singillppl | June 2025 Test Drive Meme

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June 2025 Test Drive Meme

JUNE 2025 TDM

PROMPT ONE — ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST: A new group of arrivals find themselves lost in the frozen wilds and vulnerable to the dangers of nature. With luck, they make it to the town of Milton, and to a friendly face offering food, warmth and shelter — and the current inhabitants, their fellow survivors.

PROMPT TWO — WHAT LIES BENEATH: New fissures caused by seismic activity within the Northern Territories physiologically alters the Interlopers who check them out.

PROMPT THREE — SUFFOCATION RISK: Interlopers find it hard to breathe, and need a helping hand to catch a breather.

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

WHEN: Mid-month.
WHERE: Milton, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potential animal attacks, potential injuries, potential cold injuries/hyperthermia risk.

'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.'

It’s the last thing you hear. A dark, deep voice. Impossibly ancient. You feel afraid. Maybe you’re dreaming, maybe you’re wide awake. You saw the lights, and then your world went dark. But you hear it in the blackness, you won’t forget those words.

These are the words of the Darkwalker, you’ll soon come to find.

You awaken. You are not where you were before. It’s different for everyone, there doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern in where you find yourself. You may open your eyes to find yourself in a cold, dim and dank cabin. The air is stale, dust hangs in the rays of weak sunlight that shine through the tiny windows. Someone lived here once, but they aren’t to be found. This place has been ransacked, abandoned long ago. It is quiet. The wood creaks around you.

Or perhaps you may awaken to find yourself shivering in the yawning maw of a cave, the freezing stone below you. Or maybe you’re unfortunate enough to sit up to find yourself lying in the snow, in the middle of the wilderness. Snow lies thick around you. It’s freezing out. You haven’t felt a cold like this before in your entire life. Cruel and biting. You have no idea where you are, and what’s worse — you are completely alone.

The sun is bright, enclosed in light fog. It is a strange kind of twilight.

You may feel different, too. Any powers or magics you may have feel... absent. Disconnected. Things that may not have affected you previously now do. Something in you has changed.

You know you can’t stay where you are. You’ll need to move, try to work out where you are and how you came to be here. So you walk, head out into the unknown, in hope of finding a trail or a road. You’ll find one soon enough. It’s here you may find someone else in the same boat as yourself, equally freezing and confused. You’ll both need to keep going. It won’t be easy. You hear howls of wolves around you, and the terrain is difficult: slips and falls are likely. You’re completely vulnerable out here in the open.

Or it’s possible you may come across someone else here. Someone who looks far better prepared to deal with the freezing cold and frozen landscape, out hunting or gathering. They’ll likely offer help and get you into town. However, for the unlucky ones who don’t come across anyone, you’ll carry on until you see it: the lazy trail of smoke rising in the air. Fire. Not just one, but several. Civilization...?

Follow it, and soon enough the way you’ve taken will certainly become a path or road. Unfolding before you in the mountainous forests, you’ll see the most welcome of sights: a small mining town tucked up in the valley. Battered, rusted road signs will direct to “MILTON, POP. 947”. You’re almost there, you keep going, and it looks like other people have had the same idea as you. In fact, you’ll hear the muffled sounds of life. People! In the town!

As you head into the outskirts and then further into town, you’ll find it’s a little easier to walk but the cold has gripped you hard. You’ll find the buildings, both shops and homes, some are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up, some of them are occupied. People are going about their business, or stood watching from their tiny porches of their small, timber homes. For a town this big, there doesn’t seem to be many people. Several dozen at most, but no more.

Towards the center of town, you’ll find the building from which the biggest of the smoke trail rises: a school-house of sorts, or some kind of community hall. Perhaps both. You’ll find more and more people all drawn to this place, each and every one of them in the same position as yourself (and your companion, if you’ve found one). Some are in worse states than others: some are bloodied, nursing bite wounds or cuts; others might have some other kind of injury sustained in the journey here from falls. Others may look as if they could faint from the cold at any second.

The door opens, and you’re greeted by the gnarled, wizened face of an elderly man, dressed in thick furs. He has a kind face. He smiles warmly, and with pity, ushering you in with haste.

