SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

[sodder]

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.

Comments

[clocktowers]

With Oscar facing him, he did not realize what the boy had strapped to his back until that hesitating moment when Oscar reached behind him. For a moment, he feels unaccountably off-balance. When he had awoken to find it missing, he had thought— he isn't sure.

He does not know what it means, that Oscar has it. That Oscar is here at all, and for weeks, evidently.

"... Ah."

The silence hangs heavy for a very long moment. Then Ozpin reaches out to accept his cane. The weight of it is an immediate comfort, from the moment his fingers brush the intricate patterning, more familiar to him than any part of his own body. He extends the shaft and sets it to the ground, and it feels like regaining a lost limb.

"I suppose it is."

But the hesitation betrays him. Of the two of them— but that is the trouble, isn't it. Are they two? Can two souls be neatly cleaved apart, once the process has begun? Has Oscar been saved from his fate, here, turned free?

What does it mean that The Long Memory arrived with him?

[justoscar]

It was like willfully letting go of part of himself, and letting go when it was uncertain that the action would even do any good. Without the Long Memory he was weaponless-- but, as he had displayed himself, far from defenseless.

"This... Is bad, isn't it?"

He asked, an echo of Oz's own unspoken thoughts, while he watched the impossibly slender and impossibly looming man with a face that looked younger than he was get himself situated. Once that was settled, Oscar took point on the directions and started down the road.

"Or, maybe it's the way Sodder wants it to be? Who knows?"

[clocktowers]

He sets aside his improvised walking stick, leaving it leaned up against the bin that had saved them. Or, rather: Oscar's quick thinking had saved them. It certainly seems he's underestimated what the boy can do on his own.

Still. It feels incredibly uncanny to walk beside Oscar like this, knowing what every step feels like from within that body, feeling none of it now. It's a bizarrely out-of-body sort of experience.

"It seems a bit soon to say." This is said like mild reassurance, but Oscar knows him better than most, to put it lightly. He's uneasy. "You know much more of this world than I do."

At least he has his cane. He falls into the rhythm of walking with it, and that is steadying, as it always is. It makes him feel more like himself, nebulous though that concept is— and all the more jarring with Oscar beside him.

[justoscar]

He felt that rhythm as if it were his own; he heard the words that Oz wasn't saying-- at least, the gist anyway. Although their association had only been a few months at most, Oscar knew the towering wizard in ways that not even Qrow nor Ironwood could imagine.

Under the dim lamplights and the last dregs of sunlight, their shadows stretched out on the asphalt before them as if longer than the roads they tread upon. But, perhaps, not near as long as an immortal's memory.

"I know that you can't let your guard down here," Oscar answered quietly, trying and failing to keep his unease from his voice. "Things change all the time. The mothmen, these little guys... they're new.

"This is all part of a lonely girl's dream, and we don't know when she'll wake up."

[clocktowers]

"So I've been told." He has the basics, and not much more. He knows, for instance, that most people here are not of their world; most people here don't know anything of Grimm or of the Gods. He is still coming to terms with what that may mean. Perhaps it's better not to dwell on.

He looks again at their little entourage of Jackalopes, which regard him with calm dark eyes.

"I take it not every change has been so... well-mannered."

[justoscar]

"...no."

Oscar looked up point blank, his hazel eyes unflinching despite the anxiety in his heart. He wasn't going to lie on this matter-- that wasn't something he was good at, but he knew he needed to treat carefully.

"It's different from the Grimm back home... And you and I probably should avoid dying while here. Others have come back... With problems. I don't know what will happen to us."

[clocktowers]

To us. He is quiet a moment, hearing that. It only opens a new host of questions.

He's already been told that death is not permanent, here. But he has very little idea what that will mean for him. For Oscar, things are even more unclear.

He neglects to make the obvious comment about how he he does generally avoid dying. It is, after all, not true. He's done it more than anyone in existence.

"What sorts of problems?"

[justoscar]

Good thing Oz didn't mention that, for Death was inevitable. Deep down, in a place that rarely saw the sight of day, Oscar was almost afraid of what that inevitability meant for himself-- would he maintain his individuality amongst the conglomerate of lifetimes and memories that composed Ozma's soul? Would he be lost in the void?

It was too great of a matter to even broach in idle conversation.

Intead, carefully:

"People are ill for weeks at a time when they return. I've heard, as they die again and again, they lose parts of themselves. Memories, senses... and that remaining in those empty spaces is nothing but pain that can last for months.

"And... ghosts get left behind where they die."

[clocktowers]

Again and again. That is troubling, almost as much as the concept of people fragmenting with each return. Ozpin has so very many parts of himself to lose, and they are all muddied together beyond recognition. His existence, his mind, sometimes feels like a very tenuous balance maintained by a hundred murmuring voices. If he looks too closely inward, it becomes increasingly difficult to know who he is. The risk of having that unspooled—

Better not to find out what it would do firsthand.

"Hm. It certainly sounds best avoided." His tone is level as ever, but he is thoroughly disturbed by this risk. And then something even more surprising: "Ghosts?"

[justoscar]

Deerington was dangerous.

