villagelogs | 021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Western Mathias.
WHEN: Days 021-023
WHAT: A cold storm approaches.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Emily Kinney & Lauren Cohan "The Parting Glass"

DAYS 021-023
THE WORLD TURNS WHITE
“Are ye the ghosts of fallen leaves, O flakes of snow,
For which, through naked trees, the winds A-mourning go?”
— John Banister Tabb
The howling wind is what wakes the residents of Mathias each day now as the world turns slowly into a bleak stretch of white. Snow continues to fall in thick curtains of flakes that accumulate on trees and rooftops, swirling sideways in the gusts of wind that bow trees and whistle through any crack they can find. The drifts of snow grow taller against the buildings and the wind makes the already freezing temperatures feel bitterly cold.

By day 022, the far ends of streets begin to resemble the hazardous fog with how little becomes visible as the winds pick up. Buildings can still be discerned as dark shapes but the weather's warning becomes clear — a storm is coming. And by day 023, the storm arrives properly, the wind still screaming through the streets like a winter banshee announcing so many deaths to come. These conditions are far from hospitable and only the truly mad would be foolish enough to venture outside in weather such as this.

THE NEWLY ARRIVED
With an embrace of wintery white, Mathias offers a chilly welcome to its newest residents. They awake along the southern treeline bordering Mathias, near the small makeshift cemetery containing a handful of wooden markers erected without names or signifiers of those buried within. And not far from them is the schoolhouse, where in a snowdrift they will the frozen corpse of a young woman named Rey.

LIGHTS IN THE DARKNESS
“A lantern can give you light only when you light it”
— Munia Khan
When residents wake on the morning of day 021, they will find outside in the snow the abandoned lanterns of those shadowy spectres who have moved so silently through Mathias. Each nestled in a patch of frozen white outside their door, the lanterns are now cold to the touch, the half-burned candle within each one seeming to have been lit so very long ago. Inside the glass encasement is a small rolled piece of paper, upon which is written:

keep it lit
There is nothing more, and the prior owners of these lanterns will not return within these days.

There is one lantern waiting outside the building for each resident wherever they are sleeping — the exception for this is those who may have already claimed a lantern as their own. Removing a lantern from its resting place results in no apparent reaction, nor does lighting or not lighting it. However, whatever residents ultimately choose to do with these lanterns should be reported.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— SNOW continues to fall, resulting over the three days in upwards of a foot of accumulation. The winds blow in gusts over 35 mph.

— 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 still receded from the town proper and much of the eastern and northern beach, with the path through the northern forest to the lighthouse still clear on day 021. On day 022, however, as the storm worsens, the fog returns to the paths in the forest, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper or else.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue to plague the town. While Zed Martin has returned, Rey's corpse will be found in a snowdrift near the Schoolhouse; she disappeared on day 018.

— THE STRANGER is gone.

— THE SPECTRES are gone.

OOC UPDATES

— DISCOVERIES have been collected and collated for your review. Please note that this is OOC information only, put together for the purpose of helping you as players see connections and possibilities for CR and your own character's potential avenues of exploration and investigation. (If we are missing something, please report it so we can add it to the list.)

— AP REWARDS have a new option now — Ideas may be requested if you find yourself stuck. You may now claim up to 2 rewards per log: (1) idea and (1) other reward.

— SANITY may be regained in two ways: self-medication and treatment. In Mathias, this means such coping mechanisms as drinking or drugging oneself into a stupor that allows them to face their fears and issues, or talking to someone about those fears and issues. Since both of these will take some time, best get started. (A form will be added to the Sanity page.)

— REMINDERS — Don't forget about the bulletin board. Please continue reporting your updates to locations, plots, and discoveries. The map of Mathias has been added to the locations page for ease of reference. Make sure your character's sanity level is kept updated. Prospective players are still joining the TDM, so it's recommended to track new top-levels so you don't miss them.

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[ LOCKED ➝ RAYLAN ] this is for long-forgotten light at the end of the world.

It was time to cover old ground - because what else left could he do? He was beyond frustrated with Mathias. He couldn't find any way to track what happened to Zed or Daisy. At least Daisy popped out of the bloody snow like her namesake. Zed though... Quentin... he was going to need to keep a list of the people who had disappeared. Oh, sure, why the bloody hell not? It wasn't as if keeping a ledger of souls was enough.

Why not the people who couldn't stay put?

