soddersays | SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

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SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to September's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: CHILDREN/YOUNG ADULT 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: Evil dollhouses, potential body horror (turning into a doll), heights, pranks with the potential to cause harm, some stalking vibes
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

THE EVIL DOLLHOUSE

When you wake up, you find you're not in your own bed, your own room, or even your own house. The room is well decorated, almost Victorian in fashion. The bed is pretty uncomfortable and you're not even sure the mattress is a real mattress. The chairs look like they might be made of plastic and the doors are flimsy. But it might not be what catches your eye, especially if you look out the window.

Through the clear panes (which also seem to be plastic), you will notice you do not see the town of Deerington, or even the outdoors at all. You see a living room that feels larger than life. There aren't any people in it, but as you look around at the fake looking furnishings and the strange view, you might be hit with a realization: you're inside a dollhouse.

The dollhouse has three floors for those who explore; the second floor you woke up on has two bedrooms and a fake little bathroom, all decorated in the same Victorian dollhouse style as the room you originally found yourself in. The bottom floor has a cute little kitchen with small porcelain dolls sitting around the table, a living room with all the basic furniture one would expect to find (in fact, it looks a great deal like the living room outside the windows), and an office filled with books that can't actually be pulled out of the shelves. On the very top floor is an attic. It's dusty and filled with broken toy beds and chairs, a few shattered doll pieces, and on the far wall you'll see another bookshelf. All seems... fairly standard, really, if you're used to seeing dollhouses.

But what there doesn't appear to be is an exit.

While searching, you may run into another Sleeper. A friend or a stranger, it's clear you're both stuck here together. And the longer the time ticks by, the more concerning things get. You might not notice at first, but anyone inside the dollhouse starts slowly... changing. It seems to go at a different pace for everyone, but the results are always the same. Your skin will start to become porcelain, your cheeks more rosy, your clothes made of cheaper cloth material, your joints become stiffer, and your eyes will start to become more and more glass like. If you don't get out of the dollhouse soon, it's clear that you may become the next doll at the kitchen table.

Searching the house again may feel fruitless, but keen observers may find light scratches on the floor in front of the bookshelf in the attic. Maybe they were like that because of someone moving things around or maybe there's a reason. If you decide to eventually pull the bookshelf aside, there will be a large door in the wall. It may seem strange, given that the wall only leads to the outside, but it's the only door to the outside that actually opens. You expect it to open up into the living room, but instead you'll see the grass of the park below. Far below. It's likely you could get hurt jumping, especially if you've started to turn to porcelain, but what other choice do you have?

Once characters take the plunge, they will find that they land rather softly in the grass, despite how high the jump may have seemed. As soon as you are out of the dollhouse, your body will have returned to complete normal.

And the house with the dollhouse in the living room will be nowhere in sight.

THOSE PESKY KIDS

You start off thinking maybe you're just forgetful and moved minor pieces around in your house without paying attention. You might think you're just seeing strange things out of the corner of your eye, because why wouldn't you? It's Deerington. Things are always strange. But each day, there's something weirder going on. Small objects might turn into entire rooms being rearranged, strange sightings out of the corner of your eye might turn into you swearing you saw a lake monster running through the street, and you swear you can hear the rattling of chains or the sounds of someone telling you to leave echoing in your house at night or following you down the street.

A haunting seems plausible. It wouldn't be the first time in Deerington. But no amount of herbs burned, or exorcisms performed, or chants and spell cast will make these things go away. In fact, they seem to just becoming more and more frequent, and more and more intense. Eventually, the strange creatures you see running around may start to try and attack you. They may start to try and kill you. But they always run off before you can attack back or show yourself to be stronger than them. It's probably the first time the monsters have ever been so easily scared.

Anyone who looks into it further may start to find weird clues lying around after a monster has been chased off. Footprints that don't look quite monster-like, tapes or records that when played will make strange rattling sounds like the chains you've been hearing, a piece of rubber that looks a lot like the monsters skin... Huh. The more you follow the clues, the more they'll lead you towards the answer to your dilemmas; these aren't hauntings.

