The Village Mod (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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villagememes2020-11-19 10:10 pm
villagemod) wrote in villagememes2020-11-19 10:10 pm
Entry tags:
test drive — winter
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 wordshe 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.
joel miller / the last of us
» into the endless
[joel comes to on the ground, easy as stirring from an afternoon nap. it's too gentle even with as cold as it is. waking up in the afterlife seems like it ought to be meaner. more raw.
because he knows he must be dead, and this is hell or purgatory or whatever comes next. it sure as fuck ain't heaven – he knows that much — and he sure as fuck hadn't survived what happened in the lodge; he knows that too. this is — well, it's not the fire and brimstone he'd have expected but it's notably lacking in cherubic choirs and pearly gates, too.
he staggers to his feet in the snow with a wince and has to catch his balance on a tree, bracing himself fully against the trunk. a terrible ache thrums deep in his skull, and it almost turns his stomach.]
Goddammit.
[he takes a few steps and has to catch himself on the next tree before he stumbles. his knee is stiff and a little sore where he'd been shot but seems to be mostly healed, somehow, but his head — apparently it's going to be a minute before he can walk without feeling like he's going to pitch sideways.
but damned if he isn't going to keep trying anyway.]
» the end approaches
[this place is... different. difficult to put into words. joel doesn't trust it, not for a minute, and even if it's some kind of afterlife he still can't shake the feeling that infected might be around every corner.
so he does what he's been doing for years — he picks his way carefully and quietly around town, scavenging supplies where he can find them.
by the time he hits the bulletin board he's armed with a baseball bat. not ideal, but better than nothing.
enough that when he hears movement behind him as he's studying the message scrawled in blood — he is coming — he feels comfortable enough to address whoever it is before he tries taking their head off. ]
Did you do this?
» wildcard
[idk anything!]
(also, prose or brackets are fine!)
into the endless
She finds Joel at the edge of the woods and the world goes sideways. It feels like all the air leaves her lungs, sucked out into the cold. The last time she saw Joel...
God, that's too much. She does everything she can not to think about that day and with him in front of her she can't think of anything else.
He walks a little weird and she stares at his knee. There's no ragged hole, no gaping wound. His face is...just his face.
She covers her mouth with her hand to keep from screaming. This can't be real. He can't be here. This town is a piece of work, and apparently people don't stay dead here, but Joel didn't die here. He'd been dead for...she's not sure. A few months. And she's been here, what, two weeks? Something like that?
She realises she's just standing there staring at him, hand over her mouth like a crazy person. She forces her hand back down, but it takes her another few seconds to manage to speak.
"...Joel?" she calls out, knowing better. He can't really be there. It's like the voices in the fog or the other weird shit. This is probably another dream somehow, and when he turns to see her he'll disappear. Right?
no subject
She shouldn't be here. She can't be here.
"Ellie?" He forces himself to look, dragging his eyes up from the snow-scuffed toes of his boots and sure enough — there she is. This isn't a terribly unique situation in and of itself. They'd crossed snow-covered paths on patrol in Jackson plenty of times. The difference being, of course, Joel had never been without-a-doubt certain he was dead before.
Shit.
She can't be here. Not if he's here too.
He can't remember much of what happened after the first blow but he knows someone would have come looking for him and Tommy eventually. Makes sense it would've been Ellie. Now, if she ran into those bastards and they so much as laid a finger on her, he'd —
Well. There ain't much he can do about it now.
He sighs and sags against the tree, realizing for the first time just how bone-deep tired he is. It shows, too, etched deep into each line on his face.
Godammit, she's not supposed to be here.
"You okay, kiddo?" he asks, quiet and weary and dreading the answer. He doesn't even bother trying to catch the nickname before it slips out, though he hasn't used it in a long time. It just seems inconsequential right now.
no subject
She can't figure out her emotions. Shock, of course. But other things. Relief. Anger. All the grief that she's been holding onto, trying not to let bleed out of her though it does anyway, now inescapable with Joel standing here in front of her like she hadn't watched him die. And underneath it, the still complicated ball of feelings she has about Joel himself, about how he fucked up her life by not letting her die. His death didn't grant her the magical ability to forgive him, but you can love someone and not forgive them. It was never that she hated him, after all. But everything that had seemed hopeful went unresolved and festered in her.
He would probably hate knowing about what happened in Seattle. But that's not over yet. She was yanked out of the middle of it. She can't let that girl live. She can't. But she has to get back there first.
She reaches out to the tree nearest her, too, trying to steady herself in a world that seems wildly unsteady just now. It isn't working.
"No, I'm not fucking okay, Joel," she says. The bruises from Seattle are faded now, though the arrow wound isn't entirely healed yet (not that it's visible). But all the shit no one can see might never get better.
"I think I'm dreaming."
no subject
Wherever this is he doesn't trust it. A sharp and biting sense of dread settles in, as cold as the chill in the air. This place ain't right.
