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singillppl2025-06-04 11:05 pm
singmod) wrote in singillppl2025-06-04 11:05 pm
Entry tags:
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
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.
1. Characters can be affected multiple times by the vapours.
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.
Re: what lies beneath
The problem is: that doesn't account for what happens after, when nothing is better and some poor asshole has a bloodied nose.
He studies Arthur's face, looks from one eye to the other. Arthur looks like he's about to collapse. He's seen the guy run into situations, he knows it isn't fear of getting hit. And if it was entirely fear of other consequences, he wouldn't have said it at all. No: Arthur is guilty, guilty as hell.
Charlie pulls that tempting urge in. Gets it in a headlock. Forces it to the floor.
"Nah," he says, softer, which is to say maybe sandstone instead of granite. "He was. You're just the schmuck he chose to make it possible."
It's not satisfying. There's no closure. Nothing ever is. There's never any.
The whole fucking family. Everyone dies so soon.
He nods at the couch Arthur evacuated.
"Siddown."
Re: what lies beneath
He moves as directed, sitting and wedging into the corner of it like he can merge with it if he tries. His eyes go down to his hands, as he rubs at his rooted finger again.
Re: what lies beneath
Charlie looks at Arthur, curled there as if he would rather be anywhere else on or out of Earth. Then, one-handed, he pulls the rocking-chair in front of the couch so that he can sit directly facing him. He leans forwards: feet flat on the floor, forearms on his knees, fingers laced.
She's dead. He puts it on a shelf, next to her father and mother, and others. A whole lot of others. Time doesn't stop for him to wallow in that.
"And Michael Faust," he says, "in the prison pits."
Just in case Arthur thought he'd gotten away with the other huge and definitely-Charlie's-business secret he was keeping. This whole time, Arthur and John knew what that meant. This whole time, Charlie has confessed more than he knew by alluding to being there.
A curious eyebrow.
"You got his name."
CW: cannibalism
He's not trembling, and that's somehow worse. He's just... cold. "We held out as long as we could, until... until we touched this braid he was always carrying, b-by accident, and we realised... this wasn't the first time Faust had been moved. So we took initiative."
He can taste it in his mouth, indistinguishable from the ringing in his skull. "When we touch a dead body, when John sees it happen, it. It hurts him. A-a-and we had... we had so much to eat, b-before it went to rot." Before even Arthur wouldn't be able to stomach it.
Re: CW: cannibalism
"Took initiative." A hah, and a half-smile that only touches his mouth. "I like that."
Re: CW: cannibalism
Re: CW: cannibalism
"I get it. It's... tough to shake that kinda thing. Feels sometimes like you shouldn't try to."
Not that that stops him from trying. But they're beating at him now. Names. Names, and ones whose names he didn't get. There's a returning anxiety in the way he moves his hands.
Re: CW: cannibalism
"It was-" he gives a soft laugh, something so small and defeated, barely more than a huff. "It wasn't even two weeks. Between getting out of the pits and meeting you."
He looks back at Charlie, finally, but his eyes are red. "I'm sorry. That this is what Lorick said would help you." With a helpless gesture at himself.
Re: CW: cannibalism
Does he want to know how this man came to be Lorick's friend? If it's another utterly fucked up story, then maybe not.
"Eh, it was supposed to be the other way around anyway." His voice is quiet, though. Pensive. He can't make light, because he's building up to something, his hands rocking now with anxious restlessness. He opens his mouth, closes it again.
Re: CW: cannibalism
"John asked me not to tell you," he says quietly. "That he was part of the King. He didn't... we. Didn't. Want to hurt you like that."
Re: CW: cannibalism
"I..."
He brings himself to bear on the subject, as much as he can ever really bring himself to.
"I've told John, and I'll tell you, I don't know how it all would've shaken out if I'd known." It sounds like something he's rehearsed a hundred times. "Maybe better, maybe worse. Can't be sure that I woulda done it differently in your place."
Re: CW: cannibalism
"You're the second person I've told, about the voice in my head. But telling the first was part of what put me in the coma to begin with, so. Not sure it counts."
But it's a single spark in the dark, a light at the end of the tunnel, that Arthur has it in him to be glib again. "You were the first to know he was my eyes, still."
