villagememes | test drive

WINTER TEST DRIVE
Welcome to the test drive and thank you for your interest in The Village. This test drive is not game canon but will allow players the opportunity to experiment with game mechanics, the setting, and the flexibility of choice allowed by this game. The following prompts are examples of typical situations characters might face in the game. At least one thread from the TDM is required as part of the game's application process.

The setting details and locations are still being unveiled in the game, so prospective players are welcome to play with established locations or create their own within the general setting of Mathias.

( Recommended listening: ♫ )

INTO THE ENDLESS
Winter has arrived in Mathias. Snow falls steadily, big puffy flakes that pile up quickly in drifts as the wind blows them around town. The trees in the forest are covered in it, the branches bending under the weight and shaking when the piles fall from them to the forest floor. The roofs of buildings become solid white and drifts form in doorways as the wind tries to rush inside anywhere it can.

New arrivals wake in the forest, with its winding paths twisting back on themselves as they branch in either direction. It isn't safe to stray from the path, there is a menacing fog that waits just a few yards inward in any direction, but for now, there is nothing impeding movement along those snow-covered paths that cut through the trees. Continue stumbling in one direction and you'll reach the small town, coming out near the mishmash of quaint houses that nestle beside crumbling ruins that used to be homes. But choose the other and you'll seem to stumble on forever, huddling against the wind until there seems to be a clearing up ahead—

And then nothing. The earth opens up before you in a ravine so deep that the bottom cannot be seen. The other side can be seen, tantalizingly out of reach, and there is the sense that safety is just beyond, if only you could get there. But with that sensation is also the knowledge that if you stay here, you will die. The edge seems unsteady, like getting too close would set it crumbling and send you tumbling into that dark endless nothing that waits below...

BODIES WITHOUT SOULS
Benedict Books is nestled quaintly on the square surrounding Mathias's Town Hall, a thick layer of dirt covering the front windows. Looking through those windows provides a much different view than looking directly into the shop through the doorway — vague shapes and forms of figures seem to be inside, though no details can be determined through the streaks of grime. Flickers that resemble flashlights can be seen passing along the windows from time to time, and on occasion there is even a muffled tapping sound that comes from behind the glass, as if someone is trying to get your attention. The same distorted figures can be seen looking through the windows from the inside outward, but moving from one side or the other reveals... nothing. There is nothing there, and perhaps it is all in your imagination.

A portrait hangs at the front of the store to illustrate the namesake of the little shop... that may, in fact, not be so little. Dust covers everything in sight and detritus litters the wooden floor, as if someone left the door open and allowed half the forest inside.

The books are mostly familiar titles from the 1990s and earlier, but close examination will reveal that key details seem to have been changed. They fill shelves in neat lines along the walls and rows in between, the building almost seeming to stretch on forever until, finally, a small office can be seen tucked away in the back. A glance back toward the front door gives the impression that the room isn't that big, after all. Strange that you previously thought so.

Prying the door open is the only way to get inside the small office; the hinges have rusted and are caked with dirt and grime. Search as you might, there are no interesting bits of information to be found here beyond a few inventory lists on the little desk. There is, however, a green and gold safe in the corner that, no matter how many times one turns the dial, simply clicks and clicks. Scratches around the safe indicate that someone tried to get in at one point, though there's no indication as to whether they succeeded.

THE END APPROACHES
Standing at the center of Mathias, the town hall is a modest two-story building that would be welcoming if not for the faded sign, chipped paint, and deafening silence within its empty halls. It's a typical government building, with a reception desk at the front and rows of identical offices within, the names half faded from each door. But what catches the attention is a large bulletin board on the main wall beside the reception desk, once meant to hold flyers or announcements for the community.

What it holds now is decidedly different. Tacked onto the board are scraps of paper covered in an assortment of handwriting styles — requests for supplies should anyone find them, pieces of information shared in the hopes of someone understanding the strange symbols and mathematical equations, notes about those missing or recently deceased. And over the center of the board, tacked on top of other papers, is a map discolored with age. Mathias Township can be read in the corner, a stretch of forest displayed beneath it, but everything else has been smeared to illegibility with red... ink? Upon close examination, a keen eye will realize that the ink is actually blood, though whether it is human is unknown. And scrawled across that forest, nearly covering the illustration of a clearing and a large house within, are the words

he is coming
A number of tarnished metal pushpins are scattered around the edges of the board, waiting for future messages to be shared, and a stack of pristine white paper and pile of cheap ballpoint pens rest on one of three chairs beside the board. The chairs are clearly meant for those waiting for meetings and are covered in the same layer of grime as everything else in the building — everything except the pens, paper, and bulletin board.

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INTO THE ENDLESS

[Waking up is a chock, to put it mildly. Not that Draco was all that unused to waking up in cold places- the past year and a half had been rough. Azkaban and the Ministry holdingcells were never warmed up and really, spending several years living most of the year in a drafty castle in Scotland hadn't really been all that warm either.

