018-020 » what he hides

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Western Mathias.
WHEN: Days 018-020
WHAT: The fog recedes!
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Graham Plowman "Edge of Darkness"

DAYS 018-020
THE HIDDEN REVEALED
“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
— Benjamin Franklin

As the sun rises in the distance above the sea, the fog slips away from the unsettling town, winding through streets and across buildings until it is nestled soundly in the forest. There it waits, ready to snare any who dare test its limits — residents would do well to remember what happened the last time they encountered the fog so intimately.

With the fog receded, the western portion of Mathias is now revealed and available for exploring. There are more businesses on the town square and even some on the street that runs off the square. The schoolhouse is nestled by the southern treeline, not from the little makeshift cemetery at the end of Jackson Boulevard that is courtesy of a few kind residents in town. To the far north of the square is a sprawling garden, now covered in snow, and a greenhouse that once supplied the botanical shop. And to the west, beyond the square, is another residential district of the same size as that to the east. What is different, however...

These buildings are all in some form of decay. From the beginnings of rot to completely collapsed and little more than a pile of proverbial bones, none of these homes are anything resembling livable. Well, as far as one can tell, at least. For between the streets of Hill Lane and Stine road there is a crack in the earth. A dozen feet across and fifty feet down, the crack extends from one side of the forest to the other, either end cut off by the fog. The view to the other side is clear but there is no way across.


THE NEW ARRIVALS
There are quite a few new faces in Mathias on this day. Awaking throughout Day 018, they will find themselves laying in the snow beside that unsettling crack in the earth, houses both quaint and decaying surrounding them as the snow begins to cover their bodies. Best get inside and warm up, dears.

SPECTRES IN THE NIGHT
The days are short now that winter seems to have set in unseasonably early. Though the clocks in Mathias fail to properly keep time or sometimes even work at all, the sun rises around 8:00am and sets at 5:00pm. There is far more darkness than light in these days, but in that darkness there is, in fact, light.

In the distance all across Mathias, there are lanterns lit against that darkness. Their lights dance across the snow, the warm flickering shining like tiny stars and offering an almost ethereal glow to the crisp white snow. It would be a beautiful sight to behold... if it weren't for the shadowy figures that held them. With partially raised arms, the figures hold the lanterns and walk the streets of Mathias, drifting in between buildings and disappearing into the forest. Still yet, there are some that simply stand in place, as if waiting for something or someone.

No matter where or when these figures are seen, they always seem to be facing away from our residents, and attempts at reaching them are all for naught. They will fade from view if one gets too close, and return to sight when that distance is regained. And in the morning, those lanterns may be found in the snow, their lights extinguished but their glass somehow still warm.

STRANGER IN THE SNOW
Those investigating the western part of Mathias and venturing near that inexplicable crack in the earth will have the most unsettling feeling of being watched. Most of the time, there is nothing there and no one to be seen, but then—

On the other side of that expanse, sitting on a porch, in the shadow of a home, or standing in the oddly moonlit street, there is a man. His features are shrouded in darkness and not much can be discerned about him, but instinct tells you he is dangerous. There is a sense deep in your bones that he is maliciously amused.

He makes no move to speak, nor will he respond to any attempts on your part. Instead, he sits, or he stands, and he watches. By the end of Day 020, all sign of him will be gone, along with the eerie feeling of being watched.

---

LOCATIONS

Unless otherwise noted, all new locations have working electricity and other utilities.

BENEDICT BOOKS Nestled quaintly on the square surrounding the Town Hall, a thick layer of dirt covering the front windows. A portrait hangs at the front of the store to illustrate the namesake of the little shop... that may, in fact, not be so little. Dust covers everything in sight and detritus litters the wooden floor, as if someone left the door open and allowed half the forest inside. (more info)

MATHESON ANTIQUES Also on the town square is an antique store that is a lesson in chaos more than culture. The items within are stacked haphazardly, creating narrow aisles running throughout the space. Furniture, light fixtures, old revolutionary and civil war memorabilia, all of it is jumbled together with no rhyme or reason. Indeed, one wrong move could create an avalanche of aged wood and peeling paint.

POE'S CLOTHES Located on the town square, this shop carries only the basics. Loose jeans in a few sizes, khakis, solid color dress shirts and blouses, flannel in various styles, socks and underwear.

