villagelogs | 018-020 » what he hides

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018-020 » what he hides

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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You live with him. He takes too much sugar in his coffee? The profiler.

( He was itching to find something in the clinic. Maybe it's not as serious as that, but, Dean is always on hand for a rude comment if it comes to mind. It doesn't occur to him that Raylan might be fond of the kid. )

He's a lot.

[ Raylan 'ah'd, face breaking into a broad smile as he nodded. ]

I can't say he doesn't give off that kinda energy. But he means well. He's alright, once you get past the antsiness. Not his fault. Ain't the worst to have some of the silence filled, if I'm honest.

And normally, I put chatty people in trunks.

You can keep custody of Analyze This. It's not the talking that gets to me.

( It's the head shrinking he doesn't appreciate. )

... Trunks.

[Raylan shrugged with his face and a bob of his head.]

Keeps me from breakin' more noses than necessary. Resisting arrest, [He offered as an explanation with a shrug.]

Analyze This is tryin' to keep busy. You just gotta distract him with a question. This place has plenty of those to keep us all busy, if frustrated. You get much of a chance to poke around yet?

( He gets a nod at that, then. Car trunks. He respects it. And he more than understands. The trunk's not a normal move for them, but they have pulled it before. )

Not to learn anything real. ( He's done his fair share, though. ) How do you think we're supplied?

[ Raylan was glad to see that didn't get any looks or sarcastic comments. Meant Dean might be a man that would do such a thing. Good. Place like this would need them. ]

Right now my best guess? Magic. I don't know how shit works around here, can't find any municipal buildings that might help, not that it would account for the foodstuffs. They're sure as hell not sneaking in, in the middle of the night, and leaving it like elves, that's for sure.

Do you know magic that makes food?

( He knows magic that curses through food. )

Haven't seen a hex bag anywhere, and if it's not that, then it's a spell. One that's ongoing.

( Sort of like a perimeter spell, or one that's more environmental. But, he's not the apprentice. )

This is reality-warping spellwork.

Edited 2020-12-25 01:06 (UTC)

I don't know any magic. Not somethin' I got in my world. If we were there, my answers would be a lot different. Shit clearly works differently here but until about three weeks ago, I didn't know any of the shit that I've seen here was possible.

[He was a complete innocent, as they might call him.]

My degree is in Criminology and criminal law; not voodoo and black magic. I leave that to.. I suppose people like you and John. He thinks its a.. 'Lesser entity' to a god or somethin'. I don't understand much of it, but I try to keep up.

I don't know if that makes all this easier or worse, to be completely honest with ya.

Lesser deity.

( He could see that. )

Maybe with its own witch.

( Maybe he should actually knock his and John's heads together. )

It could be real where you're from. You just don't know it.

[Raylan shrugged.]

Sure, could be. In small subsections. But I'm not bending over backwards to include that into my realities world view, sorry. Maybe it doesn't exist, and you're all from just the most special of realities, who knows.

[It was going to take a lot more than Dean and John's insistence to convince Raylan that any of this stuff is real in his world.]

But arguing about realities ain't why I'm here and I'm sorely unprepared if it were.

What would you be doin' if it wasn't? Instead of huntin' since you were four, what do you think you'd be doin'?

Oh yeah. Real special, pal.

( You wish you came from his reality, with the strings and everything. )

What do you mean, if I weren't a hunter?

[Oh he could hear the sarcasm. At least it meant Dean didn't have an inflated sense of self.. Well, not too big an inflated sense of self. ]

Exactly that. If your world didn't have all the monsters and magics. Somehow I don't see you behind a desk but- [ Raylan shrugged. ] I've had to sit behind a couple once or twice while I was on reprimand.

( He has the opposite, actually, even though God himself zeroed in on him and his brother. He still comes from, 'Why me,' stock and 'what's so important about me,' processing - without the processing. )

I don't know. Settled down with a kid. ( Maybe not a wife. Probably a wife. Would he want a wife? He's not drunk enough for that thought. ) Maybe, mechanic. I've rebuilt for 67' Chevy Impala from the ground up for times than I can count. Maybe I would've gotten an education. I had one of those, 'This is your life' scenarios, what would it be like if - if my mom were alive, or if Sam and I weren't brothers. I was corporate. Some desk job.

... Maybe construction.

