villagememes | test drive

Entry tags:

!tdm

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 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.

navigation | faq | locations | setting | mod contact

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

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.

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.

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."

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.

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."

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.

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."

Edited 2021-03-14 23:19 (UTC)

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.

"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?"

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."

"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.

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.

The fact that people have died makes her go truly quiet for the first time since she spotted him across the gap.

She bites her lips together, looking straight ahead instead of at him. She's seen people dead. She's never seen the actual dying, but she's seen the aftermath. She's a lot more willing to believe what he's saying than she might have been before the realization that he had no idea what the Gift was. Even the idea of people coming back doesn't shock her as thoroughly as it might have ten minutes ago.

"Well that's fucked up," is what she finally says, voice quiet. "The ones killed by the... monster, thing. Did they come back?"

He hummed a note with a nod. Fucked up is a good way to put it.

"Yeah. We came back. Some of us. Not enough of us," he answered with a soft evenness and fighting the urge to reach up and scratch the faint lines across the left side of his face. "So don't go roamin' around after nightfall and don't forget the buddy system. It might save your ass. There's no.. no normal livin' here, but there's some kind of livin' regardless. It's somethin', in between everything else."

He'd found more than he could have ever hoped for, considering the situation but it was nothing like he'd ever experienced.

"You got killed?" That comes out a whisper. It's awful to think of someone with Jeff's face, someone nice with Jeff's face, getting killed at all, let alone like that. It doesn't occur to her to ask if that's where the scars are from. They seem too old for something that sounds recent.

She huddles into his jacket a little more, like somehow having something of his around her shoulders will ward off the fact that he's someone back from the dead. "I mean," she stops for a second, then smiles a little, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "That's kind of life anyway, right? Sounds a hell of a lot weirder here, but. Something between everything else is just kind of. You know, how it goes."

With direct attention drawn to it, he couldn't help but rub the scars like he could rub them away, hand shoving into his pocket after the action like he hadn't done anything at all.

"Twice." He didn't exactly want to detail it out but if faced with the question, he doesn't know that he'd be able to tell Athena no outright. All his instincts told him to prepare her as best he could for what was coming. Honestly was a demand of it.

"It is. The good things to focus on. You'll do alright here with that kinda attitude. It's a good one to have. If you come across anyone saying they come from 1306 Phillips Drive, you can trust them too. My housemates. They're good guys." She'd be okay, as okay as any of them were. She'd be able to handle it. The young always weathered things better.

Twice. He died twice. She knows how she would feel if someone kept focusing on that, kept asking about it. Besides, it's hard to get her head around it to begin with.

A pause, then, with a cheerful air, "You know what comes after death?"

She pauses again, not long enough that he has time to answer seriously. "A necrophiliac."

Edited 2021-04-02 22:41 (UTC)

It was hard. Hard to admit. Hard to talk about. Hard to accept any sympathy for it too and he wouldn't.

The joke was more than unexpected and before Raylan could stop himself, he found himself laughing. The laughter spilt until he had to stop to pinch his brow and he ended it all with a sigh as he stuffed his hand back into his pocket.

"I'mma keep that one if you don't have any objections." God if only that was the only thing he'd had to worry about.

"None whatsoever, but just remember jokes about death aren't funny unless they're executed properly."

He's got a nice laugh, and she's pleased with herself for getting it out of him. He doesn't seem like the kind of person who laughs out loud that often. He's the opposite of Jeff in a lot of ways, it's not hard to see.

She sees buildings through the trees and can't decide if she wants to speed up or slow down. "Man, I already miss Virginia, and I don't even like it."

"Hate to put one in the ground with a bad shot at it," he returned, still grinning.

Athena was right. He didn't laugh much or as often as he wanted to but life had done a good job of not giving him much to laugh over. It both made him look and feel a little younger than he was. If he knew Jeff, there would be some reflection - Raylan didn't know his face could be anything other than what it was. A little too stern, a little too offhanded casual and a little warm, when he wanted it to be. But happy? Freely allowed to show emotion? Never.

"We're gonna figure out a way to get you back Athena, I promise. We're gonna get all of us back." Somehow.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

test drive — winter

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Wanna wrap that there or do you want moar hat?