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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 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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The secret's cold water. And a scrub brush.

[ He keeps the drawl. Seems to be working, getting under Caffrey's skin just enough to catch. Annoyance bleeds to anger easily enough, and anger is simple. Anger he's good at. Anger he can control.

Play the game, sniper. And play to win. ]

That's fun. Somebody's playing games. But I guess you'd know all about those, huh?

[ Yeah, it's getting to him. Not for obvious reasons--at least not for reasons that are obvious to him, personally. But he's mentally looping back to being drugged, to Peter being taken along with him, to the violence and ruined or nearly-ruined lives of the past nine months, all of it with a man he admired at its center. A man who's currently out of reach and has custody of two of the people that matter most to Neal in the world.

Put simply, he is Stressed. And he doesn't have anything constructive to redirect himself toward. ]

Ah. Right, of course. Can't beat the classics.

[ Then he turns a proper glare on Gabe, dropping the pretense of friendliness. ] When I play games, at least all parties walk away alive. Violence is as unnecessary as it is uncreative, but I wouldn't expect someone like you to realize there are other options.

[ Deep breath.

Okay, maybe that was not all aimed at Gabe. He's just going to... pretend it was. And hope he doesn't die in the next thirty seconds. ]

Oh, I got options. I got lots of options here.

[ His voices rises just enough to get sharp, his lip curled to bare his teeth. Yeah. Get under their skin, get loud, get them angry. Wait for the blow and then counter twice as hard, twice as fast.

It's an old game. Gabe mastered it a long time ago. Get an enemy angry and they won't see him at all. Just a target.

It's better that way. ]

One of them's beating you into the fucking ground. Company man. There any reason I shouldn't?

I reiterate: uncreative.

[ What is he doing?

Neal takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to get control of himself.

Failing, mostly.]

So what are you? Special forces? Merc? You're not crisp enough to be true military, not for a long time at least. Probably good at what you do--but someone still got the drop on you, disarmed you, and dumped you in the middle of nowhere with a company man, a whole lot of decaying architecture, and ominous warnings written in blood.

[ His smile is back, bright an humorless. ] We're both having a bad day. You're the one who's trying to make it worse.

[ Works every fucking time. Get in some guy's face, get loud, find a way to needle at whatever pisses him off, and then he'll start talking. Splitting fire and opening themselves right up for the kill strike.

Decaying architecture. Warnings written in blood. That's all new information. That's all worth knowing.

Gabe bares his teeth and laughs. He's been antsy for a while now, itching in his own skin and craving a fight. Something real. This is all somebody's game and there won't be any way to win until he understands the rules. And to do that, to survive long enough to get back to his people, he needs information. Needling the nearest source of it tends to work.

Not like he can just ask. Because if he does, that's going to reveal a couple things real damn fast and then Gabe knows damn well he'll be seen as a liability. Dead weight to be shot in the head and dropped into a ditch.

Nah. Not him. He's gonna live forever. Or at least long enough to get back to Missy and the others. ]

You're a peach, Caffrey.

[ A smart one, too. Quick on the uptake. That makes him dangerous.

Gabe's smile isn't particularly kind. ]

But you got the cuffs off, and I'm nice. I'm not even gonna break your nose. Nobody got the fucking drop on me.

Really? Then you, what, volunteered your weapons and decided to take a nap? [ Neal clamps down before he can say anything else that's liable to get his nose broken. ] Look, I don't pretend to know what's going on here yet. But the last thing we need is to go for each other's throats when we have a clear and common enemy, even if we don't know who it is.

[ Caffrey doesn't recognize the uniform. Sure, Contrix stripped off their logo and doesn't send him out with his name written anywhere--can't have bystanders taking video, can't have the names getting out--but it's still a common enough uniform. Every company's got their bagmen. Some might be better armed or doped to the gills with experimental nanotech, but they're pretty much all the same, uniforms included. Everybody knows when the bagmen are coming, whether they're Wolves or hired guns or even the local freak squad. The guns are different, the tattoos are different, but not the uniforms.

And Caffrey doesn't recognize his.

Funny, that. Gabe tips his head back. He can't tell if that's a problem or a boon to him. ]

You got any more tricks, or is lock picking your big flourish?

I've got plenty of tricks. Not sure how relevant any of them are going to be out here. [ He gestures at the bulletin board. ]

Can't date the blood--not my area--but I can tell you that the map it's smeared on is no less than two hundred years old based on paper composition and ink feathering, and that every other message on this board has been placed there in the past three weeks. The town itself is primarily Colonial Revival architecture, popular in the Northeastern United States after World War Two, while some of the buildings are distinctly older but constructed along similar lines. The technology here is from the nineties at latest, which would seem to indicate that it's been abandoned for about twenty years, except the houses that were populated until recently were populated until very recently.

[ A deep breath. ] So we've got a creep factor of eleven and no idea where we are except likely general region.

[ Well, shit. Apparently Caffrey's got plenty of tricks. Gabe listens carefully, turning the information over in his head. It seems like a lot to pick up just from the surroundings--suspiciously so, given they were supposedly dumped in the middle of nowhere. And it's a big fucking universe, so why does Caffrey know so goddamn much about this particular backwater?

Could be a trick. It's probably a trick. But there's a chance it's not.

Gabe exhales sharply. Great. That's just fucking great. ]

General region of where, exactly?

