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

QUESTIONS?

[villagemod]

Use this space to ask general questions about the TDM. Please direct more broad game questions to the FAQ.

MOD EYES

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Use this space to ping a mod to weigh in on your thread, such as if your character is searching quite specifically in a location or interacting with something that requires feedback.

rey - star wars

[reydacted]

I. the fog

[ Rey had been scouting in the nearby forest, slowly circling bigger and bigger loops around the town, looking for signs of any other life or perhaps even easy to prey to hunt to supplement whatever provisions were stored in the abandoned buildings.

Survival and loneliness had a tendency to go hand-in-hand for Rey, so despite the change in setting, she takes a practiced approach here. Finding food was a practical problem with a straight-forward solution. Almost a nice change of pace from what she had been dealing with, even if her inability to have found any animals so far unnerved her more than she cared to admit.

The fog rolls in so quickly that she hadn't any time to prepare. She turns to head back to town, or... was it that way? She's lost her bearings, and can't orient herself, but she thinks she hears something.

She calls out into the thick fog-- ]

Hello?

[ Pressing forward closer to the voice, she stumbles over thick tree roots, and a sharp branch scrapes against her forehead. ]

Ouch--!

[ It stings, and when she reaches up to press her palm over her forehead, she feels sticky drips of blood pooling on her skin. With her slightly bloodied hand she reaches up, snapping the branch as she moves past it as a marker for her path. ]

II. portents

[ Maybe Rey was getting soft, because in addition to her head throbing her neck and back are also killing her as she rolls to her side on the creaky wood floor.

A primitive light flickers as her eyes blearily focus on the wet streaks of paint that decorate this... cabin? She sits up, alert, but feels a sense of dread as she unfurls her own palm and hears the stirring of another person in this space.

She holds her palm open, bearing the mark drawn in wet ink across it. ]

Wait-- Do you also have one?

III. past deeds

[ The town is small enough that it's easy to explore all of the buildings, and of course Rey isn't going to skip the one at the center. Although none of the architecture here is what she's used to, this one is perhaps the most obvious that it was some sort of communal spot.

The board draws her eye immediately, bare except for a cryptic question and another unknown mark. She's unnerved and tempted to remove it, but she can't quite convince herself that everything on this board is important.

So instead, she decides to leave it and add her own message with the nearby paper (stars, she can't believe there's real paper.) in unpracticed handwriting. ]

Went hunting -- no animals in the forest.

[ She leaves it unsigned for now. She'll check back in a few hours to see if there's any response. ]

IV. wildcard

[ Something else? Hit me with a different starter to roll with or shoot me a message colster ]

daisy johnson | agents of shield (mcu)

[chuju]

the fog —

[ To say that moving through the fog was difficult would be putting it extremely lightly. It's maddening is what it is. Daisy had been inside when the impenetrable white had suddenly descended out of nowhere; she'd looked over at a window in time to see the misty blur move in like a wave. Her inability to see beyond the glass had decided her course of action for her — there might be people out there who would be blind in all this and need help. ]

Hello? Anyone out her—

[ Her foot catches on something and sends her stumbling to the ground, hands coming up to protect her in the fall but ending up painfully scraped in the process. Dots of blood are already forming when she lifts them from the concrete and she grimaces at the fiece stinging radiating up her arms. Cool, yeah, this is fine. Totally fine. Not infuriating at all. ]

past deeds —

[ As with all the other buildings she's explored since her unfortunate arrival in this creepy town, Daisy enters the Town Hall with purpose. Her steps are quiet but steady as she focuses first on checking out the rooms on the ground floor, listening for any sign of life within the building. It's unnerving that there's just nothing; even with her powers weakened, she should be able to feel the vibration of someone or something moving within.

