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.
Into the endless;
She hasn’t let herself think about that yet. Why it’s there. How it happened. If she thinks about it she might break. Or worse.
No. She can’t go down that path.
She’s barely been inside ten minutes when she hears the door open. And a familiar voice.
Eyes wide, she spins on her heel and marches back to the front of the house. “Dad?!” She doesn’t mean to let that word slip. She’s so careful to separate him from the role of ’parent’, always defaulting to the title of ’Dr. Whitly. But this situation, on the heels of the one she just came from, is a little too much. Formality is out the window.
no subject
“Ainsley?” He steps forward automatically, wanting as much as he always has to take her in his arms, expecting restraints to pull him up short any moment. Except they don’t.
Bless hallucinations. He puts a hand to her cheek. “You okay kiddo?”
no subject
She straightens, standing as tall as her frame will allow, chin tilting up just a little. “It’s not mine. I’m...fine.” Something stilted in her voice changes the sound of that last word, betrays the lie she’s trying to sell with the truth of how hard she’s shaken by her own actions.
no subject
He studies her face, as academically curious as he is paternally protective. Looks at her clothes properly, sees the blood on her arms. The inevitable slowly clicks, and a warm smile breaks across his face. "My girl. What did you do? It must have been glorious."
no subject
She feels like she’s under a microscope with that studious gaze leveled on her. She wonders if it was always like that. Is that what Malcolm always felt from him? He was probably worse with her brother, he always had such a... strange attachment to the elder Whitly child.
She shouldn’t tell him. Telling him anything he might be able to somehow use or leverage against her is always a bad plan. But Ainsley isn’t always the best at thinking things through, and she’s feeling some type of way, and the words seem to just pour out of her mouth of their own volition like a waterfall she can’t stop from flowing.
“It was Endicott.” Those first three words are the hardest but even breathing that tiny fact out dulls the building hysteria that tries to claw its way out of her. Quiets the panic into something softer, a little detached. Not completely, and the guilt will be waiting for her when this flimsy mental wall inevitably collapses on itself. But for now it is her shield.
“He was- awful,” a grimace tells there’s so much more to that part of the story that she isn’t even telling. “He was threatening Malcolm. And he was just—” a sneer scrunches her face. “So sure of himself, that he would just get away with everything scott-free.” She's defiant this time, a child caught doing something she shouldn’t have, trying to explain it all away, “I just wanted him to shut up. Stop being so goddamn smug. Malcolm was never going to shoot him, and then he’d still be this— giant fucking problem and I- I couldn’t let that happen.”
She’s blank-faced as she delivers the final piece to the events. Voice flat. Eyes empty. “I grabbed a knife and I slit his throat. And I don’t know how many times I stabbed him after that.”
no subject
"Beautiful. My wonderful, brave daughter. Defending her family. I wish I could have seen it." He draws back enough to look her over again. "However many times you stabbed him, sweetheart, he deserved each and every one."
no subject
That feeling carries over, even as her eyes open and she takes in the sight of him again. Her father. The Surgeon. So many dead bodies trail straight back to him. That pride trying to swirl through her veins makes her sick. She shouldn’t like this. She shouldn’t feel good to make him proud. Not like this. Not when she has a dead body pointed in her direction now, too.
Suddenly, she doesn’t know what to say. How do you follow all of that up? There’s no neat way to tie this off with a pretty bow and agreeing with him on that point feels twisted. Wrong. Deeply, deeply wrong.
“I can’t believe I did it...” she says dumbly, because what else is there?
no subject
Ahhh I have to sleep soon but this thread is SO GOOD screams softly
“I don’t think murder tendencies are hereditary.” She rolls her eyes, but there’s a part of her that’s concerned. They could be, couldn’t they? Just about anything could end up inheritable for as little as they know about how genetics really work.
IT IS i'm having way too much fun with this monster
He smiles. "There you were, clear as day. My little girl."
He is perfect 😭
That sick-swirling bubble of pride is there again and she doesn’t know how to make it go away; it’s probably showing in her face, or at least in her eyes, and she hates that. “I never got to be your little girl. I didn’t get to have a Dad harassing my my boyfriends, or being there when I was agonizing over what dress to wear to Prom. I was the only one of my friends in high school that didn’t have a Dad in the stands to embarrass me at graduation. Does any of it even bother you?”
Ainsley isn’t convinced he has enough feelings to be bothered by it all. She doesn’t even know why that’s what she said, her mouth just sort of worked of its own accord and she didn’t bother trying to stop it. Even if it was a bad segue, it was something she always wanted to get an answer to.