inaugural tdm of unspecified duration.

[vestigemods]

VESTIGE TEST DRIVE MEME

WHAT IS THIS?

This is a test drive meme for Vestige is a musebox-game successor to The Box (yeah, the one that died like five years ago). It's invite-only with no activity check and almost no application to speak of.

This is a horror jamjar based on Cabin In The Woods, in which characters are pulled into this containment zone run by the Technicians working from a lab underground with the goal of creating Good Quality Suffering™️ to appease the elder gods who hover on the verge of creating a worldwide apocalypse. But of course, suffering is pointless if everyone is too numb to properly suffer, so there are plenty of morale boosts provided in between bouts of fear and misery.

This TDM is ongoing and will fill the gap between now and when I get around to setting up the comms. There is no official start date and currently literally nothing but this TDM available for perusal, but I'll update this section of the blurb as that changes. Threads in this TDM are welcome to be game canon once this shit opens because fuck it. If you have questions, feel free to ask in the top-level below or just wing it tbh, we'll be doing a lot of winging it up in this shit.

Characters arrive with all powers intact and carrying all items that they had with them on their canonpoint.

Also, feel free to hit up the Intro + Friending meme to network with your future peers in this suffering endeavor. (EDIT 5/20: We also now have a DISCORD SERVER! So hop on into that if you'd like.)

PROMPT 1 ► just your ordinary cabin in the woods

⬛ARRIVAL + GENERAL PROMPT

Whenever you're from or wherever you were, you awaken now with the mildest of headaches in a medium-sized wooden cabin. Maybe you wake in a bed, barely padded and covered in dust (so are you now, congrats!). Maybe you wake on the floor, arguably softer than the bed in spots thanks to some handy dandy water damage. Either way, you certainly aren't where you were before, and you have no recollection whatsoever of arriving.

The cabin is modest but multi-roomed and fully kitted with a kitchen and cozy living room. Nice, dry wood sits stacked by the fireplace, and if you check the various switches, the lights turn on with only the faintest protesting static. The cabinets are surprisingly well-stocked, as is the fridge, with perishables and non-perishables alike. As if someone has been here recently... but how, when everything else seems so thoroughly abandoned?

Should you choose to ignore the cabin's supposed hospitality and try to leave, you'll find that both the front and back doors are securely locked, in a way that no amount of fumbling with the locking mechanism seems to remedy.

That's when a sloooooow creak draws your attention to a door nearby, one you may not have noticed before... but it's open now. Was it before? Better yet, should you check out what lies beyond?

PROMPT 2 ► who's up for some fighty-fight, kids??

⬛MONSTER HORROR.

The basement is musty and dim, though a pull-string at the curve of the creaky stairs seems to turn on a sparse row of lightbulbs dangling precariously from the ceiling along the center of the room. This little bit of light illuminates a room absolutely packed with items, furniture and boxes and various knick-knacks of unknown and questionable origin. Spiderwebs litter nooks and crannies, many with actual spiders still nesting inside, and a layer of dust coats most every surface in sight.

It doesn't seem like there's anyone down here, nor is there any sign of an exit at the basement's far end. There is, however, something that catches your eye. An item, one that your feet seem to carry you toward without your mind quite telling them to do so. Perhaps it's familiar somehow. Perhaps it's so foreign to you that you can't help but get a closer look. One way or another, you somehow end up reaching out to touch it. But what harm can that do, a single touch?

Oh, sweet summer child. Haven't you seen this movie?




---




Whatever else your characters might touch, to activate this prompt they'll also touch one of the following five items:


• A child's drawing, of what appears to be... shit, what even is that? Is it a bat? Is it some kind of... reptile? We just don't know. (result! warnings for gore/violence.)
  
  
• A light-blue paper face mask, the sort used in hospitals for patients who have a cold. Maybe you guys should've brought masks too. It sure would keep all this dust the hell out of your nose... ( result! warning for body horror! )
  
  
• A buzzsaw blade, dusty but intact. ( result! warnings for gore/violence. )
  
  
• A music box, covered in faded yellow flowers. I wonder what music it plays? ( result! warnings for gore/violence and Alarming Children. )
  
  
• A funeral urn. But... It seems that someone glued it shut around the edges? I guess that's one way to make sure nobody spills grandma. ( result! )

These enemies can and will follow characters outside, should they try to flee. It might actually be a good idea to face these foes outdoors where it's less confined, provided they don't stray too far from the cabin (see prompt #4).