SPIN RIGHT ROUND RECORDS On the square across from the beauty store, the music shop is as dusty as everything else in this town has been. Tables line the walls of the long shop, filled with rows and rows of vinyl records, while a few wall shelves display cassette tapes for sale. One side of the store is for New items, while the other holds the Used section with items for resale. Residents may recognize some of the artists but many are unfamiliar to them.

CLINIC Outside the decayed, crumbling building just north of the square is a still miraculously intact sign with the name of the clinic's doctor, Dr. Ken Suzuki. There is no way to treat patients in this location, but with care, some salvageable supplies may yet be found in the remains.

BARKER BOTANICALS Not quite a flower shop and not entirely an apothecary, the botanical store to the far north of the square is something of an amalgamation of both. With a few broken windows to let in the rain, parts of the shop have been overtaken by nature, the house plants growing beyond their pots and rotted flower petals littering the floor to tell of seasons past. The still unclaimed walls are filled with decaying plants and jars of dried herbs and other vegetation, along with a few essences and tinctures.

GREENHOUSE A few dozen yards from the botanicals shop is a sprawling garden, now covered in snow, and a greenhouse that once supplied the botanical shop. The glass is still miraculously intact, though covered in grime so thick that one cannot see inside.

GALLERY The gallery is essentially a large empty space with framed and matted black and white photographs of the town lining the walls. There is a small selected of prints available for sale near the front entrance, and a few rooms at the back of the building — a dark room for developing photos, a small office, and a locked room.

MOVIE THEATER This single-screen theater is quite small, having only 40 seats, but there is a large collection of movies in its storage room. These are all old film reels however, so hopefully someone knows how to thread a film projector.

HISTORY MUSEUM Across the street from the Historical Society, this once esteemed wooden building has seen better days. Windows and doors are boarded up and there is visible rot and decay on the exterior walls. Part of the roof has fallen in and the accumulating snow threatens to collapse the rest of it as well. It is not wise to venture within.

HISTORICAL SOCIETY This brick building has also seen better days, though in a different sort of way. Where once had been carefully cataloged collections and cozy reading rooms for aficionados of local history, there are now stacks of bankers boxes and weathered tomes in every nook and cranny. There is no organization to any of it, everything seeming to have been stashed in a hurry and then left forgotten. Anyone who dares to dive into this archive will need to devote quite some time in order to find anything worthwhile. They will also want to bring their own light source — the electricity does not work here and the windows are quite dark from the accumulated dust and grime.

SCHOOLHOUSE A much smaller school than most of our residents might be used to, there are only a half-dozen rooms in the building, with a few comprising classrooms, meeting areas, and workspaces. All ages were taught here, and one might almost imagine the sound of children's whispered voices and distant laughter while within the empty building.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— SNOW continues to fall in Mathias. Days 18-19 see light snowfall that very slowly accumulates, but the snowfall turns moderately heavy on Day 20 and sees significant accumulation. The temperature hovers just below freezing and dips lower when the sun goes down.

— 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.

— THE FOG has receded from the town proper and much of the eastern and northern beach. The path through the northern forest to the lighthouse is now also clear.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue to plague the town. While Daisy Johnson has returned, Zed Martin, Rey, and Quentin Coldwater have now vanished without a trace.

OOC UPDATES

— MADNESS has now been unlocked. Congratulations to Inky for Claire earning the first Madness! Who will be next? (Please be sure to keep your sanity updated regularly; Stars has created an amazing tracker for anyone to use if they'd like.)

— HELPERS are officially in residence! Kelly is our Registrar and Stars is our Librarian — both of these delightful members of our community are helping behind the scenes to keep things organized and updated (and doing wonders for the mod's own sanity levels), so please give them some thanks for their hard work!

— REPORTING updates is still a thing that your mod and helpers beg you to do. Changes to locations, plot notes that affect the community, and discoveries should be reported over here so these can all be noted in their appropriate places. (For clarification, reported Discoveries are not public knowledge unless a character has ICly shared this information.)

— A MAP of Mathias now exists, thanks to our wonderful Librarian! Please note that it is not to scale and there may be a few minor errors due to your frazzled mod. Expect updates in the future as more secrets are revealed.

— BULLETIN BOARD — don't forget about it. That's all.

CLAIMING AP REWARDS

Normally, only one AP reward can be claimed per log, but due to the plethora of new and old locations to explore, this restriction is being relaxed. Instead, for this log only:

— Players may spend AP on up to three rewards, though only Spot Hidden may be repeated.
— If a player is spending multiple Spot Hiddens, they must be with different characters and in different locations.