Re: CW: cannibalism
"Yeah. That's..."
He's still distracted. He knows this about Arthur, now: that Arthur has been that hungry too. They can't just move on from that when today has drawn the poison so close to the surface.
He opens his mouth and then presses it closed in another abortive attempt.
Re: CW: cannibalism
"...Charlie?"
Re: CW: cannibalism
--he doesn't want to say it, but he didn't want to talk about his past in New York either. There's a possible and almost desirable future where they go forward and he knows this about Arthur, and Arthur doesn't know this about him, and he counts cans and goes quietly out of his mind about food waste in the safety of plausible deniability -- only it doesn't feel like safety, not the way most lies do. He's never told anybody and yet he dreams about them all the time.
"Listen, kid, I..."
Fuck. He talks towards his clasped hands.
"I've told you I... spent time in the prison pits."
Just. Jogging Arthur's memory. If he needs it.
Re: CW: cannibalism
"Yes, I- um. I... sort of assumed from it that you had... someone like Faust, a-as well."
There's not really a good way to say 'hey chum we sure have both eaten human flesh huh?'.
Re: CW: cannibalism
"Good assumption," he says, his voice a twist on congratulatory. "But you undercounted some."
Re: CW: cannibalism
"Fuck."
Re-upping the CW: cannibalism
"Bit- bit later there was Charles Leuilliex. He'd been through it before, didn't want to pretend, told me one of us was gonna die on our feet at least. Ended up being him. I liked him, I- I wish we coulda met normally."
He's floating so far away from them that it's hard to see the details, but he remembers those details well.
"Pasha... In- Inji Pasha came later. Nice girl." There's a flicker of a smirk as he says that. "Fulla vinegar, proposed we get out together, wanted to dig handholds in the side of the wall. 'Course, I had to do most of the diggin', what with her twisted hand. Woke up 'cause I - 'cause I couldn't breathe." He breathes. He's far away. "She was pourin' the dirt in my throat, holdin' my nose." He breathes. Almost fondly: "Criminal mind, that one."
His mouth pulls as he speaks, more and more, as if trying to escape the memory of a taste - a texture - an action.
"The next guy, I never found out his name. I got the jump on him." An absolute monotone. "He told me what it was, but I wasn't listening, I was just gettin' close. He had big blue eyes. Curls like an angel, and freckles right over the bridge of his nose. Cute as a button.
"I... tried to find out the last gal's name. Didn't know she'd be the last. I never figured out what language she was speakin'. Her name might've been Beela-eera. That's what I think it was. She saw the teeth-marks on the bones around and came right at me with one of 'em. She was right to."
He trails off. His face is a rubber mask. His fingers are turning red and white where he's gripping them.
"...and the next person to come along was Lorick."
And that signals the end. But the end is hollow of any celebration. His head and his shoulders are low and his voice is coming from another room.
Re: Re-upping the CW: cannibalism
There's some relief, in the solidarity, that he hates and grips to in equal measure. That the names don't go away. Neither do the memories. Killed for a stupid god's fucked up interrogation that was never going to fucking work to begin with, when Charlie didn't know.
"Lorick wasn't in our pit." His own voice surprises him, unaware he had something to say until he's already mid-sentence. "He... we got out of our pit, a-and we found him in another one, we... got him some water, and. And helped him out." He sniffs thickly. "He- fuck."
He rubs a hand down his face, his hand piping hot from the room against his chilled face, rolling it down to the back of his neck like it'll help settle something down his spine. "H-he was alright. He- w-we wouldn't have escaped the prison without him. He was only there because he helped you- n-not from the King, I think, he just... chose it. Maybe he was waiting for us, I don't know. But he's out, now, too."
suicidal ideation cw
(You don't want that, said John, surrounded by horrified colours.
Maybe they're nowhere. Maybe they're somewhere better. Maybe he sent them somewhere even worse.)
He doesn't... know how to take knowing that Lorick went to the pits himself. When he could have gotten himself out as easily as he did Charlie. Trading himself for Charlie to be in a position to help Arthur and John, placing Charlie where they'd be to help them later. The more he learns, the less it seems like kindness and the more it seems like chess.
