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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Miss Johnson and I surmise Mister Coulson by association are... some kind of agents." Are they strictly law enforcement? Who knows. He did not ask too deeply. It is not like how things used to be, where you could make the rules up as you went along and if someone didn't agree with you, you were fine if you minded your own business - or could outdraw them, if things came to that. There are different rules these days that they need to be complying with.

"Now I cannot claim to have met everyone when I don't know who all has set up camp here, but I dare say that would be a quarter of us." Doc straightens up a bit and tugs his jeans up by the belt loop, not used to not having the familiar weight of his packed gun belt weighing his hips down.

"Where, pray tell, is everyone else? The accountants and the barbers, the blacksmiths and the barkeeps, the plumbers and the priests?"

"I've met Mr Coulson. I don't know a Miss Johnson. It's more if you count that John Constantine is some sort of private investigator," he acknowledged. "Do you think the assortment of people here gives a clue to their motives? Because you've got a point that they're not trying to populate a town if everyone fills the same role that, as a little community, we barely even need at all."

"She arrived at the same time as us. Had some injuries to her arms." It is implied that he saw to them as best he could. Doc doesn't mention that his complicated woman friend person from back home is also working for some kind of agency that is possibly government, possibly something else entirely, and he's... sort of freelancing. He does not approve of Black Badge, but. She never asked for his opinion, let alone of his approval.

"I do not have any... theories as to why we were chosen. Only that it- does not seem random. And I would argue that there are far more essential roles to maintain a town than 'agents'."

"But they've also made skills largely unnecessary, at least for survival. Food and shelter are provided. It's not like we need hunter-gatherers and carpenters," Malcolm pointed out.

"Have you seen some of these people in a kitchen?" Doc mutters, keeping his head inclined as he scratches at a spot above the bridge of his nose.

"I would argue that you need sleep for your survival. Yet I have not found a place that sells what you require."

“The drugs I take don’t mitigate my night terrors,” Malcolm told him. “Three or maybe four hours of sleep is pretty much a good night for me. The drugs mitigate... my other symptoms. Crippling anxiety, panic attacks, mania, hallucinations....” A beat. “To some degree,” he allowed. “But if other people are hearing things in the fog and in the back of the library, maybe that’s what they want: for us to be... unbalanced here.”

These words, they don't mean the same thing to Doc as they do to Malcolm. The symptoms, he is most definitely familiar with, but all these labels - there's... a lot of labels in there that probably don't mean what he thinks they mean.

"Honestly Mister Bright, I do not see that figuring this out would get us home." His hand moves to scratch at the corner of his lips. They all have many questions that they cannot find answers for. But even if there were answers for all the whys - why would anyone do this to anyone else, why are they here, why are they hearing things, why would you take away everyone's weapons before... dosing them with incidents to make them doubt themselves - none of them can get them to the how question, of how can they be getting back to where they came from.

"I think it safe to assume that we all would like to leave. Much as I have enjoyed our time together." He doesn't sound like he's merely being polite, but. That's probably part of the charm.

"Figuring out what they want is the first step in not giving it to them. Resistance may be the only tool we have. We can't see them or talk to them. We can't pull the curtain back. But if they're not getting what they want from us, maybe they'll let us go. We can only try to be more trouble than we're worth," Malcolm pointed out.

"Or they will take us out back and shoot us, bring in some other folks who will do what they want," Doc rather unhelpfully suggests with a tilt of his head in the other direction. He doesn't play games he can't win, and he believes that whoever is responsible for their current predicament would have the same mindset.

"Potentially. But the other option is that we just... what? Do what they want?" Malcolm said. "I don't like that either. Is there a third option?"

"It depends on what they want." He is a man who makes deals, with other men and women, with witches and demons, and he would not mind brokering one with whomever brought them here. You always get something you want in a deal, the only room for negotiation is the price point. He is happy to hear the offer out first before shutting it down, firmly or gently.

Of course, that is assuming that they will be given a choice in the matter.

"Let us worry about what is in front of us first. If we do find more information about our captors, we can deal with it then."

"What if what they want is for us to all go crazy and kill each other?" Malcolm proposed. "Like some sort of extra twisted Stanford prison experiment."

"I am not familiar with prison experiments." Which is not to say that he's never spent any time in jail, but. Any experiments he might have willingly or unwillingly participated in occurred outside those bars.

