The Village Mod (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
villagemod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
villagememes2021-03-08 05:08 pm
villagemod) wrote in villagememes2021-03-08 05:08 pm
Entry tags:
test drive — spring
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.
i'm amazed i even have one
But once someone's in with her like that, it's a pretty solid position. She lets herself just lean into him for a minute, eyes closing as he wraps himself around her. ]
I know.
[ Because it's just as good to see him, probably. It's a little harder for her to actually say it, but she doesn't need to. She just breaks away, finally, just enough to be able to look at him. ]
Are you sure?
[ That she's really here. That here is a thing at all, that it isn't just a dream. That makes the most sense, right? That she's just imagining all of it? ]
Maybe I was drugged.
no subject
The rest puts a crease in his forehead, a faux-offended backwards lean to his neck. ]
If this is happening because you got drugged, I'd like to meet the chemist in charge. They clearly bombed a step and tore a hole in space-time.
[ That's mostly a joke for the sake of joking. Flash in the pan, and he's quick to sober back up. He doesn't have viable answers, not really. He doesn't even have a best guess. He can at least be here while she turns her angles on it. Him and Eliot. It's not the worst possible timing. It's not exactly great, either. ]
I get it, though. I can't think of much about being here that does come across as like, actual stuff that can happen in reality. Which is saying something.
[ They basically bend reality for kicks and cool Robin Hood jobs all the time. ]
no subject
But he turns serious again all too quickly, and she looks up at him, her worry spiking. Hardison protests and complains and insists that Nate is asking the impossible of them almost every day, but it's not often that he actually admits to not knowing the next step forward. To not being able to think of something. ]
Why? Are your elf friends here?
[ It's a nice thought - or at least a harmless one - but somehow she already knows that's not what he means. ]
Hardison...where are we?
no subject
But he's always got his opinions on multiplayer co-op versus solo survival horror.
Another time. There'll be time for going on about that for the nth time down the road somewhere. Because not every day is awful, despite everything. ]
We are in scenic downtown Mathias. Some ghost town stuck in the 90s. That's about all anyone knows about it. No cell signal, no wi-fi, no hard phone lines that dial out of town. It's kinda-- and I mean, I know how it sounds even saying it, but there's kinda some. Supernatural stuff going on.
[ He could maybe hop skip and jump and pray his way through similar vibes with enough prep time and tech at his disposal. Maybe. Some of what he's heard, though, he outright can't figure out. Would not recommend in a Yelp review. ]
Eliot can probably explain some of it better. He's, he's been here longer.
no subject
But Hardison's here. That helps.
When he mentions Eliot, though, her expression doesn't crumble so much as it freezes and then shatters. She actually can't speak for a moment, her throat thick with a lump that she can't explain or understand but that would be immediately familiar to anyone who's ever sobbed with grief or despair. She drops her head, blinking quickly, and fights to find her voice back. She has to tell him. Right? It's horrible, but - he has to know. Now, before he goes out there again and sees...sees for himself. ]
Hardison, I saw Eliot here. He's -
[ It's too much. Too big, and saying it will make it real. She shakes her head, swallowing hard and painful. ]
H-he's -