methuselah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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singillppl2023-08-10 12:13 am
singmod) wrote in singillppl2023-08-10 12:13 am
Entry tags:
August 2023 Test Drive Meme
AUGUST 2023 TDM
PROMPT ONE — ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST: A group of newcomers 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.
PROMPT TWO — HOPE NOBODY NEEDS THIS ANYMORE: Once recovered from their journey, newcomers are free to explore the town of Milton for supplies and find any signs of the townsfolk.
PROMPT THREE — THE SIREN OF MILTON BASIN: A mysterious woman haunts the frozen lake of the Milton Basin, trying to lure newcomers to their deaths.
ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST
WHEN: Day One.
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.
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. You look around, it seems like no one has been here in several days, maybe longer. The fire is cold, the dishes in the sink are a little mouldy. 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.
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.
But it won’t be long until you see it: the lazy trail of smoke rising in the air. Fire.
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. As you head into the outskirts and 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, are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up. Other than those heading in the same direction, towards the smoke, you won’t find any townsfolk coming to greet you, or even looking at you from behind curtains. … Where is everyone?
Towards the center of town, you’ll find the building from which the smoke 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.
“It seems like a great deal of you have come.” he muses finally. “I am Methuselah. I welcome you Newcomer, although I’m sorry for how you’ve come to find yourself here. Please, warm yourselves. Eat. Get your bearings. Mother Nature has not been kind to you.”
The room is dim, lit mostly by the weak 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, places to rest for a moment and get your bearings, or just trying to recover from the cold or any injuries. Down the other side are tables and chairs, and long, foldable tables laden with food, drinks and bottled water similar to one might find at a soup kitchen.
There are canisters with hot herbal teas and coffee, along with soup and stew and trays of charred moose, deer and rabbit meats, instant mashed potatoes, and tinned vegetables. It’s very basic, but it’s hot and filling. A feast. The old man has been busy. And Methuselah will continue to busy himself, still; there is plenty to do. He will fetch blankets, tend to wounds, serve food and drinks. 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 is troubled, thoughtful.
If you ask him where you are, he will simply respond: “This is Milton, of the Northern Territories.”
If you ask how you came to be here, he will shake his head: “Something has changed. The sky, it was… full of light. The Flare. I felt you coming, a great arrival. But I cannot say for certain how, or why you are here.”
He is regretful, genuinely so. He wishes he had more answers for you, but he does not. Instead he will simply insist you rest, get warm and eat. There is plenty to go around. Eventually, when you feel well enough, Methuselah will gesture to the door: “When you are ready and able, explore the town. Many left, others could not make it out. I have found no one but the dead. They will have no use of the place now, perhaps you might in the meantime.”
HOPE NOBODY NEEDS THIS ANYMORE
WHEN: First couple of weeks since arrival.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: frozen dead bodies, unexplained deaths, suicide, murder.
Other than Methuselah in the Hall, the town of Milton is void of life. While not a particularly large town, there’s a few stores and even a gas station. Life here is rustic. Function over form. Homes are simple but sturdy and warm, it’s a rugged place and one can easily deduce that the folk living here led simple, self-sufficient lives.
Commercial buildings and stores of note include a bank and post office, a hunting/fishing supply store, a grocery store, and a clothing store. There is even a church just on the outskirts of town. The buildings are ripe for picking, with most of them still with the doors unlocked, including the residential buildings. Others are locked, but can be broken into easily enough. A few are even trickier, with some of them boarded up or with entrances blocked. In terms of contents, a third of the residential buildings seem to be almost empty, as if the owners moved out long ago. There might still be things left behind of use: old, warm clothes good for the wintery weather, tools and cooking utensils — but little in terms of food. Even if the former residents move some time ago, they didn’t completely empty their homes.
Most of the homes in Milton seem to be left as if the owner stepped out only a short while ago, and with very little disturbance. Some houses, however, seem to be abandoned in a hurry, with a mess of items strewn about in some last-minute dash to grab essentials: keys, identification, treasured personal items, supplies for a quick exit. Cupboards are typically filled with an abundance of canned goods, and some chilled goods might have survived in the cold weather within the fridge-freezers, but it might be a gamble if one wants to try and eat them. Any and all electronics within homes: televisions, computers, mobile-phones — although dated, will all appear cracked and damaged, and will not function or turn out at all. The same will go for any vehicles around the town: there is no hope of starting any of them.