Sighing to herself, she chooses an office at random and slips inside, plopping herself in the chair at the desk and immediately beginning to rifle through the drawers. Office supplies, files filled with notes and receipts for catering orders... She shuts the drawer loudly in frustration before moving to the filing cabinet at the wall. One drawer is locked, but the next— Permit requests to hold events at various locations throughout the town. Flipping through the papers, she makes note of a few locations she hasn't happened across yet before stuffing the whole lot back in the drawer. She's about to quake open the lock on the other drawer—

Was that footsteps?

Sprinting out of the room and down the hall, she ends up back in the main entry, seemingly alone but finally noticing the bulletin board with its strange pinned message. And that symbol... She steps closer, her boots disturbing the detritus along the floor, and reaches out to touch one of the edges with her fingertips. ]

What the hell...

wildcard —

Looking for something else? Daisy is all about exploring this weirdness they've been dropped into, so you can run into her just about anywhere.

past deeds

[revvedup]

[ since waking in another building with her head pounding and a symbol scrawled on the palm of her hand that she neither recognizes nor remembers making, max has been trying to figure out two things: where she is and how she got here. nothing about her surroundings line up with what she last remembers happening (and if she thinks about that for too long, she's never going to get out of wherever this is, because it'll break her). fortunately, this place is significantly smaller and easier to navigate than cities or woods are; unfortunately, it also looks like it's been abandoned for years.

so how did she get here?

her wandering eventually leads her to the town hall, and she's trying to move as quietly as possible, but she's still feeling a little off from whatever manticore had done to her before she'd jumped the fence, not to mention whatever this place had done to her; head pounding and gut tilting. she hears footsteps, too, from around the corner, and she freezes in place as they come closer, trying to fine tune her listening when she notices they've stopped.

"what the hell..."

whoever this is sounds about as confused as she is. max has a decision to make on whether or not to reveal herself, possibly exposing herself to someone responsible for her being there or potentially forming an alliance.

she chooses the latter, stepping into view, glancing at the board that's drawn the woman's attention before focusing on the woman herself. ]

Took the words right out of my mouth. [ she assesses her threat level - she has the look of someone like her, cagey and trained for battle. max would presume she's also manticore, but she's come to know all of those faces in the past few months. ] Who are you?

[chuju]

[ Daisy's so distracted by the board (she won't admit that she's still off her game from what Nathaniel Malick did to her) that she doesn't notice the other woman there until she speaks. Turning to look at her new companion, fingers still hovering over that strange symbol, she eyes her up and down for a moment before speaking. ]

Daisy. [ Her hand drops a little, away from the mysterious writings, and she casually leans her weight against the board, trying not to let her current shakiness be seen. It's only when she stops moving that it catches up with her... or maybe she's just in denial about it. ] I'm guessing you don't know how we got here either?

[ It's clear in the way she holds herself that this stranger is ready for a fight if one comes her way, and Daisy would bet good money that she's not too happy about their current predicament. Well, join the club. ]

[revvedup]

Max. And no.

[ for a second, max thinks she can see the other woman (daisy's) shuddering a little bit. it's subtle, and maybe she's just projecting how she feels onto the other woman. but even if she is, no one brought somewhere they don't recognize by a method they don't understand is bound to be functioning at 100 percent.

the uniform probably doesn't help with that impression, but max can't deny that it's accurate, although she probably doesn't look like she's in any shape to be taking anyone on. she doesn't exactly feel like it, either. ]

[chuju]

[ The uniform adds more questions to the mountain that keeps growing; the ache pervading Daisy's body just makes everything all the more frustrating. It's not the first time she's been kidnapped, of course, or the first time she's inexplicably ended up somewhere weird. But really, after the week she's had, would a day off have been too much to ask?

Apparently so, for the both of them, if Max's appearance is anything to judge by. A strange thing to have in common, neither of them being in peak condition... ]

You military?

[revvedup]

Something like that.

[ it'd be easier to say yes, and max doesn't necessarily want to show her hand before she has to, especially somewhere so unfamiliar and potentially dangerous. but she's got a feeling that lying and secret keeping isn't going to do much for her long term, if they end up staying here for that long. so she splits the difference for the time being: ]

It's complicated. [ she's quiet a moment, looking her over again. ] What about you?

