villagememes | test drive

SPRING 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.

Prospective players are welcome to play with any of the established locations within Mathias.

( Recommended listening: ♫ )

GHOSTS OF THE LIVING
The fog moves in quickly and without warning, not from the waterfront but the forest, cascading through every street in a thick wave of white. It is not a soft blanket enveloping the town, but a heavy weight pressing down, threatening to suffocate as the sky is blotted out and no one can see more than ten feet in any direction.

Those who are outside when it rolls in are left wandering blind, hoping that a randomly chosen direction will lead them to shelter or another living soul. There are perhaps even those who were lucky enough to already be inside when the fog descended, quickly closing doors and windows to keep it from creeping in. Wherever they are, the residents of Mathias will soon notice that they are not the only ones in the fog.

Anyone out in the fog is left disoriented, possibly losing their sense of time and place, and it is only after prolonged exposure that they will begin to feel off. A sense of being ill will cling to them if they are in the fog for too long, including dizziness, lightheadedness, or nausea — the time it takes to manifest varies from person to person, as does the duration it will last after leaving the fog.

With all of these elements at play, the first strange apparitions encountered may be assumed to be figments of addled minds, tricks played by psyches struggling to cope with the strange reality they've found themselves in. But before long, there will be no denying that the Others in the fog are real. Appearing almost wraithlike and startlingly recognizable, these figures even feel a bit like ghosts to those who can sense such things, though everyone will feel that there is something wrong about them. Truly, there are many things wrong that residents will begin to notice as they encounter more and more of the spectres that do not acknowledge their presence in any way. They simply exist, silent and subtly terrifying like so many things in this town.

Like misty ghosts of those who have been in the town at one point or another, the Others appear as those who have died or disappeared and even those currently within the town. The likeness is truly uncanny, to the point of being completely terrifying, made even more so when they realize there is no way to communicate with the Others. They do not acknowledge anyone's presence nor anything said to them. At times, they may be only one in an area, or there may be a dozen existing in the same space. There is no limit to how many people can see them — if they are there, they are seen by all.

The Others do not enter buildings and cannot be contained in any way. They can appear at one moment and be gone in the next, or they can exist in one place for hours on end. Whether standing stationary or slowly wandering throughout the town, there is no discernible purpose to them. There is something absent and distant in the way they hold themselves, the way they walk, and their expressions, as if even they cannot grasp what is happening.

A BIT OF EXPLORATION
There are plenty of places in which to get one's bearings and hide from the fog.

There are businesses on the square, nestled around and extending out from the Town Hall. There is a schoolhouse nestled by the southern treeline, not from the rather expansive makeshift cemetery at the end of Jackson Boulevard that is courtesy of a few kind residents in town. To the far north of the square is a sprawling garden, now covered in snow, and a greenhouse that once supplied the botanical shop. And to the east and west, beyond the business square, is are residential districts.

The eastern district sprawls all the way to the beach, with some houses in perfect condition and others beginning to show significant signs of age. The western district, however, is nothing but decay. From the beginnings of rot to completely collapsed and little more than a pile of proverbial bones, none of these homes are anything resembling livable. Well, as far as one can tell, at least. For between the streets of Hill Lane and Stine Road there is a crack in the earth. A dozen feet across and fifty feet down, there is no way across.

TO SEE AND BE SEEN
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. Covering the board are tacked-on 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 painted directly across the center of the board, visible in the gaps between the pieces of paper, is a symbol in dark red. While peering at that obscured symbol, a strange breeze ruffles the papers, revealing a little more, just enough to—

An eye. A strange, ornate eye with three lobes, painted in still-wet red. And upon close examination, a keen eye will realize that the paint is actually blood, perhaps even human.

The longer someone stands there, the more it will feel like they are being watched, even studied, with great interest. It's a sensation that lingers and stays with them even when they exit the building.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well now. I asked but being the little shits that they are none of them bothered to answer," Tim explained, his disquiet channeled into an extra helping of asshole.

"Since you appear to be the spokesperson for little shits," yes Malcolm he just made a crack about your height. "Why don't you tell me?"

Malcolm looked genuinely confused for a moment, then the confusion broke and his laughed.

"Are you talking about the ghosts in the fog? Yeah, they're not chatty. Most of them are taller than me, too, though."

Tim's eyes narrowed as he tried to decide whether or not this man was laughing at him. He decided that was paranoid thinking.

Maybe.

"Ghosts?" A single word but his tone was pure what fuckery are you talking about. This despite Tim's obvious experience with said ghosts, which he may or may not be trying to blame on an alcohol induced ptsd event.

“Well, we don’t know that they’re ghosts, per se. It’s just shorthand that lets us all recognize what we’re talking about. But they’re not the creepiest thing this town has pulled. My friend Raylan thinks that whoever’s behind this may be farming our fear and disquiet. Evidence seems to support that theory. We don’t have any way to reach outside the... enclosure, if you will, though, so there’s no way to know for sure.”

Well.

That was a bag full of cats to unpack. Tim's eyes narrowed again and he honed in on about the only word in all that which made sense.

"Raylan?"

It was not the most common name in the world but come on. How shitty could his luck be?

“One of the other people trapped here. There’s twenty or so of us,” Malcolm explained. “Woke up here unexpectedly, same as you.”

"Don't recall telling you how I arrived here," Tim countered and the muscles along his back coiled with instinctive distrust.

In his experience, people who told you how it was were usually the people who had put you in the situation at the outset.

“Everyone arrives here the same way,” Malcolm pointed out. “But if you got here another way, please do show us the way out.”

If the guy was having trouble with this part, he wouldn’t do well with the whole magic thing later.

Pretty good bet that Tim was not going to do well with the whole magic thing later.

"You have anything useful to add to the conversation?"

Malcolm shrugged. “If the information I’ve given you isn’t useful, perhaps you can tell me what you’d like to know,” he suggested.

"What anyone in these circumstances would want to know," Tim said as if the answer should have been obvious. "Where does someone go to get a drink?"

Malcolm nodded. “Raylan’s done a pretty good job stocking up the Grey Gull,” he said. “It’s a bar and restaurant on the beach.” He turned and pointed. “Just follow Philips Drive in that direction.”

"Thank you kindly," Tim said in about as agreeable a tone as Tim usually mustered. He didn't have the nice cowboy hat to give a tip to for the man but he did offer Malcolm a nod as he began to head in the direction the man had pointed.

Could he be sure about the information? Nope. But wouldn't know until he got there.

“Tell Raylan that Malcolm sent you,” he called after the man.

test drive — spring

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