If two characters are investigating the same location together, they may each spend a Spot Hidden on that location. Players should record their spent AP after the AP request has been approved. Sometimes there is nothing to Spot with your Hidden and the points will be "refunded" to use elsewhere.

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Comments

[tinstar]

"I'll havta double check, but I think I saw orange juice. You can look if you want," he invited with a lift of his chin towards the other refrigerator, one that didn't hold copious amounts of eggs and meats. "Veganism is an dietary choice that seems to be pickin' up steam. A repudiation of all animal based products. Bad news for a breakfast like this. Great for avocado sales though," he said, eyebrows almost rolling in their respective arches.

It was always hard to make pancakes for just one person, so Raylan was pretty pleased with the surprise of company willing to eat. He could make it look like he was just that good without having to admit he'd accidently made too much.

He scoffed at the question, smiling broadly with an amused sidelong look. "Not really, no. I don't sleep much myself, not here, but so I'm up early." Raylan wouldn't say it was because one of screaming night terrors. If Ellie hadn't heard them and maybe didn't know, it was likely better to keep it that way.

"My house doesn't have a griddle or bacon stock.. Or the perfect kinda side of the road coffee as this place, which is surprisin'. I'd assume they all had the same kinda coffee, if they had any at all."

[enduresurvive]

She takes that invitation and goes to look in the fridge. She's still astounded, even after almost three weeks, at how much there is here. It seems to sort of...replenish itself somehow. She has no idea how long that's going to keep up and she tries not to think about it. But for now, there's a lot of food to go around and it's wild.

There is, in fact, orange juice. She pulls that out and finds a glass to pour some in. "This probably sucks with coffee, but you want any?"

She busies herself with that, quiet for a moment.

"So...people where you're from just decided they don't eat animal products. Meat, you mean? Or like they don't eat eggs? What the fuck." It makes no sense to her, of course, and it probably never will. Scarcity means less choice on things like that. She's pretty sure anyone around her age or younger, people who were born after the infection, would have the same reaction. She wonders if Joel knew anything about veganism, if that was a thing when he was younger. Not that she could ever ask him now.

That thought threatens to choke her and she just stares into her glass for a moment.

"Guess probably no one here sleeps all that well," she says.

"Who the fuck keeps putting the food back? I've never seen anyone else. But we haven't run out and it's not bad or anything. This place is so crazy."

[tinstar]

"Nah, thank you," he declined politely, pulling off a few pancakes and pouring out several more. While she busied herself, he put the finished 3 cakes on a plate, along with a couple pieces of bacon and a fried egg. The other two eggs he'd fried were moved onto a plate for him, while the rest of the bacon was moved onto a third plate that the rest of the pancakes would be stacked on.

He liked the busyness of cooking, generally speaking, though Mathis was making him appreciate it that much more.

"Some people opt to not eat meat. Some opt to take it a step further and reject all animal products. Butter, milk, honey. The statement against industrialized farmin' is understanding, they treat those animals like hell but I can't get behind optin' out all together. Plus, I like meat too much," he offered with a smile and a shrug before he looked at the fridge.

"Can't say I've got any answers for that but I've stopped questionin' it. We got plenty to question if we need it. Figure it's gotta be more of this 'magic' thing everyone else seems to know about if nothin' else. Though if I think to hard about that what little sleep I do get will be gone."

[enduresurvive]

"Why would people not want something like butter or honey?" she asks, even more confused. Not honey? Who the fuck wouldn't want that? Honey is great.

"I don't know anything about 'industrialized farming'," she says, with a small amount of sceptical mockery, "but I guess it's not a thing anymore where we are. We just kill and eat our animals but as long as we get them before Infected do, they have pretty good lives." All of Jackson's animals are well taken care of, and that's all she's really known of things like that.

"But I like meat, too. I can't imagine just deciding I don't want it anymore."

She nods at his answer, because he has a point. If they ask how about everything, they'll probably never get anywhere. "I don't know fuck all about magic either," she says. "So...I guess you're right. We should just enjoy the food until they stop letting us have any. Whoever the hell they are."

[tinstar]

Raylan shrugged with a shake of his head. "Free, aside from labor for collection, no harm to them... Beats the hell outta me." He supposed he could understand the text of it but not the drive.

"But good. Probably means good things for the planet, and for the poor creatures not kept that way." He'd agree it was a problem but not one he could solve, nor was he interested in getting into the business of solving those problems. He was in the career he belonged in and it wasn't up to his ass in pig shit.

