012-014 » even the air itself was grey

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias.
WHEN: Days 012-014
WHAT: The weather is behaving strangely. Again.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Michael Andrews "Liquid Spear Waltz"

DAYS 012-014
“The overcast skies had the colour of deadened stones, and seemed closer than usual, as though they were phlegmatically observing my every movement with their apathetic emptily blue-less eyes.”
—Simona Panova, “Nightmarish Sacrifice”

Rain has returned to Mathias. While those who remember the storms from nearly two weeks ago may fear reprisal of such tumultuous weather, this rain is far tamer. The cloudy grey skies let loose a steady drizzle that remains constant from start to finish, which is in itself, perhaps, a bit unusual. The patter of droplets against windows, small streams forming in the roads and on grass as the ground becomes saturated, all of it may seem normal to some, but a little too normal to others.

What is without question abnormal, however, is the sun. Though it cannot be seen distinctly behind the thick grey clouds, its light remains as constant as the rain throughout these three days. Hour after hour, regardless of the time of day, there is light in the sky. Unchanging, an inescapable reminder that Mathias is not home, and none who are brought here have any control over what will occur in this place.


NEW ARRIVALS
Once again, more unfortunate souls have been brought to Mathias by unknown means, deposited at the edge of the forest near the empty houses that tell of those who once lived in this strange little town. They may find themselves wandering through the trees until they encounter the strange fog that envelops the town, or stumbling upon the rotting remains of houses that have felt the passage of time more than others.

---

LOCATIONS
LIGHTHOUSE Residents will notice the lighthouse to the north of Mathias, situated on a cliff that is above the town level. Even the most observant individuals will not have noticed it before now, which might be quite unsettling to some. There is no path available to reach the lighthouse at this time, though residents are welcome to try — they will be blocked by fog in the forest and a sense of unease that becomes debilitating if they walk too far along the beach.

NO NEW LOCATIONS are available for exploration at this time. Residents are welcome to further explore available locations, including utilizing AP rewards at locations they may have previously explored.

CONDITIONS UPDATES

— CLOCKS continue to be unreliable. Some may keep irregular time at different rates, while others have ceased to work at all, each having stopped at a different time.

— VOICES are not openly haunting our residents, though they may still be occasionally encountered in the more heavily decayed buildings where some rooms seem to almost swallow whatever light tries to enter them.

— WEATHER conditions are both typical and atypical for late fall. Temperatures consist of chilly "sweater weather" days and nights that can dip below freezing — you don't want to be outside without a coat when the sun goes down. A constant light rain continues for all three days, only stopping on the night of the third day. And for all three days, there is constant cloudy grey sunlight, with the sun unable to be seen and tracked from behind the cloud cover. Darkness will return to Mathias on the third night when the rain stops.

— FOG continues to block the way of those wishing to travel further than the Town Hall, and all who venture into the forest will be met by its impenetrable wall after a few hundred yards. The fog will allow none to pass; those who try will find themselves overcome by fear and panic so intense, they can physically do nothing but flee back the way they came.

OOC UPDATES

— HOUSING LISTINGS now have a permanent home! A few of these may have been missed or information might have changed, so please do submit updates as needed, including if your character moves into a new location or if there are rooms still available at said location.

— NEW PLAYERS are still arriving with each new log, so make sure to keep an eye on our ooc intro post. (An easy way to do this is to track the post — click the bell icon, select More Options, and track when someone makes a new top-level.)

— INFORMATION may publicly be shared between characters at the bulletin board in the town hall. This is meant to be a permanent place for pieces of the Mathias puzzle to be shared and archived to both help information be shared ICly and to allow new players to easily dive into the mystery.

— THE CALENDAR has been updated through the end of the year. With the approaching holiday season, we will continue a lighter log schedule, but as always, players are welcome to create their own logs, conduct intensive investigators, and make more terrible decisions. (The mod is always happy to enable these shenanigans, never hesitate to reach out with ideas.)

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE LOG?

HOUSING DESIGN/EXPLORATION

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Comments

Malcolm Bright - Day 12 Closed and OTA

[abrightboy]

Very Wee Hours and into Morning - Closed to Raylan Givens and Doc Holliday

Malcolm had fallen asleep on the floor of the screened in porch, his empty glass nearby. The alcohol didn't do anything to silence the noise inside him. Not the voices that spoke to his worst fears and insecurities, not the buzzing that made him feel like his whole body was full of bees. But it did knock him the fuck out, eventually. He hadn't slept beyond nodding off for a few minutes here and there since he'd arrived and between being off his medication and sleep deprivation, he hadn't had much longer to function even a little bit if it weren't for the two cowboys who'd taken him in.