He doesn't know. He's glad Lorick isn't there any more. Learning in the same breath that Lorick was imprisoned and that he's free. Learning in the same breath that Sarah was alive and that she's dead. Wrestling away a bone after it cuts him. Grabbing a man's beautiful curls to slam his head into the hard dirt wall. Waking in a panic, already dizzy, lungs already convulsing. Biting warm, stringy flesh, feeling it dribble down his empty throat before he even swallows, and sobbing with relief.
The words he's just spoken back into existence, the people whose flesh he ate, are in his throat and behind his eyes. They're throughout him, taken in like a Trojan horse, unhappy with their fate and their epitaph. They're pushing outwards.
"That's good," he says. "Good." He's bent right over, one hand now on his face, his eyes and his expression obscured. But his voice is the sort of gruff that comes when someone is concealing that they've started to cry.
Re: suicidal ideation cw
But you don't have to let it win. As he slits his own throat, hears John's desperation in a way he hadn't ever before.
His throat goes tight, but while he glances away, he doesn't try to hide his face.
"We carry it because they can't," he says. Softly, thickly. "Because they... because someone fucking has to remember them."
Re: suicidal ideation cw
Arthur's words, and the choke in Arthur's voice, make it harder to hold onto self-control because of how true they are. Truth is too fucking much for him. It so rarely does anything other than hurt. The people he's known, who've died - the people he hasn't known, who he's killed - all the people in between - they deserve a better memorial than him. Than either of them. But he's seen enough to know that the world doesn't run on what's right or deserved.
Small sobs begin to force their way out of him, choked-off, and he lowers his face further like there's still a chance that he can hide it.
Re: suicidal ideation cw
...but on the other hand, he's not sure if he could forgive himself if he just let Charlie suffer through this alone. Trapped in this stupid fucking town with constant torture and terrified of food resources and stuck reliving the King's bullshit without knowing how intimately John and Arthur understood him.
He pushes to his feet, hands trembling a little still, squeezing them in and out of tight fists to try and loosen up the sensation as he approaches the rocking chair, creaking gently under the strangled force of Charlie's quiet sobs. And he stops beside him, looking for all the world like he's hesitating, debating walking past - and he can't deny, a small part of him is - until his arm shifts and he rests his right hand on Charlie's same shoulder. So they can pretend Arthur isn't looking at him, while he gives him a squeeze to keep him grounded.
Re: suicidal ideation cw
The squeeze also means Arthur's still here despite seeing him. So that's. Reassuring? Just as frightening?
We carry it because they can't.
"I," he says, his mouth struggling around the syllables. Speaking shakily, holding the sobs not quite at arm's length. "I shot a man in the head when he was about to go swimmin' in the River Aisne. Just when he was takin' his shoes off. Because he was an officer. I shot him."
A heavy sniff and a difficult breath in. "Another man I shot when he, when he was marchin' in reinforcements to the German line. They weren't even who I was out there lookin' for, but I saw the opportunity. All the other guys panicked when he fell down and it was- it was like watchin' birds scatter, like I'd shot a goose. I killed that guy. Because maybe it would throw off the enemy a little."
He's making himself sick.
"I can't- I don't know. There's too many."
He doesn't think about this kind of thing, he doesn't remember it, he has good reason not to. It's not safe to think about. He's lost track of the number of fellow soldiers whose final murder has been their own.
"I killed... I killed some-someone else in the Dreamlands. Long before the pits. I don't remember his name, though. I found him after he'd taken a bad fall, and I had a bit of a bed somewhere, so I took him there thinkin' maybe he could get better. Just in case it was really happening. Only when we got talkin', he recognised my name. Started askin' questions. Askin' if... I was... Roland's partner. And I... I'm watchin' it. I-I strangled him. He couldn't fight me, he had a-a broken arm, broken leg, but I convinced myself that the King either invented him or put him up to it. I-I got his throat so he couldn't keep asking, and... No, he was real. He was really there. I know a hawk from a handsaw." Whispered, like he's confirming it to himself: "I know a hawk from a handsaw."
Re: suicidal ideation cw
Re: suicidal ideation cw
Re: suicidal ideation cw