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

[ The beginnings of frost and ice on the details of the house is enough to make Kristoff a little more aware, and he tries to pull himself together, if only for the sake of helping Elsa. He hasn't seen her accidentally freeze things in a while, so he's figuring she must be pretty panicked if it's happening now.

So he's at least a little less frantic when he finally answers. ]

The whole downstairs, the two bedrooms upstairs, and the upstairs hall. I glanced in the bathroom but it was uh... Tiny. [ AKA, Mountain Man couldn't fit without bumping into things. ] And I'm pretty sure we still have to check the attic.

[Good, Kristoff was being Kristoff. A nice, big, stable, blonde force of nature. She seriously needed to have more than two word conversations with this man when it was done in here. There were reasonable odds Anna might say yes to him at some point after all, and she needed to know him better than the big blonde lumox with the reindeer named Sven.

A slow breath and she started to visibly calm herself. Putting her hands in front of her in a steady pace, she closed her eyes and took one more calming breath.]

I am smaller than you. I will check this bathroom and then we can be certain the second floor is searched before the attic. There must be a way out.

[Or she'd tear down the walls with ice.]

[ A solid plan, just like he'd expect from her. He nods in agreement, going to head for the stairs almost immediately after she's finished talking.

It takes him until he's at the top to realize they don't have Anna to encourage small talk between them. He wracks his brain to think of something to break the silences that always seem to fall between them, even if he thinks they've gotten closer. ]

You know, if you wanna know more about magic, I can always teach what the trolls told me about it. I know it's not exactly like it works in humans, seeing as you don't need the crystals, and it kinda just... comes from inside you and all, but I bet it's not that different.

I might be willing to try anything at this point. I thought I had it under better control. I will admit that I hadn't thought to ask you. No offense, but you do not really give the air of a master of the arcane.

[As she started to walk towards the door, she offered him a thin smile. There was a lot that she didn't know about Kristoff. What other secrets did he hide?]

but not right now. Let us get out of here first.

[ Arcane. He mouths the word to himself, having never actually heard it before. He hasn't heard a lot of words, though, considering that he hasn't ever actually been in a classroom. He'd taught himself to read and write, of course, and could do basic math, but it had all come from what little he'd picked up from the ice harvesters and the occasional help from Grand Pabbie. ]

Master isn't the word I'd use, but being raised by trolls makes it pretty likely you'll pick some things up along the way. It was interesting to listen to them talk about. Way more intriguing than anything they tried to teach me at the orphanage.

[ He's talking while he makes it to the second floor, going to check the halls first for any kind of clue to an exit. ]

[While he made to look at the halls, she opened the bathroom door and started to kneel down and inspect everything. The feel of stiffness was spreading, but she was keeping her calm.]

I don't think you ever mentioned being in an orphanage before. I can't imagine that the trolls wouldn't be much more fascinating in their own odd way.

[As she said that, she had no way of knowing that that should have been the sort of detail she would have known about him, had they been from the same point in time.]

Really?

[ He wrinkles his forehead because that doesn't feel right, but... Maybe. It's not like he talks about it much in general. ]

I swore we talked about it before. I dunno, I wasn't there for very long. [ He tries to get the window at the end of the hall open while he talks, but no such luck. ] I barely remember it, honestly.

[ He goes to peek his head into the bathroom. ]

Find anything useful?

A toilet, and a sink with no water. Nothing more than that. Perhaps we will find something in the attic?

[She stepped out and stood to her full height, but her eyebrow climbed when she thought about what he had just said. What did he mean, had talked about it before? There was very apparent confusion on her face.]

Kristoff, I apologize for this because I've been meaning to address the fact, as you are as close to Anna as you are. But. We really haven't spoken much at all.

I know. I let my duties fill my life. I should really get to know you better.

Here's hoping.

[ He was going to head towards just that, but then she went and said the strangest thing she has since he first saw her in this house, and it makes him stop and look at her. She's clearly not the only one confused. ]

We talk all the time, Elsa. I mean, sure, we can sit in awkward silence with the best of them, but I'm pretty sure you've learned a lot since we met. I don't think you'd've let me marry your sister if I was still just a stranger.

[ This can only go well. ]

[The temperature started to drop a little again, frost forming in the bathroom window. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. How did he remember that, if it had never happened.]

Kristoff, that isn't possible. We only JUST saved Arrendelle from my winter a month ago. You aren't wrong, but you and I have barely had the chance to know each other.

What are you talking about?

A month? Elsa, that's— [ He cuts himself off before he could say "insane". How could she think it had only been a month?

Except he remembers the letter. Don't be surprised if people recognize you here who you don't know. He realizes if that's true, the opposite must be too. People remembering things others didn't was apparently just apart of this place.