"But you are living with two men who already have blood on their hands," Doc points out. They may not be serial killers but they are very good with their guns, and they live in very grey areas. Doc was arguably of very sound mind every time he had pulled the trigger. He can't imagine Raylan wasn't, either.

"I do not wish for that to happen, or for anyone's death. But I had many chances to retire to a farm, raise chickens. I did not take them." Some asshole does not need to enumerate his list of sins and turn him away from the pearly gates for him to know his debts.

"If it comes to that, I will do my best to protect you. And I do not want my choices to weigh on your mind."

Malcolm just blinked at him for a second. His own protection had been the last thing on his mind.

“I... thank you. I’m...I’m actually fairly proficient in hand to hand.” He huffed a self-conscious laugh. “I know it’s hard to believe from a shaking wreck of cold sweats, but I’m usually more stable.”

Everyone's protection has been weighing heavily on Doc's mind. Especially the ladies, who are not defenceless by any stretch of the imagination, but he worries for them nonetheless. Miss Claire, Miss Ellie, Miss Daisy, Miss Zed, and who knows who else he hasn't yet had the chance to meet. Lives are precious. He should like to be able to save a few for once before his time is up.

"Would you kill me, if the time comes?" Doc asks, lifting his gaze from where he'd been touching the rim of his empty teacup like a claw, picking it up and putting it down absently to give his preferred smoking hand something to do.

Malcolm looked at him with a faint crease of his brow.

"I'm not a killer," he said firmly. "And since I'm used to having my head fucked, if something like that is their endgame, I think they'll find I'm actually a tougher nut to crack, not an easier one."

"Well then. We may need to count on you, Mister Bright." Because Doc, he's-... probably a little more trigger happy than he's willing to admit. And he might not have his guns here, but there's no guarantees as to what he would not be willing to do the longer they're stuck here.

Malcolm laughed lightly down into his teacup.

"The protectee becomes the protector?" He looked at Doc. "You're a good person. I'm not worried."

"Hnh." Doc drags his empty cup off the counter and goes around to join Malcolm on the other side, filling it up with water. He doesn't only drink terrible alcohol.

"And you, sir, are a terrible judge of character."

"I'm actually a really good judge of character," Malcolm told him matter-of-factly. "It's literally what I do. But the fact that whatever you've done - the lives you've taken - weigh so heavily on you only proves me right, not wrong. Psychopaths? They don't feel remorse for the swathes of damage they cut in people's lives. I've looked those sorts of people in the eyes a lot of times and I can tell you that you're not them."

"I have never hesitated, and I sleep better at night for having put some of those people in the dirt. One does not need to be a psychopath to be capable of causing others misery. One need only be... selfish. Cowardly. Misguided." Doc had been talking towards the sink, but he turns to look at Malcolm.

"You only see two friendly cowboys because that is what we want you to see." Doc would not claim to know the Marshal but he can promise that they have only played two of their cards out of their full hands, and the game has barely started.

"Those people you put in the dirt? How many people did stopping them save?" Malcolm asked, not addressing the accusation of wishful thinking. He fully believed Doc and Raylan had killed, but he didn't believe for a second that they were murderers. Murderers weren't kind.

"We'll never know. And that is a slope you do not want to be sliding down on." Blood looks like blood on your hands wherever it comes from. There is no difference between hero, killer, soldier, or murderer.

"I appreciate that you would like to see us as different from killers, serial or otherwise. You must, because you cannot accept living with a couple of killers. But we do not shoot for sport. At the end of the day, people are dead, and we did put them there." And if he was honest with himself, he misses having his guns. He understands the addictiveness of that power to take away someone else's life. He gets that itch, looking for something nasty to shoot. He just doesn't want to talk about it. There are a great many things he doesn't want to talk about.

"And I appreciate why you have to see yourself as a villain. Killing is a weird power trip that can make you feel good and bad at the same time, if you have any morals at all. People are complicated."

Malcolm shrugged, setting his cup down and looking at Doc. "So why did you help me?"

The hat stops him from running his hand through his hair properly, an unconscious tell that is always accompanied with a sigh. He still passes the backs of his curled fingers over the inch and a bit of hair he does have access to over the top of his ear. His hand lingers on the back of his neck and he shrugs, giving the stiff muscle a squeeze before lowering his hand again to grip the edge of the counter.

"Because you looked like you needed help." Need there be any other reason? He doubts Raylan can manage looking out for Malcolm on his own, despite the marshal's protestations.

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