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

[tinstar]

For all the chill that Raylan lacked, he still followed the ABC's. Always Be Cool. Something this guy clearly has never learned. If he wasn't so freaked out, he would have smirked at the snatch and declaration of projectiles - was this what he would have looked like if he was from someplace normal instead of backwoods Kentucky? His brain couldn't have come up with this guy on it's own.

No, he wasn't going to apologize for the socks.

"Mathis got a taste for teachers I guess," he said, eyebrows lifting - if he hadn't changed expressions, he almost worried about it sticking that way. "Try Rawhide and John Wayne with a healthy rerun of US Marshals - a teacher?" That was about as far as you could get away from a Marshal.

After a second, he shook his head and nodded at the clothing shop. "You ain't gotta scream to get in there and I'm freezin' my ass off, you mind if we take this little Twilight zone episode inside?"

[bardish]

Jeff furrows his brows, casting a quick back look at the window and-- yeah. That other shop definitely looks a way more promising location to hash out whatever the fuck's going on with his cowboy doppelganger.

(God, even his accent is cooler. That's way fucking unfair.)

He breathes out, then nods, taking a few steps closer to Raylan so as to match his speed as they head to the (hopefully less haunted) store. "Wait, so are you? A Marshal, I mean." It's the easiest occupation to latch on to, given the examples. The alternatives are, what, cattle wrangler? Is that even a job anymore? Jeff wrinkles his nose a little, seems deep in thought as he considers their situation here, before he suddenly perks up and turns to Raylan with a bright eyed and entirely too excited look.

"Oh! Dude! Oh my god, I got it! We're twins, separated at birth! Now I don't think my parents would've given you up for a adoption, but maybe-- maybe-- somebody kidnapped you and they didn't have the heart to tell anyone so it's been a tragic family secret for the last forty-odd years!"

[tinstar]

If Jeff didn't seem just as equally, painfully normal, Raylan would have hesitated a lot more than he did to have him stepping any amount of steps, but instead of weaving to compensate and drawing more attention to just how fucking weird he found this, he held steady and tried not to stare. Jeff's face somehow felt like it carried...less weight, not that Raylan could explain what that really meant. Freer in its exuberance, that was for sure, but it had been a long time since Raylan had anything to be exuberant about.

"Twenty plus years. I'd show you my badge but it's back at the house. Doesn't tend to get much use out here." Next to what he knew was a more 'normal' accent, Raylan couldn't help but feel that twinge of self consciousness about his own. At least he couldn't argue that it suited him. If Jeff had been English, that would have been a completely different story. No amount of good face saved that contrast.

Maybe it wasn't exuberance, maybe it was just drugs, Raylan thought to himself as Jeff came up with what sounded like the Parent Trap on whatever those drugs were. The Marshal scoffed, face curling in a somehow dry grin to match the amused lift of his eyebrows.

"As much as I'd love to have nothin' to do with Arlo, I know for a fact that ain't the case.. Well, unless you're the one got kidnapped and moved to.. Lemme guess, California? Tell me it's at least near a beach, I need some good day dreamin' material," he said as they came up to the clothing shop. Instead of asking or waiting for help, Raylan turned around and used his ass to push the door open as he continued, pausing to hold it open with one boot for Jeff to get a hand on the handle and take the weight. Ambling over to the counter, Raylan finally got to discard his box and take a full better stock of this Jeff person, hands propping on unevenly tilted tips.

"My best guess right now is that this is some.. alternate dimension. Unless you think your parents would adopt you off the black market and not say nothin'." Arlo would but Raylan had.. well past tense had, Helen to confirm the unfortunate genealogy.

[bardish]

If there's one thing they're both on the same page about, it's the understanding that an English accent would be completely at odds with their face. Because even though there's something so strange, so uncanny valley (is he using that term right? who the fuck knows, he's not a science guy) about looking at a face that's his-but-not, and hearing his voice speak in that laconic drawl... it's also right, in some way. Whoever the Marshal is, long lost brother, or product of an alternate reality, he wears their similarities, and their differences, in a way that just fits together.

For him, anyway. Jeff would look like an asshole in a costume if he put that hat on.

"I'll take your word for it. You've got an honest face." Ha, doppelganger humor.