Flipping the pancakes, he glanced over side long. "Kinda a comfort, to hear that. Seems our numbers are startin' to split a little more evenly over those of us that do and don't know. Not that our side can argue it, considerin' the fog."

The fog and the dead he'd had to bury because of it. Claire's face was still haunting him and he doubted that would stop anytime soon either.

"And so, breakfast," he declared with a nod. "Lemme get you a fork and knife, shit-" he continued suddenly, wiping his fingers off on his jeans as he stepped over to pull some forks out, handing her one while he set the other on his awaiting plate.

[enduresurvive]

"Guess so," Ellie agrees. It's hard to think of anything being better for the world where she comes from, but she's heard about brown pollution clouds and shit like that. Those clouds are long gone. She figures they probably suck less than spores, but it is what it is.

She takes the plate, then the fork. What is it about people feeding her lately? Well, that's fine. It gets her to eat more than she would on her own, that's for sure.

"Do you think it'll happen to us too? That shit with the fog, I mean."

[tinstar]

The way of the world - it is what it is - was the way Raylan thought about it. There was nothing to be done about the suffering of the times except survive them, that long standing dance between humanity and the state of the world.

He kept his attention on the pancakes he was babysitting at the question, keeping his features carefully schooled and his shoulders still. "Might, we don't play things right." With a new question in mind, he looked over. "What happened to you that night?"

He would have offered a fraction of his own experience but LEO's were trained to not ask leading questions.

[enduresurvive]

She watches the way he doesn't look at her right away. Well, if she were him, she'd probably be the same. It's rough to look at people when you're in your feelings too much. She spent the time between Joel's death and the day she and Dina left avoiding people's eyes because she couldn't stand to look at anyone.

"I don’t know," she answers with a shrug. "Nothing. I mean, there was this creepy fucking phone call. But that was it. I answered it because I thought it was Claire or someone. After that, though, nothing else was weird. Rey and I went to sleep." On some level, sleeping through everyone dying around them really sucks. On another, well...she knows it can be so, so much worse.

"What about you? What happened?"

[tinstar]

His own death wasn't something that bothered him; it hadn't for a long time. He'd come to peace with what was coming down the pipeline for him, one way or the other. But everyone else - burying that many people with no answers, reliving the funerals he had and hadn't missed, was weighing.

Raylan nodded at her answer, flipping his pancakes before looking over. "Our house was already up for the day, by and large. Malcolm answered the phone. It told him to stay inside. Not long after, we heard the windows blow in next door. Every door that was empty plus some that weren't." The pancakes were scraped off and set on his plate. Once he gave the griddle a scrape, he set the spatula down to trade it for his plate that he moved over to stand across from her.

"While it said don't go outside, damned if John Henry and I didn't try anyway. We got him back inside before he got to far and shut the doors til dawn." Then they went about finding near a third of the town, horrifically dead.

And here they were, talking about it over breakfast like it was a sports game the night before. But Raylan couldn't talk about it any other way then a casual offhanded, 'hows the weather' tone without letting more of himself slip through than he wanted.

[enduresurvive]

"We didn't hear anything else, I think. Lucky us," Ellie answers. She mostly pushes her food around, suddenly struggling with the idea of eating. She should, of course. Eating is important, she knows. And Raylan was nice enough to share. Ugh, everything is hard just now, though.

She has maybe a little less detachment than Raylan, but she's used to death. She's desensitised about it on an abstract level. On a more personal level, she's glad it wasn't her who'd found any of those bodies.

"Five said he thought the phone was the thing that saved us, somehow," she adds. "Who the fuck knows how that worked, but...sounds like he was right."

[tinstar]

"Well someone around this place deserves to have to at least one night of half decent sleep," he replies, cutting into his food and taking a bite. His appetite suffered none from being here and the second it did, people around him would know something is wrong. But if Ellie didn't eat, he wouldn't take any offense to it; this place was messing with everyone and if he had to put bets down that others were also scraping along on eating nearly nothing, he would.

"Seems to be so. The ones that answered survived. The ones that didn't, or places where no one was home..." Well, their end was evident.

He looked up at her from under his eyebrows. "I know okay is largely relative right now but. You holdin' in there?"

[enduresurvive]

"You don't know what was out there, do you? In the fog?" she asks. Apparently not everyone who went out ended up dead, somehow, so there must have been something that killed everyone. People don't just drop dead from nothing as far as she knows. But then nothing about this town seems anything like she knows. Her experience is limited to her own world, just like everyone else's is.