There were no doubts on the matter, not after Fern had told him how the very ground itself was flesh last autumn, around Halloween. That thought alone was chilling for Oscar-- a farmhand whose skills were not with livestock but with the care, maintenance, and harvest of grain crops. Wheat and Barley were sturdy grasses that could grow near anywhere with the right care-- but not when the ground itself was made of flesh and blood.

"Yeah, Ghosts."

He said, recalling stumbling upon Ruby's by accident while he was out on his explorations. It was so hard to sit still in this town, and only so many projects he could do...

"With a Dreamer's Death, a Ghost can remain behind at the place where they fell, replaying the tragedy over and over..."

[clocktowers]

"I see." He doesn't, really, but he's certain he will come to understand in time. Whether he'd like to or not. It is clear enough that this place has magic unlike anything he's encountered, and that in itself is... deeply disquieting.

Ozpin has experienced many things, over the millenia. The prospect of something entirely new, and dangerous, is jarring. He can't decide whether it's a breath of fresh air, or one more burden atop the rest. It's perhaps best not to dwell on.

"It sounds as though death is common here. What exactly are we facing?"

There are no Grimm, he's aware, but there are plainly other things that hunt. And broader dangers beyond that. If Oscar has witnessed death here, he must know what to be afraid of.

[justoscar]

Shaking his head, Oscar found he couldn't look up at the wizard, the professor. There was no way to easily answer this one.

"That... changes all the time. Some are worse than others. Like, in July the whole town was basically put on Trial, with Death as the sentence for the convicted.

"People... were convicted more often than not. And not participating in the jury was not an easy option."

[clocktowers]

He listens, and says nothing for a moment, as they walk through the dusk. The aspect that catches him is participating in the jury.

"So it isn't just external threats." Monsters, mindless horrors, things near enough to being Grimm. "Those trapped here are turned against each other."

[justoscar]

"Sometimes, yeah."

Oscar hung his head, thinking over the debacle with Neo and Ruby that had happened earlier that summer.

"They can even influence our actions and how we think. Friends can turn on each other... and I haven't even been long enough to see the worst of it."

[clocktowers]

How we think. He goes deeply silent for a brief moment, at that. He puts voice to none of it, but the bolt of unease goes sharp and deep: Oz makes for a very dangerous weapon, and knows it. The thought of being set against others, here, against innocents...

It's disquieting. There is nothing he can do about it now. He won't dwell.

"And how long have you been here?"

[justoscar]

"Since the spring time," He answered easily, brows lifting at the deep silence that had fallen over the Professor at his explanation. There... was no way to easily answer anything.

"I stole a couple of trucks and got a horse during that first month," he added, with a small chuckle. "Or, I guess Shortcake picked me."

[clocktowers]

Spring. It's plainly entering autumn, now, by the leaves that crunch underfoot. That's... interesting, and concerning, and a great deal to think about. He has been informed that this place is a dream, and that individuals can be trapped here for years at a time while their world carries on as usual. But it is impossibly disconcerting to find such a thing actually happening to him.

His eyebrows raise, and he looks to Oscar, surprised and nearly amused.

"I do hope there was a good reason behind stealing 'a couple of trucks.'" He can't claim to disapprove too strongly; he'd been distantly aware of the Atlas airship plan up until the spiking adrenaline and impending death made him acutely aware. He's done worse in a hundred lifetimes. Still, it's not ideal.

But they've arrived at a little cafe, warm and cozy in the darkening twilight. He can only imagine this is their cocoa spot, and stops to take in the sight while Oscar deals with his bicycle, standing with his hands folded over the top of his cane.

"I imagine our friends will be waiting outside?" He turns to look at the small army of jackalopes, which only stare back at him.

[justoscar]

"There were hordes of monsters coming into town? Not Grimm-- and I needed a quick get away. Ruby's... chickens were scared."

That's right, Oz. He stole a truck to rescue a couple of chickens.

Under the glowing lights of the little cafe, Oscar dug out his bike lock and secured his ride to the nearby fence. The chain was sad enough that a pair of bolt cutters would rend them in no time, but bike thieves were in short supply in Deerington.

Mostly, there was no reason to bother.

Nodding, Oscar took out the remaining muffins he had made for the jackalopes from his backpack and set them on the ground not far from his bike. Noses twitching at the scent of the confections, the jackalopes stood silently and watched in wait.

"That's right," he replied. "They're a little unsettling to a lot of people. I don't think they're any scarier than the deer though, they seem to want to help."

[clocktowers]

Oscar, that is adorable. But fleeing hordes of monsters seems as good a reason as any, so Oz inclines his head in a nod while Oscar goes to get the bike sorted. He watches the boy set out a snack for the antlered deer.

"They seem polite enough." In that they haven't tried to kill him yet, unlike some creatures he's already encountered in town. Better than he might have expected based on what he's been told of this place. "I imagine we need what help we can get, from the sound of things."

With that, he leads them inside. It only takes a moment to order, and then they are settling into a quiet corner, Oz settling The Long Memory to lean up on the table beside them.

"Well. Thank you for bringing me here, and for the cocoa. It is... good to have an opportunity to talk."

