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

PING THE MOD

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Threaded | Flat

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.]

I. Arrival Forest edge/in town - closed to

fika

{In a land so unfamiliar

Klaus Hargreeves is no stranger to waking up in unfamiliar places with no memory of how he got there, or those places even occasionally being outside. However, he hasn't actually been living that life for awhile now. Sure, he started imbibing a bit here and there, but can anyone blame a guy for needing a little something to take the edge off of a second Apocalypse? Surely not.

Still. There is really nothing in his last recollections that add up to "passed out at the edge of a forest". They were all set to go back home, to their proper timeline, Apocalypse Numero Dos pleasantly averted, lives back to... well, the Hargreeves had never had normal, had they? So maybe this just tracks with the way the rest of his life has gone.

He groans and pushes himself to a sitting position, trying to get his bearings. Harder than he'd like to manage, considering all the dense fog surrounding the place. He groans again, a little higher-pitched, drawn out longer to be more of a whine this time as he pulls himself up to his feet and dusts the seat of his pants off. "What Stephen King fuckery is this?" he mutters to himself as he starts off in the direction that looks like it might be hiding civilization of some kind.

II. Exploring Various - OTA

{A deep unrest crawls under my skin

Getting the cliffnotes version of things from Five has left Klaus more curious than he already was by virtue of where and how he woke up, so it's probably not too surprising that he decides to wander around and scope the weird little town out.

He stops by the General Store to take a peek at the sort of things that are stocked there. He plucks a pack of cigarettes from the stash along with a lighter and a bottle of Fufu Berry Jones Soda. "I haven't seen these in years," he laughs to himself on his way out of the store.

One might also catch him at the Beauty Shop, where he carefully nicks a bottle of black nail polish and eyeliner that he slips into his pocket for later as he looks around at the stock of the place. Most of it is pretty outdated, but Klaus could hardly care.

Perhaps you catch him between his explorations, or somewhere else all together. He can be found just about anywhere, as he tries to get a feel for the town.

III. Settling Boarding House - OTA

{It's so hard to find a soft place to land

Klaus spent a large majority of his life flitting from one place to another after the Academy disbanded. Permanent living space was never much of a thing, when he floated between parties and couches alike. In fact, the most stable he'd been was with Destiny's Children, and that... was sure a trip and a half, wasn't it? Even if he's still mostly confused about everything in this place, he finds it easy enough to settle in at the boarding house, where his brother absolutely demanded he stay. Strange, tiny, angry grandpa that his brother is, he'd been here longer, and Klaus really didn't have a problem with deferring to his request at this point.

Over these first few days, he can be found snooping around downstairs, trying unsuccessfully to get into the locked door on the third floor, hogging time in the bathroom on the second floor, or downstairs in the living area, painting his nails a lovely shade of black.

IV. Wildcard
Plot with me here/on discord @ loyalwolf#3540, or just throw something at me!

Edited 2020-11-08 20:50 (UTC)

( Want to plot? Drop a line over at the OOC Comment or ping me over at

whisperstars! )

BELATEDLY—

Use this space to ask general questions about this log and the circumstances or locations presented within. Please direct more broad game questions to the FAQ.

MOD FORGOT THESE—

Use this space to claim a house for layout designing or exploration. Players are welcome to "claim" a house and then add/edit comments to provide details later.

Because there are just too many numbers to list, simply specify a street and the general state of the house you'd like to claim/explore and the mod will provide your house number. If you need to update your housing location, you can now do that over here!

AND NO ONE SAID ANYTHING—

Use this space to ping the mod to weigh in on your thread, such as if your character is searching quite specifically in a location, interacting with something that requires feedback, or you'd like to use one of your AP rewards, like Spot Hidden.

(Plotting post here)

🥀 DAY 12

[ cw: blood and finger mutilation mentions probably! ]

CLOSED TO ELLIE. Thomas is bleeding. It seemed worse on Erisden, more pressing, but just because the flow has been somewhat halted doesn't make the pain any less. He remembers smashing his one precious bottle of laudanum just a day ago, and wishes he hadn't, wishes it had still been with him, even if taking it until it ran out would only delay the inevitable. But pain or no pain, halfway to healing or not, that doesn't mean he's stopped bleeding.

It's his fingers that are causing the most problems. The wounds in his side have gone dry, but his fingers — or the places where they used to be, the mottled three stumps and the torn flesh of his hand — are still dripping blood, oozing through the makeshift bandage he'd applied. It's easy to ignore the throb of hurt because that's everywhere, universal to his body, but the drip of blood is irritating enough to become torture after long enough. He's made some attempts at exploring this strange town, its steadily relentless rain something of a blessing, but his leg has gone stiff again, and so he stops outside the steps of the town hall and sits himself down.

