villagememes | test drive

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

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— the fog —
[He's not sure how he got here, but he doesn't intend to stay. Searching for a road out of here he wandered, coming to the tree line of the forest. At first he was about to crash on through it, careless and head strong, but then the fog started to roll in...]

[It wasn't normal fog. This didn't smell right, and every smell he had before hand was drowned in the thickness of the fog. It swirled around his ankles and up his legs, threatening to engulf him.]

[As he backed up and away, turning to go back towards a building he passed, he enveloped him, throwing him into a white cloudiness that was impossible to see through.]

[He growled, continuing towards where he thought the building had been, unable to see it in this fog. He kept his ears open for any signs of life or beings out in this too, but for the most part, he walked until... smack. His fist hit a brick building.]

There we go...

— past deeds —
[There are buildings here, some he's passed, some he's gone through, but this building seems more important. It's something he want's to check out and look into.]

[Boots heavy on the hard wood floors, they creak as he walks, leaving boot tracks in the dust. It seemed as if someone else had been here as well, by the foot prints. Good. That meant there were others here.]

[He wandered the offices a bit, riffling through things to find hints to... to... what ever was going on, but in the end he found himself faced with the bulletin board.]

[He wanted to remove that paper. The one with the symbol, because to him it felt... he felt something about it. But he wasn't sure he had ever seen it before. And the words. Why did this happen? He could tell it was blood, though not what kind.]

Why did this happen? [he repeated out loud, frowning at it and taking a step back. He'd leave it for now. It felt... important to leave it.]

[ How many hours had it been since she started wandering in the fog? It was impossible to tell, progress so slow and the world eclipsed by that strange flood of white mist that Daisy no longer had any real concept of time. She just kept moving forward, from one building to the next, doing her best not to stumble or outright fall to the pavement as she made her way through the town, searching for answers or any sign of her team. A severe lack of either was beginning to let panic trickle in, held at bay only by her stubborn determination to not let this situation get the better of her.

She was moving to yet another building when she felt a strange vibration, part human but also... something else. Heavy. Maybe she could have easily identified it if she'd been at full strength, but as it was, she could only use it to guide her in the direction of what she hoped was someone with answers. ]

Hey, is someone there?

[This fog was unreal. It seeped and creeped and moved with it's own flow that seemed unnatural. It was hard to catch smells and harder still to get his barrings again. Once he hit the building he punched it again, once with his fist, sending out another strange vibration.]

[The tall man stood there, hand on the wall, leaning on it and frowning. Logan had already been through a vast amount of shit lately. Getting lost in a shitty little dead town, in shitty fog wasn't really what he needed right now.]

[Then he heard it. His ear almost twitching as he moved his head towards it.]

Yeah. Can you hear me? [he called out, starting to move down the wall, towards the voice he heard.] Keep talkin'.

[ That voice sounds different than the others, more real, so she moves a little faster, her shuffling steps carrying her across what feels like dirt and grass. Not that she can see her feet in all this white, or anything past her extended fingertips, but there's someone out that and that alone is enough to give her a burst of adrenaline to push through the exhaustion clinging to her bones. ]

I'm heading to you. I think. [ Her hands find the rough brick surface and she resists the urge to cling to it, moving further down the wall. ] I hope you're really there because this day sucks enough without—

[ And suddenly there he is, a solid wall of stranger towering almost a foot over her. ] Oh hey.

[This person sounds 'here'. Alive and active and not just a voice on the wind. He slides his hand down the wall, feeling over a window edge, and more wall once again, but not a door. His other hand is out, as if to reach for the girl.]

[She's talking, which is good. He thinks he knows where she is and walks towards her as he spoke.]

Headed to you too. There's a building here. [He alerted her to the building in case she hadn't found it, but then her voice was beside him. A hand came out to touch her shoulder. Shorter then him. Young looking from what he could see.]

Hey. Let's see if we can find a door. Get out of this pea soup.

[ It's an almost physical relief to see a real live human being standing there. At least, she really hopes he is. There's the possibility that he's a Chronicom but so far they haven't been anywhere near this creative with their schemes. They'd have had to really step up their game to get to this level of weird. ]

Yeah, I like the sound of that. [ She agrees with a nod and resists the urge to grab hold of his arm to steady herself. As much as she would never admit it, she's really not doing well and stopping her forward motion had just brought exhaustion crashing back into her awareness. After what Malick had done to her, she really could have used another couple hours in the healing chamber, yet here she is, kidnapped for the second time in a week with even less idea what's going on. ]

[ Ellie swings back by the town hall and its creepy bulletin board now and again, because it's the only place with any clues about what's going on. Sometimes there are other people here, too, and she doesn't really want to be alone here. She can handle being alone, sure, but...having people on your side doesn't seem like a bad plan, right?

She finds Logan there now, in time to hear him talk. ]

I don't think whoever knows that answer bothered to pin it to this board. Too easy, y'know?

[He should have noticed someone coming up, and maybe he heard it, but he made no signs that he noticed. Instead, when she spoke, he turned to look at her, a brow raised. then he snorted, mildly amused.]

I suppose that would be to easy, huh? [He glanced from the board to her again and turned, frowning. She's just a pipsqueak. This place had kids in it, Jesus. What he wouldn't give for a cigar right about now.]

You been here long? [He doubted she was a local. He'd barely ran into anyone here let alone local life.]

Yeah, no way were they gonna give it to us that easy.

[ There's dry humour in her tone. She hates this place already, but she deals with shit by joking about it when she can. It's a coping mechanism, and really, it's not the shittiest one she's got. ]

Just a few hours. I don't think anyone's been here very long. Whatever happened to whoever wrote that, though? No idea. It's pretty fucking creepy. Like teleporting into a horror movie.

[ She's not a fan of horror films, really. Real life is horrific enough. ]

Nothings every that easy.

[Which was a shame, because he's like things to be easy, just once in his life, not some mystery of the century.]

I'll give you that. [he said, looking back to the words pinned there and the mystery symbol.] It is like a bad horror movie set. Was never very fond of horror movies.

[ Ellie nods her agreement. Nothing ever is that easy. She's used to that idea. ]

I'm not really a fan of horror movies either. But this place sure would make a great one. It's got everything except bodies.

[ Which...is kind of weird, right? There's not even one corpse, no trace of the people who must have lived here. ]

test drive — autumn

Logan Howlett - X-Men Movies

the fog;

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past deeds

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