“Ah. Once more, you poor souls come.” he nods gravely. No, this is not the first time that this has happened. “I am Methuselah. I welcome you, Newcomer, although I’m sorry for how you’ve come to find yourself here. You are not the only one, the lights are changing things. Come. Mother Nature has not been kind to you, but there are plenty here to help.”

The room is dim, lit only by natural daylight through the windows. A roaring fire sits at one end of the huge hall. It crackles, bright and cheerful... and warm. Even as big as this place is, the room is pleasantly warm. You’ll also find basic cots set up down one side of the hall, and while it seems there's a few people already living here, there's enough space for those in need of them. There's places to rest for a moment and get your bearings, or just trying to recover from the cold. Down the other side are tables and chairs, and long tables laden with food, drinks and bottled water similar to one might find at a soup kitchen. Once again, Methuselah offers a feast, aided by some of the other Interlopers.

There are canisters with hot herbal teas, mostly. But some coffee can be found. There’s also soup and stew and trays of charred deer and rabbit meats, plus some grilled fish. It’s very basic, but it’s hot and filling. A feast for those who have battled the cold to come here.

Methuselah will continue to busy himself, still; there is plenty to do. He will fetch blankets, tend to wounds, serve food and drinks — aided by a handful of others in the Hall. Your fellow survivors, but those who have been here for some time now. He does not have much time to talk. More and more people seem to be coming in from the cold. He will not stop to sit and rest until everyone is seen to, taking up a place by the fire to gaze silently into its flames.

He will encourage newcomers to get warm and eat, and when they are ready to — they can explore the town and find one of the many empty homes to call their own. He will not speak much, but gesture to your fellow survivors. They will have better answers than him.

WHAT LIES BENEATH

WHEN: The month of June.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural ailments; mental manipulation; altered physiological states; potential character injuries; potential dangerous situations; potential cold injuries.

The world has gone quiet since last month’s quake that caused a considerable amount of damage around the Milton and Lakeside regions. Newer Interlopers have been met with a town still in the process of being repaired and rebuilt, and some properties have been abandoned all together, used only for spares and repairs of homes that are actually occupied. Milton was home to some thousand people in its hey-day, now it remains a shell of itself. Some hundred or so people making this place a home in a harsh and unforgiving world.

But the world is not completely quiet: tremors and minor quakes can still be felt as time goes on. These tremors don’t have the same impact as earlier quakes, but they’re enough to give someone pause — keeping Interlopers on their toes.

What’s more is the damage caused by this ongoing seismic activity is dotted all over the landscape: scars are beginning to show in the earth itself, or rather — open wounds.

The fissures are small and unassuming, but can easily snag someone’s attention. Even more curious about them is the occasional strange vapours that seem to curl and lazily rise from these fissures. The vapours are a faint green in colour, almost sickly, and there’s plenty enough in you to make you feel like you should keep well away from these rising fogs. But there’s something about curiosity and cats, after all.

The vapours won’t kill you, no. They certainly won’t do you any physical harm, either. No instant burning of the strange, caustic fog that plagued Interlopers last year, nor the sickness that Glimmerfog brought.

But getting close enough to the vapours to examine them will cause a change in you. It’s more of an insidious thing: gradual and slow, changes in your behaviour over the course of a week. Feeling a little more anxious than normal; snapping at people you interact with; avoidance of others; the feeling of being watched and a growing paranoia. You feel like the animal that has known the feel of the snare, or seen the barrel of the gun. Hunted and small.

Soon enough, this slow chipping away at your mind is enough to cause you to snap: fight or flight.

Fighters are lost into states of pure rage. They are combative, blind to anger in a desperate bid to survive — seeking out their dangers to face them head on. They are volatile, difficult to reason with. They will cause damage to anything around them, or anyone. They will cause damage to buildings, objects — smashing their way through whatever stands in their way. They will fight with those around them — their fellow Interlopers — lost in perceived threats.