Along the path he walked up to the hall, dotted here and there over the ground as if they'd been following him, are tiny sprigs of grass growing seemingly out of nowhere, between the cracks in the paving. The blood still dripping steadily from his hand lands on the stone step beside him, but it doesn't have enough time to pool before a slowly spreading patch of moss campion begins to flourish there, first just greenery until it begins to blossom with little pink flowers. Thomas, staring ahead of him, is yet to notice.

🥀 DAY 13

TOWN HALL. The rain hasn't let up. It seems like it never will. Thomas doesn't mind it, really, and it certainly won't stop him making a more detailed round of this place. One "night" of what could only loosely be termed sleep wasn't enough to settle him completely, so his first stop is the town hall again, this time to leave a message on the bulletin board. With that done, Thomas starts a more thorough exploration of the town hall, and can be found going from office to office, peering in each door and sometimes stepping inside to take a closer look. There's a distinct air of bafflement on his face as he inspects some of the more modern appliances, especially in the kitchenette, such as the microwave, the fridge, and the coffee machine.

LIBRARY. His next stop is the library. Most of the books at the front half are unfamiliar to him, but it's these rather than the musty old books further back that catch his attention — biographies of people he doesn't know, histories of years that have not yet come to pass for him. He hefts a book on tank warfare in the Second World War (an ominous subject indeed) from the shelf and places it on a table to look through it, but he can't bring himself to crack open the cover. Anyone nearby will find him staring in very deep thought at the cover alone, his brow heavily furrowed.

GENERAL STORE. A lot of the items in this shop are equally unfamiliar to him, and the more he sees of this town, the less he understands of it. Everything is very bright and very colourful, and when he pops open a can of soda with an ingenious ring-pull mechanism in the top and has a very careful sip, he's assaulted by its oversweet taste and fizz. In an extremely undignified manner, Thomas spits out his mouthful of Coke all over the floor.

REEL RENTALS. Thomas has gone methodically from building to building and given each one as thorough an inspection as he can manage, but it's this place that mystifies him more than anything else. It looks at first glance like a bookshop, only the books when opened are not full of pages but a strange device with two holes in it that turn when he sticks his finger in one and pushes. For anyone else looking around in here, he has only one question: "Excuse me. What on earth is this?"

THE GREY GULL. No alcohol. Well, he doesn't know what he expected. Thomas sits down at the bar in any case, elbows on the surface, his forehead resting in his one good hand, looking for all the world like a corpse that died sitting up, held upright by rigor mortis alone. To company, he has only a clipped, slightly hostile stare. Approach warily.

🥀 DAY 14

One full day he's been here now, and his sleep was slightly more restful on the second night. He wakes with determination. No more meandering fruitlessly from building to building, assaulted with confusion over practically every object he finds. He heard Jennifer's voice coming from somewhere in the forest, and it would be a betrayal of everything he holds dear to ignore it. Even if it's his own mind, he must rule out every other possibility.

So Thomas gets dressed and heads outside, striding with singleminded purpose to the forest. He'd stumbled out of it two days ago and pushed all thoughts of returning out of his mind, but now there's nothing to do but walk right in.

🥀 WILDCARD

[ i'm up for just having your character run into thomas in the middle of the street or at the boarding house or something! just hit me up on plurk (crowders) or discord if you wanna plot something, or toss it right in here, no rules just right! ]

( closed starters below as i arrive late as hell to this log. )

A; day 13 for Zed

This morning, in the Grey Gull, Ellie decides to chill there (though less literally today than some other days, thankfully) with her journal. She's sketching on a page, nothing too fancy or thought out. After awhile, the eerie visage of Mathias Township appears on the page, hidden in pieces by shaded fog. She's a pretty good artist, and she has a talent for capturing the feel of places like this. It's probably because she's been raised in a nightmare world already, so she's used to things just being weird, tense, and terrible.

She's pretty absorbed in this drawing process, and in writing little snippets of words next to it, things she hears in her head a little like song lyrics. She really should see if she can find a guitar anywhere.

B; day 14 for Rey

Ellie has always liked movies. It's so weird to think about what the world must have been like before she was born, before everything went to shit and the Infection spread everywhere. She can barely imagine what goes into making movies, let alone things like theatres. Sure, she's been inside movie theatres but they're all rundown now, torn up and abandoned and decaying like pretty much everything else.

The rental store seems ludicrous to her here, still full of movies like it's just waiting to do business again. Well, at least it gives them something to do in the boring, dreary nights while they're stuck here.

So she brings a couple home. Of course, she doesn't have any idea what Rey's home world is like, or if they have anything like movies. She just picks one that she likes a lot out of the pile, something that isn't full of dreary death necessarily but has some fun times and also a hot lady lead: Tomb Raider.

She finds Rey in the living room.

"Hey, uh...I was gonna see if the TV works to watch a movie. You wanna join?"

Threaded | Flat

Malcolm Bright - Day 12 Closed and OTA