( He really doesn't know. Freedom is such a foreign concept to him that he gets lost in that spiral, looking off. )

Family man. Not a bad choice. Neither is construction, gets you outside in the fresh air- [ But his face was pinching in that 'I'm about to have questions way' as his index finger gestured lazily at Dean.]

What do you mean had a 'scenario'?

[Sorry to play catch up Dean but Raylan isn't aware of how much of an ass Chuck truly is... Raylan would ask why Dean too, but not out of a kindness or arrogance, but because Dean looked perfectly ordinary. Sure he probably had some weird kink on the side or some unhealthy obsession, but that would only make him more ordinary.]

( He's barely thought about it, what he'd do. But, he always falls back on construction. He could be foreman or project manager. Raylan asks more, holds his finger up, and Dean smiles and looks to the side. )

Ever heard of a Djinn?

[Raylan's head tilted a little more.]

One guy here, Eliot, said he distilled one by accident once but best guess I got for layman's terms is a.. a genie? Like Barbara Eden, I dream of?

Yeah. Except, tattooed. Keeping you in the basement on a blood drip drenched in your greatest desire. What you think your greatest desire is.

( If he gets that. )

I thought maybe, this might be a twisted Djinn reality. But, they're not collective unless we have dream root. And we force it. None of this means anything to you. It's not like a wish. It's like - a virus. You get stabbed, you get sent to Never Never Land.

[The confusion on his face pinched a little sharper - Correct - this meant, well not nothing but certainly not the same thing that Dean ended with. Thankfully, Dean was clearly well practiced in laying it out in straight terms.]

Shit. [It was all he could really say. That was. Crazy. Not impossible, he knew there were drugs that could do that sort of thing but the whole image together was appropriately horrible.]

Well I can promise you that the ass end of Northeast Siberia is not my greatest desire.

New England Siberia.

( But he agrees, half shrugging. )

This isn't Djinn. But, Djinn happen. ( Just to remind him. ) Anyway, I uh, experienced that wish. But, things weren't right.

I'm still guessin' on Maine, but New England is basically Maine so..

[It shouldn't matter, not really, but it did. And Deeply so.]

Wished that you were normal, got a messed up run of 'It's a Wonderful Life'? How're you sure that's how it woulda played out though? Life rarely goes to plan and unless this Djinn can tell the future..

[It wasn't a firm statement and there was plenty of 'Can they?' written in Raylan's face.]

Don't know how it would've turned out. Knew it was too good to be true. My dad was still dead. Like I said, Sam and me, we didn't act like brothers. We weren't close. We didn't hunt. It was - nice, but it was wrong.

( He speaks about it so seriously, but admits easily how screwed up parts of that world were. He had his fun. There were things he liked. He liked Carmen, whew. But, other than her, than Mom being alive... )

Djinn's twist it. They give you just enough of what you want and hope nobody finds you.

( Then you're drained. )

But, this place, all the reappearing food, the fog, this is reality warping. High level.

[Raylan didn't want Arlo to die, specifically, but he knew he wouldn't be anywhere close to heartbroken when it happened.

But wrong, the feeling of it in your gut, was something he was familiar with.]

So we're back to low level.. gods and shit-all to do about. Unless you got some.. spell or ward or some.. mixture of.. salt and goats blood that'll disrupt it.

[He lifted his eyebrows with a breath as he looked back down and flipped uselessly through a few more records.] I suppose makin' a list of what is isn't is just as smart.

Varies by god. Might not be too off with the goat's blood.

( Maybe it's Pan, the satyr. It's probably not. )

We don't know enough for any list. Except, no sulfur smells, so, no demons. And the food. So, something that can -- make that happen.

Jesus, [Raylan swore, fingers coming up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. What he wouldn't give for a straight forward murderer on the run that he had to chase down. Something simple. Anything simple.]

Well, we gotta start somewhere and a list of what it ain't is just as useful as what it might be. Discussions can be had between you knowledgeable types. I'll keep diggin' graves for the stupid or unlucky and helpin' brew moonshine.

[He was not nearly as well equipped as most of the others here, save for Malcolm and maybe Doc.]

Digging graves is work. ( As is, keeping people sauced. ) And I'll teach you a thing or ten. You're in good hands.

(no subject)

tinstar - 2020-12-30 01:13 (UTC) - Expand

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