ROUND 4 TEST DRIVE

[strangerpeople]

15 STRANGERS ROUND 4 TEST DRIVE There are 15 strangers in this place. Someone knows why. And its clear the odds are stacked against you. 1. ARRIVAL Well, it seems you have awoken inside a Mansion. Why are you here? What happened to your powers? Your memories? Who else has been so unlucky as to be brought in with you? What are you wearing? What are these strange rules? And...wait, there's two people trying to make your life miserable?! 2. POWER (CW: spiders) You have been, er, "blessed" with a power. Its not a power you want or care for, but its yours now. You might want to try an control it, lest you hurt someone else. That is...unless you want to. Or, hey, go ahead and blow things up - as long as you clean up and don't kill any spiders, surely no harm will come to you?... 3. HOME So now you live in a Mansion of some kind. Whee. Maybe living here forever won't be so bad, since there are things to do with your free time. Unless you're looking for a way out, but surely, you wouldn't do that, right? 4. HUNGER Seriously? There's no food here. How are you supposed to survive? Your belly is starting to ache and you otherwise are starting to feel listless. You need something to eat, and quick. You're getting desperate... 5. HALLUCINATIONS This place is starting to get to you. Now you've started to see things that aren't really there. Or are they? Can you still differentiate from what is real and what is fake? Or have your Nightmares become so entrenched that you've come to not know - or even care? 6. MINIGAME One of the Stewards has decided to do...erm, 'games'. Those who win the games will get prizes, the Steward has promised. This Test Drive Meme's minigame: an "archery" contest! In this game, you must use your power to hit a bulls-eye on a specially-placed target. But what about those people who don't have fancy offensive powers? Well, you might have to get a little creative, then... 7. MOTIVE One of the Stewards has (somewhat too gleefully) announced the motive for the week. Clearly someone out there really wants to give you a reason to kill someone else. How will you react? Will you stand against such an insult and help others to fight the temptation? Or perhaps, you yourself are tempted...? 8. DEATH One of your own has died - no, been killed. The Inquisition has started. The body lies before you, and now you must discern the truth from the clues before you. But can you when you mourn? Or, perhaps you don't mourn the dead. Perhaps you're only playing along because you know more than you let on. 9. TRIAL Well, it looks like the Stewards weren't kidding when they said there would be a trial if someone was murdered. So now you're here, looking to condemn the responsible killer. If you do, they die. If you don't, well, you'll end up killing an innocent person, as the Stewards have explained what would happen if the majority votes incorrectly. Whatever happens, you have to figure out what happened. Can you? The clock is ticking! 10. SCAPEGOAT Oh dear...the Stewards just revealed that the person everyone just voted for...was actually completely innocent! Not only that, but they've revealed who the real culprit was! Maybe you're that innocent person, trying to say your goodbyes or beg for your life. Maybe you're one of the ones who voted for the innocent person, trying to cope with the horrible act you've just committed. Or maybe you're the true culprit, who now has to not only deal with an innocent dying for your actions, but also the fact that you can now be killed without repercussion!... 11. WILDCARD Anything not mentioned above. Go wild!

Comments

Mira | Zero Time Dilemma | OTA

[snailedit]

Arrival

[She's exploring the place and finding it kind of charmingly "Spooky", but the garden with mostly jet black plants is giving her particular pause.]

Wow. Goth much?

[But, given some disturbing parts of the rules, she's also going to surreptitiously contemplate the sunflowers for their seeds.]


Home

[Mira is sitting in the game room, trying to figure out the rules to Nine Men's Morris (the amount of pieces seemed enticing, for some reason) and generally just looking like she's barely staving off her boredom. Her finger taps against her chin restlessly, but ... other than that, she's pretty calm. Perhaps too calm for someone that's sitting in a blood stained room, but desperate times call for desperate measures.]

...Jeez. If this is all we get, the torture devices really might be more fun. [She's... joking. Right?]

