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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[tinstar]

Raylan sighed the sigh of a deeply confused and frustrated man and kept moving.

"I am and we don't let talent agencies onto the list. Speakin' of, I want my badge back once you're closer. No consolation prizes for bein' in hell."

[citharede]

Athena, however, stops. Because it's hitting her, really hitting her, that he doesn't know what she's talking about.

"You really don't know what the Gift is."

It takes a moment of actual effort to start walking again, the shock is so thick. "How can you not know?"

The question is more to herself than to him. "So you... you really don't know what I mean when I say bard. Or kirby. Or like, angle-chaser. None of that."

[tinstar]

"Nope," he answered, largely unaware of how much of a revelation this was.

Raylan looked over sidelong. "Ain't Kirby that fat video game characters that sucks everything up? The south would call an angle-chaser a carpetbagger, but I'm gonna take a guess and assume that they aren't the same thing." A beat passed. "You gonna fill me in or let me keep guessin'."

It honestly was a question, even if his inflection didn't lift at the end like it was.

[citharede]

"No! I mean, yes, but it's a Jack Kirby thing, the artist, because..."

She pauses again, then shakes her head and starts jogging for a moment to make up the distance between them. "Jack Kirby was the first prominent Gifted pop-culture artist of the 20th century. Angle chasing, it's a math term, it's used to describe a geometrical proof that involves finding relationships between the various angles in a diagram. It's for people who use their Gift through mathematics, like my aunt. I'm a bard, which, yeah, it started as a jokey DnD thing but then it just kind of stuck."

Athena's voice stays wildly confused through the whole explanation. "The Gift is... I don't know, it's the motherfucking Gift. We... do magic shit with it."

[tinstar]

Raylan hummed a note of acknowledgment to go with the lift of his chin, eyes locked on Athena as she continues, only narrowing a fraction more as she does. He really should have paid more attention to the few times he'd come into contact with it but it wasn't something that ever really caught his interest. He'd rather be reading at that age, never mind the religion of small town keeping something like DnD out of range of the kids.

"So you're magicians. Via music. And you do.. magic shit with it." Raylan nodded a little, face turning back to the path and the narrowing crack between them with a deep breath. He'd bent before, he could do it again. Wasn't his world - the one thing that helped keep him from going insane.

"And that's somehow what, common enough that it gets its own federally backed division? Modern day Guild or somethin'?

[citharede]

"No, it's..." She stares at him for a moment more as she walks, trying to find her words. "This is really fucking weird. Um. The Gift, it's common, yeah, but it's not like... super common. I think the statistic is 12% of people or something like that. The DGA is the division of federal law enforcement that investigates crimes by and against the Gifted. Like, terrorist shit and hate crimes and stuff."

[tinstar]

"Long enough to be widely accepted. Lemme guess? Evolution? Genetics?"

He gestured up ahead of them. "Another twenty or so feet, you can consider jumpin' to this side." He couldn't jump over there, or he would. He knew better by now, having come back after finding others to throw himself at the invisible wall that kept him at bay.

[citharede]

"Depends who you ask, but yeah, it's as genetic as hair color or anything else really." She shrugs. "It's always been around, but the Gifted... god this is embarrassing, I don't know our own fucking history. Jeff would--anyway."

She squints at the air, clearly trying to recall details. "The Gifted made this 'declaration of existence' in 1946, since it was getting really fucking hard to keep our shit hidden by then. We've got it pretty good in the US, some places are better, some places are worse, but it's a lot more 'whatever' than it used to be."

[tinstar]

"Can't imagine there are any good stories in that history, but being legal on paper is a damned good start. I don't assume that doesn't exempt you from still getting crap from people." If the way the US government and its population treated other minorities were any indication, he was glad that particular milestone was well before Athena's time. Those kinds of battles for recognition were never pretty or easy and they never solved the on the ground cultural issues without a lot of time for the older generation to die out.

Yeah, he was a real party, Raylan was.

"What kinda 'magic shit' do you do with your music?"

Since she was a teenager, he assumed a few things - Suburbs of DC she'd already confirmed so he assumed she was in school. As a person her age oughta be and since she lived with her aunt, he could assume that she was possibly kicked out of the Jersey family household due to her being Gifted. Wouldn't be so far fetched, most of the human race being as terrible as they were. He couldn't help but piece it all out; with no cases to work for as long as he'd been here, it helped keep his brain sharp.

[citharede]

"Not much. I mean, not right now anyway." She looks away, debating silently. Sooner or later it would come out--she's shit at keeping secrets. "I've kind of got this whole... probation-y thing... going. For reasons."

A quick shrug. "But I can move stuff, call light, start fires, find things. All the basics. The Gift's adaptable. If you're strong enough and skilled enough you can do a lot of stuff with it. It just depends on how good you are and how complicated what you're trying to do is."

[tinstar]

"Like a tiny human swiss army knife," he snarked playfully. "If this place doesn't throw you back into life, you'll have to show me. Assumin' that breakin' your probation doesn't make you... explode or somethin'. Anyone shows up, I'm sure I can tilt the federal umbrella to excuse it."