Flighters are lost into states of pure fear. They’ll break down in crying fits, hysteria and abandon all logic — avoiding their dangers. They will try to escape from wherever they may be — wanting to run out into the wilds, putting them in potentially more dangerous situations. They could end up getting lost in the wilds, or encountering dangerous wildlife like moose, wolves or bears. Or perhaps even onto thin ice on bodies of water. They will hide whenever they can: under beds, in caves, anywhere their minds might tell them are places of safety.

To those around them, it’s finding a way to try and bring the affected Interloper back to their senses. It’s a little stumbling in the dark: wrangling flighters back to the safety of town, like trying to calm a spooked horse and give them a sense of safety and care and connection might be enough to bring them back to their sense. Fighters can arguably be dealt with the same way, but some might need restraining or fighting back in order to knock some sense into them. Perhaps even literally. Drawing blood in a fight with Fighters will also… strangely calm the affected Interloper down.

Affected Interlopers will be a little shaky afterwards. But a stiff drink or a hot meal and some rest will end up soothing them. Hopefully they won’t go poking around those fissures again.

SUFFOCATION RISK

WHEN: The month of June.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural afflictions; themes of suffocation; themes of co-dependency/unhealthy codependency; potential character death/near-death experience; medical emergencies.

You think that maybe it’s the weather. The Northern Territories have been known for unsettled and sometimes ferocious climate — this is the world of endless winter, after all. But June marks a period of calm as the midsummer draws near. Occasional biting winds are the only disturbances to that calm. Other than that, it’s just damn freezing. Even with the midsummer upon the world and the still weather — the world is frigid.

The cold often bites at one’s lungs, and maybe that’s all you think it is at first. Each breath is like ice, hard to catch, and you feel like you’re suffocating sometimes. Overexertion seems to make it worse, whether you’re hiking up a particularly difficult piece of terrain or carrying a heavy load.

Interlopers will need to stop to rest often, and even then it feels like you still can’t quite get your breath back. This breathlessness will slowly get worse over time, until it’s almost unbearable.

Until it ends up nosediving into something more horrifying. One day, it’s the worst it’s ever been. It feels like you’re drowning. Your breaths are shallow and quick. Your vision blurs and warps, a shimmer of dull prismatic at the corners of your eyes. The world grows smaller around you, your hearing growing dim and distorted. You cough and splutter, gasping for air that you cannot seem to breathe in.

Panic sets in. You are suffocating, and if something isn’t done quickly enough, you will die.

But there’s a strange pull in you, too. A need. A person. You get a sensation of them, something about them. Their hair colour, their voice, their smile. Maybe it’s someone you know, maybe it’s a complete stranger, but something in you pulls you towards them.

As the world closes in on you, everything zeros in on that person. They can help. Hopefully you have enough time to reach them, hopefully you can find them. Maybe they’re searching for you too, in the exact same predicament — unable to breathe and trying to find that person to help.

Reaching that person and touching them will finally allow you to breathe. Like the air is clear, and breaths are painless again. It’s like an instant balm, and slowly the world grows back again — vision and hearing restored. You don’t know why, but this person, whoever they are — has given you your breath back.

You’re spared from the affliction, for a short time. Soon enough, it will return, and you’ll need to find that person again. Or just keep them close for a little while.

FAQs

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

1. Arrival threads can be treated as game canon.

2. Items characters have brought from home can be found either strewn around them when they awaken, or in the community hall — as if someone left them out for them to collect. Methuselah will not know how they got there, and will be quite bemused by the happenings.

3. Reminder that all characters are now depowered upon arrival. They can choose not to notice it at first, or can immediately sense something is different about them.

4. If asked any personal questions, Methuselah will smile and say "Oh, you don't want to know about an old man like me. But I have lived all over in these parts for all my life." He will be more concerned with trying to help Newcomers, and is genuinely concerned for them and their well-being. Other Interlopers will say much of the same — there's little to know about him.

5. More information about Milton can be found here.

WHAT LIES BENEATH

1. Characters can be affected multiple times by the vapours.

SUFFOCATION RISK

1. The length of time Interlopers are 'stuck' together to combat the Suffocation Risk affliction is player choice. It could be a couple of days or even weeks — with the affliction itself ending by the end of the month.

