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singillppl2026-02-05 06:17 pm
singmod) wrote in singillppl2026-02-05 06:17 pm
Entry tags:
The Final Test Drive Meme
DECEMBER 2025 TDM
PROMPT ONE — ARRIVAL: THE DARKWALKER’S FEAST: The Aurora signals back a group of familiar faces, for the last time, with the Darkwalker close behind.
PROMPT THREE — THE ERRODING: A toxic fog settles onto the Northern Territories, spoiling food and spreading rot.
PROMPT THREE — WINTER OF OUR YOUTH: With the Darkwalker’s presence ever looming, the former Forest Talkers living amongst Interlopers perform their final rite.
ARRIVAL: THE DARKWALKER’S FEAST
WHEN: Early February.
WHERE: Milton, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potential injuries, potential cold injuries/hyperthermia risk; themes of terror; themes of stalking; mental manipulation/degradation; physical degradation; potential character death.
'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.’ A dark, deep voice. Impossibly ancient. The Darkwalker hisses to you: ‘And I am coming for you.'
You saw the lights, your world went dark and in the blackness the Darkwalker called to you. The words echo as you open your eyes once more — squinting and straining to a world of dark, green gloom.
There are no stars above you, no moon. The world is impossibly quiet. You do not get the sanctuary of some abandoned cabin. Instead, you awaken out in the open — in the bitter cold and snow. You can barely see your breath cloud in front of you as you sit up; the gloom feels so oppressive, stifling. You are alone in the wilderness, in the frozen land of the Northern Territories — 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 call out. There is no answer. Your voice cuts short. You stand alone in the wilds of Milton, the woods are dark and deep — but the feeling of being alone does not last long. You only have but a few minutes to collect yourself, pick up any stray belongings that might have been dumped alongside you.
Suddenly, there is a sound that breaks the suffocating silence: a long, low, moaning growl. Something neither human nor animal. You cannot place the sound.
You feel a bolt of cold heat through your chest. You are afraid.
(Some of you may remember this sound. Remember the noises of the being who struck out at Interlopers, turning them into twisted corpses, frozen in horror.)
In the distance, you hear the heavy, thundering of footsteps. Something is coming. The Darkwalker is coming. You cannot stay here. You need to move, need to get away from those footsteps. Although slow, they are persistent, steady. You do not want to know what will happen if those footsteps catch up. And if you do not move, the cold might kill you just as quickly.
You must work out where you are, and you must find civilization as fast as you can. So you pick a direction and hurry into the unknown, trying to navigate your way through the gloom — to try and find a trail, something which might lead you to warmth and safety. Along the way, you may find someone else in the same boat as yourself, equally freezing and confused and afraid. You’ll both need to keep going. It won’t be easy. You hear the inhuman, low, growling moan once again, 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. Out looking for you. They’ll likely offer help and get you into town.
All the while, the footsteps boom in the near-distance. They grow louder and louder, and you realise the reason why they’re drawing closer: they are coming for you. The Darkwalker is hunting you, and in your bones you feel that anxious gnawing. It sets your teeth on edge, makes the hair on the back of your neck prickle.
You are a hunted animal.
You must keep going. The Darkwalker is behind you, making a beeline for you — the thuds of its footsteps making the ground quake a little the closer it gets. You cannot see the Darkwalker, save for the sickly-green footprints you may see if it is immediately upon you, but the effects of its presence will become more profound.
Move too slowly, or dawdle and soon enough that anxiousness within you will turn into true fear. You find yourself lost to hysteria, unable to move, and you find yourself growing weaker and weaker — like you might die before it has an actual chance to catch up to you. Your very life slowly ebbs away. Only gaining distance from the Darkwalker will bring you back to your senses and restore your energy — but the effects on you from the Darkwalker will linger in the days to come.
The trails will lead to paths, and the paths will lead to roads. You can smell the heavy, low scent of fires burning in the dark. 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”.
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, most are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up, some of them are occupied. The town is quiet in this endless night, but you can see the warming lights of your fellow Interlopers in the windows.
Once you enter the town limits, the Darkwalker stops chasing you. But you can still sense its oppressive presence not too far off.
