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

Keep looking—wait. [ While Wu was doing that, Mako was investigating that bookcase, pulling out books like he did with Ai Wei's. Once you find a secret passage, you kind of learn to expect secret passages.

When Wu turns around, though, Mako is bending awkwardly toward the floor, focused intently on something. ] Wu. Come look at this. There are scratches on the floor. Like this thing moves.

It moves?! [ Wu trots awkwardly over on his stiff legs, peering at the ground under Mako. ] It moves! Move it, Mako!

[ Mako flashes him a look of barely-contained annoyance and holds out a hand. ] Help me back up and we'll push it.

Ugh, fine. [ Wu lets Mako move him where he wants him, bracing against the bookshelf ] I miss the good old days. Where you'd just do what I told you do. Don't you miss that, Mako?

I miss the good old days where I wasn't slowly turning into a doll. Push on three. [ He pauses. ] I didn't just do whatever you said. [ And moving onto pushing before Wu can say anything about that! ]

[ Wu tries to help. He really does. And maybe he does help, a little, but at least trying shuts him up for a second.

The bookshelf moves.

Wu almost falls over, his eyes wide. ]

A door! We found a door! Mako, Mako, [ He doesn't want and yanks it open, letting out a shout at what he sees.

That grass is far, far away and Wu's heart is in his throat. ]

Don't get too close— [ Mako yanks him back before he can do something dangerous, like accidentally fall out and smash into bits like the ones scattered around them.

That does leave Mako in the door, staring down at the grass far below them. ] ...yeah. Yeah, why wouldn't this be the only way out.

It's the only way? Oh no. No no no. [ Wu is clinging to Mako's arm again, fighting vertigo ] That's fine! I can be a doll forever. It can't be that bad. Right? Right?!

You want to end up like the ones we found earlier? [ Mako's still staring down at the grass far below, his head whirling as he tries to figure out how they're getting out of this. Of course, it might just be what's happening now, maybe getting out of here won't help at all, but at least if they're out of the house they can try to get help.

But it's so far down.

Mako's face sets as an idea comes to him. ] I can get us down, but you can't let go. Okay?

[ Wu makes a small squeaky noise and nods, gripping Mako's arm tighter. ] Okay. Okay. I trust you.

Good. Hold on tight. [ There's like a 50-50 chance this doesn't work, but Mako isn't about to spend the rest of his life in this creepy little house. And if they stay here, the rest of his life might actually be quite short.

He's not about to tell Wu the odds, though. Instead, he yanks Wu against his own side, sort of awkwardly because they're both stiff, concentrates all his energy into his feet, and jumps before Wu can say anything or throw off the careful balance he's aiming for. ]

[ Wu screams, loud and high-pitched, holding tight to Mako's waist.

He's pretty sure he's going to die. He's going to die and Mako will be the one who killed him and he'll never forgive Mako for that. ]

[ It's not the smoothest thing Mako's ever done. He can feel his chi like he's always been able to, he can make fire the same as ever, but it comes out strange more often than not, here.

Which means that what was supposed to be a smooth lift to the ground, with all his strength and focus aimed into the bottom of his feet turns into a jerky, half-falling descent with fire jolting out of one of Mako's hands as well as both of his feet, with alternately too much force and not enough.

It gives out entirely when they're about 7 feet from the ground, but that's a lot better than three stories up. Mako manages to position himself under Wu so his back slams into the grass, knocking the wind out of him. ]

[ Wu closed his eyes for the entire fall, holding onto Mako so tightly it probably hurts.

When they hit the ground, it reverberates through Mako's body into Wu's bones. It hurts, but his body feels less stiff.

Pushes himself up, he stares down at Mako, and slowly starts to grin ]

You're normal again!

What? [ Mako lifts a limb experimentally, flexing his fingers. Slowly, so slowly, a smile starts to form on his own face. ] So are you. Your eyes are back.

My beautiful face! [ Wu touches said face, pushing at his cheeks and sweeping a hand through his hair ] My face is back!

[ He grins, then wraps Mako in a hug, squeezing him tight ] You did it, Mako! You did it!

Told you I would. [ He's gone stiff again, same as in that terrible dollhouse, except in the way that Mako does when he's unexpectedly hugged. He pats Wu's back a little awkwardly, and then stops. ] It's gone.

Edited 2020-08-29 22:06 (UTC)

[ Wu doesn't notice what Mako said, too relieved at not being slowly turned into a doll anymore.

He finally pulls back from the hug to say something, but stops at the look on Mako's face. ] What? What's wrong? Is something else happening? [ He looks around franticly ]

[ You know what? It's not even worth it. The house is gone they got away, they're fine—somehow—and Mako wants to get as far away from this place as possible before anything else happens. He can see the rest of the town over the tops of the trees.

Shaking his head, he grabs Wu's arm and turns him bodily away from where the house is supposed to be. ] It's fine. Let's get out of here.

Yep. Yep. Let's get out of here and never come back! [ Wu throws a hand in the air, glancing back at where the house was.

His jaw drops. ] The house is gone!

Yeah. [ Mako's jaw is set hard. He tugs at Wu's arm, pulling him through the grass. ] Don't look at it. [ Irrational? Paranoid? Maybe. But Mako's not taking any chances. ]

Oookay. [ It's not hard to follow that demand. Not hard at all Wu never wants to think about that house again.

Except that he looks down and he purple jacket is gone. ] Aw, come on! It didn't let me keep the jacket!