Diaries and journals kept by the former residents may remark on a change in the weather, with the cold and harsh climate becoming more hostile as of late. Others remark strange lights in the skies, dating several weeks or so ago, strange noises in the air, issues with power and electrical items. Some make mentions of changes to the wildlife, with wolves coming close to the town even when they had never done so before. One or two mention problems on the Mainland, with increasing difficulty of reaching out to loved ones who don’t live in the Northern Territories, or deliveries being unable to arrive. The growing trend is that something odd and terrible has been happening, although no one can truly explain what, and the problems have been growing increasingly worse and worse up to the final entries. You might note that the actual years and dates might not line up with your own: the current year given in these entries is 2014.
The newcomers are free to take over these homes, if they wish. No one appears to be stopping them, and even Methuselah seems to shrug about moving in. And as he’d mentioned, he has found no one but the dead: and plenty of them can be found.
Bodies of the town’s former residence can be found scattered over the town. In homes, in stores, out in the snow. They appear still relatively fresh, although it may be hard to tell if it’s from the cold or if it’s from very little time passing. Most appear to have died from cold exposure, some appear to have simply dropped dead on the spot. Others may be found with a gun in hand. Some, worryingly, appear to have perished by another’s hand. You won’t find the entirety of the town’s population, but there’ll be at least several dozen. Men, women, children.
Methuselah seems to have begun laying the dead to rest, but there’s too many for one man to do. Maybe you can work out what to do with them, try to bury them in their backyards, or try to take them to the churchyard.
THE SIREN OF MILTON BASIN
WHEN: Until the next Aurora.
WHERE: Milton Basin.
CONTENT WARNINGS: mental manipulation, malevolent mythical creatures, falling through ice, attempted drowning/possible successful drowning, potential character death.
Those who venture further south of the town will find themselves traversing the steep, winding paths down towards the Milton Basin. The way down is treacherous, but if enough care is taken you should be able to make it down in one piece. The water is just about completely frozen over down here, thick and sturdy enough to walk over for the most part. Within the Basin there’s more wildlife to be found: deer and rabbit are plenty. And there’s even plenty of foragables, too.
Out on the water are two small ice-fishing cabins, enough to fit one or two people inside comfortably, which hold a few forgotten supplies to try out some ice-fishing if you want to see if anything bites. Both even hold little log burners to keep warm. An old hunter’s shack can be found along the water’s edge, for those not quite brave enough to travel out onto the ice, to take shelter in for when the weather gets a little too difficult, with an old log burner still working within it.
But it’s calm down here, for the most part. Peaceful even. It’s an excellent place for fishing and hunting, and a little more sheltered from the freezing winds.
Until you hear the voice. Something soft and feminine, echoing across the ice. The Basin helps to amplify the sound, and for a long time you can’t quite be sure of where exactly it’s coming from. It’s singing, she is singing. Something old, in a language you can’t quite understand. Maybe it’s not even a language at all, but simply melodic vocalizations. It’s... beautiful, you’ve never heard anything like it before in your life.
And then you see her: a woman standing upon the frozen waters of the Basin. You realise she’s probably the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen in your life, even if you can’t quite even begin to describe her. She appears different to everyone who beholds her, some one might see her hair is long and dark, others might see her with neat red curls. Some swear her skin is dark and rich, that looks almost plum when the light hits it just so, others claim it to be cool-toned that glistens like sunlight on snow. Whatever someone might find aesthetically pleasing is how she’ll appear, and even then to describe her to others will bring you at a loss for words. And she’s singing… to you, for you.
You’re compelled to go to her, although you can’t explain why. You’re drawn to approach her, to hear her better, see her better. Your feet carry you onto the ice, out into the midst of the Basin. You ignore the calls of everyone and anyone around you, fixated on the woman before you. She smiles when you’re close enough, beckons you a little closer.
… Then everything changes. Without warning, the woman leaps for you, her face contorting into something hideous, mouth opening to scream to reveal rows upon rows of tiny, needle-like teeth. She collides with you, and the force (paired with the slippery ice below you) is enough to send you off your feet. As you fall back, the ice cracks beneath you with an almighty sound, plunging you into the frigid depths below.
The woman fights to put you beneath the water’s surface, those needle-like teeth bared like some ferocious beast. She can be fought off easily enough, but she might just drown you before you’re able to. If you’re lucky, someone might be able to help pull you out. Tools or weapons made of iron or silver are especially harmful to her.