You are not greeted by Methuselah at the Community Hall. There is no Feast.
Some of your fellow Interlopers may have gathered and attempted some kind of half-hearted welcoming committee, instead. There may be a little soup, some charred meat, hot tea. Someone may be on hand to tend to any wounded from slips and falls out in the snow, or deal with any cold injuries sustained in the journey to town. But there is nothing compared to the Feasts Interlopers have grown accustomed to, or have perhaps taken advantage of.
But, no. No feast. This time, if you are not quick enough, you are the feast.
May the Darkwalker never catch you.
THE ERRODING
WHEN: The Month of February.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural/extreme weather; poisonous/toxic fog; themes of food insecurity, themes of food scarcity; supernatural illnesses; breathing-related illnesses; nausea and vomiting.
The Darkwalker told you once: I am the Rot.
The Darkwalker’s arrival has only just begun. Not only does it stalk around the edges of Milton, but its presence brings atmospheric shifts to the world that make it difficult to get about. Interlopers are well accustomed to bouts of supernatural weather, and they’ve faced something like this before — a caustic fog that burns and erodes everything it touches, or the fog that ignited Interlopers into fight or flight.
It may linger in the minds of many when this new kind of fog sets in.
It’s hard to tell it’s settling in at first, with the eerie green gloom that covers the entirety of the Northern Territories in darkness. Vision in the world is difficult, for the most part. But you notice a certain kind of heaviness in the air, and looking up has a kind of clouded, greenish haze — like a fog is slowly drifting in.
Things seem fine, at first. Just another string to the Darkwalker’s wicked bow. But when you tend to your traps, your fishing, your smokeboxes — anything kept outside — the stench of decomposition hangs. You find the meat, the carcasses, the food rotting. Anything kept outside, no matter how well protected in boxes, crates or storage, will slowly succumb to putrefaction. It isn’t just the food that begins to rot. Even vegetation will find itself prone to withering and dying — cutting off another form of food.
The fog will drift heavier, sometimes it rolls in quickly and you’re lost in a thick fog. Being out and about in this fog will make it hard to breathe, and enough to bring the taste of blood in your mouth as your lungs slowly begin to rot with each breath you take. Interlopers who spend long enough outside will slowly drown in their own blood, and will also find themselves coming down with bouts of nausea and sickness — and if they continue to remain outside, they will fall more and more ill, withering away to nothing until death.
Fog will even try to seep into houses, with unsecured buildings most at risk — the fog appears to actively try and get in anyway it can. If it fills a home, you are as good as dead.
Interlopers must work quickly to try and secure their food sources, their very homes. But how do they when something is actively turning their food to rot and their very bodies?
You remember from a dream in January. Enola drew a rune. in blood upon the snow:
“Use this, when the time comes. It will help keep it at bay. You have power, never forget that.”
There was once a rune Methuselah told Interlopers about. A warding rune to keep the Darkwalker from stealing an Interloper’s wits during its comings. A rune etched in Interloper blood.
Paint the rune in your blood, and true to Enola’s word: it will keep the fog at bay.
WINTER OF OUR YOUTH
WHEN: The month of February.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: themes of suicide; depictions of suicide; ritualistic suicide; human sacrifice; death of NPCs; death of teenage children; potential character injury; potential hostage situations; potential murder of NPCs.
Well over a year ago, the remaining Forest Talkers — some mere teenagers, barely on the cusp of adulthood — had absconded from their group to join the side of Interlopers when the Forest Talkers came to Milton to bring devastation and death. The Interlopers had taken them in, and they’d existed quietly in Milton — getting to work, contributing to the town and gently struggling with integrating with their former enemy. And while some of them have died one way or another in that time, eight still remain.
They have kept up their habits, private rituals of beliefs that have still stuck with them even after all this time — the hunting of small game to carry out their grisly displays out in the woods: animal remains placed in particular manners, the snow dug away to the earth.
They had once told Interlopers, when discovered in these rituals: The world is still dead, even if we don’t want to fight you anymore. We just want everything to be reborn again, so next time it’ll be better. We have to give them a chance. I guess we just have to see what happens.