If John was a far more optimistic person? He'd presume they'd been blessed with a way out of Mathias and back home. Except, he wasn't. He never was. In his mind, whatever controlled Mathias was the one that manipulated it all. It brought who it wanted, it took who it wanted. There was no way to see what it was - yet - or tell it to fuck off. Which meant that short of pulling something truly dangerous of his pockets?

John was starting to feel desparate.

He stalked his way back to 1308. The lovely house he had first holed up in, the one where he'd seen the fact that people had once existed in this town. The house where he died. He hadn't been back since he returned on the beach. It was too bloody eerie, even for him. Still, he sent a glance to the area he had died at before turning back into the study. A bit of rummaging around and he found something he had missed his first pass through with Jill - Jill.

Christ, how long had they been here? How long had it been since she died?

He pocketed the skeleton key from inside the desk. Nothing really seemed to match it, so, he took his aching breaking body back outside and stopped at the porch. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it against the cold winter morning.

When the hell had it become winter?

Edited 2020-12-21 08:59 (UTC)

It had only been about five days since Raylan had dug graves to bury a friend and people he hardly knew and somehow, it had felt like an extremely long set of days. Raylan was tightly wound and was finding his normal affability hard to find, his ABC's harder to conform himself too. Moonshine was great and all, terrible feeling it left him with aside, but it didn't hit the ticket like Jim Beam did.

Jim at least, had the ability to numb down some of his feelings.

So when he strode out of 1306, it wasn't particularly slowly or gently, though he didn't slam the door behind him. If this town had a bar, he'd be going and sinking in whatever money he had, praying for an asshole to start some shit. Instead of that, he sees John standing on his porch.

This place may make a smoker of you yet, Doc had said only a few days before and god, watching John suck on his cancer stick, Raylan felt the truth of that statement.

"Hey," he greeted with a lift of his chin. "Forget somethin?" It was the only reason that Raylan could think that John would be here - Zed was still gone, as far as he knew, so it wasn't a fight with her that drove the Brit out into the cold daytime.

"Yeah, how to bloody leave this town." John offered a friendly greeting. He didn't need to open an eye to know it was Raylan. Southern drawl or not? The man had that commanding sense of energy - law and order and what not. He took in a breath of the cold air around his cigarette and let out a cough.

Ah, fuck.

Then he rubbed his sides. What he wouldn't do for some of the real strong stuff. The sort that left him knocked out for a few days. Really, he just wanted to get piss drunk.

"Thought I'd take one good look around." John opened one eye, deciding it was time to be a bit fair and serious. "What brings the Great Marshal out so early in the morning? Patrolling down the snow covered streets?"

"As if you ever knew," Raylan retorted with a note of amusement. If he thought John would listen, he'd make a comment about the trouble with smoking, but he knew it wouldn't make a bit of difference. But it was a good reminder of exactly why Raylan had never picked up the habit like all that.

"A rampant need for fresh air and a lack of four walls. Lookin' for somethin' to do really, thought I'd come out and do the same. See if the Fog let up enough to let me up to the lighthouse yet or not. Since it seems to be ever changin'," he groused as he tugged his collar a little tighter around his neck and shoved his hands back into his pocket.

"Shouldn't you be restin'? I ask like you're gonna even grace it with a thought-" He jerked his head. "C'mon. Least we can do is make sure you don't collapse in the snow or somethin'."

"Oh, you never know. Maybe we all did and forgot." John said with a tone of seriousness in it. Anything was possible in this damn town as far as he was concerned.

Both eyes opened at the mention of the lighthouse. He pushed himself up from his leaning position and let his eyes travel down to the street and over towards the beach. There was an attempt at a popping sound, but, it didn't quite go over well with the cigarette lodged in his mouth.

"How about I rest when I'm dead -- or have a bottle of whiskey." John eased himself down the stairs and gave a motion for Raylan to lead the way. "'m fine, Raylan. Really."

He wasn't and it was obvious. Raylan already knew what it was he still struggling with aspects of rising from the grave. Zed was still missing. There were no answers in this town, just dead ends. Anyone who took the time to know him knew he wasn't alright.

"An interestin' thought exercise, but somehow I doubt it." Still, Raylan wasn't ruling much of anything totally out. There was too much he didn't understand and he figured he might never understand it. That didn't bother him as much as some might think.

"Sure and I'm the pope. Me noticin' ain't handin' out sympathy, don't get it twisted." Mainly because the last time had ended with Raylan walking out. He headed them out down the road, towards the center of town that would lead them out to the treeline.

