test drive — winter

[villagemod]

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: ♫ )

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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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Comments

[citharede]

“Oh well, only a flesh wound.”

She gestures airily, seeming to dismiss the issue of internal bleeding. Then she shrugs. “I mean, yeah. I moved in with my aunt a year ago but I missed a year and a half of high school after my parents booted me so I’m still behind.”

[abrightboy]

"You seem pretty well-studied. Why don't you just take an equivalency test?" he asked curiously.

[citharede]

She shrugs. “That’s the plan, otherwise I’m going to end up like... a super-duper senior or something. I just.”

She frowns and looks down. How the fuck do you explain to a stranger that you’re not ready to do the whole college thing when you’ve barely started having a real life in one place, with people who don’t disappear or drift in and out of your life like cigarette smoke on a street corner?

She’s supposed to want it. College. The life that comes after. All that bullshit. And maybe she’ll do it when Mel leaves home or something, when the few friends she’s made start to graduate themselves.

When she looks up, she’s beaming again. “I’m shit at history even with the lesson on 1852 and I think my chemistry teacher cried the last time I handed in a lab report, and not because it was good. I’m not ready yet.”

[abrightboy]

"You're not ready emotionally," he said, watching her face. "You can pass the test." A beat as he watched her expression. "You know you can. There's something else holding you back. Some... one? Someone you think you'll lose if you move on too soon."

[citharede]

Athena blanches. She’s never had anyone get so blunt with her about her own feelings before.

“That’s... not....”

Norie. Jeff. Mel. Cam. Even JJ, brat that she could be. They were family, even more family than her coven had been. Unlike her coven, they hadn’t ditched her in a jail cell with a federal crime hanging over her head. Norie had been the one to get her out, even back when she wanted Athena in the system more than she wanted her in the spare bedroom that’s just her room now. Athena bites her lips together.

“I mean, I guess, yeah.”

[abrightboy]

"That's a valid reason. More valid than empty academic credentials," he pointed out.

[citharede]

She scratched her nose, not quite looking up at him. “Yeah, I guess.”

Athena almost admits that she’s scared her aunt will shove her out of the nest. That somehow it will come out that she doesn’t actually want Athena there, that she’s just waiting for the teenager she never asked to share space with to move the hell on.

“It’s not really the way the whole homeless shithead redemption story goes though.”

[abrightboy]

"Why can't it?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

[citharede]

She growls softly, scrubbing a hand through her hair to mess it up again, frustrated more with herself than with him.

“Because. Because I don’t want to push my luck. Because... I don’t know, the sooner I move the fuck on the longer I get to pretend to have somewhere to go back to.”

[abrightboy]

"Why wouldn't you be able to go back to where you are now?" he asked.

[citharede]

She scowls at him weakly. “Has anyone ever told you that you ask a lot of motherfucking questions? And that’s saying something because they’re usually saying it to me.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm huffed a laugh. "Yeah, there was an occult detective that used to be here that said that a lot."

[citharede]

That lopsided not-quite smile makes one cheek dimple again. “I’m pretty sure I remember you saying something about having coffee when you were ripping into me earlier.”

A pause.

“The translation from asshole is, ‘Can I have some coffee before my brain implodes from lack of caffeine?’”

[abrightboy]

He nodded. "And food," he reminded her. He tilted his head towards the door and headed that way, leading the walk towards 1306 Philips Drive.

[citharede]

She follows, trying very hard to keep the bounce in her step and the brightness in her eyes as they walk through town. It’s impossible to miss the way the puddles run red, and with the fresh context of what happened to Malcolm’s friends...

They’re not that far from the town hall when she busts into song, getting all the way through the first chorus of Pocket Full of Poetry before she interrupts herself with:

“Is there a fucking piano in this town? Someone in this hellmouth has to have one, right?”

[abrightboy]

"One would assume. My roommate Henry has been in most of the houses in town. He might be able to tell you. I don't know if he's home right now. Probably not at this time of day," he told her.

[citharede]

"I hope so. Otherwise I might go nuts."

She tries to keep that light as well, but it doesn't exactly work. The way she bites her lip at the end of it gives away the anxiety underneath her breeziness.

Athena looks sidelong at Malcolm. "So. Are you. Are you from... like. A normal world, or some other weirdass place with the Gift doesn't exist?"

[abrightboy]

"I'm... not sure I'm the person to define what constitutes 'normal'," he told her. "But as far as I know, nobody there has... superpowers. Some people here do, though."

[citharede]

She wrinkles her nose. "Superpowers? The Gift's not a superpower. ...Though I guess that kind of answers the question of whether or not you know what it is."

She adds an extra, anxious little bounce to her next step. "Fucking. It's fucking weird. It's like. I don't even know how to think about it, I don't even know how to process what that would be like, a world with no magic in it. But apparently it's really fucking weird to like half the people here to have magic, so what the fuck do I know anyway? You all seem pretty... I mean, 'normal,' whatever that does mean."

[abrightboy]

"I know a guy who can talk to the dead and a guy that used to be here was an occult detective and my roommate's girlfriend can make things shake with some kind of telekinesis," he told her. "Oh. And this new guy has a metal arm."

[citharede]

"And there's the whole demon hunter thing." She's still vaguely bothered by that.

She makes a strangled noise and messes up her hair. "God this is so fucking weird."

She wants to ask what his world is like, a place without magic, a place without any of it, apparently. But it kind of creeps her out, if she's honest. What would she be if she wasn't a bard?

Just...

No one.

Nothing.

She shivers, following him up onto the porch of 1306.

[abrightboy]

He glances at her sidelong with a curious expression, then opens the door and leads her in, straight to the kitchen, putting the kettle on and taking down the french press.

"What does your magic do?"

[citharede]

She hops up onto a stool, propping her chin in one hand and watching him. That little half-smile appears again when he pulls down the French press.

"Look at you, Webster. Staying New York fancy in bumfuck nowhere."

She shrugs. "I mean, depends on what I want it to do, really? God how do I even like... explain this shit. The Gift, it's just the power to make things happen, I guess? Sort of? It's the ability to cast spells. And your ritual, that's how you use the Gift, the way you kind of tap into that ability. Rituals are..."

She frowns, staring into space. "Like... okay."

Athena sits up, holding her hands out in front of her in a kind of woah, slow down motion that's definitely not directed at Malcolm. "Let me try this again. The Gift is just power. Either you have the Gift or you don't. The ritual is how you access it. That's the interesting part. The Gift kind of... attaches itself, I guess? To the things you're good at, the things you care about. Like, I love music. I always have. I can only tap into the Gift using music. Like, say, I want to move something across the table or light a fire or someshit. I would have to make a song-spell to do it. Does that make sense?"

[abrightboy]

"No amount of New York fancy can save the pedestrian grounds they supply here, but it's better than nothing," he told her.

He listened with interest as she explained.

"So - basically - you can do anything as long as you can write a song about it."

[citharede]

She tilts her head, one eye squinted shut. “Not really. It depends on a lot of factors. Like, using the moving shit example, I can shift a cup or something like it’s nothing, but if it was a more ‘complicated’ thing, like, say, a... I dunno, a mouse for some reason, that would be a hell of a lot harder because it has a will of its own.”

She crosses her arms on the countertop and rests her chin on top of them. “And the bigger the outcome you want, the more complicated the spell gets, and the more likely it is to fuck up. Again, if I just wanted to shift a cup across the table I’m good enough that I wouldn’t need words to do it. Just a note or two. But for something big, I’d probably have to bust out an actual song. Any song, really, as long as it’s got a kind of mental association for me with the results I want.”