And now the Darkwalker is here.
Over the course of the month, the former-Forest Talkers put plans into action. Some are quieter than others, some are far more violent in their displays. It will always be outside. They shed their outer-layers, removing boots and coats.
”Don’t you see it now?” they’ll tell you. ”Don’t you understand? This all has to happen. This has to be the way of things. The world is dead. It must be reborn. The Yawning Grave has been opened. The Long Dark awaits. Leave me to the wilds, or bury me. I will return renewed.”
A knife. A gun. And it’s all over. A sudden, violent act.
Or maybe you can stop it. Wrestle a weapon out of their hand. And maybe a fight breaks out. The young Forest Talkers have no interest in trying to hurt Interlopers but they will fight to the death to meet their own end. They refuse to be stopped, one way or another they will try to end their own lives. Maybe you might have to do it yourself, maybe they force you into putting them down when they try to hurt someone else, someone you care for.
In the quieter instances, it's slipping out into the wilderness. Letting the fog take them, or trying to succumb to the elements. Maybe you’re trying to drag one of them back into town, to try and talk some sense into them, maybe you win. This time. They listen, but they do not hear you. They have already decided what must be done.
There will be other times. More attempts.
By the end of February, all eight of them will be dead — one way or another, no matter how many attempts it takes.
The Yawning Grave has been opened, and they must go into the Long Dark.
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.
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. Returning players who are bringing characters back with Feats will note their Feats aren't working as they should, there is further information on this on the Tales From The Northern Territories, linked at the bottom of the page.
5. More information about Milton can be found here.
1. A rune etched in Interloper's blood will provide a powerful protection against the fog. It will keep the fog from drifting into homes.
2. The rune itself will only cover small areas, so while it could be used in the close quarters of the centre of town — it would require multiple runes all over the place.
3. The runes must be maintained with fresh blood every day to keep their protective enchantments active.
1. Players can either play out a successful halting of a former-Forest Talker's suicide, or be unsuccessful.
2. There are eight Forest Talkers who will ultimately die during the month of February, despite Interlopers best attempts. These are: Jean-Marc Sun, Jack St Pierre, Steven Forest, Gabriel Dunlop, Guy Harvey, Colette Ayotte, Renee Langevin and Marnie Mann.
Emily Pope | Control/Remedyverse
[ All right. Okay. This is happening, this happened, so Emily may as well go with it. ]
Sure would've been nice to be field certified by now.
[ Is anyone even listening? Well. Anyone from the Bureau, at least. Someone is always listening. It's just a question of who.
Anyway. Barehanded and shivering, Emily follows every single cue this place and its residents give her and makes her way to the town hall, where she finds a good coat, her HRA (not needed here, evidently, but it's not a bad thing to have), and her clipboard. That last one she grabs and starts taking furious, tiny notes on. Details she'll take back with her and document more thoroughly, cross-reference with every AWE on file, other Bureau staff accounts-- because this is fascinating and also might get counted as field training.
As she stands in line for coffee and soup, she's making notes. As she finds somewhere to sit, she's mentally making notes. When she sits, she makes more notes. She's not trying to be rude or anything, she's just got her priorities firmly set and is honestly kind of into this? She hasn't seen the sky in years. That alone merits writing down, underlining. Sighing happily about. ]
the erroding
[ The stench of rot is what catches her attention first. Emily has been playing with knives since settling in, throwing them, sharpening them, learning to butcher small animals because for goodness' sake this is survival out here, and she's been tired of rations for a while now, but now she's also tired of there not just being a huge supply of bland, nutritious stuff stashed all over.
The rabbit she had worked on yesterday, cut and smoked to perfection, looks like it's been hanging out in the muggy heat of late August for a week. It's not the sight of it that makes her feel her insides twisting, but that awful smell is enough to bm make even her composure break.
So she gives herself a second, gives her body the time it needs to go through the instincts and responses hard-coded into her DNA by the strongest of the species over so, so many years, and then heads out to do some research. ]
Hi. Is there something in the wind today? Did someone bring in an artifact from the wilderness? Or did we all sleep for an entire week? Because this rotting smell is everywhere, and I know we're all too well versed in preserving our food supplies for this to just be happening.