Hallucinations

[It's a classic hallucination, the specters of your guilt! Except... Mira doesn't really have anything she feels guilty about, but nevertheless, she seems pretty distracted by whatever they're showing her...

She actually seems like she's having a good time? Seeing whatever it is she's seeing. A few times she chuckles to herself for no reason, but...]

Oh, don't mind me. Tell me more about what you saw.

[... For the most part she's more interested in helping people deal with their own hallucinations. She finds this pretty interesting, like it's cool psychology.]

Hallucinations

[tookittoeleven]

Who, me? I didn't see anything, and, well, that's the problem. They really didn't give us food!!

[snailedit]

[She actually thought she was already talking to someone about their hallucinations, but either they walked off when she was distracted by her own, or that was one too. This is getting disturbing, but yeah, she guesses she can have been talking about Usagi. Why not. Other than the fact that she whines a little more about the food situation, which doesn't help much when there's really nothing around.]

God, don't remind me.... Wait, you haven't seen anything strange? By now that's strange in itself, I hear.

Harriet Vaughn (White Rose Duelist) | Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses (Blank State CRAU) | OTA

[whiterosefoes]

Arrival/Powers

[Harriet wakes up in an unfamiliar place, in a room that's basically just a long box. A scream rattles the row of long boxes, before she crawls out of it with her list of rules.]

So they want someone to try and kill them, eh? Brilliant! Fantastic! And it's practically a castle! I'll be in the arena, you tossers. I'm going three for three!

[And she just storms off looking for weapons. She doesn't even know that there's actually an arena, it's just an assumption based on the setting. Someone's got a death wish. Or at least a temper reserved for those at the end of their rope. But her chomping at the bit may a bit literal... as she grinds her teeth, they begin to grow sharper, until eventually she pricks her tongue a little bit.]

Kh-! [And...now she's bleeding from the mouth. Great. She seems a bit confused, but her priorities are elsewhere.]

Archery Minigame

[She's just deadpanning at this.... her archery skills are actually great, but this thing where she has to use her powers, when her power is shark teeth...]

What, am I supposed to bite some wood into arrows?

Death

[Now, this, she's familiar with. Harriet doesn't mourn. Whoever this victim is, she made sure not to get attached to them. It's the investigation part that confuses her. The ways they would solve the mysteries in the Cat's Realm were rather more surreal. And in the war, it was war. The casualties were simply mourned and cleaned up, somewhere where she couldn't see. For now, she's just staring at everyone else coldly, to mask her uncertainty. To gauge who she finds suspicious.]

...We should search in pairs. Ensure no one tampers with evidence.

[She really doesn't trust anyone, actually.]


Trial

[She's just got one point of confusion:] Where are the cabinets? [boy, that's random, let her tell you about her other murdergame.]

Scapegoat

[This, too, is familiar. And that's WHY she doesn't trust anyone. But, guilt is the real monster, and it shows on her face. It's only a question of if it eats her first, or whoever was responsible. Assuming that wasn't her, too.]

Trial

[tookittoeleven]

Cabinets? What cabinets?

[whiterosefoes]

Filing cabinets... [She says it a little mystified, but then she shakes her head. Right. Everything is different here.] I'm used to receiving more information about the other suspects, as it were. This will sound a bit daft, but there was a black cat who could talk, and it kept a copy of all of our memories in them.

[She crosses her arms, expecting to be disbelieved, but she doesn't really care enough to dance around her words when they're about to start debating who killed someone.]

But this time the profiles are truly all we have to go off... it's just a pinch disappointing.

Scapegoat

[silvertongueheir]

No... [Franciscus seems about to yell, but he just buries his face in his hands, in the end.] It seemed like we had it! The evidence...who tampered with the evidence? [After all, even the culprit seems confused about some of the evidence pointing at the scapegoat.]

[whiterosefoes]

Well don't ask me, [Harriet mutters, still wrapped up in her own miserable choice of a vote, but it's a good question. A culprit who retired was no longer as much of a threat to the group as a saboteur who could potentially strike again. But would they? It depends on their motivation. But the confusion suggests it at least wasn't a secret alliance, that is if they're not lying.]