"But I've had broken ribs before, I know what it's like. I guess you're one of those.. what do they call 'em? Masochistic?"

He shrugged. It is a nice thought. That is what Mathias just seems to be - bloody good thoughts and intentions.

There was a roll of his eyes at the joke, but, no snide remark this time. He was too tired to go another round with the Marshal. He'd rather save the anger for when they arrived at their destination. Besides, he figured, Raylan knew not to push certain things at the moment.

"Pain is an old friend and motivator. I haven't found the good pain killers in town yet, so, why let it slow me down?"

"Better answer than 'I'm fine'," Raylan granted with a bob of his head. Raylan wasn't going to be able to fix anything or mother John into taking care of himself; that wasn't the point. The point was, he didn't care much for the kid gloves redirection bullshit. Raylan would be the last person to push him into bedrest, unless he was openly dying or had broken prime limbs.

"That what you're using to fuel your 'one good look'? Ain't a bad time for it, either way. The temperature is droppin' like mad. My expertises on northeastern weather aside, I fully expect this place to go negative before this winter is over."

"Think it's obvious I'm not fine. None of us have been fine since we showed up here on that bloody beach." John muttered under his breath. "Hole up and lay around nursing my ribs? Not my scene."

He'd rather be throwing punches and making sure the ones that deserved their outcome. Sure, he might hit his head on the wall a few times. Break a rib, hand, maybe lose a body part. That wasn't going to stop him.

He made a promise to Raylan and he was going to keep it.

"I never heard you complain about my one good look before! Must be the green shirt. Let me guess, doesn't match my eyes."

Raylan shrugged again. He was in a better mood than John in general, for obvious reasons, and wasn't going to chase him around that particular tree anymore. Raylan was no nursemaid and John was, in the end, responsible for himself, whatever that brought him.

"Your shirt?" He frowned gently at he looked over at John again. "You said you were comin' out for one good look, I was sayin' you're usin' your ribs to fuel it. You gotta calm down man, shit's gettin' to your head."

John shrugged. "Maybe it's my agitation at this bloody town. Few weeks without whiskey will do that to a man."

He brushed off the comments at his general state of disarray. Nothing to be found in Town Hall, his ribs were a mess, Zed was still missing. The whole situation was fucked. John was just too stubborn not to push forward.

"I wonder if that note I left has been eroded like my bloody wards."

That was a sentiment that was widely shared. Raylan was starting to watch his patience get shorter and shorter; normally, quite a feat. He grunted in acknowledgement.

"Keep your eyes out for my smear of a finger. I don't have much hope since you didn't see anything while you were in there the first time, maybe.. maybe this place put us in after you, no matter how we came into it.. Do your wards normally erode?"

"No. It's like any other carving. Put it in and it's permanent. You don't always carve up, but, I took the bit of extra time to do it. Try to make it more--" well, permanent. "Seems like anything you got the chance to write down or safe keep might fade away eventually."

He huffed as they walked the path. "I didn't see much of anything. Dream logic is a bit finicky like that."

"That was sure as shit not a dream," Raylan asserted, slowing down with a lift of his hand towards John as they come up to the treeline. "I can handle this flow of time bullshit, but that was not somethin' that my brain made up. Yours either, I'd bet."

He pointed ahead at the path that wasn't there last time they looked.

"You think that's our ticket up?"

"Lucid and vivid dreams exist, mate. It's called the dream road. Most humans can walk it every night and not remember most of it. Seems like Mathias, like always, likes to bring it up a bloody notch. Unless you've got another way to explain why I woke up covered in dust like I'd slept for ten bloody years."

He definitely did not get dust on him last time they went to the lighthouse.

"Won't know until we try. Couldn't get very far in that dream. Fog and all."

"And I am not sayin' it don't, but I know when I'm dreamin' and that wasn't a dream." He could not take anymore pressures on his view of reality; he knew it wasn't a dream. Just like their most recent attempt in the Fog wherein John forfeited part of his lung. That was not something that Raylan's brain would have supplied.

"As for you and the dust.. I dunno. At this point, I'm startin' to think that it was just to mess with you. Like it played with me and the door. That was my panic - gettin' stuck and dyin' in a hole in the ground. Any funny shit and we're headin' back. I ain't got time to die today." He wasn't too arrogant to say he never got scared. Nothing wrong with being scared, it was all in how you dealt with it.