The blurbs are just guidelines, feel free to scale up or down how strong/weak the monsters are, how many there are, etc. in order to better fit your characters' level of capability. The Technicians know your characters' strengths and weaknesses, so they'd know how to send enough to make this challenging but not insurmountable.

PROMPT 3 ► congratulations, you fucked up

⬛SURVIVAL HORROR.

Perhaps you didn't touch anything in the basement. Hell, maybe you didn't even set foot through that ominous basement door. But hey, we get it. Not everyone likes to party. You're not getting off easy, but at least you can say that you didn't fall into the trap.

If, by the time an hour has passed since the creaking open of the basement door, no object has been touched and no baddie has been summoned, you'll find your nose assaulted by the prevailing smell of smoke. One glance out any window tells you why: The cabin has been surrounded in it, an oblong ring of fire six feet thick burning tight along the exterior cabin walls. You're safe inside for the moment, but how long will that last?

Now, you have no choice but to try to escape the blaze. It overtakes the cabin quickly, creeping up over the rooftop, shattering windows and burning a path inside. No matter which way you try to run, you're almost certain to get burned... But that's certainly better than burning to death in here.

PROMPT 4 ► "escape"? never heard of her.

⬛PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR.

For some, staying in this creepy cabin with its stupid locked door was never an option. Maybe you break one of the windows and crawl through that, or maybe you're angry and OP and punched a man-sized hole in the wall itself. Hey, we're not judging. You got yourself outside, and that's what counts.

The outside of the cabin is... actually pretty nice. Picturesque woods, birds singing, perhaps a couple of deer bounding through the trees not far off. This place might actually be relaxing, if it weren't so alarming and kidnap-y. But it is, so it's time to get the fuck out of Dodge.

Or to try to, anyway. Just a few short meters into the trees, you find yourself entering a deep and all-encompassing fog. You can barely see your hand out in front of your face, let alone your path through the forest ahead. If you're not alone in this venture, you'd best keep a hand on your companion lest you lose track of them, as well. And is it just you, or is there a slight chemical taste to the fog that you're breathing in?

(Yes. The answer is definitely yes.)

Before long, you find yourself turned around, stepping back out of the fog with the cabin in front of you. Little do you realize that simply turning you around is the most merciful fate that this fog has to offer.

---

This is easier to break down without narrative, so!

• The first time your character ventures into the fog, they're just turned around and sent back to the cabin.
  
  
• The second time, they hallucinate things that they don't want to hear. Something they fear, something that hurts them, something that stresses them the fuck out. Maybe a character's worst fear is wildcats and they hear one growling just out of sight in the mist. Maybe instead they hear a loved one crying for help back in the direction from which they've come, drawing them back to the cabin. Or maybe they hear the voice of someone they admire berating their cowardice or stupidity or something, for running away from the cabin in the first place. The goal is to psych them out and send them running back to the place where the action is happening.
  
  
• The third time, it's the same but full-blown visual or even physical hallucinations. Basically anything that might lure, scare, emotionally wound, etc. them into going back to the vicinity of the cabin.

Characters are welcome to start off venturing into the mist together, or to discover one another while they're already in the mist. If it's the latter, look out - it may be harder to tell friend from foe when you can't quite trust your own mind.

THE LOOP ► a note on replayability

Regardless of which prompt your character faces, they'll be left unbothered after the creature is defeated or the problem is overcome until sunrise the following morning. Though the fog still keeps characters from straying from the area, they're welcome to recover and lick their wounds in the immediate cabin vicinity. An unburnt cabin leaves them food and resting facilities, while a burnt cabin... Well, at least the fire never spread from that self-contained ring, so they have some nice unburnt grass to sleep on.

Come sunrise, all characters still awake will fall unconscious. At this point, many of them will reawaken in a perfectly undamaged cabin back in Prompt #1 to begin the loop anew. They may have the same comrades in this loop, or perhaps they have different ones. Maybe their new companions have done this before as well. Maybe they're brand new and have no idea what they're up against. R.I.P., you poor unsuspecting fucks.

This is, in effect, a series of trial runs by the current batch of Technicians to see if they're able to run this containment zone scenario long-term. When Vestige opens properly, characters will awaken free of the loop and will have quite a bit more continuity and recovery time between horrors. The 'loop' mechanic is specifically in place to give this TDM some shelf life and let y'all entertain yourselves while I work on the actual pages and such, rather than the one-and-done feeling of the usual TDM.

CODE BY TESSISAMESS (patreon)

Comments

i

[compendiem]

[ In all honesty, when his eyes blearily blinked and quickly shut tight against the dust that tickled his nose, and he turned to his side to bunch up the stiff, thin pillow beneath his head, Minato's first thought was a vague wish to go back to sleep. His second was, with a tiny jolt that skipped up the back of his head before fizzling out, is that this is wrong. But he still wanted to go back to sleep.