[citharede]

"Nah, nothing like that." She grins. "I just can't do anything big without registration and supervision. Which honestly is fine with me, I've got enough other shit to think about."

Athena stops, eyeing the gap. "I think I can make this."

[tinstar]

He eyed the gap too. "Yeah? Great, lets go fifteen feet more that way, then you can. Better to overshoot - Can't say how strong the edges actually are this far down."

Wouldn't take more than another 45 seconds to give her short ass legs some extra room. "What'd you do to get on probation? I won't even guess on that one, considerin' my record with ya so far."

[citharede]

She rolls her eyes, listening to his advice regardless. Adults. Always being overcautious. She very carefully doesn't note the fact that falling to her death would suck and that caution is probably the better route here.

"Um..." She stops once they've closed the gap a little more, looking uncomfortable. "That's. Complicated."

It's not that complicated, not really.

Athena stuffs his badge into her back pocket, backs up a little from the edge just in case, and takes a running leap that may-or-may-not end with her yelping and grabbing on to fistfuls of his flannel as the edge does indeed crumble a little underfoot.

[tinstar]

God help him, he almost missed the teenage airs, mind drifting briefly back to Loretta. Girl put in a terrible position working her way out from under it and forming her own being without her daddy or the Bennett's influence.

"Complicated," he echoed, the question getting put on hold as he lined up across from her, hands at the ready should they be needed. As soon as she starts moving, Raylan thinks they should have gone another twenty feet before trying this but it was too late now and she wasn't going to clear it by much. He stepped in as she landed, arm wrapping around her and grunting softly at the missile of weight. "Aright, you're okay," he muttered instinctively, guiding her quickly towards more solid ground by a few steps before he pulls back.

"Shoulda gone for track and field if you haven't already in school."

No way in hell was he getting accused of being inappropriate and a scared girl didn't need to get more scared by him holding on, however loosely for a fraction of a second longer than necessary.

[citharede]

Athena lets go slower than he does, looking back at the edge a little with wide eyes. When she does let go, she steps back quickly, shying out of reach like a young horse spotting a rattlesnake.

Then she looks up at him. Really looks up at him. Studies his face with a kind of frightened fascination, now that she's close enough to see more than the general look of him. God, it's spooky. But she slammed into him, he's there and real, not something made up in her head.

There's so much that's right, but so much that's not. He is harder than Jeff. There's no question about that. It's a kind of hard she recognizes, though it runs deeper in him than it does in her. It makes her wonder how much he's lost, how awful the life he left behind was, whatever and whenever he left it.

Unconsciously, Athena reaches up toward that little spiderweb of scars across the side of his face, before yanking her hand back abruptly. Not that she's standing close enough that she could have touched it to begin with.

"Uh. Sorry."

[tinstar]

He was afraid to move too quickly. No telling how she was feeling now that she was on this side of the gap, easily within arms reach if he had a mind. He didn't but fear invented all sorts of ideas. So he withstood the staring with only one glance to the side as though there was a peanut gallery to confirm that he hadn't done something wrong or grown a second head that he didn't know about.

As soon as she started reaching out, he self-consciously knew what she was reaching for - the moon had been too bright, like Mathis was lit up for the horror show that he and his had given, their screams no doubt echoing across the tainted snow - it wasn't quite a wince, more a pained twitch of his brow as he ducked his head, hiding under the brim of his hat before he shook his head. Peeling off the calf length wool jacket he'd come in with off his shoulders, he held it out to her.

"Still ain't used to 'em myself. They don't belong there and yet.. Take the jacket. You're gonna freeze otherwise."

They didn't have to talk about it. He wasn't hard lining anything; for as hard as he could be, his normal friendly smile having been torn away after too many days in Mathis, he saved his distrust and anger for adults who have or will eventually earn it. He was not hard out of choice, but of necessity. When the situation called for it. No one could kick you if they didn't know you were down.

[citharede]

She takes the jacket, shrugging into it without a word. He'd probably argue if she said no, and seeing the way he ducked away from her reaction to his scars--she doesn't want to make him argue.

The jacket is ridiculously big on her, but what else is new?

She chews her lip for a second, before making a decision. Deep breath. Brace for rejection. "My coven and I got picked up for running a sympathy scam."

A pause, as she realizes he has absolutely no idea what she means by that. "My parents kicked me out, like three years ago now. I lived on the street for a while, first in New York, then in Philadelphia. In Philly, I met up with this coven, a bunch of street bards like me, and... We did this thing where we would sing together, cast a group spell, to manipulate people. Get them to give us more money when we were busking, shit like that. It's super illegal. A felony. Cops caught half of us. My aunt got me out, used some of her boss's pull. That's how I ended up with her."

She looks down and shrugs. "So. Yeah."