"I don't think it's a dream," he says softly — but God, does he wish it were.
He looks at Ellie.
Clears his throat.
Tries to hide that he's getting choked up thinking about the implications of the two of them being here.
"Did you, uh... did you come looking for me and Tommy?"
no subject
"Well, yeah," she says. He doesn't remember. "I was there, I..."
She chokes on that thought and has to look away from him for a second.
"Tommy went after them. For what they did to you," she says, not really answering the question. "Before I could. Me and Dina, we went later, and...uh, Jesse came to find us. Fuck, this is so messed up."
She looks back at him, still wide-eyed and uncertain. "Are you trying to ask me if I died?" she asks, half-incredulous, finally catching up with his meaning. "No. No, I just live through goddamn everything."
no subject
There's a lot Joel could say, too. There's a lot he's feeling right now. The relief that Tommy survived — he hangs onto that as tight as he can. Something about it helps him feel like he still has one foot in reality. He hadn't thought those people would spare him; if it were Joel in their place, he wouldn't have.
But the way Ellie talks, like so much time has passed since that day, just doesn't add up. The idea that she's been here for a while doesn't even occur to him.
"It still doesn't make sense," he mutters with a shake of his head.
He's starting to feel steadier on his feet, at least, so he starts down the path and beckons for Ellie to follow. They hash this over just as well in some shelter as they can standing in the middle of the woods.
"Come on. Let's see if we can't find someplace warm. Then we'll try and figure this out."
no subject
It's all she can do to take that first step to follow him. It isn't that she doesn't trust him (she doesn't entirely, but there's also no one she trusts more to have her back). It's that he can't be real. Talking about going in somewhere warm like the last time she saw him he wasn't beaten and bloody almost beyond recognition, like he hadn't fucking died. Of course she was always going to outlive him if he could help that; he wasn't young when they met and he is the way he is anyway. But it wasn't supposed to be like that, and it haunts her, twists her into someone she can't recognise, someone he wouldn't want her to be, someone angry and ruthless and unforgiving.
She sure grew up to be his daughter after all of it, didn't she?
She finally takes that step. The one after it comes a little easier. She catches up, but not close enough to touch. That's a habit she has with almost everyone these days anyway, but...it's just a lot, okay?
"The house I'm staying in has heat. I mean, unless the power went out again, but there's a fireplace." Can ghosts even feel cold, she wonders uselessly. But he doesn't seem like a ghost. Still, she's not sure he'll actually be there the whole way. What if he disappears into the mist? What if she wakes up and it was all a crazy dream?
Fuck, what if he doesn't disappear halfway back to the house?
"You, uh...did you just wake up in the woods?" she asks. She's always talked to fill silences, and even if she's more subdued than she was before, she still has that habit.
the end approaches
Me? No, I had nothing to do with that. Sometimes writing appears without any indication of who did it or- [ He pauses, looking at the words written in blood. ] Or who that blood came from.
no subject
[joel echoes in a tone both flat and full of doubt. in his experience, when a vague and ominous message appears in blood then the party responsible makes an appearance of their own not long after. he doesn't really think it's this guy but he's not letting his guard down quite yet. the last time he'd gotten too friendly with strangers hadn't ended well.
so he stares at this man a moment longer in silence, contemplating, stuck in the rather painful position of not fully understanding this place but not wanting to engage with any strangers about it, either. he has half a mind to leave, but —
he finally nods back toward the board instead.]
Any idea who the "he" is they're referring to?
no subject
[ It's kind of a bold claim to make, because how well does he know any of these people, except for Daisy? But that seems like an especially out there thing to do, and he'd like to believe no one he knows would do that. Call him naive, but until he observes proof, he's inclined to keep believing that. ]
Not a clue. I'm guessing that whoever "he" is, it won't mean anything good.
into the endless
She cautiously approaches him, careful to keep her empty hands out so he can see she's unarmed. Back home, just going up to a stranger in the middle of the forest would get you shot in the head.]
You're gonna fall if you keep going on like that. You're not steady on your feet yet.
[She talks and stands there like a skittish deer ready to bolt at any moment.]
no subject
but
(there's always a "but")
this isn't jackson, and the circumstances of his arrival here mean he's on edge, and far more likely to meet any new faces with distrust. it's just a girl here in the woods, sure, but abby had been too.]
I'm fine, [he says brusquely and straightens, trying to look at least a little less vulnerable.] Who the hell are you?
no subject
Beth Greene. [She finally speaks up, as she leans off to the side to try and see if he's got a crossbow over his shoulder. It's mildly disappointing when she realizes he doesn't. But she's not about to turn away from someone that makes her feel right at home.]
And you aren't fine, so stop trying to act all tough and strong. I know you probably think I'm just a little girl, but I can help.
[Apparently her filing him away as being like Daryl means she talks to him like she would her friend, right out of the gate.]