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.
no subject
(He's worried anyway.) ]
I mean, I noticed it sucks, yeah! Fog doesn't wanna do laws of physics and apparently the universe decided we're just not gonna do time right anymore. Finding you is the only good blip on the radar, but even that turned up issues. [ If he'd been missing from Hardison and Parker's perspective for a few days, he'd already be tracked down by now, and the team would be halfway through planning to take down-- whatever this operation is. Obviously. That's how they do. Good luck to anyone who thinks they'd actually manage to prevent it.
How does time and perception of time get screwed up? What, technologically or medically, makes that happen? Too large-scale and open ended for a White Rabbit. They're both clear-headed. What pieces are missing? This would be a cool time to have a computer and a few dozen databases cracked open.
Lacking his usual means, he reshuffles his priorities list. Catches Eliot by the arm, comes to a stop, funnels the full scope of his focus and concern into it. ]
Look, I know I asked about the bear fight and all, ha ha, extremely funny of me, but that was real 'I assumed we both woke up here a few hours ago' specific, so. Eliot, are you okay? Have you been okay?
[ He doesn't know what he can even do about it if he's not or he hasn't been. Nothing, probably. And Eliot's smart, he's capable, survival's his whole thing, he knows how to lone wolf it, the whole nine yards, absolutely. Hardison really can't bring himself not to ask despite those facts. ]
no subject
And then Hardison catches him by the arm and he stops, too, just as much because of what he says, the way he says it, the concern.
If he asks, he's gotta tell him.
Damn.]
No.
[Just that, no. Just that, he's admitting to Hardison that he's not okay, that he hasn't been okay, that none of this is okay. And he's the survivor, he's the guy that knows what to do in a survival situation, he's the one who's supposed to have it together. But he'll be damned if that makes Hardison think that he's not gonna be able to protect him, even though the one thing that scares him most in the world is that he can't protect him or Parker.
He wishes he didn't ask him if he was okay.]
I ain't gonna lie to you man, this place really sucks.
no subject
But it matters that Eliot tells him.
He'll break every computer-oriented crime he can get his little digital hands on and create some new ones that world governments haven't even bothered to think about yet if it gets them closer to an answer. Would do, if this place turned out those kinds of tools. Hardison is determinedly pretending he believes that is 100% the case.
He softens. Snow is cold, Earth orbits a Sun, Alec Hardison softens with the ease of a paperback book someone dropped in a puddle. And if he happens to look a touch unsettled, he challenges anyone with brain cells to not be unsettled by a non-okay Eliot Spencer. ]
Okay. Wanna tell me about it?
[ Local genius offers to have emotional conversation in the cold-ass tundra, more at 11. ]
no subject
Right.
But that's Hardison, and Eliot wouldn't expect anything less.]
Not really.
[He doesn't really want to talk about the awful details. He doesn't want to tell him what happened to him in the short time that he's been here--the days feeling more like years now, and then no time at all. At the impossible things he's seen, at the impossible things he's felt.
He shouldn't even be here right now. He doesn't know how he's alive. But he doesn't want Hardison to worry about him, even though he's not sure if by keeping quiet about it will make him worry any less. An odd memory pops up of him and Hardison talking about his dad. It was a quiet moment that he felt...like he could open up about it, trusting Hardison with a memory, a piece of himself that he kept under wraps. He's not sure if he wants to part with this memory, it's poison, it's got spikes, it's pain.]
The town, is--yeah. [He doesn't meet his gaze.] The fog, y'know. Don't go in it. It puts stuff in your head, makes you run away from it. Weirdest thing I ever experienced, and that's sayin' a lot.
[He clears his throat, trying to change the subject. It's fine. This is all fine.]
no subject
Hell, Parker and Sophie and Nate kinda work that way, too. ]
Well, you'll know where to find me.
[ To quote the most amazing woman on Earth, "people are fiddly." No cheat codes for the big stuff. No picking away until the right inputs click into place and they crack right open.
Just setting your presence on the table and making sure they know it's there, and waiting. ]
So big rule, no fog. I'll keep that locked down. I already try to live up to a standard of not doing what white people do in scary movies.