He feels like a stone just got dropped in his stomach. ]

... Maybe we should talk about this after we get out of here.

[What had he been about to say?]

Yes.

[She shelved it. Something was very wrong, and it was showing its ugly head. It burned and seared at her mind with the paranoia that fought to make her react. She could feel her control threatening to sip. No. She was better than this.

A breath. Another. She could do this.]

I have questions for you, but first let's get out of here. You lead the way up.

[ He nods and goes to make his way for the stairs, starting his way up towards the attic somewhat cautiously. He had been warned things could attack you here, after all.

But seeing nothing as he gets to the top, he starts to look around at the junk. ]

It looks like a bunch of broken doll sets.

[She stepped cautiously behind him, the frown deepening while she emerged into the attic. Her eyes were down, looking at the floor more out of nerves than anything else. The broken dolls did not improve her mood at all. It was all so wrong here.

But as she walked, she could see the scuff marks in the floor and frowned.]

Kristoff, look at this? Is there something behind this? Hopefully not more dolls.

[ He ignored the rest of the furniture and doll parts to see what she was looking at, tilting his head before he bent down and ran his fingers over the scratches. ]

These are definitely fresh scratches. We should move it and see.

[ He goes to stand up, wincing slightly at the stiffness that shows in his knees. He'll just go and start pushing the bookcase out of the way now. ]

[She favored the hand that wasn't turned to porcelain already, heaving with all of her might to get the bookcase to push out of the way. It was, even with Kristoff helping, an effort, but afterwards she could see the door.

reaching for it readily, she smiled.]

this must be it, Kristoff, I think we can...

[As she wrenched it open that was a very long drop.]

[ He's gotta stop himself when he sees the door open to the outside, but with absolutely nothing there to catch them. He gives a low whistle. ]

Thaaaaaat's probably gonna hurt.

[ Of course it was. Why would anything be easy? Maybe they could use the junk to build a ladder before their other hands seized up or—

... wait. ]

Do you think you could make a slope?

I suppose that's worth an attempt. Alright, stand back. My control isn't what it should be.

[She reached out and there was a puff of frost, right before ice exploded out, covering the doorway in a wall of clear material. She let out a shocked cry of alarm and whipped her hands. The ice, thankfully, shattered and went scattering into the distance in melting crystals before she shook her head.]

That shouldn't happen! Something isn't right. I think it's this building. We may need to risk this. I can try on the way down, but the longer we stay the more trouble we'll have.

[ Kristoff had done as instructed, pulling back from the door as he waited for her to finish making her magic. But the way it very much did not work was startling and pretty worrying overall.

Not good. ]

Okay. Okay, you're right.

[ It's only been a few days since he saw the look on Anna's face and heard the pain in her sobs when she thought that Elsa was gone forever. It makes his stomach churn to think of hearing it again if the landing turned out to be as possibly deadly as it looked.

So he does the only thing he can think of to make sure it doesn't happen; knowing she'll probably be not particularly happy about it, Kristoff goes to pull Elsa against him before he jumps out of the doorway, making sure that he'd land as a cushion between her and the ground beneath them. ]

[She let out a shocked yelp, one of her fists pounding on his shoulder at first, right up until she realized what he was doing. Of course he was. Oh, this big dumb brute, she was going to give him such a talking to when she got down.

Which was taking a while. Odd.]

Kristoff, are we floating downwards, or am I losing my mind?

Edited 2020-09-09 01:25 (UTC)

[ It's almost like going down in a bubble. His forehead creases, looking down at the ground as it gets closer. ]

... Well this is a lot more awkward than I expected it to be.

[ He debates letting her go, even, but the gentle floating ends just a few, very survivable feet from the ground, and it mostly just ends with him getting the wind mildly knocked out of him for a moment. ]

Perhaps, but I hardly think it is that much of a problem. I know who has your eye, after all.

[She did step back, however, one arm folded inward. As she did, her fingers flexed and she looked down at her body. It was warm, soft, as if nothing was wrong again. Thank goodness for that at least.]

It seems our flesh is restoring itself at least. Apparently whatever was going on, it was within the dollhouse only. Check yourself as well, to be sure.

[ Who looks embarrassed? Certainly not him, no way! He clears his throat, going to distract himself by looking his hands and legs over quickly. ]

Seems like I'm good and soft again. [ Or as... soft as someone who lifts ice all day can be. ] That is definitely an experience I am not interested in repeating anytime soon.

Fortunate. yes. I think we should get back to what qualifies as the civilization of this strange town, away from this place. We might actually find some answers.

[Yes. the less they talk about this, the better. It was time to be on their way, she thought. At least nobody was hurt.]

(OOC I think this is a good stopping point. how about you?)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

THE EVIL DOLLHOUSE

THOSE PESKY KIDS

Character Arrival

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