They're pranks.

People can work together to catch a monster or ghost (or killing it, if you decide to); catching them will lead to them getting quite flustered and angry, struggling to get away. Pull off the mask or the sheet and underneath you'll find... a very disgruntled townsperson. Maybe your business was taking too much money away from theirs and they were hoping you'd close down with enough scares, maybe you talked back to them one time and they were looking for revenge, maybe you ruined their house or garden when you were fighting the things in Deerington that actually try to kill you, or maybe they were just having some "harmless" fun; they all have a different excuse, but they're clearly angry about getting caught.

They woulda gotten away with it if it weren't for you pesky Sleepers, after all.

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

[Nico makes a face, clearly not into the idea of that. Not knowing what the point of all of this is makes him feel like it'll be that much harder to complete whatever task it is and get out of here.

Still, there's no use dwelling. He reflexively grips the useless hilt of his sword, backing up from the table again. He really doesn't want to turn his back on the dolls sitting here, for some reason.] I heard you try the front door. [Which is why he'd crept down from the upper level in the first place, where trying to pry open windows had gotten him nowhere.] Where else have you been?

I looked all around the second floor. There's just bedrooms and the windows didn't break or open.

[So same hat. He sighs and glances around. There doesn't seem to be much here and he doesn't like those dolls.]

I saw a staircase leading up another floor. Maybe those windows can be broken.

[Nico isn't particularly optimistic, but he'd rather go back upstairs than stick around here. Once they approach the stairwell, he shifts out of the way to let Lev go first, because he's the one with the bow and arrows and Nico would rather not get in the way if there's a need to use them. Not that he saw anyone up here earlier, but after being in the kitchen he's feeling more unnerved now than before.

It's as empty as it was the first time, and same with the third floor when they get there. Nico makes a beeline for the big window, no matter how unsettling it is to see the huge living room beyond, and pushes against the pane. Being the son of Hades he's, you know, half a god... but the dollhouse apparently doesn't give half a shit because it doesn't even budge. It absolutely no-sells him. Being pocket-sized really, truly sucks.

Frustrated, Nico turns back to Lev.] Nothing.

[The attic is dusty and makes him feel like he has to sneeze. Lev rubs at his nose as he looks around trying to see if there's anything that seems useful. But it's all just broken stuff.

But sometimes you get what you get.

Lev picks up one of the broken chairs, readies himself, then forcefully slams the still intact back into the window. He knows if you hit glass in the right spot with enough force, they should shatter.

But this isn't glass. So he just ends up banging uselessly on the plastic window that doesn't give. After a few tries, he drops the chair and scowls.]

I fucking hate this place.

[Definitely same hat. Nico crosses his arms over his stomach, but finds that his shoulders don't quite cooperate when he moves to hunch in on himself. Stiff and, it feels like, getting stiffer. The skin on his arms feels... harder, almost. He can't see it himself, but his cheeks are getting rosier, too.

He looks back towards the stairwell they'd just come up. They're as far as they can be from the kitchen now, but...

He almost doesn't want to ask. But he can't not ask:] Is it getting harder for you to... move?

Yeah.

Something's wrong.

[He noticed it a few minutes ago when he tried to rub his nose. His knuckles had felt cold and hard against his nose and his hands had struggled to grip the chair.

He flexes his fingers again only to learn that he can barely move them. They've frozen in a strange half opened position.

He hisses in annoyance.]

We need to get out of here. Now.

[It takes Nico a moment to pry himself away from staring down towards the first floor.] Those dolls in the kitchen... [One of which is now lacking a head. Nico looks even more uneasy somehow watching Lev try to move his hand, but then he pushes past it to stumble into motion towards the nearest wall, shoving broken furniture out of the way and into the center of the room so he has the space to push against the wall with his shoulder.

It doesn't budge.]

I'ts a dollhouse. Shouldn't it open somewhere? [The ones he has a vague recollection of seeing before have split open on hinges, so kids can reach inside and play. Maybe if they can find where it is supposed to open they can pry it apart themselves. It seems a remote hope considering neither of them could push through the little plastic window, but what's the alternative? Just going down to table and taking a seat? No thanks.] There has to be something. [Please.]

