villagelogs | 012-014 » even the air itself was grey

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012-014 » even the air itself was grey

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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Willow bark. He'd never seen it before, but when Doc said the name, Malcolm's face lit with recognition.

"Salicin. It's an anti-inflammatory," he noted. "I'll try it; thank you." He bundled it back up and set it on the night stand.

"I've tried searching the houses and the public buildings and anywhere else I could find. Based on the period the town seems to have been abandoned, there should easily be a medication called 'Valium' found in some of the households. It was the first widely prescribed benzodiazepine and it was very common to see it handed out for stress and anxiety in the late Eighties. But I haven't found a single one. If you have better luck, it would really take the edge off," he admitted.

"Sure." There's plenty more trees left but it's not exactly fun or easy going at it with a butter knife, especially in this rainy gloomy weather. Efforts are probably better spent finding proper medication, finding a way to leave this place and all the rest of it.

"I'll keep an eye out, for 'valium'." Or anything else that might look... benzodiazepeney.

"I did see the lighthouse you and Raylan and visited. Couldn't find a way to get to it though. Struck me as... a little odd." One would have thought there would be a clearing at least or some kind of overgrown footpath, or stairs or something.

"Doesn't seem like anyone can walk to it. We woke up there. Someone wanted us to see it."

He gestured to the door behind Doc. "Want to get a cup of tea? Just... normal tea."

Must have been lonely for whoever lived there before. Assuming someone did man the lighthouse.

"Sure." It might not be his poison of choice but there is little point in living with people if you cannot be social with them. He's not big on talking, himself, but if Malcolm wants to, he is willing to listen.

He heads back towards the door and checks over his shoulder that Malcolm's tagging along before proceeding down the stairs.

"I'm not so sure these stairs are a great idea, if you ever do free yourself in your sleep."

"I've fallen down the stairs before," he noted matter-of-factly. "The first time, when I was fourteen, I got up and ran out the front door into traffic. A late night jogger tackled me out of the path of a car. My therapist suggested the restraints after that. My mother was screaming about it when she brought me to her office. I thought she was going to have an aneurysm. Anyway. I have a high pain tolerance and there's not much traffic around here."

"You would have recovered quicker when you were fourteen. And I do not wish to be having to mend any broken bones using whatever is available in the garage." So far - and he considers himself lucky for this given the accident prone nature of the company he finds himself entertaining in Mathias - it's only been scrapes, cuts and bruises. He's not sure he's ready for kitchen table surgery with butter knives and blowtorches.

"Let's try to get out of this town without falling or breaking anything." Or Doc will be the one having an aneurysm.

"That would be the ideal outcome," Malcolm agreed as they reached the kitchen. He went to the sink to fill the kettle and turned it on, then turned around and leaned on the counter to face Doc. "Though I guess the limitations on us make it more like frontier medicine than anything modern. You're probably the best equipped to deal with the big problems when they happen."

"I was a gunslinger first, professional gambler second. Doctor has not been high on that list for a long time." Still, that hasn't stopped him from trying. It seems as if Raylan's gone for a walk so they have the kitchen to themselves. Doc hovers on the other side of the counter, arms flat on the countertop as he crosses his ankles and breathes out a sigh.

"Given our current circumstances I suppose I should have stuck with that trade a little longer." That seems to be more useful around these parts than shooting with guns he does not have.

Malcolm considered him. "Why did you stop?" he asked curiously. "Most people who study medicine seem to be really... passionate about it."

He offers up just the slightest of shrugs at that, lifting one hand to scratch at the corner of his eyebrow.

"I had tuberculosis. Your priorities tend to change when you're coughing your lungs out. And then I met Wyatt. Them Earps are sommin' else, let me tell you." He hasn't told anyone other than Raylan. And Five found out on his own from a portrait in a library book. He doesn't mind if Malcolm knows. Doc's decided, with everyone being rather forthcoming and having all sorts of different levels of pure, unadulterated shit going on in their lives, there isn't much point in keeping secrets around here.

“Wyatt Earp..... are you Doc Holliday?” he asked. “How did you survive tuberculosis? My father was a heart surgeon, so I learned a lot about medicine when I was a kid.” So he could understand Doc’s answer without him simplifying it.

"I am." And he's afraid there is no simple answer to how he ended up here instead of six feet under with busted up lungs. He made a deal he did not fully understand the implications of with a lady he only knew back then as the Stone Witch. It was not his finest moment, in hindsight.

"A woman came to me on my deathbed. Said she could fix it. She asked for neither money nor favours. At that time, I had nothing to lose. I did not think to ask so many questions."

"Oooh, and now you're alive permanently," Malcolm concluded. "...Your world has magic, too?"

"No one would believe in magic unless they saw it before their own eyes. And even then." Doc is accepting of the fact that he has witnessed things beyond his comprehension and capabilities. Not everyone else is quite so accepting.

The water boils and for a moment Doc considers making himself useful before he decides against it, not wanting to be a useless ornament in the kitchen.