Facing the wide expanse of snow in front of him, Draco clenches his hand around his wand in his robe pocket and allows himself a minute to miss home. To miss the Manor and the roaring fires his mother always demanded be built in the heaths as soon as the temperature fell. To miss hot chocolate and warm blankets and his own bed.

And then he sets off down the convenient path, watching the trees on either side out of the corners of his eyes. The shadows on the pristine snow and how the only sound was the crunchy sound of his own footsteps and the rasp of his breathing.

Once he hits pavement, Draco looks around and calls out-]

Oi! Hello there!

BODIES WITHOUT SOULS

[Draco had never been the adventuring kind. Not personally. It had always been far easier to get either the houseelves or Goyle to do the exploring for him. That winding, dark path leading in the forest at the edge of the property? Goyle had been the one to walk through those and report back on what he'd found. Mud and a few frogs, nothing noteworthy. Or that time when Draco had wanted to be like Martin Miggs (those few short months until he learned proper behavior) and had sent an house elf out to get him a none-moving news paper and a rubber duck.

Trying to not find adventure in this, and failing to summon even one house elf, Draco found himself forced to search through the town on his own. The snow crunching under his boots and really, the Point Me had been no help at all. It had flared to life and everything went swimmingly, until it dead-ended at a brick wall that refused to move.

But.

This book shop. Just walking through the open door, and it felt more like home. The wide expanse of books, reaching up impossibly high and stretching down endless corridors. So much more like the library he grew up in, and Draco clears a little of the trash away from the middle isle before going from row to row, just looking at the books. Most have unfamiliar titles and pictures that fail to move, but this is the closest thing to home he's found and even the ... was it screaming?... face in the grimy window felt a lot like being back at the Manor.

Singing softly under his breath, Draco keeps looking through the books, enjoying the feeling of being out of the cold.]

You stole my cauldron. My favourite black hat- mmm mmmm- You claimed that you loved me...

THE END APPROACHES

[The bulletin board is a sure sign that other people have been, or are here. The messages tacked up with tiny pins show that other people are also looking.

There's only one that catches his attention, the only one that might be from home. From someone he knows, or who knew his father. The message is followed by a string of random numbers, and even if it was some regional sort of owl address, Draco had seen no owls. Or rats. Even a toad would do, but he hadn't seen any of them either and had an inkling that maybe they went in to hibernation during cold spells. That, or they just died.

He's in the middle of writing a short note to put under the message, scribbling clumsily with a wooden pencil he found at the book shop.]

[ Simon's already been through the town hall. It had been the first place he went once he'd warmed up enough and started looking around. He's wandered the halls and found nothing, and he'd read the bulletin board. None of it had much significance to him. He noted names and addresses and the faded map.

But that had been it.

He decides the next day to return. Maybe there's something new there on the board, or maybe he should add something (what that might be, he doesn't know), but fortunately he doesn't have to think about it. There's not new information on the board. There's a new person entirely. ]

Alright?

Excuse me?

[It comes on the tail-end of a sneer as Draco turns, paper still clutched in his hand and the pencil is dangling at an odd angle from his near-numb fingers.]

Is this you?

[He stabs a finger at the note signed John Constantine, everything part of him tensed and ready. Sure, his wand was near-useless and, honestly, Draco was... less skilled... in the art of punching people. But this could be a muggle, or it could be this mysterious stranger asking about Dark spells.

His robe swish around his ankles as he turns, tabbing the paper against one leg.]

[It's the accent that throws her off at first. She's heard all kinds since the virus and the outbreak, but she's primarily used to southern accents that are closer to her own. The voice that calls out to her is distinctly not from her neck of the woods.

That's enough to get Beth to set aside her own disorientation and turn to glance his direction. Finding strangers in the woods isn't a good thing where she comes from. It's usually a way to end up shot in the head. Still, there's something to be said about not being alone in a strange and freezing cold new place.

The sound of snow crunching beneath her boots becomes louder as she hurries her way toward him. She's delighted the second she knows she hits pavement by the way she slides against the iced over surface. And oh -

There he is. She's not alone anymore. He looks reasonably close to her in age and equally pale in features. She's eyeing him to see if he means her any harm, and is ready to bolt if he shows any sign of aggression.]

If you think I've got any answers, I'm real sorry to tell you I'm just as lost as you are.

[It's not that Draco hasn't met people, even people dressing like this before. After all the world changed dramatically a few years ago due to... events and wearing these types of clothes seem to be in style in some places. Too many places, since there's a robe for every occasion and no one needs to see this much of a person. The lilt of her voice is new, though.

His own dark robe swishes around his ankles as he turns, and his hand clench around the wand in his pocket.]

I see.

[Which is all a pile of Thestral dung, because with the thick fog and the tall trees, he can't see a thing except for her and the dark road.]

And being lost is new to you, or does this kind of thing happen to you lot?

test drive — winter

Draco Malfoy - Harry Potter | will match format

the end approaches;

no subject

into the endless

Notif fail! I am so sorry