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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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Gil’s grip on Malcolm’s shoulder tightened a little. “Kid... what’s the last thing you remember?”

"My father got stabbed and we were waiting to see if he woke up," Malcolm told him. "He hadn't woken up."

Jesus. Gil nodded slowly, forcing himself to keep his expression as calmly neutral as possible. “We should sit for a minute.”

He didn’t wait for Malcolm’s agreement, just guided the younger man over to the nearest chairs. “Have you ever lost time? Since after Martin was arrested, I mean.”

Malcolm just looked at him.

"Since he was arrested? You mean since I was ten. Have I ever lost time since I was ten? I've barely even slept since I was ten. But I've been stuck in this place for the last three-ish weeks."

Gil sat. Three weeks? What the hell was going on?

“Malcolm, Martin woke up. He woke up months ago. Corroborated your mom’s story. She didn’t have charges brought against her.”

"....Oh.

Well.

That last part is good," Malcolm told him, starting to unconsciously wring his hands.

"Um. How many months?"

Time passed oddly in Mathias. Maybe it had been a lot longer than any of them realized.

He took Malcolm's hands between his own, trying to still and steady them. "Three, give or take a week. I... can't be sure if much time has passed since I got stabbed."

"...Okay, so you're going to have to run that bit by me again," Malcolm told him.

He laughed softly. "Yeah, uh."

Gil stayed silent a moment, sorting out in his head what he could or should say. He'd already given away the fact that Eve was dead. But clearly Malcolm didn't remember what they had, how much it had meant to him, and Gil wasn't ready to hurt him both with the fact that it had happened and the fact that he forgot.

"Like I said... Eve..." He shakes his head. "Long story short...er, her sister was the Girl in the Box. Her name was Sophie, and your father didn't kill her. She made a deal with him. Gave him information on Nicholas Endicott in exchange for her life."

God, what had their lives turned into over the past year? "Endicott silenced Eve, then framed you for the murder of her assassin. He told your mother he could help you. I went to stop her from doing something that she'd regret, something that might get her or you kids hurt, but."

He gestured at himself one-handed. "Didn't go as planned, obviously."

Malcolm's eyes narrowed.

"She went to meet with him? I don't... I don't think I'd let my mother do something like that," he said. "Why would I let her do that? I don't think I would."

Put herself in danger just to save Malcolm? He'd never sit idly by.

"I told you to let me handle it." He wrapped his hands around Malcolm's again, this time for his own comfort. "Because you had to run. You were going to be arrested for first degree murder. I couldn't let that happen."

"...You were supposed to arrest me and you let me go?"

Even knowing he hadn't done it, Gil must have thought there was no way out. But if he hadn't done it, wasn't there evidence of that? Couldn't they just work the case and find the evidence?

"But..."

He cast around, but there was no anchor apart from Gil's touch. He didn't feel like he'd just run away and let Gil take the weight of it alone, either.

"I don't understand. I just... left you? I ran away? To where?"

"Technically I wasn't supposed to arrest you yet. I just let you know what was coming." He shrugged. "Endicott had it on lockdown, Malcolm. There was DNA evidence, found by one of his labs. The guy has his fingers in everything, owns everyone he needs to in order to make the truth look the way he wants it to."

He leaned forward a little, trying to catch Malcolm's eyes with his own. "Hey. I told you to run. You and I both know that you're the best guy to figure out how to bring Endicott down. You wouldn't be able to do that from inside a prison cell. You didn't 'just leave'. You were working the case."

Malcolm held his gaze for a moment.

"Did I do it? Did I bring him down?"

Gil knew the pause before his answer would be answer enough. "I don't know. I know you were pursuing a lead in Conneticut. That was the last I heard from Dani before I got attacked."

"Connecticut," he murmured. He frowned, then he looked at Gil again. "What happened to my mother?"

Gil looked down. He'd been stupid. Gone in alone. And now?

"I don't know." The weight of those three words felt like they would bring him to the ground. "I'm sorry, I'm. So sorry. I got angry. Careless. Part of me thinks I went there looking to pick a fight. The guy was trying to put my son behind bars, trying to blackmail the woman I--"

He managed to cut himself off. "The last thing, the very last thing I remember, is Endicott's guy shoving me into a trunk."

He watched Gil's face for a long moment after he stopped talking.

The woman he? Malcolm was going to put that in a box and not open it. But for the rest...

He squeezed Gil's hands back.

"It sounds like he was the kind of guy who made things personal. Like he did that on purpose."

"Yeah. He's good at it. Got me, got you, got Eve."

He smiled, small and bitter. "And I'm still not entirely convinced that I'm not dying right now."

Malcolm cocked his head a little.

"Let me see the stab wounds."

Gil blinked at him. "Here. Now."

"You're the one worried about dying and your perception of reality. Other than a really discomfiting story about my mom and a high end serial killer, you seem pretty normal to me," he pointed out.

Gil snorted. "Well, I feel like I got kicked by a horse, but I've been walking around in the snow for an hour."

He sighed, hesitated, then lifted the gown enough to show off the mess of bandages secured against his stomach. "I didn't think it was a good idea to mess with them."

"How about," Malcolm proposed as he noted the mass of bandages, "we get you some pants and then we go to the house where I'm staying and then we mess with them?"

That got a genuine laugh, and a wince of pain for good measure. "I wouldn't say no to pants or privacy."

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