Jeff follows him into the shop, hesitating only for a moment as Raylan holds the door open with his boot, like he's half-expecting another weird encounter with hallucinations and invisible fingers tap-tapping. But he quickly shakes off his lingering dread and relieves the other man of the door, suburban sensibility telling him: Fuck your fear, it's rude to leave the guy holding the door for you!

"Got it in one. Santa Monica, born and raised." The beach is practically in his blood. Jeff takes a look around the store, a superficial look at their surroundings, before his gaze settles on Raylan again. "And you're from... I was going to say Texas, when I first saw you." But 'Texas' brings twangs to mind, and Raylan's accent is smoother than that, he thinks. "But I'm thinking... West Virginia?"

Which he honestly lands on for its proximity to Virginia prime, where he's been stuck for the past 15 years. There'd be some weird poetry in that, right?

When he tries to picture his parents at some baby black market, Jeff laughs, short and a little strained, betraying the frayed edges that he's desperate to shove back into some deep dark part of him, to be patched up and masked with a cheery smile.

"I guess... Alternate realities it is." Look, after having a demon in your head, you can believe a lot of strange things. "So what's it like for you? The Gift. I'm guessing you're not a bard..."

Obviously some twin from an alternate reality would still be Gifted. That's as much a part of him-- of them?-- as the face looking right back at him.

[tinstar]

The joke at least gets another huff of an amused breath from the Marshal and a wry little passing curl of his lips. Alright fine, it was funny, but he refused to acknowledge that out loud. Too much weird in the way.

California, great. At least those observational skills hadn't suffered being here. God what he'd do for a beach and some flipflops. For all the cowboy that Raylan carried, he was exactly one pair of flipflops away from being a beach bum. Which was why he enjoyed his Miami assignment so much.

"It's the hat isn't it. I get that a lot. I'm further south - Kentucky. Harlan, specifically, not that I expect you to know where that is. Google hasn't even found it yet."

Raylan saw the stuff and tuck of shit behind Jeff's smile - too strange a sight to see on his own face. He couldn't argue that that was his face, at least - the way his face had been before Mathis added the scars on the left hand side. He tried to judge how old his body double here was, but much like everyone else, it was a hard guess. Good news, he supposed.

His eyes narrowed at the question, chin lifting a little bit in a friendly suspicion. "Second time today I've heard that. Bard. Gift. Somehow I don't think you're talkin' about bein' in a talent show. Let's go alternate dimension - you play the piano too?" One finger came out to lazily gesture at him with the question. "My only Gift is shootin' and my job."

Well, and drinking and being generally a fucking mess under an uncrackable veneer, but you were what life demanded, sometimes.

[bardish]

It's odd to see his own face hold so much back, not like Raylan's emotionless or anything, so much as understated, where Jeff's expressive to a fault. But even that isn't quite right, is it? Jeff's expressive, sure, he smiles brightly and without hesitation, but it's every bit a shield for him as stoicism is for other men.

In any case, it feels like the weirdest achievement, getting something of a laugh out of his more... restrained double.

"Harlan, huh?" he repeats, saying the name just for the sake of it, like it'll spark any familiarity in himself. Some... what, hidden clone memories or something? But it doesn't bring anything to mind. "Yeaaah," he laughs a little, "never heard of it."

Jeff moves towards Raylan-- or, rather, the box he'd set down, peeking in curiously to get a look at his stock. It's really just to occupy his eyes, like he needs to avoid staring right at his twin for too long. Otherwise, he might start to fixate on every tiny detail, all the ways in which they're different and the same.

But as soon as Raylan says he's the second person to mention the Gift (like it's not common knowledge?) and asks him about the piano, he looks up, wide eyed from the stream of questions starting to race through his head.

"No-- guitar-- wait, there's another bard here? Who else was talking about bards?"

[tinstar]

If this was almost any other situation, Raylan would have been a little lighter on serving Face to match the almost casual 'how's yer mom and them, ain't this weather nice' kinda cadence he had when he talked but when in doubt, and after suspicion had been thrown up, it was better to keep whatever he was feeling off his face. Too many years of working people who were looking to take advantage.

"Coal country." Jeff said Harlan like everyone else who wasn't from around there, with crisp, clean enunciation and Raylan decided he liked the way it sounded coming from himself better. More character, somehow. The urge to keep the man at arm's length was easing the longer they talked and while Raylan didn't move, the impulse still echoed there. Something about a paradox happening if he touched himself during time travel - he was sure he picked it up outta some book.