[chuju]

[ It's complicated pings Daisy's radar more than anything else in this place has. Complicated usually means covert. The only positive is that she's probably not Hydra — they'd never give away something like that. ]

I'm an agent of SHIELD.

[ She answers easily and confidently, a hint of pride in her voice. There's no point in hiding her affiliation. SHIELD might still be trying to build back public trust but they aren't a shadow organization anymore. And it might prove useful information — maybe they're both here because of their agency ties. ]

iii. past deeds

[chuju]

[ After a few encounters with other similarly kidnapped people, Daisy loops back to the Town Hall, figuring she'll take another look through all the filing cabinets and see if she can find anything that might give them an idea of... something. Anything. What she finds isn't in a cabinet, though: it's pinned to the bullet board.

The note hadn't been there before, she's sure of it. But it makes sense to add such things to the board — it had been used as a place for community communication before, so why not now? Picking up a pen from the floor, she adds her own note below it, her handwriting looking steadier when compared with what's already on the paper. ]

Nothing in town either, not even bugs

[ She retreats to one of the offices then, pulling out stacks of files and taking over the abandoned desk to begin sorting through them all. All the while, she keeps an ear out for any sign of someone returning to the building. ]

[revvedup]

[ max hasn't heard of SHIELD, and daisy doesn't mention hydra but that would be unfamiliar to her too. she's correct about manticore being covert, but 'they created me, recaptured me, and i was trying to escape again when i ended up wherever this is' is a pretty big chunk of information to deliver all at once. ]

I don't know it. [ maybe she expects her to reveal who she's affiliated with, but she stopped being manticore when she was nine. ] I was just trying to get home. I got here instead, wherever it is. You said you didn't know how we got here, but do you know where we are?

[chuju]

[ Up until this point, Daisy has been assuming that this is just another weird day on the job. Maybe a little above average on the weird scale, considering she'd been on the Zephyr before waking up here, but stranger things have happened and who knows what might have happened while she'd been asleep. But now...

How could Max not know SHIELD? Even back in the 1980s, the agency had been known by the general public as yet another of those intelligence bureaus that did secretive things no one ever really understood. Sure, it wasn't until the Battle of New York that people had really grabbed onto the true purpose of SHIELD, but the other woman should still recognize the name.

She doesn't answer the question for a few moments, her mind racing at the implications of it all before the fact that she'd even been asked something finally caught up with her. Shaking her head, she takes one last step closer to the wall and leans fully against it, needing the extra support to get through this moment. She tries (and fails) to keep her emotional and physical shakiness hidden. ]

Not exactly. I'd say we're probably in the northeastern United States — we're definitely northern hemisphere, and the way English is written is pretty blatantly American.

[revvedup]

[ that she seems so shaken by the question is enough to ramp up max's worry, and her mouth presses into a line before she leans similarly against the wall, bracing her hands behind her. and even aside from what neither of them recognizing significant attributes from the other's worlds, if she's somehow now in the northeast instead of the northwest, that's a definite concern. ]

What did it say? [ her mind flashes back to the symbol on the wall and the smear on her hand - that hadn't looked like anything she'd recognized, either. ]

[chuju]

[ The thought filters through Daisy's mind that Max might be a Chronicom and this whole thing some crazy elaborate setup to get information about Fitz's whereabouts— She dismisses it after a second, though. Chronicoms aren't this creative, and Malick sure as hell isn't either. Plus, there's nothing here prompting them to divulge information, it's just one unsettling mystery after another.