She shrugs and makes herself take a bite. The pancakes are good, she just doesn't have a taste for food right now.

"I'm alive," she says, which is self-evident. "Sometimes that's all there is. You...seem okay. Relatively."

[tinstar]

If someone had survived going out into the fog, it would be the first that Raylan was hearing about it. He shook his head as he cut another bite. "I think it was the Fog. Malcolm thinks that there were chemicals in it; I don't know how well that holds up. Enough Fog to take over the whole town would be hard to infect with that kinda of chemical. John thinks it's a lesser god playing with us like dolls - that holds a little more water, considerin' the state of the place.."

He glanced up at her from under his eyebrows with a bare pull of a smile. "Alive is better than the alternative." He followed it with a shrug and a look back down at his plate as he moved his next bite around, feigning trying to get it to fit properly on his fork. "Eh. You know what they say. What doesn't kill you makes you better prepared for next time. I wouldn't be mad if I never had to bury someone else by hand again, I'll tell you that."

The funerals, the deaths, the simple act of tending to the dead - that bothered him more than all these things that he didn't have answers for. A pragmatic allotment of his energies.

[enduresurvive]

She considers the fog thing. None of it makes sense to her, and she hadn't even started to go outside, so who knows? The fog has receded, but...well, it could come back. It's obviously not regular fog either way.

"You buried them?" Ellie asks. Of course she realises on some level that someone did, but she didn't go looking. "I guess...yeah, if you have bodies, burying them makes sense. We couldn't bury everyone back home. Sometimes you just had to run and leave them. That fucking sucks, though." She thinks of how she'd had to leave Sparkle behind, a horse she loved. There was no way to take care of her body. That's just a horse, but it's not different. The same thing happens to people. She knows more people who just got left somewhere than ones in actual graves.

"Burying people fucking sucks too, though. I...guess I hope no one goes wandering around in this place's bullshit weather anymore."

[tinstar]

"Doc and I, yeah." He looked up under his eyebrows as she continued. "It all fuckin' sucks," Raylan agreed.

"I'd rather have to bury them than leave them and someone had to put them underground. But somehow, I don't think that the trauma of dying has taught any lessons. We'll see, I suppose. Next time apparently, half the people want a pyre built. Never had to consider zombies before so it makes sense.. Somewhere. Gonna smell like hell though."

He shook his head as he cut off another bite and popped it in his mouth. Why yes, he did know what burning flesh smelt like and the work to bury someone was worth the effort to avoid it.

[enduresurvive]

"Doc?" she asks. She hasn't heard that name yet. She's gathered that Henry is John Henry, but the nickname hasn't come up where she's heard it yet. She doesn't know his last name either, though she wouldn't get the famous reference anyway.

"Yeah, burning people is gross as shit," she agrees, completely unfazed by the idea of it. Still, she wrinkles her nose to think about having to do something like that.

"But zombies?" she asks. "Like, get up out of a grave zombie? Come on, that's just in movies." It hasn't escaped her that the Infected are something like zombies, the walking dead or the undead or whatever. But they're not the same as the terrible shambling things she's seen in films, all makeup and whatever. She's aware that it might not just be in movies, but she says it anyway.

"But yeah, I mean...I don't know. If you burn the bodies, what if...what if people can't come back from that?" she asks. She has no idea how they did come back at all.

[tinstar]

"Uh, John Henry," he clarified, cursing himself again for not minding that line as well as he should have. "Used to be a dentist, so I call 'em Doc. I've contained the urge thus far to ask him 'What's up'."

If Ellie would even get that reference. Hell, to be fair, most young adults in 2015 would still respond with that vague knowledge with no real idea why it took hold or how popular Looney Tunes used to really be. Raylan scoffed a soft huff of amusement. "And the rest of this place isn't? I figure, they burn their bodies for a reason. And I don't think it's a religious one. I'm keepin' my mental doors open - I'm surprised the sky still exists to be honest, since we can't count on the sun."

Well, the standing days of pure darkness that had plagued them at the beginning had maybe left a mark on Raylan. A mark that didn't help with his history in mines.

"But that's a.. damned good question. Part of my worry, if that's how they want it handled and they haven't come back yet. Like hell am I findin' a way to keep bodies til they do. If they do. That's what the earth is for in the first place." No, no strong feelings here, the narration says, sarcastically.