He's so tired.. The dull throb of his head had long settled into something persistent, spreading throughout the rest of his body and sinking into his bones. He's halfway to stone, bound with thorns in front of a door with all seeing eyes when he's jolted out of his stupor by a voice— this is wrong, and he can't afford to sleep.

Silent, Minato wills himself awake, and exercises a little stronger will to get himself out of bed, finding the sword at his side still coated with dried black and contemplates for a moment leaving it behind so he doesn't need to carry around any extra weight. It's something else he can't afford, so up it goes, drawn and at the ready while he leaves the bedroom and heads towards that noise. Thank you Emil for being noisy, thumps of fallen books guiding him to where he needs to go. For all the months spent climbing monster towers, Minato has plenty of experience being quick and keeping quiet, finding the room and stopping before the door frame with his face peeking in halfway. If he wants to get the jump on an enemy, the chance is now while their back is turned, but he's not certain this is an enemy. He keeps his sword hidden. But when he steps in, he makes sure his footsteps are heard. ]

[enflame]

❰ that's what you think, minato. in emil's quest to find some sort of key to open the door, he's pried open a small junk box of sorts that was located on a shelf. his fingers cause a cacophony of tinkling as he quickly stirs through the assorted clips and broken necklace chains, looking more so for something he can use to concretely flee, not intuitive enough to pick a lock. or at least think to.

this sound cloaks minato's footsteps, but it doesn't matter much longer anyway. he picks the box up to sit with it in a chair, maybe to get a better look at this mountain of trinkets, when looking up offers him a surprise -- a person! the box is tilted up on instinct, emil poised suddenly like throwing it at this stranger is the best idea, but also simultaneously scaring himself with the sound of a few of the boxes treasures jerking out and onto the wooden floor. ❱

Are you -- is this a hint? ❰ he's asking if you're an npc. ❱ Or are you stuck too?

[compendiem]

[ Should've stabbed Emil when he had the chance. But the opportunity's passed when Emil finally looks up at him, and while Minato doesn't so much as blink or take a step back when faced with the danger of having a box smashed into his face, he does seem to start a little when the buttons and clips clatter onto the ground, and he has to set his sword down so he can crouch and start picking everything up before they roll too far away. ]

Um...

[ He has... no idea how to answer "is this a hint?" and so he just looks up and offers Emil a handful of brass buttons. ]

No, I don't think I'm stuck. [ He hasn't tried getting out yet, granted, but "stuck" also implies wanting to leave, and he hasn't wanted to yet either. ]

I want to take a look at everything before I leave, anyways.

[ Minato is much less an NPC and much more one of those PCs controlled by a neurotic player who checks every single interactable object in a place before moving onto the next. There is no sense of urgency here, just curiosity and misplaced amusement. ]

[enflame]

❰ in the meantime, emil remains still as minato is even closer, choosing to pick up whatever he's spilled instead of something more violent or insidious. all signs point to someone else trapped with him, which could be a mixed bag. will he be helpful? irritating? maybe both? time will tell.

but then minato insists that he isn't stuck, and maybe that's just because he doesn't know exactly what emil is trying to do here. ❱

We are stuck. Unless you can somehow open the door I can't. ❰ and now he shifts, tucking his box into the crook of one arm while the other takes the buttons, clenches them and then points to their one supposed exit. ❱ If not, I'm breaking it or a window because I'm not staying here.

❰ a more logically minded person might be more apt to figuring out the mystery of this setting and the unfamiliarity of it all, but his mind works in a much more straight-forward fashion. i don't belong here, and thus i must leave. ❱

[compendiem]

[ The connection between a box full of buttons and getting a door open isn't immediately made, but he gets it at "breaking it or a window." ]

If the door's locked... then there's a key somewhere.

[ He nods like he's agreeing with something, and that something is Emil's supposed rooting through every inch of this place in search of, specifically, the key to this door. They'll never find it. If there's a key to this door, it'll be carried by whoever owns the building, and if nobody's come running after all the ruckus they've been making already, then nobody will. ]

This is somebody's home, though, so I don't want to break it...

[ He walks up to the door and jiggles the knob. Nothing. He pulls a key out of his pocket searches for a lock but it's not on this side of the door, and so it goes back into his pocket. He knocks on the door. One two, pause, one two. He jiggles the knob again, as if something might have changed in the last five seconds.