[tinstar]

It was comically large on her, almost dusting the ground as she walked, but Raylan was glad that she took it without argument and popped the collar of his jean jacket that was now the topmost for his four layers against the cold threatening to bite his neck. His face pinched in a soft sympathy, something he was careful about, knowing how bitter and cruel a thing it could be, no matter the best intentions of whomever was giving them.

Raylan gave her a faint smile. "You wouldn't be the first kid to con some people out of their money on the street. You won't be the last." He jerked his head gently towards down, arms folding over his chest as he hunkered in against the wind that was soft enough to not be bothersome, but that brought the chill down by more than a few degrees.

"My daddy, Arlo, was a con man. Scam artist, petty thief, low level drug runner. One time he stole a whole herd of cows. Mutilated their branding and tried to sell them off. He got rid of half the herd before the owner chased down where he was. Can't tell you what happened to either of them, but that was the last of it."

No judgement or rejection here. Shit, she was just trying to eat. It was markedly different from Arlo. There was hope for her, given the right support.

"So what's the relationship between you and Jeff. Uncle? Mentor?" God he hoped he wasn't her teacher - that edged into a suspicious and ugly suggestion.

[citharede]

She just shakes her head. She can't admit to this guy that it was her idea. That she wrote the stupid songs that got them arrested, and yet she was the only one who got away. Got fucking rewarded for it. Even Jeff and her Aunt Lenore don't know that. It still makes her sick to think about it. And Raylan doesn't get it, really, either--how deep the violation of someone else's will goes when you're using the Gift to do it.

Athena is more than happy to move on to the question of Jeff. She's not quite grinning again, but the smile is definitely genuine. "He's... Jeff."

She snorts. "He's a history teacher at my high school, but he's like... my mentor, too. He's teaching me guitar. And he's just."

Athena bites her lips together. "I don't know, he's Jeff. He's a loser and he's brilliant and he has the weirdest, best taste in music, and I can talk to him about stuff. Bard stuff."

She hooks an ironic smile Raylan's way. "And before you get any creepy weirdo Lolita vibes he's not like that. I think that's probably one of the only things that could actually get him to punch someone."

A pause. "Side note: Lolita is a shitty book and English teachers who talk about how amazing it is are fucking creepy. Just my two cents."

[tinstar]

That violation, no - he could guess a faint idea that wouldn't come anywhere close to the depth of what was put upon those people but the worst thing she contracted out of them was money. Money was the least important thing in the world. So long as she wasn't out here murdering or maiming people, they'd be okay, generally speaking.

He'd lifted his eyebrows at all the telling but her reassurance about Jeff was needed and taken with a clear relief as Raylan nodded. He felt some kind of way about the guys that do that, violent kind of things that he spared no shame for. Those people deserved whatever hell came to them.

Raylan huffed a laughy kind of breath, lips curling faintly. "No, you're not wrong. I'm glad you got someone to talk to." It was clear how attached Athena was to Jeff, in the way she talked about him, defended him. Raylan could only hope that was really the case.

"I'm gonna take you to the boarding house here. There's a few girls your age. Probably better than dropping you anywhere else. They'll take care of you until you get settled. Explain things better." He didn't know shit about girls but he knew the young ladies at the boarding house would wrap anyone willing under their wing.

[citharede]

"You're--oh." She's not sure whether to be happy about other girls her age being here. It's always a toss-up, with girls. At least suburban girls, but she has no idea who these girls might be.

She walks next to him in silence for a good minute before asking abruptly, "Where will you be?"

[tinstar]

Aware of the 'Mean Girl' possibility that comes with too many girls together, Raylan was certain that wasn't going to happen here. Max, Claire, Ellie. They'd been through some shit so hopefully petty fights were off the table. It was still the best option.

He looked over sidelong at the question, lips curling at the edges with a passing faint pull. "Little ways down the road. One of the streets nearest the beach - 1306 Phillips Drive. Livin' there with a few other guys that are stuck here but you're welcome to drop in if you want to." Fair warning and all. "That's somethin' about this place you oughta know. You don't want to be by yourself, alone in a house at night. Or outside - the point bein'.." He let out a breath as he looked forward again. "Nights can be a little unnervin' sometimes."

[citharede]

"Beachfront property. I bet that's a hot commodity in the asscrack of Antarctica."

She listens to his warning, briefly silent afterward. "What... does that mean? Like, seriously, that's fucking vague as fuck. Don't be alone, don't go outside, night are unnerving--specifics, man!"

The 'man' is said with the air of a 50s TV hero telling someone to get their shit together.

[tinstar]

Raylan couldn't help but huff a breath of amusement at the way she said that and he offered her a little roll of his shoulder.

"I'd rather be against somethin' I've got a chance in than backed up against the fogbearin' forest." But the faint cast of humor didn't stand up long to the demand of specifics. "It's dangerous, Athena. We've already had a third of our number die from gettin' caught outside in the Fog, though some of them came back. We just lost another third to some.... fucked up invisible monster. People inside were spared."

And she needed to be spared - Athena was spunky and full of the fire of youth. He didn't want to see what would happen to that fire with all the trauma this place could inflict upon her. Better that broader shoulders bore it.