Once you’re pulled from the water, getting somewhere warm will be the utmost priority — otherwise the cold will kill you quicker than the woman would. The woman, you’ll find, will have vanished, and the ice where you’d fallen will have restored itself, as if it had never been broken at all.
FAQs
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. If asked how he knew that the Newcomers were arriving, he concedes that although it is a strange thing to know, it is much like how one knows a storm is coming.
1. Characters are welcome to take up residency in any of the homes of Milton. Methuselah will strongly advise characters to leave a huge, dilapidated house — known as Milton House — well alone, due to extensive fire damage.
2. More information about Milton can be found here.
1. Characters with hearing impairments will not be susceptible to the Siren's song, or may only be somewhat susceptible depending, but may be entranced to a degree by looking at the Siren. However, this will be far easier to snap out of.
2. The Siren cannot be killed, only fought off. She will disappear for a length of time to recover before she attempts to lure her next victim.
no subject
He supposes there were also private things he kept to himself: his own small deviations from the image of the ideal communist, and that of the people he cared about. Everyone was hiding something, keeping something to themselves: feelings, thoughts, past actions. He has every intention of keeping a fellow worker's privacy, especially seeing as it's likely a medical concern.
(The fact that she doesn't immediately assume him a Christian, or the sort to swear to any God, doesn't go unnoticed or unappreciated.) ]
Of course.
no subject
My current situation is in the house of the governor of Kingston Penitentiary, where I have been an inmate for the last fifteen years. My sentence regards the murders of Thomas Kinnear, who owned the farm in Ontario that I’ve just mentioned to you, and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. I suppose this is chiefly because of my gender and my age at the time of the murders, but my name carried some infamy with it, and so the governor’s wife has allowed me to spend my days as if I have a regular job of work in her home. I am a curiosity to her and her lady friends; they watch me at work as if it is a most salacious thing.
cw SA mention
There's no telling what may have provoked it, either—she doesn't seem like the sort to calculate a kill in cold blood. It's entirely possible that the landowner may have tried to molest her, or something similar. It's none of his business and certainly none of anyone else's business, something that's deeply, almost unspeakably private.
And, of course, there's the fact that he did much, much worse. He forced hundreds' of people's hands in their own death warrants. Innocent people, people who never could have dreamed of owning land. His fellow Russians, his fellow workers.
Instead of the outward expression of shock that might be more typical, Vasiliy simply asks: ]
Did the housekeeper earn it?
no subject
Do you mean to ask if she did something to deserve her death?
no subject
[ He realizes the implication—that, by asking this, he is insinuating that his appraisal of a murder depends not on a unilateral, Christian idea that killing is always wrong, but on the concept that the morality of such a thing can be contextual. But, contrary to the usual state of affairs, he doesn't mind that much of his real self being seen, at least not around someone who has willingly been as open as Grace, and who—his Soviet mind supplies despite his genuine goodwill toward the woman—he has information against, should she take whatever information he discloses and turn on him. ]
no subject
[ She could say that it is wrong in any instance to kill anyone, but this is not true, because many soldiers kill in the name of God, or at least believe themselves to have been supported by Him. If it is false in one instance, anyone could argue that it is false in others. It has also struck her that Vasya does not seem the God-fearing type – she can’t tell everything about a person from looking at them, but sometimes these things are obvious, and that’s why she hadn’t mentioned the Bible when the opportunity came up to swear on something.
Grace thinks again, for a long moment, before she says anything else. ]
In truth, I don’t recall her death, or a number of hours either side of it. As for Mr Kinnear’s death – I saw that with my own eyes, and it was James McDermott who shot him. He was Mr Kinnear’s stableman, and after he’d done that deed he turned the gun on me, but by some miracle he missed. We fled together, and were caught together, and they blamed us both. McDermott was sentenced to death, and so was I, but at the last moment my sentence was commuted to life. He said in his confession that I persuaded him to do it, because Nancy had said to us that she was going to release us from our employment at the end of the month with no warning and out of spite. He also said that I resented her for her fine dresses and her closeness with Mr Kinnear, and perhaps that I even hated her. I will admit there was no love lost between Nancy and I towards the end of it all, because she sometimes talked to me as if she were a lady and I was worse than dirt, when really we were not so different from each other, and I always thought that to be imperious and rude of her, and quite cruel. But I have had a long time to think on these matters and I do not believe I hated her, and I feel sorry that she died in the manner she did. But I was only sixteen at the time, and when you are that age you tend to feel more strongly than you do as a grown adult.
cw mention of workplace abuse/violence, child labor, child abuse
She doesn't have to share every detail, or any detail, of what this Nancy actually did for him to know deeply and instinctively the type of woman she was: in the years before the Revolution, not too long after Grace's own time, Vasiliy worked in a factory at the mercy of a man who technically qualified as a fellow worker, too. A class traitor, though Grace no doubt lacks the words to put a name to it.
