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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.
Zoey Westen | Original Character
➤ GHOSTS OF THE LIVING.
Zoey’s pretty sure she stepped through the fucking looking glass. Because this is not where she had been just a moment ago, when she’d leapt off her motorbike and gone racing into her dad’s flat looking for him, her satchel clanking and rattling as she ran.
But now she’s here. Wherever here IS. She had just enough time to see a town and the forest surrounding her before the fog rolled in. Rolled in from the forest itself which seems wrong in a deeply visceral way. Before she can do more than pick a direction she’s enveloped in it, her skin crawling in warning.
Fuck. Fuck fuck FUCK.
She can’t stay here. With the way her skins crawls and how on edge she feels... she can’t stay here. So she starts moving, with a quick prayer to the fucking gods that she’s going the right direction. She can’t see much of ANYTHING, so it’s a crapshoot.
It’s disorienting, and she loses track of where she is, of how long she’s even been IN the fog. She’s wandering. She’s lost. She thinks she’s headed toward the town? But she’s not sure. Not until she hits concrete, stumbling a little.
“Fuck, I’m dizzy,” she mutters under her breath, trying to gather herself and push past the dizziness, the light-headedness, the nausea turning her stomach. To keep moving. Find somewhere she can take shelter in.
There’s movement, off to her right, and she pivots sharply, reaching for a dagger that isn’t there anymore. “Fuck!” Someone took her weapons. It must have been when she arrived here because she had them in her dad’s flat. Not that that’s ever stopped her. Keen ice-blue eyes search the fog, to try and find whatever it is she thinks she saw. Knows she saw. Is pretty sure she saw. She doesn’t feel right so maybe it’s all in her head after all.
But she’s still feeling on edge. Uneasy. If her skin was prickling in warning before it’s practically SHOUTING with how intense the prickles are. Something is very, very wrong with this place.
“Who’s there?”
➤ A BIT OF EXPLORATION.
Well, it doesn’t look like she’s leaving any time soon, so she might as well explore. Learn a little more about where the fuck she is. (Where she is, is apparently a town called Mathias. Which tells her nothing.) Gather supplies. Map the place out. Find somewhere to call home for the moment. So she can settle in and try to figure out what the fuck is wrong with her powers. Some of it is still in working order, her skin still prickles in warning, she still knows little things before they happen... but her visions have been nothing but fog and blood and darkness and danger. Which tells her NOTHING. And yes, sometimes her visions are vague but never... like this. Never this... fucking useless.
It’s frustrating, and she can’t help but wonder if it’s something Mathias has done to her. Which makes her wonder about Mathias itself. What IS it? Is it some sort of genius loci? A town lost in time, removed from the rest of the world? And how did they all end up here?
There’s nothing she can do about it right now, though, so she explores. Pokes around. Despite the fog. She makes a point to spend as little time as possible out in it, moving from building to building like a wraith.
She starts with places like Poe’s Clothes and the General Store, looking for supplies and a few changes of clothes since she’s going to need them.
Then it’s the school house. It’s smaller than Zoey’s used to, but she takes the time to explore its rooms thoroughly. Looking over the school books, it’s interesting. There are science books with signs of use in a lab... but no lab in the school. Yet one more piece of Mathias that doesn’t make sense.
The Grey Gull follows, and she can’t help but hop over the bar to pour herself a drink from... one of the bottles that she’s pretty sure is moonshine. She downs the finger she poured herself and coughs. “Oh yeah, that’s moonshine.” And then she pours herself another glass before setting it down and hopping on top of the bar to perch on the edge of it.
The Historical Society is next, and thankfully she has a flashlight in her bag because it looks like the electricity is out. There’s no order to anything, but she looks for a while, trying to see if she can find anything of interest. There’s no real order to the newspapers either, but there are a few dating back to the 1800s. She notices a pattern as she looks through the newspapers, too. None of them are produced in Mathias itself. She doesn’t know if it means anything. But it’s interesting.
She ends with the library. Both because books, and because it’s a good way to find out about somewhere you’ve found yourself. Particularly when it’s weird as shit like Mathias is. She makes her way past the books at the front – nothing published after 1990. Interesting; there were newspapers that were older – and keeps going until she reaches the leather-bound tomes, the familiar smell of old books filling the air, and begins searching through them.