[ Following the official Eliot Spencer survival rules when possible is probably the least Hardison can try to do to make things a little easier on him. The being there and waiting requires a base level of being alive in the first place. ]
no subject
Yeah.
[A small word, almost rude and inconsequential to anyone else listening, but it's not. It really means thanks.]
I hate to say it but that's what this place feels like, man. Literally, exactly that. A horror movie.
[It seems so ridiculous to say the actual words out loud but he needs Hardison to know how bad it is, how bad it can get.]
Places seem haunted or somethin'. Things out there in the snow that make noise. Things that... [Just a pause, a hitch in his breathing.] ...attack you. Things you can't really see.
no subject
He'd call himself creative and adaptable. He'd venture that all the TV shows and movies and comics and video games in the world should smooth these ideas over somehow. But he's got a nice healthy fiction versus reality barrier.
Hardison frowns, looks off the path towards the trees, towards where the fog pulls up a few feet short for no apparent reason. Keeps trying to run the math like he expects to get all Neo on its ass and see the 1s and 0s and find where to tweak it to pull it all together. Keeps hitting the same exact wall he's been hitting because it doesn't work.
Eliot's been gone for a few days. Eliot was downstairs getting ready for the dinner crowd a few hours ago. Hardison woke up in the woods. He doesn't remember anything even a little weird happening between what he was doing and then. It's seamless. Haunted houses, invisible monsters, fog that puts things in your head, ravines at the end of winding paths that somehow even make him think about trying to jump for a second.
There's ways to maybe explain some of that, bits and pieces. Drugs or head trauma or special effects having a run on Eliot, maybe. On him now that he's out here, too. Whatever it might be. But just as much of it, there's no answer for at all. Suddenly the Spanish Flu and "standing on a pressure plate attached to a Claymore" incidents from a bit back are feeling comparatively way more grounded. ]
That doesn't happen. Like, the whole point of the movies is--
[ He makes some kind of a gesture. It doesn't really go anywhere. Much like the end of that sentence. The only emotional chill Hardison had was set aside specifically for Eliot. The rest of the time, Eliot and security are enough of an overlap that he feels comfortable not having more set aside for coping purposes. ]
Eliot, it doesn't happen. So if you wanna harness your chi or whatever and start learning how to punch reality back into shape right about now, you got my full moral support, brother. Because this is way the hell outta the hacker paygrade.
no subject
[He really, really wants to punch reality right now. He wants to make it so it's simply not what it is right now, because what it is, is too dangerous for them both and now that Hardison's here, he can't protect him from the impossible.
He's just him and even people with damn superpowers or whatever is actually going on can't beat this place.]
It shouldn't happen. It can't happen. But somethin' is happening and we have to deal with what's here.
[Remember how he said you never know when you have to fight an alien? Now he's expanding that to include the supernatural in general. He's gonna figure out how to punch a ghost, just you wait.]
Whatever is goin' on here, whatever this all really is, we have to deal with what it's throwin' at us. So as much as this doesn't make sense--and a lot of it really doesn't make sense, man--we have to deal with what it gives us. Until we figure out what's actually happening and go home.
no subject
Two paths diverged in a yellow wood. ... Metaphorically. They both lead right up to a fun and cool time being freaked out, but one is a longer road that also ends indoors out of the wind.
It's never as bad as it could be if he's got Parker and/or Eliot with him. Hardison can maybe feel guilty about that, given the situation, but he does not feel particularly ashamed to feel that way about it.
He runs a hand down his face, presses it over his mouth for a long second while he considers these metaphorical paths. Has a quick little pace, as in maybe two steps worth of range. Reality sucks. He thinks he'll stay pressed. ]
Kidnap a man and make him sit out in nature for some edgy Scooby-Doo nonsense... keep laughing when Velma frames your ass for fraud. Not gonna be laughing then, that's for damn sure.
[ Giving Alec Hardison time to plot revenge was their second mistake after giving it to Eliot.
He snaps his fingers and immediately regrets the experience in this climate. ]
Chili. [ Or chilly? Both. Mostly the second one. ] Which way are we going? Not gonna get anywhere standing around out here.
[ Is he the one who stopped in the first place. Yes. Does he know that, also yes. What if he was a little annoying on purpose for normalcy's sake, though, as a treat? ]