"So if I can manage than I'm counting on you and Yang to do the same. Alright?"

He's not going to hold it against Ruby and there's a part of him that is grateful he even HAS Ruby around to be told this. He's not sure he would believe it as easily if it was coming from a complete stranger here and it wasn't like all of this detail was covered in that weird basket he'd seen.

Besides, it wasn't like the threat of death was anything new to them. He nods, "All right. I'll do my best. Just like back home...we can keep each other safe."