[ Please tell him this isn't one of those planets with a fucked up atmosphere. ]

[ A pause. Neal's confusion is clear in his voice. ]

The northeastern US. [ Sorry Gabe this boy hasn't had the revelation of different eras and universes yet. ]

The what now?

[ None of those words mean anything to him. History was not his strong suit in school. ]

The-- Where are you from, exactly?

[ This makes zero sense, even if Gabe is from some completely random part of the world. Neal exhales an irritated sigh. ]

If you want to mess with me, there are better ways to do it.

[ Gabe goes very still. This feels off somehow. Probably a trick. Dangerous to him. Dangerous to his people. ]

Echo, last time I checked.

[ Prison ships don't exactly tell the inmates where they're sailing, so he can't be sure of the last place he was stuck. But he was on Echo for the early parts of his life.

Gabe's tone goes very even. ]

Humor me. What planet do you think we're on?

[ Well that's disconcerting. Neal eases another step back, so he's out of range of a lunge. ]

That would be Earth. Echo is where exactly?

I don't like being played, Caffrey.

[ Gabe's tone is very soft and very even. He holds himself stock still, not caring that it makes him look like a threat. He remembers the cuffs in his pocket and calculates how quickly he can reach for them, how quickly he can turn them into knuckledusters.

Earth is dead. Earth died a long time ago and only the most desperate of the bone hunters go down to scavenge the corpse. ]</small. Echo's out in the boonies, but it's not a fucking ghost story.

[ Neal takes another step back. ]

Listen, man, I don't know what you're getting at but last I checked Earth was pretty much the standard issue birthplace of humanity. No returns, refunds, or replacements.

[ Something doesn't track here. And either he's getting played by some company man who's real invested in seeing it through, or there's a weirder angle at play.

Gabe's mouth twitches, almost a sneer. ]

You know what? Humor me. What year is it?

If I guess right, do I get a prize? [ It takes a breath for everything to click. Longer for Neal to accept the possibility--it's their surroundings that do it, the weird level of technology, the decay shared with pristine buildings. The map.

What the hell is going on? ]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you won't agree that it's 2012. [ And, because he can't not ask when he's presented with the impossible: ] So is Echo a planet, or a ship?

Sure. Dealer's choice.

[ The drawl returns to hide Gabe's impulse to either go stock still or explode into motion, lunge for Caffrey and get him on the ground. There's a threat here, but Gabe can't tell what direction it's coming from.

That's a problem. That's a big fucking problem.

His mouth twitches. ]

It's a planet. And last time I checked, it was 2755. And I don't remember getting high enough to imagine this shit.

Yeah, I'm not really a consumer of boutique hallucinogens myself.

[ A soft exhale, a quieter laugh. ] Six impossible things before breakfast. I thing I'm at the quota.

[ He rubs his face. ] Okay. Assuming neither one of us is high or crazy, you're from 743 years in my future. [ A pause. ] A future. That kind of displacement could also explain why the technology here hasn't made it past the nineties. I'm starting to think we might be off the regular map and into 'here there be monsters' territory.

God, you're boring.

[ Not that Gabe does drugs on a regular basis, but he sees no reason to share that fact just yet. It serves Gabe to build up a certain image, adding details that feed into the fiction until his mask is solid and unshakable. Turn into the bastard and no one will see the man behind it. Turn into the bastard and no one will ever really be able to hurt you. ]

So why you, Caffrey? Somebody's playing a game, so why you?

I'm not boring. [ Much offense. ] I-- you know what, doesn't matter.

[ He paces in front of the board, wishing for his rubber band ball, for something to fiddle with. In lieu of having something to toss in the air, he picks up a pen and starts walking it between his fingers. ]

Why me? [ An ironic little noise. He's been asking himself that question a lot lately. ] There could be a lot of reasons. I'm a multitalented man.

[ He spins the pen into the air and catches it as it comes down. ] Not, however, much good when it comes to muscle. If we were anywhere within my normal experience I would say we make the beginnings of a crew for something less than legal, but like I said--'here there be monsters'. What about you?

[ Fucker's doing something with his hands. Gabe's nanotech is good, top of the line--probably cost Missy and the others a whole lot more than the credits to get it all done--but there are pieces it just can't pick up. Things he misses, things he needs to compensate for. And now Caffrey's doing something with his hands and Gabe knows he won't be fast enough if the fucker goes for a weapon. Not like he was in the old days. Maybe the fucker's just working out the nervous energy, but maybe he's not. Maybe that's going to change and make it all real interesting in a moment.

Fun. This is a regular old party, isn't it?

Unfortunately, Caffrey has a point. Gabe's mouth twitches. ]

Could be the setup before the pitch.

[ Wouldn't be the first time. That's been Contrix's game for a while now. Hold one back as a hostage, make the rest of the squad work. ]

Show of force. And why they took my guns.

Could be. [ He pauses in his pacing, tapping the pen against his palm. ] But why the theatrics? Unless we meet other people here with similar backgrounds--and at this point I'm thinking there have to be others--I think the why us might be less significant than the why here.

Probably so we don't team up.

[ It's said flatly. Gabe hates that it makes sense. Keep everyone off balance and prevent any possibility of trust. And if that's the case, he's been playing right into it. ]

This takes too much effort to be random.

[ His mouth twitches again. Great. ]

You're a thief, right?

[ The lock picking, the architecture know-how. All that shit about the paper and the names. It adds up. ]

test drive — winter

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feel free to have gabe rough him up if he feels pushed to it!

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