"I do not trust these magicians." Or wizards. Or whatever they are. "But we cannot afford to be picky with our allies here."

Malcolm poured the water into a teapot, dropping in a couple of teabags.

"It's something, though, that they also have no answers and no useful strategy," he pointed out, "even with all their power."

"They do not have much of it," Doc observes with a sigh. "Whether it is magic or something else. Miss Johnson hurt herself-..." Vibrating? "...doing what she can do. Number... Mister... Mister Number Five? Had me almost throwing up last week's dinner. And John Constantine, that-- man with the stupid suggestions. He could barely do his smoke trick. Either they are all frauds or something is... interfering with their various quirks." That's what he's calling those various abilities until he finds a better term.

"My telephone, it does not work here either. Though I suspect it was damaged in the water."

Malcolm pulled his own phone out of his pocket. "Mine doesn't work either. I mean, it works, as in it powers up and the non-phone functions work. But there's no network; it can't connect to anything."

He gestured towards Doc. "If you think your phone is water damaged, you should put it in a bowl of rice. That'll absorb the water out of it and it might work after that."

"Unh- truth be told I do not know how it works." It makes a sound if the ladies call him. And the gentlemen too, although it is almost always Wynonna, or Waverly.

He pulls it out of his front pocket and presents it to Malcolm, a 2015 model of a black smartphone testifying at least that he has spent some time in the 21st century. It's probably too late now to be trying the rice or any other technique but no harm giving it a go. Assuming there is rice to be found around these parts.

"I don't know why it's still in my pocket, truth be told," he confesses with a small laugh. "Used to make me jump every time it rang. Now I-... damn thing won't even turn on and I'm still waiting for a call."

Malcolm took it and turned it over in his hands, then opened the back and took the battery out.

"How long ago did it get wet?" he asked. "Did you arrive when Raylan did, dropped in the water?"

He set the battery on the counter, then took a bowl down from the cupboard, the started riffling through the pantry. "I'm sure I saw rice in here...." He looked over at Doc. "I don't usually go back to sleep after I... wake up." Wake up screaming. "I was poking around."

"Yes. Must have been... a week or so?" Doc offers vaguely with a shrug. "I got out of the water fast as I could, it was raining sommin' fierce, but I did not meet Raylan until the weather cleared up."

Those first few days were a little hectic. Doc had spent some time looking for familiar faces. It was only after he had convinced himself he arrived alone that he allowed himself to start preparing for what he needed to stick around this place for the long haul.

"This is a nice house. Hanging lampshades aside." The wooden one by the main entrance keeps attacking his hat. "Found anything interesting in your poking around?"

"Just the bungee cords in the garage and that the kitchen is well stocked with staples."

He poured rice into the bowl and nestled Doc's phone inside, leaving the back casing off, on the counter, next to the battery.

"We'll give it a try."

He glanced around. "I grew up in a big townhouse but I live in an open concept loft now. I don't need a lot of space; it's just me and a parakeet." He gestured to Doc. "Do you have a family at home?"

He's not familiar with these concepts, of townhouses and lofts. All he can surmise is that a parakeet does make for an interesting choice of companion.

"Everyone I knew is gone." Or so he has assumed, so far. He has not yet found out that Big Nose Kate is still alive.

"But I have a new family, yes. Wyatt's great great granddaughters have taken me in." That's... understating matters slightly, but he figures Malcolm is not interested in relationship drama.

"Has no one taken you in?" Apart from the parakeet who probably puts up with Malcolm because it gets fed regularly.

He poured the tea and handed a cup to Doc before picking up his own.

"I see my mother and sister all the time; they both live in the city. I work with my mentor, a lieutenant in Major Crimes at the NYPD. I have... people around. Just not." He gestured to the upstairs vaguely with his still shaky right hand. "At night." He clenched the hand into a fist and steadied it on the counter. "Raylan actually came in and tried to wake me up last night. I don't know how much of a good idea that was but... nobody's ever done it before if I wasn't... loose." Rampaging around blindly; a danger to himself and others.

"Thank you." He pulls the tea a little closer although he doesn't start drinking it just yet.

"Would it be better if we left you be?" Doc isn't sure what was safer. They are somewhat safer now knowing how Malcolm can get, knowing not to put anything breakable or sharp or have any obstacles in the way as much as possible, but if he's restrained and having one hell of a fit, he isn't sure if they should just let him ride it out or try to wake him and soothe the anguish.

It hadn't been unpleasant, waking up with Raylan's concern over him, though he was worried about hurting one of them sometime.

"The thing with parasomnias... they're largely considered inconsolable. It's hard to wake me up; I'm not just dreaming. I won't know it's you; I'll probably fight..." He took a breath and looked at Doc. "I don't want to hurt you."

He didn't want to say 'no, don't do it' but... he couldn't ask him to volunteer for a possible punch in the face.

"I'm physically safe, as long as I'm restrained."

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