He lets out a breath, watching it crystallize in the darkening air in front of his face. They've been carrying bodies for a few hours now, and there's not much daylight left—it reminds him of home, being this close to the Arctic Circle.
He can relate to the hatred. The rage he'd felt as a seven-year-old boy, not understanding what gave the drunk foreman almost as poor as them the right to lash the skin off of a man who fell asleep upright, to kick and beat him with a section of discarded metal pipe as an example to the rest of them. The foremen he knew, and women like Nancy, would be just as savage as the factory owners had only they been born into the right caste. ]
It is not in man's basic nature to do something so violent at a young age. It is possible she was crueler to you than you are able to remember. [ It's an idea he was only introduced to after dying, that an event might be so painful that the mind would completely erase it. He had not been so lucky, nor would it have been right for him to easily shed the burden of his own rightful punishment. ] To push somebody so young to such a breaking point... this does not happen for trivial reasons.
[ A pause. He squints at the treeline, watching the black dots of a few crows hop from the naked bones of one bare branch to the next. ]
I worked in a factory when I was very young. There was a man there I wanted to kill.
[ He should ration his cigarettes, but he doesn't. Instead he's already lighting up another, taking a long drag and exhaling to the side before he finishes the story. ]
It is not in a nature of a child to kill. To want to kill. This foreman would come to factory floor drunk, smelling like vodka. And he would beat men he thought did not work hard enough with metal pipe, about this long. [ Vasiliy spreads his hands about two feet apart, dragging a thin plume of smoke through the air as he waves the cigarette between his fingers. ] If they fell to the ground, he kicked them until they got up. Sometimes it was for no reason. He hit children with this thin piece of... [ Vasiliy pauses, mouth moving silently for a moment as he tries to remember the word for the particular species of wood in English, relevant in its flexibility, the whistling sound it made as it bent in the air. He comes up blank. ] Wooden stick. It was almost like rope.
He died. He deserved it.
cw child abuse, child death
But what sticks out to her the most is one small comment, right in the middle of his story. It is not in the nature of a child to want to kill. But hadn't she thought about killing her father, stifling him, just to be rid of him, when she was only a child? Hadn't she thought to herself, watching her younger brothers and sisters on the bow of the ship to Canada, that she could just push them, and make it appear an accident? Hadn't she thought to herself that it would have been better for them to be dead than to spend a lifetime in poverty with their father?
Grace presses her lips together. It's not for her to say whether Nancy – or even Mr Kinnear – deserved to die. Those judgements are for God to make. But if she were to be honest with herself, she doesn't doubt Vasiliy, not when she can hear that conviction in his voice as clear as day. She believes him. Perhaps this man did deserve it. ]
I've always wondered why people of that persuasion think beatings will make anyone work faster. There's no sense to it.
cw: more of the same from here on out, general warnings for industrial revolution workplaces
[ He takes a drag off his cigarette, exhaling to the side. ]
Or if they do believe it, it is to fill the worker with fear—more for people watching than the person they beat. They say, 'This will happen to you too if you try anything.' If the people are afraid, they do not question what gives this person the right to hit them, why they must work like mules while he lives in comfort.
[ While the Tsar lives in comfort, while the factory owners and bourgeoisie live in comfort, all while they starve slowly. The Russians who really grew up in the eighties—as opposed to just possessing documents that say they did—are so much taller than his peers born before the Revolution. ]
They are afraid of us. There are more of us than them. If the worker realizes he holds power, he could do something about it. So they beat him until he is afraid to use it.
[ Another drag and slow exhalation into the cold dark air. It probably isn't wise to say this, but it's been so long since someone's been this receptive to what is, for him, basic reality, and it's intoxicating. He almost feels normal, not enough to forget himself or what's at stake, but to share more than he normally would. ]
Eventually, though, this always fails. The workers always overthrow their master. People in power cannot resist it, so they take and take, they work them harder and harder, beat them worse and worse. One day he wakes up and it is better to be dead than to go on living like this. So he revolts. There is nothing more they can take. Death is not a punishment.
[ And I know you've felt that way too. ]