They'd been a bit preoccupied, back home, with her on the horizon.

[justoscar]

The money was easy. Thanks to the societal structure, students were guaranteed a reasonable stipend to live on and most food items and necessities were free. Oscar's part time job at the library covered for the rest of his meager needs. It was how he had managed to purchase his second hand bike so quickly, and how he managed to execute so many projects in a short span of time.

The talking, however, was harder.

Sipping at the cocoa, Oscar felt the familiar unease whenever the subject of anything regarding Ozpin came up.

"You're right, we do need to talk... I just don't know where to begin."

[clocktowers]

Nor does Ozpin, in all honesty. But he has a great deal more experience with this sort of conversation, this particular variety of tense silence. He cannot usually sit across a table from someone to have it, and he tries to bear that blessing in mind, not the weight of expectation in the air.

"Let us begin where we did not have a chance to linger, now that things are... substantially calmer than we left them."

He sighs, and leans in over the table, fingers laced together in thought. He casts his eyes down.

"Oscar, I am sorry to have left as I did. To be confronted with my past in such a fashion... it evoked a fear in me that I did not respond to well. In that moment, it seemed best that I step away as fully as I was able."

That hangs a moment, as steam rises from their mugs of cocoa. He does not say the full truth of it: that he'd felt again that existential despair, too vast to grasp. With Jinn's answer, he'd found himself pinned before the yawning expanse of eternity, knowing there was no escape but his inexorable failure. He had understood for the first time that he was trapped in a losing game. That all was fundamentally broken, and he had no solution.

All those centuries ago, he had retreated from it. He had shut himself away within the little walls of his home and his mind, as faraway as he could make himself. It was the closest he could get to escape. It had taken four remarkable young women to draw him out of it, the first time. It had taken centuries.

It is cowardice. He's aware. He has seen the bravery of the little group, filtering through to him as though across a great distance. He knows that he owes them better. The person he becomes in fear is not one worthy of his task, even if his task is always, and shall always be, one of holding the line. Protection is still a noble cause, even if salvation seems out of reach.

He is just so tired, sometimes. Still.

"I realize now that leaving you to bear our burdens alone was not a kindness."

[justoscar]

Ah, this.

Even before Ozpin started speaking, Oscar found himself Aware of the general contents of what he was going to say. Weeks with the man dwelling in his conscious and unconscious mind had taught him much about how the man functioned, long before that protective barrier had fractured like a person's Aura reaching it's limit. Dropping his gaze down to the cocoa and the marshmallows foaming and swirling on the surface, Oscar opted to Listen.

Just like during that incident with Jinn, he was privy to notions and concepts that no one else knew.

"I know," he said quietly, taking a long spoon and stirring his drink to jostle the marshmallows deeper into the warm liquid.

"And people do things they regret when they're afraid. But, you know that better than anyone else."

A sigh. Once more, he was placed in the odd position of needing to Comfort and Advise an Adult.

It made him wonder if growing up was even worth it, if the Adults in their world couldn't be trusted to take care of their world.

"We can't change what happened, but I'm not the one you should be apologizing to. I can take punches, but Qrow...

"He took this hard"

[clocktowers]

I know. Yes, he supposes Oscar would. They've not had long together, but the process doesn't take long, all considered. It hadn't taken long for Ozpin. He hadn't been much older than this, when it began.

Qrow. At this, he rests his folded hands on the table, regarding them quietly.

"I have already spoken with Qrow." It had not gone well. Qrow hadn't hit him again, but he had plainly been considering it. "He and I have a long history together, and he is... understandably upset."

I might as well have been one of Jimmy's robots to you. Yes, that had hurt precisely as much as he feared a confrontation might. The punch would have been more welcome.

[justoscar]

Somehow, Oscar found himself hardly surprised that the two had already encountered each other... and that conversation had gone 'wonderfully', if Qrow deciding not to deck Ozpin was a significant factor in matters going well.

"I know. I've seen it."

He said quietly, recalling that desperate stay in the farmhouse that had gone so horrifically wrong. Qrow had coped by the grace of drink for much, much longer than Oscar had known him, but the rapid deterioration in condition Qrow had displayed in the days and weeks after Oz had sealed himself away was...

"It's probably worse than you imagine. He's come a long way, but this town with it's craziness can't be any help to him."

[clocktowers]

He knows it. The situation had filtered through. Shutting himself away did not make him blind to the world, much as he'd often wished it might; it just let him recede far enough from the front of their shared consciousness that all input took on a distant, third-person quality, as though looking through a fogged pane of very dense glass. He'd hidden behind it, but he could not claim blindness to everything that passed without him. Just... distance.

Oz draws tighter, quieter, and breathes a tiny sigh.

"No, I imagine not. And I'm sure my similarly abrupt arrival cannot be easy for him." Nor for you, he does not say, but perhaps it's clear enough from the way his gaze rises to regard Oscar again. "Whatever you may think of me, please know that I greatly value trust, Oscar. I do not make light of the faith placed in me by those like Qrow, who have stood at my side all these years. The secrets I have kept were not kept out of malice."