...A person or group who want the killers to succeed. They'd probably vote wrong on purpose, too - reckon the Stewards would tell us who else botched it?

Archery

[firstburnchild]

Here.

[ Ray is deadpan as he hands her a piece of wood that he broke off a chair. He's real good at following the rules. ]

Break it down with your teeth and throw it.

Then you've used your powers.

[ Is he... kidding? ]

[whiterosefoes]

[WHAT A HELPFUL YOUNG MAN... which she kind of doubts.]

Er. Alright. I'm not sure the prize will be worth a mouthful of splinters, you kn- [Harriet double takes at the wood she's holding.] This is a chair leg.

[She just gives him a weird look. You havin' a giggle, mate?]

Franciscus Erkens | Pokemon OC (Cartesio CRAU) | OTA

[silvertongueheir]

Arrival

[Franciscus blinks open his eyes, frowning as he pokes his head out of the door.] ...this again? Who's in charge here?

[He explores the place slowly, his brows furrowed as he looks around the mansion and slowly realizes he's trapped in here.] So we don't even get fresh air this time...

Hallucinations

[Franciscus has his head buried in his hands, deliberately not looking at the specter of Azura that's glaring at him from the corner.]

Go away. I know you're not real.

[Really? You killed me, and you can't even afford me the courtesy of looking me in the face?]

Be quiet! [He snaps, lifting his head to glare at the specter, which naturally doesn't fade.]

Ugh... [Back to burying his face in his hands.]

Death

...so someone actually tried for it. [His voice is quiet and flat.] Well. We'd better do our best. We won't want the killer to get away with it, will we?

Death

[tookittoeleven]

...this isn't right. None of this is-

[To say Usagi is upset is an understatement. She falls to her knees.]

Why did this have to happen!? They did nothing wrong-

[silvertongueheir]

[She gets an awkward shoulder-pat from Franciscus.] Culprits never care about what their victims did. The innocent make for easier targets, after all.

Death

[firstburnchild]

Of course someone tried for it.

[ Ray's own voice is as quiet as flat as the other's. ]

We all wanted out, right? Whoever did this is no different.

ARRIVAL. Fourthwall away, if you wish! I know this is lastminute but I couldn't not.

[yonosoymaria]

[Don't mind this leggy man dressed like some sort of circus performer - or, perhaps, do, as he's definitely addressing you directly, Franciscus.]

"This time"? You've been yanked from your bed and woke up in a catacomb niche with a door on one end some other time?

[Haughtiness is the refuge of the damned, and boy, does Eric count himself in that category now....]

Ray | The Promised Neverland | OTA

[firstburnchild]

HOME

[ Oh, of course Ray is not the type to look for a way out. Of course he is the kind to let himself be kept captive with nary a thought about it, merely giving in to his situation. This is simply a fate he's going to give into.

Not.

If that were the case, it would be simply laughable. No, Ray is sketching a map of the mansion on what little paper he was able to scrounge up. It's a map he was able to come up with from extensive exploration.

He's doing so in a corner of the dining hall, because people probably won't come here much. He's sitting where he can keep an eye on the doors. ]

MOTIVE

[ It's time to suspect everyone? No, the time for that was when they first fucking arrived. Ray's been taking stock of each and every person here since then. No, what it's time for is to start applying all the information he's been learning and watch out for his own health.

It's been a little while since the motive announcement. He's sitting in the game room, studying one of the lesser game-like objects in the room. Running his fingers across one of the blood stains. ]

Guess this'll be one of us soon.

[ He comments out loud to nobody in particular. ]

[snailedit]

Planning to use it?

[A dry response from Mira, who is casually in the room. She thinks it's more likely they'd be part of the "punishment" the stewards mentioned for the culprit, but heck, Ray almost seems determined enough. Though that's just in general, not really for this motive. Compared to his extensive research, she hasn't gotten as much of a read on him. (He's a bit young to be useful for her preferred method of research, anyway.)]