I. I don't know.

[Lev doesn't know anything about doll houses. He doesn't know if they should open, only that most things should open. Because if they don't... you're trapped.

He inhales deeply, trying to steady himself and stop his breath from coming in quickly. What would She say?]

A calm mind can see what a clouded mind will miss. Only in a calm pond can you see the bottom.

[He takes another steadying breath and looks around the room. What's there: doll parts, broken beds, a chair... a bookshelf. The other bookshelf had only fake books. But maybe this one... as he approaches, he notices scratches on the ground.]

Look.

[He points to the ground with unmoving fingers.]

[Nico abandons his doomed venture with the wall to inspect the floor where indicated, and his stomach gives a hopeful lurch as his eyes trace along the arc of the scratch to where it disappears beneath the bookshelf. He wonders vaguely if Lev's words were an incantation, or a prayer, or something in between; if it had been a prayer, clearly Lev's gods are listening to him where Nico's are not.]

I'm going to try to move it. [He holds up his hands as far as his stiff shoulders will allow to demonstrate that he still has enough movement in his fingers to grip things, and then maneuvers to slide his arm in behind it against the wall. He coughs when the movement sends up a little poof of dust directly into his eyes and nose, but when it clears a little he sucks in a breath to brace with and, leaning back with all his weight, he starts to drag it out.

It inches away from the wall, slowly at first and then when he gets it about a foot away from the wall Nico pivots in the direction he wants it to go so he can move it faster, and then there's a horrible, soft cracking noise, pitched high with the distinctive almost-hiss of porcelain breaking.

Nico freezes, staring at Lev like a deer caught in a set of headlights, feeling suddenly like his heart is trying to climb out of him using his throat. That? Was his sword arm.] I think it's wide enough, [he says, faintly. Get out first, panic later. He saw a door back there.]

[Lev nods and ducks out of the way, prepared to assist if necessary but moving heavy things isn't exactly his strong suit. The kick-up of dust makes him sneeze and he realizes that he can't move his elbow to raise his hand to his face and cover his mouth. Which, he realizes with a grimace, means he definitely can't fire his bow. At least Abby isn't here to give him a hygiene lecture.

With a sniff, he turns back around just to hear the crack of Nico's arm split the air and he freezes. Eyes wide and concerned, almost afraid, as he nods with a swallow.

Lev ducks underneath Nico's arm, briefly touching his shoulder as a form of comfort that he knows isn't particularly soothing, to look through the gap.

Wind whips at his face as he stares at a grassy yard stories below.

It's their only shot.]

We're... going to have to jump.

[He reaches out with his stiff but still working shoulder to extend a hand to Nico.]

[Usually Nico doesn't like to be touched, but as he stares out the door to the grass below, he reaches for Lev's hand. After he'd seen but not actually felt the touch to his shoulder, it's a relief when Lev's smooth, hard fingers cause actual sensation against his palm—it's also sorta comforting that it makes him pretty certain that Lev can't actually tell how cold Nico's hands are by nature, but that's a crappy thing to find good right now, considering the circumstances.

Porcelain dust dribbles out of his t-shirt sleeve, but his arm doesn't flop off and that's probably the best Nico can hope for right now.]

Okay. Alright. [He takes a breath, prays dad, please help us with all the fervor of a kid who thinks he's about to eat it and doesn't have time to reconsider praying to the Lord of the Dead for a longer life... and jumps.]

May She guide us.

[Lev mutters before gripping Nico's hand and leaping...

Only to hit ground a split second later. Like he'd only just jumped into the air and came back down. The sensation causes him to stumble and he has to grab Nico to steady himself.

Hopefully, he doesn't send the other boy tumbling to the ground.

Lev catches his breath and twists around to try to see where they just jumped from.]

What the fuck?