Hell, if it weren't for Raylan, he might have gone over the edge of those lighthouse stairs and been done with it.

It was well into the wee hours of the morning, by the time he started stirring in his sleep. At first, it was innocuous; a little tossing and turning. A little mumbling. Mumbling became words, spoken louder and louder. "No, don't. NO!" His arms lashing out, fighting something that wasn't there. He hit his glass into the wall beside it with one hand, but didn't wake when he cut himself. He rolled to his feet and ran, screaming, into the house, crashing into the kitchen as he fell over a chair in his path and still not awake as he continued to fight with whatever he imagined knocked him over. He left a path of blood drops from the porch to the kitchen. The scene, overall, looked worse than it probably was. It didn't help that he was still howling bloody murder.

Afternoon of Day 12 - OTA

At least, he thought it was afternoon. The rain had been drizzling on uniformly for what must have been hours by the time he found a raincoat in the house he'd chosen to shelter in and he put it on, venturing out into the grey to walk into town. He couldn't sit in one place. He needed... something. Something he knew wasn't there. But he was still going to look for it because he couldn't do nothing. [Catch him anywhere around town.]

[thering]

Doc was well and truly out after having more homebrew than any self-proclaimed day, afternoon and night drinker should really be having free and ready access to, but he had fallen asleep in the living room so the ruckus startled him awake from nearly the moment it began. Hands fly to a gun belt that isn't there, empty holsters taunting him as he pushes himself out of the couch and the world starts spinning on an uneven tilt.

For someone who's nursing one hell of a headache and who's still a little groggy from last night's binge, Doc somehow manages to hurry over towards Malcolm without tripping over himself or crashing into Malcolm. Even though he thinks he can manage this on his own, there's nothing he can do to help keep the commotion from awakening Raylan.

Is it a bad idea to try and restrain Malcolm? He does not know. It seems like the safest option, pushing aside all the nearby furniture and kicking away all the glasses and bottles within kicking range, getting around behind Malcolm and wrapping his arms around him, gripping onto his wrists, keeping his elbows down and out the way from any accidents even as blood starts trickling down the backs of Doc's hands. Just because Malcolm looks like a wiry fella doesn't mean it's easy holding him down.

"Whoa, hey--" Well, no use talking to him, he's fast asleep, but no point in staying silent either. "Ssshh shh shh. Easy now, son. It's alright. You're alright. Ain't nobody's gon' hurt you." And he'll cycle through as many soothing phrases as he knows even though the kicking and screaming is drowning his voice out.

God, he needs more hands to be doing this. And maybe rewind last night, cut that last bottle out.

[tinstar]

Raylan had opted to actually lie in a bed for the night but the rising screams was more than enough to throw him off it, eyes wild to match his hair as he sprinted to and out his door. The rush of pain to the front of his head hurt like hell but Raylan used it to focus down on the chaos. First glance, it was overturned furniture and flailing limbs and all of Malcolm's warnings from the night and day prior started running over a loudspeaker in the back of Raylan's head.

Well, this is what he gets for not believing someone when they say they're night wild in the first place.

Doc mighta had a handle on Malcolm's wrists and he'd noted the blood, but Raylan could well imagine Malcolm slamming his head back and doing more damage. In he stepped with a furious look, jaw tight, hand intent on getting around back of Malcolm's neck, off hand helping Doc hold down the closer arm. He wasn't furious, that was just the headache and the sharp awakening.

But the soothing whisper thing was a valid choice and Raylan could only hope that Malcolm responded to it. If he didn't, Raylan would fully cup his face and slap it lightly with a cupped hand. "Malcolm, c'mon, wake up."

[abrightboy]

A little further struggle and a howl giving way to a whimper of protest before he jerked awake, eyes opening wide and frightened as he looked around anxiously, realizing he was being restrained by two men, his weight still straining against their grasp because of the position he was in. His breathing was heavy and the pain from the lacerations to his hand was there, even if it throbbed dully amidst all the other pains: pain in his head from withdrawal and heavy liquor, pain in his chest from acute anxiety, pain in his stomach from panic and likely the fact that he'd barely eaten a thing since he arrived and then went on a drinking binge, pain in his arms and legs from running into furniture and being forcefully restrained, even though it almost certainly saved him worse injury.

The inner pain of acute embarrassment as he realized who was holding him and what must have happened.

He made himself relax, just so they would feel safe letting go of him as he looked around.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked roughly, his eyes widening in desperate alarm when he realized they both had blood on them.

[thering]

Doc grunts a wordless thanks for the assistance and continues rambling even when the young man wakes up and the struggling dies down fairly quickly, much to his relief.