"Anything we know about anything isn't quite right here." John shrugged. He wasn't convinced. If anything maybe it had been some form of astral projection - time displacement. Who the hell knew? Mathias played by her own rules, and he didn't really like those rules.

She played hard to get the worst ways.

"Right. No dealing with the ah, bumpy assholes for the Marshal today." He noted with a bit of bristle in his tone. Might of been the cold, his ribs, the town. Who knew? He stopped keeping track for the moment. "I'll keep in mind you've got time to die another day."

Not even the stars, though Raylan hadn't given voice to that notice yet.

Instead of answering, he grunted a non-committal tone and kept moving. One barb would always turn into another with John, so there was no point it batting that one back.

"Looked to be near a mile away, from what I saw from the top. We might have some heavy walkin' to do."

Grumpy banter seemed out of the window. His usual charm must have been rubbing off on the locals.

Shit--did they count as locals now?

"Suppose my ribs could use the bloody exercise. I haven't thrown any rocks at the ocean lately."

As a small town boy, Raylan would tell John that no, they weren't locals. They'd never be locals, not in the way the most severe communities in the states sometimes took it. As serious as Harlan took it.

It took them about a half hour to get all the way up the trail from where they'd been, and Raylan swore loudly as the lighthouse came into view.

"Fuckin' finally," he said of the large rock they'd had to walk up to get back to the Lighthouse door, leaning back a little as he breathed. "I swear that rock looked smaller from the bottom. How'd you say you got outta this place again? You just.. left?"

Edited 2021-01-02 02:47 (UTC)

Thank God, John would never want to be a local to somewhere other than London. Oh, sure, Mathias had a sort of eerie charm about her. But, he wasn't planning on knockin' boots with her any day soon. Or, ever.

He tilted his head back at the state of the lighthouse. There was a click of his tongue. Ah, yes. Not quite the bane of his existence, but enough of a pain in the arse that John wouldn't mind breaking a few things in it. Just to make his point known. He followed right behind Raylan, hands in his pockets, edges of his trenchcoat brushing against the snow.

"Yeah. Walked out the front door, mate."

Walking out of it only seemed to serve the lack of it being a dream but considering how many 'No's Raylan had been given over the past few days, he didn't want to take another one, so he kept it to himself.

Raylan took off his hat to run a hand through his hair as he looked up at the lighthouse. Well, at least it was off. Made sense, being middle of the day. The door they'd both left out of was closed in front of them and Raylan headed up without hesitation to tug it open. Getting no resistance, he looked over at John with a surprised lift of his eyebrows.

"Let's see what she's got huh?"

As soon as he was stepped in, his head was on a swivl towards the desk where he'd smeared his fingerprint across. And now, he could see the note John left.

"Looks like she remembers us."

Dream, astral transference, didn't matter. He was pretty sure his body didn't leave then end up back in the exact same place he would of left it.

John gave a shrug with a glance up at the light that was off. He pressed his lips together with an annoyed determination. He finished his cigarette and threw it down to the ground, putting it out with the toe of his shoe. Inside he slipped behind the Marshal, eyes scanning the familiar room.

Just looked dustier and grimier. Like the bloody town.

His eyes dropped down to the desk that had the Marshal's attention. A few strides and he joined the man, a grin spreading on his face. A small hum left him.

"Looks like it aged about as much as the wards on the damn door frame did." John sighed with a low irritation. "Maybe with a bit of dusting it'd be a nice place to bunker down away from everyone. Fresh coat of paint, bit of plants. Make it home-y."

"Yeah sure, we can put down throw pillows and a doily where you can set your tea," Raylan replied with no real levity to his voice as he turned his attention to their right and the door that should lead them into the stairwell. His chest gripped again faintly as he was cast back to the building panic he'd first had here. If they went through it, would it vanish again?

"We should find something to prop this open with," he said, leading that way with his finger before turning the handle and opening it up with a the hinges giving a sickening screech that echoed up the stairwell. "Shouldn't let it close behind us."

"Doilies. Y'know, mate, sometimes I just forget how," he dipped his voice down into that one particular accent, "Damn Southern you are."

There was a pat to the man's back as he looked back at the room. Then he grabbed a chair and drug it over to the door the Marshal stood at. With a good kick he put it up against the door to keep it pried open, and then reached into his pocket for his lighter.

"Cowboys first."

➝ day 21 | locked

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