Motive

[tookittoeleven]

You don't really mean that, do you?

[She's trying really hard to keep everyone's hopes up, truly...]

Home

[icanhearscreams]

[He looks over at what Ray's drawing, leaning over him without even asking permission.]

A map wo't help much.

Eric Lecarde | Castlevania Bloodlines | OTA

[yonosoymaria]

Death - corpse touching
[He's crouched beside - the body, he cannot think a name, cannot remember this was a person who he spoke to scant hours ago. He's already discreetly checked the throat for bite-marks like one might expect in a place like this. No one else seemed particularly eager to investigate what might be the best source of evidence from up close. Not that he is, but under the circumstances...

It's close enough to his family's line of work, really.]

I am no doctor, but if we do not have one, nor a police inspector... what should I be looking for, aside from the obvious?



Hallucinations
[Perhaps you've seen him around, the tall blond with hair like a musician from seventy years into his world's future. If you have, you can probably tell this stiff walk, with his eyes determinedly fixed only dead ahead, is not remotely how he usually moves. He stops, having evidently realized there is someone there, but does not turn, and definitely does not let his gaze drop down to a point where the floor might be visible.]

If there was blood. Not the old blood, fresher than that. If the floors were - and the walls - I cannot be certain if it is real or not. You would tell me this, yes? If it were truly there?

[There isn't so much a continental-Spanish accent creeping into his voice as there is the utter terror of someone reliving childhood trauma distorting it. It isn't as though he's wearing white leather boots, here; he has no need to be worried about ruining expensive footwear, now. But the feeling of walking through halfway dried blood is something he knows, and that feels very, very real.]

God help me, it even smells as though it....



Hunger - CW: SELF-INJURY (FOR THE PURPOSE OF ATTRACTING A RAT, WHICH MAY BE EATEN ALIVE), DISCUSSED ZOOPHAGY (SHOULD RENFIELD JUST BE HIS OWN WARNING? I MADE IT WORSE THAN THE NOVEL B/C MEMORY DISTORTION)
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[He had never met Mr. Renfield. He only knew the man from stories. (Didn't he? Why did it seem - why could he remember a narrow room with dark stains on the windowsill, a low voice telling Mrs. Harker to run while she could - he didn't remember anything else, yet...) His methods of self-nourishment had seemed alien, frightening, monstrous, and yet now, after several days - ]

"The blood is the life" indeed.

[A low, bleak laugh follows the words. There are no flies that he has seen to catch. To harm the spiders is forbidden, the same with the bats. There do not seem to be birds. But there are rats.

There are rats, and rats will eat anything. The blood is the life. Life feeds on life. Rats will eat human flesh, if given the chance. To eat a rat now is to eat what would eat him if he perished. To lure life, he must use life. That's how it worked when Mr. Renfield did it, isn't it? He hurt himself and put blood on the windowsills, and that drew the flies, then the flies drew spiders, then the spiders drew birds, and then....

In any case, a visit to one of the "toys" in the Game Room let him prick the heel of his left hand enough to make it bleed profusely, and now he's laying on the floor in the passage outside, his bloodied hand resting just outside a promising-looking crevice in the wall. He can hear scratching. It may be real. It may not. But he can hear scratching, and the thought of meat sends a shameful tremor of delight through his entire frame.]

Hunger

[firstburnchild]

[ Ray sees him doing this. He has been following him most of the way and does nothing to stop him. He merely takes leans over and, with effort, rips off a piece of his pants - a concession he will make before ripping his shirts, he needs that collar - and keeps it in hand. He's ready to use it to wrap up Eric's hand.

He'll either wrap the man's hand once he's attracted what he's looking for or it seems he's at the risk of bleeding too much.

But it feels.... wrong to merely observe him from a distance, without leaving knowledge of presence? He hasn't done such a thing in years to another human. Only demons. Eric is not a demon. So, to be respectful, he moves so that his legs are in Eric's perspective, not leaning against the wall but standing near it. When he speaks, his voice is low. ]

Don't mind me. I won't interrupt your... hunt.