Raylan's budding suspicions were starting to bloom, pieces of his conversation with Athena, her reaction to him, threading together with the context of Jeff. His finger lifted a little, equally lazy smile breaking over his face.

"You're Jeff. The teacher." It wasn't really a question but he wouldn't argue with some confirmation just to make him feel better. "You lost a teenager lately, about yay-high," His hand shifted to gesture about Athena's height, almost comical against theirs. "Rock Midget with an attitude? She's in one piece before you ask, but I think I mighta freaked her out by.." He gestured at his face and then gestured at Jeff's like 'There you have it'.

[bardish]

"Yes! I am Jeff the teacher!" Saying it in a rush like that, no pause between his name and his occupation, it almost sounds like a fancy title. Like he might as well be Sir Jeff the Teacher of Teenagers. The way his confirmation comes out, quick and a little breathy, it's like Jeff feels as if they're on the verge of some kind of grand discovery here. If he were sitting, he'd be perched on the edge of his seat with anticipation.

A teenager. Fuck. Even before he realizes which teenager Raylan's talking about, his heart sinks about as low as it can go. Just knowing that a kid, any kid, is here instead of home makes his stomach twist with dread. And for one dreadful, irrational moment, he thinks: What if it's Mel?

But he knows Raylan can't be talking about his daughter as soon as he marks the height, and the rush of relief that hits him is brief, but overwhelming. Melody's, like, a good half-a-foot taller than that, and besides, she doesn't give a fuck about the piano and-- oh shit he's talking about Athena. Daughter-adjacent, if he was being cute about it. The truth is, she may as well be his kid, for as fond and protective as he is of her, and jesus christ, he's a monster, he's a fucking monster, because he actually, selfishly, felt relieved that some other Not-Mel kid was here, like, what, she's too precious and special, some other kid has to be a sacrificial lamb to a haunted town, and oh look, plot twist: it's Athena!

"Ahhh... Uh..."

There's a lot going on inside of Jeff, and for a while there, he's at a loss for words, though it's probably pretty clear in his expression that he knows just who Raylan's talking about. He seems practically subdued when he finally finds his voice again.

"I can see why that might freak her out."

To put it mildly.

"Athena's here. But she's okay. One piece, like you said. She's okay. Okay. Okay, good. Now I just have to find her and find a way home, easy, no problem, people get lost in alternate realities every day!" There's a slightly hysterical edge in his voice, and Jeff stops himself, breathes, looks at Raylan again and really seems to be looking at him now that he's coming down from his panicky mental jaunt. "Sorry-- shit, I don't even know your name."

[tinstar]

Oh Raylan can see how much is going on inside Jeff. He didn't know the details but the waves of tension and relief translated all over the wrinkles of Jeff's face. God they really were an expressive feature, weren't they. Now that it had sat for a few minutes, Raylan was taking stock of what other people must see when they looked at him.

It was heart breaking but there were other teenagers here already, even if they were just on their way out of it, twenty wasn't any different than nineteen or eighteen, if he was being honest. Clearly that was something that would have to be broached gently. Good. That was good. He'd be disgusted beyond logical reason if someone with his face didn't give a shit about kids. He'd be happy to have more eyes on the young people that he was not nearly as good with.

A gentle smile curled on Raylan's lips, eyes closing for a half second as he nods and finally steps over the self-drawn line to reach out and drop a hand on Jeff's shoulder, though he watches it happen, just in case his hand sinks through his shoulder instead. It doesn't, thank fuck, and with a relieved breath, Raylan continues.

"Raylan Givens and I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you're gonna need to go shoppin' here. Get you a coat that you're not gonna freeze in." His hand drew back to point at Jeff directly. "Layer. Very important. Temps here get well below freezing. You'll need to find a house worth squattin' in too. My house can help get you some supplies to start, hold you over for a few days at least, til we can all find some more."

He ambled over towards the racks. "Boots and hat aside, seems like we might have the same general taste in clothin'. The only jean jacket I found is already mine so you'll have to do with somethin' else.." He pulled an extra large woman's puffer jacket out, fur edged hood and everything, holding it out for Jeff's inspection as he flicked through more of the rack like he hadn't just told the man he wasn't leaving.