[It's not so different from Shadow Traveling actually—the sensation of falling through a screaming void but then no follow-through on the landing—so Nico deals with it pretty well actually. No stumbling, he just plants his feet and stares at the grass beneath them with a gobsmacked expression. He thinks a hurried prayer of gratitude and notes that he should probably make a sacrifice the moment he can: Hades was watching, clearly.

But then Lev grabs higher up arm to keep from falling over himself, and Nico chokes on air, his vision blurring as he gets hit with what feels like a canon blast of pain from his shoulder blade down to his elbow. After a moment when Lev says something that he finds strangely hard to hear, Nico tears himself away with a whole lot more strength than he had displayed in the dollhouse. Probably enough to accidentally send the guy sprawling into the grass, which has begun to wither up and die beneath Nico's feet. What had once been bright, healthy green spreads out in a rapidly yellowing circle like the soles of his shoes are poisonous, smoking lightly in the otherwise cheery sunlight.] Oh, gods. [Blood is now dripping in stark rivulets out of the same shirt sleeve that the porcelain dust had fallen from, earlier.]

[He hadn't meant to grab onto Nico. He'd done it out of nauseating disorientation from the fall. Usually, he's much more reserved with other people. So when the other boy tears himself away, causing Lev, to stumble, he understands. Thankfully, he manages to be light on his feet, stumbling backwards but remaining upright.

That was pretty scary. So maybe Nico is- Then he sees the blood and feels immediately guilty. He hadn't noticed when he'd made a grab for that arm...

He approaches, hand awkwardly outstretched.]

I... I have a medical kit.

[Nico hesitates; not so long ago, he probably would have ditched Lev to go deal with the strange wound by himself, scurrying off to the shadows because that feels safer even when it really isn't. But the damage is on his sword arm which means he can't just ignore it, and Lev has proven to be helpful so far, and he has been trying to learn how to trust people more.

Plus, the reserves of healing nectar that he happened to show up in Deerington with are way too small for him to be wasting them on what obviously isn't an immediately fatal wound.

He lets out the breath he only belatedly realized that he was holding.] Okay. [He winces slightly, but after getting over the initial shock, controlling his reaction to the pain is getting easier.] I mean, that would help.

Sit down.

[Lev instructs without even a waver in his voice. He's used to this. He patches Abby up all the time. Then once Nico is settled, he rummages into through his quiver and pulls out a small package of alcohol, rags, gauze, and a needle and thread.

Setting that near his feet, he gently raises the bloodied sleeve to inspect the wound, wiping away some of the blood with the rag. It seems to have come from the strange place they were in, like his skin just split open, rather than something cut him.]

I don't think you'll need stitches. And it's a clean cut so it should heal well.

[He pours some alcohol on the rag and pushes it against the wound. It probably hurts so if Nico squirms, Lev doesn't react. In fact, he seems pretty unperturbed by the blood.

Then with gentle fingers, he uses the a clean rag and some gauze to dress the wound.]

There. Just don't overuse that arm in the next few days.

[His own shirt has blood on it now and there's a smear where he rubbed at his face without thinking about his blooded hands.]

[Archery and medicine; hey maybe Lev is a long lost son of Apollo. Once he's settled and Lev gets to work, a few slight twitches are the extent of Nico's reaction to any of it. Clearly, they're both too accustomed to this sort of thing. Nico idly picks dead grass out of the ground blade by blade with his other hand to distract himself until it's done, appreciating the other boy's quiet lack of fretting.

He misses Will a lot, but he doesn't miss the worried scolding about every scratch larger than a paper-cut that he got.]

Thanks. [He gingerly glances to the bandage over his shoulder, trying not to pull the skin apart by twisting too far to look at it. He definitely could not have done that effectively on his own.] You have a... [Nico gestures towards the place on his own face where the streak of blood is on Lev's, then finally asks what he's been curious about for awhile now:] Who were you praying to?

[At the gratitude, Lev briefly looks down at the blood on his hands.]

...I shouldn't have let you push that bookcase on your own.

[He hadn't been thinking. Too overwhelmed by this whole place full of so many new things. He should be more cautious. More helpful.