Death

[joinhands]

[Talk about a tough room. Krone won't summon a smile to her face for once, let alone fire off a remark about some thing she thinks the fallen would have liked. Eric's loneliness is easy enough to resolve at least, so she takes a few heavy footsteps in his direction, still far away from the empty shell.]

This wasn't exactly passing by hereditary disease, was it... Shouldn't we start by looking for traces of—[her brow furrows; in this state Eric doesn't need the perpetrator to hammer on his ears] something else on the hands, or maybe the feet?

Akko Kagari | Little Witch Academia | OTA

[alwaysgonnatry]

[ Arrival ]

[ One minute she’d been with her friends, and the next? Cue the loud THUMP that sounds as Akko proceeds to roll over and smack her head against the wall. That’s enough to have her letting off quite the distinct whine of pain and rubbing her forehead for a total of three seconds before realizing that no, this was NOT one of her classrooms OR her bedroom.

It was definitely not this small or cramped, to start with. ]

W-What…? I’m totally still dreaming, right? [ A pause. ] This kind of thing would be something Sucy would dream of, though, not me…

[ Trying to ignore that impending panic, it’s not long before she finds the rules and after reading it? A couple moments pass before her expression sets into one of determination and she uneloquently slams the door of her room and starts down one of the creepy hallways, the rules clutched in one hand.

Such a shame she doesn’t even look all that intimidating, even in her Luna Nova uniform and all. ]

Who do they even think they are?! They can’t seriously expect me or anyone else here to just kill someone, do they?

[ Akko is on a search. Trying to find maybe the ones who wrote the rules so she can go and speak with them… because without magic what option was there? ]


[ Hunger ]

[ Not being able to have food was absolutely killing her. Possibly quite literally.

Either way, one can find Akko sitting in the dining room, arms splayed out along the table before her and her left cheek pressed down against the table miserably. ]

What kind of awful torture is this? Who just keeps people here and doesn’t even feed them anything? Ughhhh…

[ Shifting so she can bang her head against the table for a moment or two, she stills before bolting upright in her chair so fast that it causes the chair to screech against the floor. ]

I bet they’re just hiding it somewhere! They have to have something here.. I just have to find it!


[ Trial ]

C-Come on guys, we can do this! If we work together, we can find out who killed them!! Just gotta put the pieces together and surely we’ll find an answer!!

[ She’s at least energetic enough to try and be positive about all of this but who can say how long that will last. ]


[ Scapegoat ]

[ How did it come to this? She knew she hadn’t killed anyone and yet… they all voted for her. The threat of death lingered closely now and Akko couldn’t stop the tears rolling down her cheeks even as she tried to put on a smile. It was hard to see past her tears right now. ]

I-I’m s-sorry everyone… I… j-just want you all to… know I’m not mad o-or anything… m-m-mistakes happen all the time, r-right??

[ A shaky laugh. She couldn’t even remotely try to stop crying, hands clutching at the skirt of her uniform so hard her knuckles were white. ]

Try…. t-to make it to the end… get out of this place… please...

[joinhands]

How nice of you to say, Akko. As usual!

[No wonder the erstwhile student hadn't been the one who had raised their hand to kill. As for the one that had... Well, Krone would have plenty of time to talk to them later. For now here was Atsuko Kagari with her incomprehensible kindness and desperate attempt to look at her so-called comrades. The least Krone could do was turn in her direction, her eyes cast right back at those tearier ones.]

Thank you...

hunger, sorry for the delay!

[incendiarize]

[Arthur has been in a similar state of malaise. He isn't used to going hungry. He can't remember the last time he was this hungry. He has a guess, but...

But someone else is being dramatic and catching his attention and doing something about it. Hiding the food somewhere!]

Of course, that's gotta be it! [He shoots up too, energized by the prospect alone.] They said we'll be fed on Saturdays, so there's definitely food here somewhere!