Nothing. ]

Would you be able to...?

[enflame]

❰ breaking this person's home is not at all a concern that emil shares. at least, he has no concern for how they might feel about it. number one, this is probably some curse or illusion and it all doesn't matter. two, if it did matter? well, that's very much a 'them' problem. he shouldn't be trapped here.

there's a smugness he feels and that shows on his face as minato fails to open the door, proving his point. now you get it, friend. suddenly it seems so pointless to have even worried about looking for a way out when a few good shows of brute strength could take out a musty board, and then even easier, ❱

A window would be no problem. ❰ but that's supposing you want to deal with glass, and that is something he'd like to keep as a last resort. ❱ With a heavy object, the door shouldn't hold for long.

❰ because a battering ram is preferential to bruising his shoulder, in any case. ❱

[compendiem]

[ A battering ram... Too bad he chose a sword for the final battle instead of a club, but he'd wanted something lighter and more accurate, not thinking he'd need the destructive force of a club when he has his Personas to do the heavy lifting. These, he scrolls through in his mind like the blur of a loose roulette until it comes to a stop. ]

I'll take care of it. ...This is a fake gun.

[ He never had to explain his evoker before, so this is as good an attempt as it'll ever be before he takes it out of his holster and presses it against his temple. In a flash of blue light and the sound of shattering glass, a large snake appears behind him, seven heads fanned out from one body. ]

[enflame]

❰ it's a lot of information to process very quickly, between seeing the gun, being told it's not actually real, and then seeing this person he's known for thirty seconds take the barrel to aim at his head before pulling the trigger. the whole of it makes emil feel quite queasy, not even able to yell out before the deed is done.

or, well, what you expect to happen after actions like those doesn't actually occur. instead, a large shattering sound echos through the cabin before a show of light reveals this large...demon? no, he's not religious to think that. it's some kind of monster of some sort, that perhaps this person has some control over, but it nevertheless causes emil much more concern than being trapped in a house. ❱

Wh-- Is that yours? How do you get rid of it? How did it get here? ❰ snakes aren't something emil is at all familiar with, and the way their heads slither about is more than enough to make him instinctively grab his knife, although his plan of action is currently frozen in the recesses of his mind. ❱

[compendiem]

Mm...

[ Minato offers a hum, a placeholder for his thoughts so they don't all go towards wondering why Emil is already asking how to make Ananta go away, despite just being summoned into the world. Like the Evoker, this isn't something he's had much of a need to explain before, and there's the part of him that hopes he can get away with not saying anything.

It's this part that glances up at the monster who rears its many heads over Emil, mouths open in a spitting hiss that overlap like the ocean crashing onto shore. Like it's saying "Just try to stab me, punk," except that if Emil does, there's a good chance that Ananta will retaliate and borrow Emil himself as a battering ram through the door, so Minato is quick to give the silent command.

For how large the monster is, towering over the two of them with its heads brushing against the ceiling of the cabin, it is quick. Like the wind, it darts past Minato's legs and whips around Emil to get to the door, picking up speed just before it slams full-bodied into the door, reducing it into splinters. At the impact, Ananta's body also shatters into glowing shards of light, like glass or ice mixing amongst the wooden splinters that fly out into the open, dissolving with the sunlight.

Minato, decidedly not answering any of Emil's questions in the end, steps outside.

[enflame]

❰ the lack of response does nothing to quell emil's fear -- if anything, it's now heightened as his whole body tenses and trembles at the many snakes hissing and writhing above him.

for as quickly as it came, however, it darts and disappears. the impact and movement just before it are fast enough that a few quick blinks would have meant missing it, assuming it to be a hallucination. it's not until minato is out the door for a few seconds that emil loosens up, letting out a breath he hadn't felt caught in his throat.

he's seen creatures like this, he decides. like that fiery eagle he himself seemed to conjure back home. some benevolent creature that's completely fierce and terrifying, but fortunately on your side. it doesn't mean he's at ease with that...wriggling thing he just watched destroy the door, but at least he can escape easily. and he doesn't have to bruise his shoulder doing it. ❱

Hey. ❰ it's half-squeaked into the air around him, before his brain catches up to what's just got on. he scurries out the gaping door frame, tripping over the stop before quickly tromping down the steps to catch up to minato. ❱ Hey! You shouldn't go out there alone! Even if you know magic!

❰ once minato is within reach, emil grasps his shoulder as a marker to steady himself from his fumbling, hoping that he doesn't make it too far without some kind of plan or idea of what to do now that they're set free. ❱ Even if whatever magic you have is insane.