In a way, she's actually kind of disappointed. Chronicoms would have been easier than this strange unknown. She nods toward the back of the building. ]

Nothing useful so far. I was looking through files in one of the offices. It was all permit requests and food receipts. Who else in the civilized world has cookouts with hotdogs? [ It's unclear whether she finds this to be a positive or a negative. ]

max guevara | dark angel

[revvedup]

stomp out this disaster town

[ waking up somewhere very different from where she remembers being previously has been happening to max a lot lately, and she is frankly not a fan of it. her first thought upon waking is that her attempt to escape failed, that she's back behind manticore's walls, but if that were the case she's sure she'd be more restrained than she currently is. as she moves to sit up and her vision adjusts, it becomes evident very, very quickly that this is not only not manticore, this isn't anywhere she's ever been or anything like anywhere she's ever seen.

her head pounds and swims as she pushes herself up, rising unsteadily to her feet, trying to take in her surroundings. it's a second before the mark smeared on her hand is recognized, and then she notices the...substance on the wall.

max wipes it hastily on her cargoes, not wanting whatever it is to be touching her, and moves in to take a closer look at the symbol. it doesn't look like anything she's ever seen before and she can't determine its origins, but she makes a note of it for later. maybe it's a clue as to where she's been brought to.

right now, she wants to get the hell out of wherever this is, but upon hearing footsteps approaching, she freezes, turning and dropping into a fighting stance. she doesn't look like she's in any shape to be taking anyone on, her stance a little unsteady and her face pale and drawn, but there's evident experience and skill based on how she's carrying herself. ]

Who the hell are you?

you're only blinding to keep back what the clouds are hiding

[ stepping outside doesn't provide her with any answers, and what's worse, it's getting harder to see the longer she remains outside. her head's gotten a little clearer since waking, at least, but being down one functioning sense is still extremely disorienting, even if the rest of them are still functioning better than average.

she's just trying to make her way to shelter, any sort of shelter, so she can regain her bearings, but a voice starts to echo in the background and she turns toward it, trying to listen. ]

I can hear you. [ it sounds more confident than she feels, her body tensing and shoulders squaring. ] Whatever you're about to try, get it over with.

wildcard

[ if you've got something else in mind or have any questions, feel free to send me a PM or hit me up on vdova! ]

[revvedup]

[ max would also much prefer a threat she could give a name to and knew how to fight. so far this place is neither and trying to find their way out seems impossible, two facts that don't sit well with her. ]

I don't know, but whoever was celebrating looks like they packed up and took off way before we got here. You're the first I've seen, at least in person.

[chuju]

Yeah, same here. [ She definitely not happy about that. Everywhere she's gone, she's searched for signs of the rest of her team, but so far there's been nothing. For all she knows, they're the only two people in this entire town.

Lifting her hands to her head, she runs them over her hair for a second before stopping, grimacing at the pain from the abrasions on her palms that she'd completely forgotten about. It's really been a great day so far. She lowers her hands again, giving them a little shake, and practically growls in frustration as she lets go of any semblance of a calm exterior. ]

God, can this day stop sucking so much...

[revvedup]

[ it's not as if max wasn't trying to leave where she'd just been, but she hadn't been so desperate to leave that she was willing to end up someplace potentially worse. (you know things are bad when she's considering manticore a better option.)

the woman brings her hands up to run through her hair, and something about the movement makes max focus in - there's abrasions, only momentarily visible before she shakes them out, and they're not quite bruises from cuffs on her wrists and ankles (she doesn't know if those are still there, but they ache as if they are), but it's notable enough for her to be concerned. she sways a little as she pushes herself off the wall, but steadies after a second or two. ]

Are you okay?

[ well, clearly neither of them are okay. maybe she should have gone with 'hurt'. ]

[chuju]

[ Daisy's been running on fumes for days now, ever since they started on the wild time travel ride to stop the Chronicoms. Hell, even before that, everything with Izel... The weeks have been far from kind and all she wants to do is sleep and wake up back in that damn healing pod with Sousa watching over her. Somehow, though, she's pretty sure that isn't an option. ]

I could ask you that, but I'm guessing we'll both give the same answer. [ There's a tired bitterness to the words as she gives Max a very pointed look, but then her expression softens and she shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest. ] I fell when I was out in the fog earlier, but they're just scrapes. I'll be fine.