"Oh, no. Things just got a little wild last night," Doc lies as he slowly lets go of Malcolm, pushing back a bit to put some distance between them. He gives Malcolm's upper arm a reassuring little squeeze before he slowly pushes himself up to his feet, trying to appear more alert and sober than he is really feeling.

"I'll fetch some water, and my first aid kits." Tugging his trousers up by the waistband, he reaches over to pull a few paper towels off the kitchen counter, shoving them into Raylan's hand. "Sorry to wake you, Marshal. Tried closing the door when you knocked out but there's fumes coming out that bathroom. Try and slow down the bleeding, would you?"

[tinstar]

Raylan glanced over at Doc as Malcolm startles back to consciousness. He was glad he was here, that they both were. Malcolm was clearly going to be a two man job. He sunk back onto his hunches, hands withdrawing and finally noticed the blood on his own hands. Huh. Well then, that was how this day was starting. Great.

Getting up to his feet as well, he glanced around the living room, suddenly happy he hadn't gotten any shards of glass in his bare feet. Still his eyes returned quickly to Malcolm like he might flip out again if he wasn't watched closely enough and he glanced over at Doc with a shake of his head. "Probably better that you didn't, I don't know that I woulda made it successfully through a door."

Squatting back down, Raylan held out his hand, gesturing for Malcolm's. "Alright, c'mon. Pass 'em over." No arguments were going to be tolerated, clearly.

[abrightboy]

First aid kits. Malcolm frowned and scooted back against the cabinets, still sitting on the floor, pulling his knees up to his chest. He didn't realize it was his hand that was bleeding yet, though he might have noticed the smear of blood he left on the tiles of the kitchen floor as he scooted, had he not found himself suddenly acutely aware of Raylan's shoulders. He might have been staring at one when Raylan told him to hand something over. It shook him out of his reverie and he blinked, then looked at Raylan's face.

"....What?"

[thering]

Yeah Malcolm will be forgiven for being a little slow on the uptake. They all are at this point, too drunk and too tired and too hung over for this. It takes Doc a while of rummaging around his collection of looted items in his as yet not unpacked duffel bag before he can find the first aid kits. One of them has no more bandages because he gave them to Daisy, but the other is still full.

He brings both with him to the bathroom before he remembers he needs a big bowl to collect water in. Masking a yawn against a closed fist, Doc sighs in his own disorganised state of mind, grabs the kits and some small towels before heading back out to the kitchen, glancing over at the boys to make sure they're alright on his way to the cupboard. There was a big metal bowl he used for an early stage of the brewing that he's now filling up with water in the sink.

The water that he pours into glasses for drinking comes as an afterthought. They'll all be needing some. This is not a situation that more bootleg liquor can fix.

[bestfuneralever]

Klaus is still new here, new enough that he's still trying to get a lay of the land, as it were. He's eternally glad for the long leather coat he'd had on him when he showed up here, it's proven quite handy during his first days in this strange little town. He has so many questions, and no one has much in the way of answers. Five had explained what he knew, which wasn't much, and Klaus had decided to just accept it as yet another weird side-trip in his life.

In his exploration, he finds himself at the video store, just idly glancing through VHS tapes, which don't actually strike him as all that odd or old because they were still widely used back home. He sighs in an overdramatic, bored manner, "Come ooonn. Isn't there something worth watching in this heap?" He whines to no one in particular.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm hadn't been in the video store before. It had seemed an unlikely place to look for a secret stash of Valium. He'd exhausted all avenues, though, and his withdrawal symptoms had dulled slightly. He was in the care of a doctor of sorts - whether he liked it or not - and he was starting to accept two things: magic was possibly real, at least where some people here were from, and that there was no chemical help for him in this town. It was the reemergence of his symptoms that really concerned him now and the way to counter that was to keep his mind busy, so he was exploring places he hadn't yet seen.

When he heard the overdramatic sigh, he stuck his head out around the aisle.

"What do you want to watch?" he asked.

[bestfuneralever]

"Christ on a cracker!" He jumps a mile out of his skin at the sudden voice in the room, hand flying to his chest in a futile effort to slow the jackhammer thundering beneath his ribs.

Despite his dramatics, he seems to recover quickly enough, hand dropping loosely back to his side and shoulders rolling upward in a shrug. "I don't know. Something good." Which is really not an answer at all.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm just watched him with curious eyes as he startled and then as he non-answered. He gestured mildly towards the cash register area. "There's porn in that cupboard behind the counter," he explained, as though that must be why someone would answer so vaguely.

[bestfuneralever]

He snorts at the response, "Oh, honey, if that's what I was looking for, I would have just said so." A shy bone does not exist in Klaus' body, though perhaps that isn't obvious on a first glance.

