test drive — autumn

[villagemod]

test drive — autumn
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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.

Since not all setting details have been made available yet, you are welcome to invent your own general locations for this test drive. There are no living souls in Mathias Township beyond the player characters. In fact, there are no signs of life at all... We hope you enjoy your visit.

( Recommended listening: ♫ )



— the fog —

It moves in quickly and without warning, not from the waterfront but the forest, cascading through every street in a thick wave of white. The fog is not a soft blanket enveloping the town, but a heavy weight pressing down, threatening to suffocate the sky is blotted out and you can see no further than your outstretched hand.

Those outside when it rolls in are left wandering blind, stumbling toward shelter as you're unable to even see your feet beneath you, let alone any obstacles in your path. Perhaps you call out for help, hoping for another voice to guide you toward shelter or simply another living soul. Or perhaps you were lucky enough to already be inside when the fog descended, quickly closing doors and windows to keep it from creeping in. Can you hear those voices crying out? You recognize some, but the others... Are they really there at all, or are you alone here and simply beginning to finally lose your mind?

And perhaps the most important question: Do you answer?



— portents —

You wake up with an ache in your head and a cloudiness to your thoughts, your body sprawled on the ground in a location you don't remember going to. As you sit up, the world spins and start to clutch your head — to realize there's something on your hand. A symbol, a word, a streak of wet paint or ink. You don't recognize it or have any memory of how it got there...

Or how the much larger depiction came to be on the wall or the floor around them. You can see it shining wet in the glow of whatever light source is nearest, but something instinctual urges you not to touch it. If you defy that urge, it burns, a searing pain that radiates from the matching mark on your hand.

Did you do this? Or was it done to you? The person approaching may have answers — or accusations.



— past deeds —

The Town Hall stands at the center of Mathias Township, a modest two-story building that would be welcoming if not for the faded sign, chipped paint, and deafening silence. 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 your attention is a large bulletin board on the main wall, once meant to hold flyers or announcements for the community.

What it holds now is decidedly different. Tacked onto the board is a torn scrap of paper with words scrawled almost illegibly in dark red ink.

why did this happen

Upon close examination, a keen eye will realize that the ink is actually blood, though whether it is human is unknown. And beside that scrap, a symbol has been drawn in dark black marker — it resembles a feather or a branch, but you've never seen anything like it before. It scares you even as you know it is perhaps the most important thing you have ever seen in your life.

On the floor below the bulletin board are more scraps of paper scattered amongst grime and dust, most blank but some with other strange symbols scrawled in a variety of inks, perhaps matching the pens and markers scattered near the baseboard. Some are small enough that they might have once been part of the same page, creating something larger. And to the far side, a pristine stack of crisp white copy paper and an unopened box of ballpoint pens.

What do you do?



code bases by tricklet

Comments

You are excused!

[moderatelymaladjusted]

There's something about the symbol / rune / sigil? on the wall and that might mean there's something about the thing on him, too and this really doesn't look like the kind of magic they're teaching at Brakebills. Or maybe it is, since Quentin didn't really get to finish that particular part of his life up until now. Not with all the world-saving and maybe-almost-definitely-ex-girlfriend saving he's been up to for -wow- years, but it still seems... off.

He wishes almost desperately for someone, anyone, of his friends to help out right now, but the first hasty look around the dark room made him think he was all alone here.

Which

Was a mistake.

Because suddenly there's a rasping kind of cough and someone talking like Quentin wasn't doing his best to hide behind the curtain of his too-long hair. But, it does make Quentin snap the notebook close and look around a little wildly.

"What?"

[webshoots]

The sharp snap of Quentin closing the book echoes around the room just long enough for the what? to be a not-entirely-clear bookend: irritated at interruption, or simply startled? It prompts Peter to raise a hand a wave it, dismissively though not as disinterestedly as it might come across and punctuated by the briefest of pauses as Peter's attention shifts from Quentin, to the wall, and back again whilst the handwave becomes more of a gesture at Quentin and the notebook.

"Just breaking the ice", he half-answers. "You seemed pretty wrapped up in—". That. Whatever that was.

At any rate, it'd been an of sorts, the kind of ice breaker designed to interrupt more than anything else. Peter has questions — predominately about where he is, why, and thanks to who; and about who Quentin is secondly; and whether Quentin has any relation to the first three sets of questions.

There are others, too — less at the back of his mind and more in a vague second-place, prominent enough to be the cause of the low-level panic in the pit of his stomach that says: nothing about this is good. The lack of light is ominous and only serves to make the shadows in the edges and the corners of the room seem more foreboding; make it less easy to make out the features of Quentin's face and details of his clothing. One of the few positives, Peter thinks, is that the absence of harsh lighting is a lot more friendly on his headache than anything more constructive for seeing would be.

There's a pause, then, one where Peter looks back at the ink on his hand and the corners of his lips twitch upwards, just briefly and he adds—. "It was either that or I let you in on my shameful secret — that I really don't understand immersive art installations."

[moderatelymaladjusted]

So, he's not alone after all, and the guy looks... well, like he's used to fading in the background and not stand out too much. Which, Quentin gets, and it's not because Quentin knows a lot about what people look like, or think about it all that much (unless it's someone like say - Margo- who's just gorgeous and knows it, often wielding it as a weapon, too) but they're the only ones here... maybe.

And Quentin tilts his head, hair swinging back to allow him to see better in the (very low) light in this place. See how the guy looks at the wall and then back at Quentin, then himself.

"Uhm, yes? I kind of was, but-- you think this is art?" Which... kind of tracks, in a weird kind of way, since art could be anything. Some even claimed that what made art art was the onlookers and not the installation itself, but. Honestly? That just sounded like a load of shit.

"Do you look at it a lot? Art?"

Said over his shoulder, as he gets up. It's a nondescript house, and how it was going to lead him to the next key is still a mystery, but-- "Hey, do you remember how you got here?"

[webshoots]

Peter's eyebrows knit together, just for a moment, and he opens his mouth to respond to the first question, then the second — which is more an extension of the first than an entirely new question — before focussing more fully, more entirely on the final question. He'd been planning on asking a similar question to Quentin — eventually, anyway.

He manages to look abashed, although it's not clear whether it's a reaction to the series of questions, to the final question in particular or whether it's because it occurs to Peter, not for the first time, that his commentary seems to land better when he's wearing spandex. Maybe it's the primary colours, or maybe it's simply the fact that no-one in their right mind would don something that skintight and that unfashionable outside of questionable sporting competitions.

"I'm more of a science guy", he admits at length before adding, "and nope. Not a clue. Part of me figured it was just too much cheese before bed, you know?"

That Quentin even needs to ask means that Peter doesn't need to ask — either Quentin doesn't remember either, or he's committed to pretending he doesn't. He shifts his weight as Quentin moves to get up, not quite mirroring but moving to get off the floor all the same.

Still, need and a want for conversation and answers are quite different things, so— "Where were you?"

[moderatelymaladjusted]

He heads for the window, looking past the decrepit curtains and the greasy film on the glass to try and get a fix on where (or when) he is. The street looks... like something out of the horror movie.

Thick fog rolling down the street, obscuring pretty much everything past the fence in the front yard, the sky a uniform gunmetal grey.

"Um, I was at school... I think?" Brakebills, placed somewhere upstate New York and hidden with spells centuries old. He tightens his grip on the book and turns back to look at Peter and the room. The mark on the wall looks just as creepy as it did half a minute ago.

"And, before you ask? No. I didn't have cheese. I could have had cheese, I guess, because there's always someone forgetting to put the cheese spread away at the... dorm? But anyway, no. I didn't have cheese."