Leonard McCoy - ST:AOS

[1701cmo]

-The Fog-

Whispered conversations too quiet to fully understand lead him down empty streets. The discord is pierced at irregular intervals by sounds he's absolutely sure are unrelated. A young girl's giggling. A high pitched scream that stabs at his eardrums. Water rushing, but not the waves of the ocean. Concentrating on tracking what he can almost hear means he's failed to recognize what he doesn't hear, the common sounds that filter into the background. Here there is no background. No insects. No animals. No rustling of the trees. No wind assailing him.

The fog engulfs him from behind, a prickly sensation that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand immediately on end. He pivots, startled by the suddenness of it, and is greeted by white. An unending sea of clouds that reaches around and through him, having no respect for boundaries or the physicality of matter. What should be wonderous is instead a cage without bars. He squints and turns, disoriented, trying to find his path. Any path.

"DADDYYYYYYYY!"

His daughter's frightened cry is neither ahead nor behind, everywhere present all at once. His eyes fly wide but his feet take him nowhere. Which direction does he travel?

"Joanna!" he calls back. Only to receive no answer.

[reydacted]

[ Rey had went back out to the forest to kill a few more hours. She didn't recognize any of the plants here, so she's not totally sure what's safe to eat. She does start gathering sticks, branches, and other woody debris. If nothing else, it'll be useful to fashion a fire.

As planned, she returns to the Town Hall, her bounty slung over her back in a makeshift contraption from scrap twine and leather scraps. She goes straight to the bulletin board when she notices something's been added to her not.

She glances around looking for whoever wrote it. ]

Hello?

[chuju]

[ One would think that having free reign to rifle through another person's office and peruse every written document would be a thrilling prospect, when in fact it was just mostly boring. Maybe if said documents had been full of juicy information explaining what the hell was going on here, but instead she had pages upon pages of budget reports and municipal code violations to sift through. She'd been at it for over an hour by this point, slouched down in the chair with her feet propped on the desk, dozing off—

Only to jerk awake and drop the files in her hand, papers scattering across the floor. Had that been... She sways a little as she stands but keeps moving forward, heading out of the office and down the hall. It's a relief to see another living person standing there, though she can't rule out that the young woman might have something to do with whatever's happening. ]

Hey. [ It's all she says, eyeing the other woman as if sizing her up and trying to look a whole lot stronger than she feels. She really could have used a few more hours in that healing pod but there's nothing to be done for that now. ]

The Fog

[1701cmo]

[He's lost track of how long he's been wandering in the fog, how many times he's bumped into buildings. Or what he thinks are buildings. Taking small steps with his hands reached out in front of him as a buffer. Fear tells him to remain anchored, to not separate his connection to something he can roughly identify. But hanging on gets him no closer to finding a way out of the oppressive mist. With tentative steps, he makes "progress", covering small patches of ground at a time.

Buildings become an expanse of nothingness. Road turns to dirt, bushes, and trees. He's sure he's going in the wrong direction but... the 'right' way doesn't seem any better. Lord, he hopes he doesn't fall off a cliff somewhere.

Her exclamation stops him cold.]

Someone there?

Abraham Van Helsing | Hammer Horror Films | OTA

[hammer_helsing]

I.Portents

The fog had arrived so suddenly, and from the very start he knew it wasn't natural. There were sounds in it, whispers here and there, and those were unnatural, too. In times past, he would have been fearful.

In times past he had not faced the forces of the undead. But then there are the voices, whispering. He draws himself up, huffing slowly. He reaches into a pocket, pulling out a crucifix. His faith is strong, and he is certain - belief as strong as granite - that it will see him through.

"Whatever you are, whoever you are - make yourself known!"

III.Past Deeds

He stared down that the papers, stroking his chin, biting the corner of his lip in thought. It had to mean something. He crouched down, beginning to arrange pieces of paper, gently cleaning them as best he could with gloved hands.

"What secret do you hold..." he said, to himself. He lifted a hand to scratch his forehead, then moved for a pen and some blank paper. Perhaps he could complete the picture...