The Village Mod (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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villagememes2020-11-19 10:10 pm
villagemod) wrote in villagememes2020-11-19 10:10 pm
Entry tags:
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 wordshe 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.
no subject
He has to be mistaken. This isn't happening.
Peter rubs his face, feeling not unlike the time he went on a Tilt-A-Whirl when he was a freshman in high school and vowed never to do it again. The world just feels off, and if someone told him the world had literally gone off-axis he would have believed them.
Unless he's dreaming. Maybe he's still dreaming.
He looks back and forth, expecting someone to jump out and declare it a prank, or for there to be a camera crew or something.
But Carter is very earnest about this and he trusts Carter.
"It can't have been."
no subject
"All right, look, just..."
He finally reaches out, putting his hand on his arm.
"Let's head back into town. You need to warm up. I got a place where I'm staying, we can talk there."
It's surprisingly decisive but the past days kind of demanded him to be.
"I'll tell you everything I know when we get there."
no subject
Damn.
"All right."
That's all he can do. Right now the world is messed up and nothing makes sense, but Carter is here and that's something.
Besides, it's cold.
He nods, clearing his throat, projecting the aura of calm even though he didn't feel calm at all.
no subject
Except now that they're not talking about the impossibility of teleportation and Mathias, the silence stretches out between them. A silence that weighs on Carter and on his swirling mind that is still dealing with the fact that Benton is here, right next to him, walking with him.
"It's... it's really good to see you," he says eventually, his voice turning soft.
"You're okay, aren't you? You're not injured?"
no subject
What can he even say? He has a million questions but his mind is reeling, trying to figure this out, trying to pull the impossible pieces together and failing. This is so beyond him, beyond anything that should be possible, he just can't--or maybe he just doesn't want to deal.
Because if he deals that means this is real and Carter taken, and in this place for weeks and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
He looks at Carter when he finally speaks, and there's a pang in his heart when he wonders what might even prompt him to say that. It's evidence that he's been here awhile and maybe...missed him?
What happened here?
"I'm fine."
He looks at him curiously, concerned.
"Was I in any danger?"
no subject
It's awkward and so familiar at the same time. Things getting too real, communication breaking down to only a few words and everything shifting to that place where things weren't said. Carter doesn't know how to navigate this. His heart feels very full but he isn't sure he can express just how happy he is, how much he missed Benton, how much he missed home. Not without causing an emotional avalanche. So it just lingers in the silence, like a rising storm, swirling slowly.
"Yeah, I guess? There's this fog, it's really harmful, you're not supposed to go in it... like, have you seen that movie, what was that, Carpenter I think..."
He trails off slowly, exhaling.
"You're really gonna hate this."
no subject
He frowns, that doesn't sound good at all.
"Chemical plant nearby? No, I haven't..."
That honestly sounds like a hazmat situation to him. It could give them an idea of what's actually going on here...
Carter's right. He's really going to hate this already.
"What is this, some kind of...experiment? See how we react to situations, or actual, outright human testing on chemicals?" That sounds...plausible. Horrific, but it could happen, maybe...why them though, he has no idea...
no subject
It's out before he knows it. And then he pulls a face because he just knows how that sounds and how he sounds and how crazy he must look with this stupid jacket stomping through the snow.
"Some kind of supernatural force," he hurries to add, as if that made it any better. "Whatever it is, it brought us here and trapped us here. There are others, too. From all over the world."
no subject
That gets a laugh, a bark of a bitter one that makes him shake his head.
Sure, magic. Right. Except that Carter is serious about it. Yeah, you look pretty crazy at this point.
"Carter, come on. The cold's gotten to your head. Or that fog--as soon as we get back I'm going to order a full workup on you, being exposed to this stuff is clearly terrible for you..."
no subject
Yeah, he kinda expected that. Right from the moment he started trying to explain, actually. Of course that's how Benton reacts. How else could he react? How else could Carter ask him to react? He can't just demand that Benton somehow fast forwards through all the rational disbelief just because he says so.
And still...
And still the response stirs him up, emotions suddenly well up and he finds himself getting upset. Benton talking about getting back like they aren't trapped here. Then there's the overwhelming urge to yell at him because Carter had to deal with ghosts and evil fog and creatures that ripped people apart and left the down drenched in blood because the seasons were going backwards and he's caught off-guard just how much he can't handle it being dismissed like that.
He doesn't respond right away, needing a moment to bottle it all up, to keeping it all in.
"I guess," he finally says because if he says anything else he's going to scream.
The first houses show up and he leads them over to Phillips Drive.
"It's." He clears his throat, nodding at the first houses that show up in the distance. "It's right over there."
no subject
He doesn't give it any mind, and dismisses it as they continue to walk to the town. Carter's fine. He'd say something if he wasn't fine. He was serious about that work-up, though. He makes it a note to see if he can get some samples of that fog sometime.
"This place is..."
Weird.
"Empty."
no subject
He looks around, feeling weary all of a sudden.
"Everyone who lived here is gone. We don't know how or why. But it's only people like you and me in town. Who ended up here somehow."
People mostly from the future is what he doesn't say because he's still trying to calm down. The debate they're gonna have at the house is going to be a disaster anyway.
"You're the first person from-- home I've met."