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test drive — autumn

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?

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"Do you mean do I personally have a name or are you wondering if I have a particular cult in mind?" he asked glibly, but he didn't pretend it wasn't rhetorical. "Malcolm Bright," he informed him in seriousness. "I work with the NYPD. You?"

The smirk broke into a grin as he folded his hands together in his lap.

"Raylan Givens, US Marshal's Service. Have a lotta information about cults or is New York City just going through it's Waco stage?" He was surprised to see another lawman here, considering the people that were already. Then again, what were laws without a judge to serve? Another question for another time and nothing to do with the man in front of him, that he could see.

"I used to work for the FBI, actually, so I'm familiar with their cult watch list," Malcolm told the Marshal. "How long have you been here, Deputy Givens?"

He was reasonably sure there was nobody left to work here. He didn't turn up five minutes ago.

'FBI' earned a faint passing lift of his eyebrows in interest. NYPD was a step down, technically speaking, but there was more than the hierarchy to worry about in law enforcement.

"About a week, give or take a day. Enough to know I'd like to go the hell back home and I've got no way to do so." Mr Bright here was a new face, so Raylan assumed he was fresh out off the pavement and didn't bother asking. He pushed to his feet, adjusting his hat a little as he stepped around and gestured out towards the hall, following behind.

"You look pretty calm, considerin'. Used to this kinda stuff?"

"Not... as such," he admitted, backing into the hallway as indicated. He wasn't saying he didn't trust he Marshal, but... he didn't have any reason to trust the Marshal.

"I just... have a lot of experience swallowing my anxiety." He considered the other man as he fell into step beside him. "Are we on an island or something? What's to stop us from just...leaving?"

That was fine, though it did make Raylan question him - Maybe the guy had a reason to not trust other law enforcement. Plenty of corrupt assholes in the system.

He hummed a note of acknowledgement as he walked then lifted one shoulder with a bob of his head in a shrug. "Not so far as I can tell. Port township. Big on fishing with their one company. But tryin' to leave town isn't possible. Can't tell you what stops us but it.." He lifted one hand, trying to articulate a reason and he couldn't. Reason didn't have a lot of comfort here.

"Turns us back," he finally decided, waving off the discomfort with a gesture.

Malcolm looked at him.

".....Turns us back how, exactly?" he asked evenly.

"Makes it.. physically.. Uncomfortable isn't the right word. Feels a bit like you're dyin'. Too heavy, too tired to move unless its back into the right direction. I don't know what to make of it." At all and he was desperate for anyone would could make sense of it. It bothered him.

Interesting.

"So there's no physical barrier, just... some sort of compulsion."

He looked at Raylan. "I take it that you tried it, then. You felt this compulsion personally."

"The line keeps movin'. Like the town is.. acclimating us and letting us in like we're goldfish or somethin'," he said, jaw tightening a little. "Everytime more opens, I try to find the new line."

Malcolm turned and looked at Raylan.

"Wait, what? The barrier moves? The... accessible area gets bigger?"

He stopped them in front of the large bulletin board and gestured towards the bloody note. "It does, with no real schedule but I don't think that's the largest of our problems."

“It sheds a little light on our problems,” Malcolm told him. “I’ve seen some messed up mind games in my time. This...” He gestured to the bulletin board. “If it’s manipulated by the same people who manipulate the barrier? Maybe what it looks like is only what they want us to think it is.”

"Mind Games? And if this isn't from someone runnin' the place-" A rough and inaccurate way to say it, but 'games' made it all feel a little smaller in the context they were talking in. "If it's from the poor bastards that had to suffer whatever happened here?"

How did that fit in? Raylan wouldn't dismiss the possibility of victims. The township had it's victims, the only question was what made them that way.

Malcolm's attention moved to him sharply.

"Suffer?" Malcolm echoed. "Have you found bodies?"

Raylan shook his head. "No. I assume they must have escaped somehow, if they're not hidin' in a grave or in the back of one of the house's closests. Whoever wrote this was likely mad." He gestured at the bloody note. "But that," he continued with a gesture down towards the symbol on the floor without looking down at it. "Might be a different story."

"I know this is a little... out of the box, but.... what if they were never here to start with?" Malcolm suggested. "Have you met any actual people that are from here? Because these...." He gestured between the note and the symbol. "These are just... props, not evidence. Not at this point. I mean, if we had the facilities to analyze the blood or.... process any of it scientifically...."

He shook his head again.

"So far, the only reason we know people were here is because of the houses and effects they left. It looks like they were just.. gone. Like a rapture of sorts somehow. You might be right." He wasn't above ruling anything out at this exact moment. There were too many unknowns.

"If that doesn't count as evidence, then we don't have any at all."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I'd be interested in seeing houses and personal effects," Malcolm told him. "Anything that adds to the picture of what we're looking at."

Raylan squinted a little. "They're fairly run of the mill. Almost too normal. Various family sizes and types, but all 'clean' of the socially acceptable type as far as I can tell. No sex dungeons or even cookin' sherry to speak of. Not much to tell me what their day to day was beyond maybe a job. But I'm sure you'll find the time to go explorin' in them. Not much else to do here, as of right now beyond work this."

"Almost too normal," he echoed. Like fake? But something else Raylan said caught his attention.

"No cooking sherry. Were you looking for it?" he asked, looking at him sidelong. "What have you been eating for a week if the town is abandoned?"

"Not a drug prescription, a bottle, a set of handcuffs to be found." People had flaws. Vices, weaknesses and impulses. Whatever impulses these people had, they didn't leave any evidence of it." That's what bothered him about it.

"Only thing that's common between all of them is a group photo. Looked like a community ritual - something they might do for Easter or something."

While he would rather focus on that than why he was looking for cooking sherry, the question still hung in front of him. "Wanna see somethin' weird?"

Malcolm took in that information with interest, but when Raylan asked the question, he perked up.

"Always," he promised.

"C'mon," he said with a gesture as he turned around and lead Malcolm down the hall. "I still haven't figured out how this is possible either so if you think you can figure it out.."

Raylan led them into a decent looking breakroom, if it weren't for the heavy layer of dust that showed the passing of time and headed over to the refrigerator to pull it open. There was still food in there, standard fare as well as a few lunches - Jan's sandwich and Greg's steamed chicken on rice.

Not wanting to offer any leading information, Raylan just gestured towards the open fridge to see what Malcolm made of it.

Malcolm's eyes narrowed slightly as he peered into the fridge. He took out a couple of items and turned them over in his hands, then put them back.

He glanced around.

"This room seems to have been in disuse for months or even years," he remarked. "But the food is still good." He looked at Raylan. "Is this the only place that's like this?"

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