2. Both Interlopers can be suffering from Suffocation Risk, or just one.

3. Interlopers who do not reach the person in time will die. They could potentially be revived through CPR, however — provided they are found quick enough.

TALES FROM THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES NEWSLETTER

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There is a whole lot of sensible Charlie could be right now, and probably would have been if he didn't just see Arthur fucking bite John, or more to the point John being fucking bitten. He wouldn't have encouraged someone attacking John anyway, but it took seeing it to realise exactly how he would react.

He does not react by getting the fuck out.

He doesn't punch Arthur either. This is an Arthur far outside of Charlie's experience, but it's still a familiar method of attack, and punching would make him bite John worse. Instead he finds himself with his hand on Arthur's face, finger nearly in his eye and thumb fully up his nose, shoving up, making him let go -- with a just-as-violent "you wanna rethink that, kid?" -- and then he fucking punches him.

Getting kneed in the balls or punched in the throat is so par for the course in a fight that it flew completely under his radar and melded seamlessly into fuel for his fire.

Even the scrabbling of fingers around his eyes wouldn't do it, but then there's a fucking thumb up his goddamn nose craning his whole head up and the sensation is so singularly jarring that he snorts aggressively on instinct as he jerks back, mouth clear of John's tentacle.

Then the next thing he knows is impact that cracks his nose and snaps his head back against John's chest - and he goes slack in John's arms for a few seconds as he blinks, rapid and blearily, as the thirst for blood suddenly drains completely, leaving the tang of copper in his nose and adrenaline crashing through his body.

John feels it, as Arthur goes slack, knows as soon as Charlie gets the hit in that Arthur's done. He isn't stupid enough to let go of Arthur because of it, even as the bite starts to ache, but still-

"Arthur?"

Noel dances back boxer-style, watching Arthur closely, not entirely trusting his lull in action. Breathing still presents a bit of a struggle. He's shaking the impact out of one hand; he'll spare time for the snot on the other if Arthur stays down. The fact that he's thinking like this about Arthur is kind of fucking him up, but that's a problem for when nobody is attempting murder any more.

Charlie's prize winning punch knocked a hearty stream of blood loose from Arthur's nose - not quite broken but certainly bested - and now that he's not fighting John there's enough give in the tentacles for him to brush the blood back as he passes a hand over his mouth.

"John...?" A little stuffy, as he glances directly up, then back at Charlie - and then he's tense in John's arms again, eyes wide as the colour disappears from his face to make way for the horrible dawning realisation. "O-oh, God. Fuck- Charlie, I-I-I’m so sorry--"

John gives Charlie a quick nod; he's good. He can feel it, the change in Arthur's body, how he's holding himself. It's not a ploy. He's not coiled to spring. Instead, John is pulling him back, cradling him instead of restraining him, and turning him to look at his nose, his face, his jaw, and there's a nose suspiciously like sniffling that the entity is making as a couple of the tentacles stray to try and fix Arthur's hair and make sure his head is all right and gently avoid his nose. Once he has determined Arthur is only Acceptably Fucked Up, he turns back to Charlie and gives him a once over too before he asks the obvious question.

"What the fuck happened?"

Well, Charlie's just gotten his shit handed to him by someone he sleeps in front of in what's theoretically his own home and he feels a kind of way about that, he feels angry about John getting injured in front of him, he feels both good and bad about the strikes he got in (and then bad again for feeling good about them), he feels full of unresolved violence but he's also thinking oh thank fucking god, and he's wondering if whatever the hell caused this is going to happen to him or John next, or even to Arthur again --

So besides the red bruises, a few shallow cuts, and the wheezing, he presents to a once-over as pretty much 100% okay. Also his ears are ringing like a couple of reed instruments, but that isn't really visually obvious.

"Kid got a bee in his bonnet about cans," he rasps, pleasantly resentful, and then he goes into a brief but magnificent cough that's like half Arthur's fault and half the fault of Lucky Strike.

Edited (clarity) 2025-06-19 22:38 (UTC)

He lets the tentacles manipulate him without protest or resistance, and only winces when one curls over the reddening patch on his throat where Charlie got him good. Small mercy that he's not hungry right now; he's shivering, though, coming down from a hell of an adrenaline burst.