The burnt bit at the back of the library is interesting, too. And weird. Was it set on purpose? Was there something in these books that needed to be burned? While that is a very good question, and something she’s curious about... but it’s the hole in the floor and passageway leading to a stairwell that draws her attention more immediately.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” she murmurs thoughtfully. Does she dare go down it?
[OOC: feel free to find her at any of the places mentioned or anywhere in between.]
➤ TO SEE AND BE SEEN.
The town hall gives Zoey the creeps. This TOWN gives Zoey the creeps. The sort that usually tends to lead to portents and blood. (And death. Sometimes death.) There have been moments where she’s wanted to crawl out of her bloody skin. As it is she’s tense and on edge, the itch of restless energy eating at her. But she doesn’t leave. There’s no point, since the entire fucking town is creepy as shit.
So instead she stands at the bulletin board, reading the notes and things that have been stuck to it. Committing the bits of information that have been posted there to memory (as well as jotting them down in a journal. Just in case this place fucks with her head).
There’s something under the bits of paper, though. A symbol. Something that makes her skin crawl a little as she leans in to take a closer look. To try and figure out what the symbol is. And as if it KNOWS she’s looking, a strange breeze ruffles the papers, revealing a little bit more. Letting her see what it is that’s painted there.
An eye. It’s an eye. An ornate, three-lobed eye painted in still-wet red... And the moment she draws closer, almost reaches out to touch it there’s the coppery taste of blood on her tongue. And she immediately jerks her hand back. Painted in blood. “Fuck.” She knows that symbol. How could she not, with what she grew up reading.
Why the fuck is it here? What does it mean, that it’s painted on the bulletin board? Does He have his eye on this place? Nothing good can come of this symbol being here if it means what she thinks it means. No matter what form He’s in.
The sensation of being watching, of being studied with great interest crawls along her skin, in time with a sharp prickle of warning, and Zoey turns, slowly, warily. There’s nothing there, as far as she can see, but the feeling doesn’t ease. In fact it intensifies. The desire to run, to try and escape whatever it is that’s watching her (and she thinks she knows. She’s afraid she knows), is intense, but she forces herself to stay. To finish writing down all of the information that’s been shared on the bulletin board.
And then she draws the eye symbol, making a note of where she found it. In case she finds it again.
➤ WILDCARD.
[Choose your own adventure!]
A bit of exploration
Still, there’s no menace in his voice as he offers the stranger who’s just walked in “There are some women’s clothes on that side.” He points. Okay, so maybe he’s shopped there a little; the sizes run smaller.
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She grins at him. “Thanks. Not that I mind wear men’s clothes but the trousers are always baggy.” Her voice is laced with a rather proper sounding English accent... by way of a few different countries.
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And because she’s not the shy sort, once she’s found a couple pairs of jeans that look like they might fit her, she ducks behind a shelf so as to not potentially scandalize him and wriggles out of her skirt to try them both on. “The one thing men’s trousers have going for them is proper pockets,” she grumbles off-handedly.
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General store;
He's nicking a carton or so of Pall Malls when the little bell above the door that signals another person coming in chimes. "Hey," he says conversationally, waving his fingers in her general direction, without actually stopping what he's doing.
Then, it occurs to him: He's never seen her before. He pauses and sets the carton on the counter, sliding over the other end of it to the aisle-side. "Hey, you're new, right? Are you making it okay so far?"
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Only for whoever it was to apparently mentally go HANG ON A SEC WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU to himself.
“Brand-spanking,” is her answer to his question about her being new, with a grin. The population must be small enough where new faces stick out, she guesses. Or else she just SCREAMS newbie. Maybe a little of both. “I’m...” she trails off, because she doesn’t usually lead with ‘hey so I’m a seer and this place gives me the heebie fucking jeebies’, but this place gives her the heebie fucking jeebies. And something is WRONG with the seer part of her description. She can feel it. “Surviving, but I have a feeling that that’s prone to change at a moment’s notice in this place. It gives me the heebie fucking jeebies.”
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