villagememes | test drive

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

Unlike Logan, Athena gives many shits about the kind of building she's entering and the paranormal activity going on inside it. She shoves the door open, hands curled into fists, and starts yelling before she's fully in the building.

"All right you motherfuckers, which one of you kidnapped me and which one of you is getting a combat boot up your ass if you don't take m--"

That's about when she realizes there's no one inside.

Just as loudly, she says, "Nope," and does an about-face to leave.

Edited 2021-03-09 00:05 (UTC)

Oh, he heard her, alright. It was kind of hard not to when her hollering could awaken the dead, which might not be so farfetched in the end. And before she actually makes it out of the building, she might see a fairly dark human form in her periphery.

But in case she doesn't catch him, Logan steps out and breaks the silence with an all too amused huff. He's seen kids like her before. Same kind Charles liked to scoop up and give a home to at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. In a way, she almost immediately reminds him of Rogue. Without all the swearing.

"Is it your goal to bust into every building like that? Cause I'd like to see what happens when you run into someone."

Athena yelps, shying away from Logan as he appears. She caught that shadow--he situational awareness is better than most--but she recovers fast, lifting her chin and glaring at him.

"Yeah? Well I ran into you, and if you don't tell me what's going on in the next ten seconds--" She stops, frowning at him. "You look like shit. Are you okay?"

Oh, he wants to answer that and the look on his face says he wants to answer that question. But before he can even get the question out, she's already moving on and asking that one single thing that he hates to answer because he's not getting that answer.

Of course, she's going to ask. He only looks like he's lost a knife fight, which isn't totally untrue. He doesn't look down at himself because he knows what she sees. So, he limps past her, totally ignoring the question. Maybe the next building has something he can change into or use to clean up with. At least enough that the next person who sees him doesn't ask.

But he still manages a grunt as he passes her by.

Athena doesn't just roll her eyes. She rolls her head on her shoulders along with them, the picture of teenage exasperation. Teenage exasperation that seems shockingly unbothered by his current state.

"Right, got it. Ugh, grunt, no weakness, fuck emotions, probably." She trails after him, back out into the snow, hunching into her hoodie a little more as she tries to pretend she's not cold.

The biting feeling with no coat to hide in is brutally familiar, taking her back to the previous winter in Philadelphia and the shock of finding someone she knew dead from exposure near the Walt Whitman Bridge. Athena bites her lips together, a nervous tic, and trots to catch up with Logan and stay abreast. The keeping up part isn't hard. He's limping.

"Okay, well, I can either call you Julienne Fred or you can give me an actual name and I can maybe help you clean up. I'm Athena. And I don't think the stores here are going to have jackshit to take care of those... cuts."

Cuts doesn't seem like a strong enough word, but it's what she's got.

Those cuts appear to look like he's been playing with some kind of large cat, but if she's astute enough to notice, it's the gaping holes between one set of knuckles dangling at his side that appear the oddest. No doubt it will raise the question of what sort of weapon was used to cause an injury like that.

He keeps his eyes forward, only stopping long enough to hit the building ahead or to the right. One looks more like it could be a business while the other is definitely a house. So, he heads that way.

"There's always a place with something," he says, glancing her way only long enough to wonder what her story is. "And it's Logan. Don't you have some other doors to be kicking in?"

Of course, the question pops up (again) of how he keeps drawing in people who just don't want to take a hint.

"I said the stores. This isn't a post-apocalypse video game, dude, there aren't going to be medkits stuffed behind the register of..." She squints at the nearest sign. "'Beauty Supply.' That's fuckin' creative."

Except he's heading for a house now. "See, that's more like it. I'll even kick the door in for you since you kind of seem like you'd actually turn into home made human french fries if you tried."

She looks at his hands, then up at his face, her nonchalance breaking for a moment to show the concern underneath. "If you want to just sit somewhere I can find stuff and bring it back. ...The fuck aren't you bleeding to death, anyway? What happened to your hand? Someone stab you with a piton or something? ...That's a spike for climbing shit in case you didn't know."

"I know what a fucking piton is," he snaps, glaring at her with eyes that don't look altogether right. The whites of them are yellowing and they look tired, to a degree even sick. "Are you trying to break a record for most questions asked? Wait. Don't answer that. It's my turn to ask one."

He stops and turns slightly her way. "Mind your own fucking business."

Did he think that would be enough to stop her from throwing out a couple more? Not really. But he can't help but do some wishful thinking.

Athena stops abruptly, flinching back a little from his anger. She debates leaving him to figure himself out, gather his own damn medkits and powerups and fuck off to wherever ancient video game protagonists go when they're at the stage where they hate everyone and just want to be left alone in their disillusionment.

Except that's always the beginning of the damn game, isn't it.

After a moment, she yells, "Dick!"

And then she trots to catch up again, reaching him as he gets to the house and bouncing up the steps to the door before he can, opening it with a glare in his direction. "Go find a fucking couch while I see if these Brady Bunch assholes kept a first aid kit around here somewhere, or at least some towels and sheets and a pair of scissors."

test drive — winter

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