"I-" and it's his turn to cough, covering his mouth to keep the blood from spraying further than it needs to. "I-I-I don't know what came over me, I know I've been- fucking intolerable the last few days, but... Jesus."

John has no useful thoughts at the moment, because repeating 'fuck' over and over again is not useful, even if that's what he's thinking. Instead, he recoils slightly as he sees Arthur wince and the shivering will earn him a careful wrap-around from John; this one is warmth, not restraint.

Finally-

"Are you okay, Charlie?" he says quietly, and he can't help but feel heartsick. Charlie and Arthur fighting- he hates every part of that, hates that they're both coughing, that he can smell blood and taste metal and feel how rough Arthur's body is taking the drop off of adrenaline. He hates that he knows Charlie is going to pretend he's ten times better than he actually is and that he's the last person who can question it without making things worse.

Also, he... didn't really notice the difference in attitude. Which says a lot.

Charlie is Not Mad. Whatever caused this seems to have been out of Arthur's control, and so he is not mad at him. Gaze upon him and see how mad he isn't.

He'd punch Arthur a second time for a cigarette, but there aren't any left and so he is going to have to rawdog being completely cool and not upset about this.

He waves off John's question with a "Yeah, yeah," looking at his own grazed hands and at John's mask but not at Arthur. The back of his head is tender to touch. He purses his lips, bracing himself to start feeling the beating way more keenly now that the exciting part is over. "Just make sure he puts a fuckin' mat down first, next time."

He can see the way Charlie is packing this whole fiasco up in a little box to shove in the back of the wardrobe. He can also see how Charlie is avoiding looking at him at all, and the pit in his stomach goes from a stumble to a broken neck, and his mouth presses tight as he glances down rather than face that nothing of a wallpaper reaction.

Which means he's glancing down at his own hands, relieved in no small way that most of the blood on them is his own, and at John's tentacles wrapped around him - and then suddenly he's grappling them, running his hands along them to try and find the bite mark he knows he left thanks to the ache still lingering in his jaw. "Fuck- John, do you know where the disinfectant is?"

"It's fine, Arthur," is his growled response, because it's fine. He's not the one who got into a fucking fist fight. It's nothing. He'll be fine.

The bite mark is where he might expect, nearer to the tip than to the base as it had curled up near his mouth to hold his upper chest back. There's no telling any kind of bruise and it's hard to see if there's even an opening in the void-black flesh. It's only when Arthur shifts the tentacle that the slick flesh shines in the light to show the lightly seeping wound.

"You ain't bleeding or anything?"

As much as he doesn't want to align with Arthur on anything in this moment, he's concerned about John as well. Arthur was not fucking holding back when he bit. It's deeply unsettling to see how willingly he injured John. To Charlie, that's the part which most clearly drives home that Arthur wasn't in his right mind.

He's thinking longingly of the door. So long as neither of them are actively dying he'd like to go on a long fucking walk and lick his wounds and not think about how quickly Arthur would have taken him down in the pits. His head keeps trying to spin up war games about it. He's repeatedly shutting down thoughts of but if I did THIS- and let's be honest, that sucks.

"N-no, he is. Fuck." He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, suddenly worried about what the hell John's blood might have in it when he looks like all this. "I-I didn't think I had that in me, to be honest."

Attacking John was, unfortunately, not a card that was off the table. But biting him - with his teeth never having quite recovered from the pits - well, that's a surprise for himself as well.

"John, it's not fine, it- w-we don't know how your body works properly, if this gets infected it could be catastrophic." He's wiggling gently but insistently to escape the tentacles. "I-I think I saw some Borax in the bathroom, hold on."

He'll let him down but he's going to watch and make sure Arthur isn't woozy and he doesn't know what Borax is but he's not planning on letting it anywhere near him. Instead, he looks to Charlie.

"Do you have a lighter?"

There's a very simple solution here.

Eyebrows... up. Arthur, what have you been teaching him.

Hoo dog, he thinks maybe he's still angry. Lucky that there's a strong filter between how he feels and how he speaks.