When Nico gestures at first he doesn't really get it for a few seconds before it clicks. Oh, the blood. He hadn't thought much of it. Sometimes you just leave the blood on your face because there isn't time to wash it off.

He ducks his head and wipes his face off on his shirt, then does the same for his hands. So he's just kind of a mess right now and seems... completely unaware of it.

Then at Nico's question about his prayers, for the first time, Lev seems a little reticent. Like he's nervous about the possible reaction.]

The Prophet. She... Her words guide me.

[Nico shrugs with his uninjured shoulder.] My hands still worked. It's what made the most sense. [And sometimes you have to make sacrifices to succeed. He gets that.

And yet, he also barely contains a shudder, remembering the complete lack of feeling from his shoulders to his elbows to about halfway down his back. It had been almost as unsettling as looking through his own hands, insubstantial as shadows, when he'd started to lose himself to the darkness after using his powers too much.]

Oh. [For what it's worth, Nico doesn't look even slightly skeptical. Worship of an oracle was common in the ancient greek tradition, and obviously he believes in all of that.] I guess I thought prophecies were supposed to be nothing but bad news. [Certainly, the ones he's been personally swept up in all have been.]

[Lev glances down at his bloody fingers, remembering how cold they felt against his nose. And how he couldn't even raise them to his face just before they jumped.

Ugh.

But at the mention of bad news and the Prophet, Lev shakes his head earnestly.]

No. Her teachings are about finding peace in the chaos of the world and in yourself. Living within the natural world as it is instead of trying to change it. They're not about misery or violence.

[Huh. Nico has trouble imagining a world where higher powers are helpful and not capricious. Even fairly benevolent gods are invested in themselves, mostly. Others, maybe tangentially.]

Sounds nice. [That might come off like more of a dismissal than he meant for it to, so he adds:] It seems like she was watching out, anyway. [He gestures vaguely up towards the sky, where there definitely is no dollhouse, but that sort of weirdness is practically normal to him.] I'm not sure this world is very natural, though.

Maybe. Even so, it's her words that helped us find the way. Even if it wasn't her who caused us to land safetly.

[He glances back up at the sky. There was a time where he literally believed that she was watching over him, protecting him, changing the world for him.

Now... he's not so sure. His faith was shaken by what happened in Haven to Yara. To his mother.

Then he scowls.]

It's like the Old World. Full of... cars and... technology and... houses that disappear!

[Alright, that throws Nico for a loop. He blinks, looking Lev over like he's trying to figure out where the displeasure comes from.] Old World? I mean, cars and stuff, I think that's all pretty new. [Nico mostly grew up in the 1930s before getting unceremoniously dumped into the 2010s, so most of the things here feel extremely new, honestly. Deerington's level of technology is obviously a step back from his own world beyond the phone watch things, but Nico's no expert either way.

The sort of magic that had to have been involved in the dollhouse, though, that probably is very old.] Is that... bad? Other than the house. [Obviously that had been awful.]

Old World. Stuff that was there before the End happened. Before the Demons... the Infected showed up.

[Wow. That sure... probably doesn't make any sense! Sorry Nico. He's still learning a lot about this himself and sometimes he just doesn't have the words to explain it.]

The Prophet said our reliance on those things, technology, is what caused humanity's downfall from the End. ...I don't like using that stuff.

[Ah, there it is. The doom and portents. It's not a Prophecy until the Apocalypse is involved somewhere. Except...] The End? What Demons? [Just feels like something he should have heard of. Unless "Old World" means what it sounds like it means, and it's not like Nico hasn't already worked out that time is very strange here.

He digs a thumb into the dirt, focusing on the feeling of grit beneath his nail and opting for another one-shoulder shrug.] I don't use it much either. [Because demigod magic tends to interact with technology badly and cause problems, not because it's immoral, but in the end the aversion is still there.] I don't think technology is going to be the problem here. Magic is.

SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

THE EVIL DOLLHOUSE

THOSE PESKY KIDS

Character Arrival

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cw: blood

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cw: more blood

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cw: dead animal (bones)

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