[ At least she said hi first? ]
winter of our youth (cw death by suicide/slit throat)
[ A young person's body lies there, blood congealing in a sticky black-red pool that Emily keeps not stepping away from after standing up because why is this the thing that doesn't feel real? She's seen so much, she's learned and studied so much, but she's never-- ]
I tried--
[ To stop them, talk them out of it, reason with them, scream some sense into them.
Nothing worked. Nothing could've.
This isn't natural. It's not that cults aren't ready, that entities aren't real, that even a fucking corn flake can cause someone to do this. It's that it happened right in front of her despite her best (best, right? right?) efforts.
The blood has already touched her boots. It's been-- a few seconds at most, she thinks. ]
Holy shit.
[ She takes a step back. Looks around. Are any of the others here? The others like this person was, or the others like she is. She might lose it this time, even as she is cleaning to her sense of reality with all her might. What does she do now. What does she do now? What does she do now??? As soon as she figures that out, she'll be okay. She's just not sure she'll figure it out before she breaks. ]
winter of our youth (hello!)
I’m really glad you’re here, she thinks, listening to Polaris’ reassuring, familiar shimmer.
Jesse’s distracted by the sound of a familiar voice. ‘holy shit’.
Emily.
Emily’s HERE? She takes off at a run, towards the sound of her voice. Because there’s no way she’s leaving her alone out here. Not after everything. Not with everything that’s going on. She might not know the half of it, but she doesn’t need to. Not to do this.
She barely takes in the body, the blood, before she’s reaching out to put a hand on Emily’s shoulder. ]
Hey. It’s okay. Just breathe.
[And she’ll pull Emily a few steps away, if the other woman will let her.]
! o hi! / cw suicide
Emily takes a breath, and her mind settles enough that conscious action is possible. ]
Jesse. I didn't-- you're here. Shit, I don't know what's going on. This kid just-- [ she gestures at them ] slit their own throat.
arrival and !!!!
Emily? Emily! [Forget formalities or any sense of personal space one Doctor Emily Pope might hold dear, Darling is leaning down to wrap his arms around her and give her a tight, excited squeeze with all of his usual enthusiasm, already talking a mile a minute.] Oh it's so good to see you again. When did you get here? Hopefully -- ha ha -- recently, or I've been cooped up too long in my cabin again, if I missed your arrival. Did you find somewhere to stay? I have room, if you need it.
:D!
in which we pretend i read the prompt, or this happens in a prior tdm, it's fine, i can read lol godWhat the-- ] Darling?
[ Her pencil clatters to the floor, barely audible over her boss's effusive chatter. It's a lot, but it's a familiar kind of a lot. ]
Just got here, not sure where I'm going to stay. Is this where you've been all this time?
[ She's just going to try and gently extricate herself from his hug. ]
oh god apologies for the html heck i got excited
[it can be after she got in from the spooky woods, it still works]Not the whole time, no! Before this, I was in a different alternate dimension, for six hundred and sixty-five days before someone came across me. [It's a small blessing, perhaps, that he's too busy with his embrace to do the neighbour of the beast hand motions.
But he does let go, only to pull up a chair next to her, handing her pencil back and pulling off his gloves.] Well welcome! Welcome, amazing to see you here. You've arrived at a bit of an odd moment, it seems like. I mean -- more odd than this place usually is, anyway.
Though -- wait, yes, go back. When you say "all this time" how long have I been gone, for you?
we're doing gr9 here lolol
Taking her pencil (and a deep breath, once her ribcage has the freedom to expand properly) provides a much-needed moment to refocus, and it might be what keeps her deep irritation at that neighbor of the beast mention from flaring up and reminding her that, hey, this guy kept her away from critical research, and maybe if he hadn't, they wouldn't have lost so many people when the Hiss invaded. ]
No odder than the situation in the Oldest House, but-- it's been eight years. [ She's not feeling generous enough to give him the number in days. ] The HRAs worked, but we haven't been able to stop-- no. What the hell, Darling? Did you even try to get back? What have you been doing since you disappeared?