"Hey, let's try to do you better than backstreet surgery, huh?"

He says sideways, from where he's already on a path to the bathroom.

"Wh-? No, John."

He pauses in the doorway to look back at John with a baffled look.

"It's not like my finger, we don't need to cauterise it - it'll heal on its own, it's barely even bleeding. We just need to clean it so it doesn't get infected, a-and maybe bandage it so it's not exposed."

"If it will make both of you calm down," he says irritably, "then fine. Use the Boar Axe on it. But it's not a big deal."

Arthur and Charlie both reach the door at the same time. It's Charlie who defers, hesitating so Arthur can go first. There's a splinter of uncertainty in him that wasn't there before. It needs time to form a pearl.

You ain't going to slam my head on the tub if I look too loudly? would be a cool thing to say if he was 100% sure it wouldn't happen.

He catches sight of himself in the bathroom mirror -- red marks blooming on some asshole's face and neck, matching the pain points on his own -- and tells himself it is what it is, and ignores it.

You know what, Arthur is a grown man capable of finding a bar of soap by himself. Charlie hooks up a clean flannel and returns to the main living space to warm a pan of water by the fire. He doesn't really meet John's eye on the way back either, unless he's spoken to.

Edited 2025-06-20 13:11 (UTC)

He doesn't mean to barge past Charlie to get to the bathroom first, but this is the first time in a long time that John's actually been injured and he can't help but fucking worry. He doesn't even know how John's body works half the time, let alone what an infection might do to him.

Better to play it safe than sorry. They don't have the luxury of second chances here.

The other two will hear his small but triumphant "Ha." before he emerges from the bathroom, unboxing the small bar of soap and waggling it in the air for John to see.

"A quick wash, John. You big baby."

Though he does go out of his way to try and stay in Charlie's line of sight, breaking off a small piece to pass to him to lather up the cloth.

Edited 2025-06-20 13:24 (UTC)

"You were talking about an axe!" says the entity that is absolutely not a baby. No babies here, goddammit. He follows that with a huff, eyes wandering to Charlie, and then over to Arthur. He knows that given the situation, he's pretty settled to 'shit just happens' as a matter of course, but he's not sure how well Charlie is dealing with it.

"Fine, go ahead, wash away."

He'll hold out the tentacle for him.

Charlie's pretty used to 'shit just happens', but that doesn't mean he likes it. He was pretty used to being shelled at one point too.

The fire is really going some, and the water has quickly warmed to a comfortable temperature; Noel hands the lathered cloth to Arthur, and does meet his eye this time, as if nothing of significance has passed between them today. Arthur is quite clearly not threatening anyone's skull currently, so there's that. If he starts to sound that way again then they can back up and deal with it. Something about their confrontation sure dealt with it. He'll be happier if the solution is repeatable, and if it can happen maybe before he gets nearly murdered.

"Didn't take you for havin' a glass jaw." He's thinking about which one of them would have been dead and which would have been fed. They could be talking about the weather.

Edited 2025-06-20 13:51 (UTC)

Somehow meeting Charlie's eyes doesn't feel good, and his own flick with more than a little shame down to the cloth to avoid them, taking it with a half-mumbled thanks.

"Probably because it's the only part of me that's not glued in place by scars," he muses wryly, taking John's tentacle in one hand, giving him a light squeeze for reassurance, before he dabs gently at the bite mark with the soapy cloth.

And sure, it's warm. But boy does it suck.

Hope you were ready for loud because this is loud?

"Fuck!" and John almost yanks his tentacle away from Arthur because he thought you just said they didn't need to burn it.

"It's gonna sting some," rasps Charlie, uninvolved and entirely too late, as he pokes the fire.

If he'd not hesitated then he could've gone forwards instead of back, used his greater weight against Arthur. Used a can as a weapon, or gone for the knife. An elbow, a rock, a piece of bone. Bodied him into the wall of the cabin. Started to eat him while he was still alive.

He's unconsciously massaging his throat, stressed. Shutting down each thought like it's a full time job. He's been in fights since the Dreamlands, but not like that.

Re: what lies beneath

lestercraft - 2025-06-21 15:25 (UTC) - Expand

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