"I don't know..." he trails off, skimming the back of a video case and squinting at it. "Something funny would be good, probably."

[abrightboy]

"Probably good for morale, if nothing else," he agreed. "How long have you been here?"

He didn't recall seeing the man before, even in passing at the moonshine party.

Day 13 - OTA / Day 14 - Closed to Raylan Givens

[abrightboy]

Day 13

[Catch him around town or at home at 1306 Phillips Drive.]

Day 14

Raylan wanted to check out the library and Malcolm knew it pretty well. He had lived there for a little while. Also, Raylan was such a steady and calm figure, Malcolm liked his company. Unlike the hike to the forest, a walk into town seemed much more manageable and Raylan hadn't seemed averse to him tagging along.

"If they left their houses willingly," he was saying as they walked, "that would fit with the condition they're in, but how to explain the houses that are in an advanced state of decay? I haven't found a reasonable explanation for that yet."

[tinstar]

Raylan had books to return. In the quiet moments, he'd managed to get through two of them and needed something else to fill out his stock in case the one's he'd already snagged went too quickly. They were tucked under his arm, hidden in his jacket, as he strode next to Malcolm.

"That's a good question. John suggested that time is broken here. Maybe it affects those houses more harshly. That doesn't make any sense to me but apparently, our Sciences aren't covering all the possibilities of the worlds." Plural, not singular. "If you haven't seen the bulletin board in the Town Hall, there's a note that reads 'Why is this happening'. I dunno. First scan with the information we've got, best I have is that they left for their day like usual and were turned mad by.." Raylan's jaw flexed; he hated giving any credence to things he hadn't been convinced of. "Some kinda God."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm watched that flex of his jaw. He wasn’t comfortable with the notion, or maybe just the word.

“Well. By.... someone. A ‘god’ is usually just someone with power we don’t understand,” Malcolm suggested reasonably. “I’ve met more than one person who says they can do real, actual magic.”

[tinstar]

"God is bullshit," Raylan replied, a little too sharply than he intended to, and took a deep breath that he let out of his nose as they kept moving. Walking was good for him, gave him something to do with his body that wasn't simmering in his own angry juices.

"So've I. Still not sure I believe it. But they can't all be crazy. Alternate worlds ain't something I ever put any real thought into before, but I'm startin' to." That was the only reasonable path his pragmatic self could land on that didn't feel like an insane kind of lie.

"They show you an example yet?"

[abrightboy]

Well. Malcolm was no bible banger himself, but that reaction was more than atheism. Interesting.

"Nothing Earth-shattering. Quentin made a pebble disappear. And John... made himself disappear. He said his magic uses his own energy and when he tried to use it on the town, to find out what happened here, it drained him really quickly. Left him weak."

[tinstar]

Raylan glanced over and scoffed out a laugh behind a passing grin. "Nothing Earth shattering, huh? Quentin does card tricks too, means he does slight of hand. John making himself disappear is harder. You sound unconvinced."

Day 13 @ 1306

[thering]

After spending some time in the library in the day before, reading up on the information Malcolm had given him about his afflictions, Doc gathered up the useful flowers and herbs he could find from abandoned houses' gardens before hitting up the trees at the foot of the lighthouse. Negan had interrupted him in the midst of gathering willow bark, but he'd gotten enough to scatter around and leave to dry overnight.

Not much drying happening given the damp weather, even with putting them near a fire, but the flower buds and bark shards are good enough to be wrapped in a cloth parcel and given to Malcolm. Doc's put some bark chips aside in a glass jar and poured moonshine over it, sealed it shut, but that will take two months to become a proper tincture and he has no sense of time around here. It's a for later problem that he's stashed away in his room.

In the meantime, he knocks on Malcolm's door, cloth bundle in his other hand.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm was trying to get his routine back. He was twisted up in a complicated yoga pose, his eyes closed as he tried to concentrate on breathing. At the knock on the door, he called 'come in!', opening his eyes to glance over and see who it was and whether he needed to untwist.

[thering]

Well, you know. Doc wasn't sure what he was expecting when he opened the door and stepped in, but. At least Malcolm's fully clothed? Honestly that looks more stressful than whatever relief it is supposed to bring.

"I... could return. Later."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm put both his feet down, huffing a laugh as he dropped his arms and turned to look at Doc.

“Why? Are you afraid I’ll talk you into trying it?”

[thering]

"I could not do that," he says simply. It would frustrate him more than any kind of... calming effect? That was supposed to have.

"How are you feeling today? I hope you managed some sleep." It is hopefully better now that they have moved to a less volatile house where they aren't breathing in all that nasty vapour.