021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

[villagemod]

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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Comments

[thering]

"Not yet. Mister Negan is currently in possession of it." Had Doc realised how that sounded - and if he knew how much Negan was milking it, spreading rumours and insinuating what they got up to in order for him to become the temporary custodian of the hat - Doc would have said something different.

Closing the distance between them, Doc slides the pillowcase of gifts off his shoulder and holds it out to John. He would not turn down an invitation inside, but he does not expect it either.

"The weather has changed in the last two hours. A storm is coming. It is not much, but I thought you and your woman-" Don't deny it, John Constantine. He would not believe it right now. "-might need a few extra supplies, tie things over for a few days."

[hellblaze]

"The hell is Negan doing with your hat?" John lofted one eyebrow. "Don't tell me you've finally given in and didn't even offer up to me first."

Honestly, he didn't much care who was sleeping with who. People needed their releases of tension and what not. Mathias was driving them all a bit mad anyways. As long as he didn't get dragged into any of it? By all means! He'd uh, make all the flirtatious and asshole comments he wanted though.

He was who he was.

"You could call her Zed." John rolled his eyes and flung the door open. "Since you're set on thinking we've uh, shacked up."

[thering]

"A few nights ago we made the stupid decision to break into the museum. He grabbed it while we were escaping." Sorry to ruin your cowboy sex fantasy, John. Maybe next time. Also, consider this a warning not to go to the museum.

"There is plenty of me to go around, if you're enough of a gentleman to ask what is on offer." Doc deliberately steps in close to John, half-lidded eyes falling to settle on John's chapped lips. It's a small doorway for two men to be squeezing themselves through. With an arm outstretched to the opposite side of the doorframe, he blocks John from going inside and leans in close so he can whisper and be heard above the wind and snow.

"If Miss Zed is okay with it, of course. I would hate to offend the lady of the house." He leans back and smiles, pulling his hand back to gesture for John to enter his own house.

[hellblaze]

"... Did you find anything in the museum worth while?"

That was the obvious important thing. Hat joking aside, it ticked his brain into drive. He was nearing desperate levels of attempting to find things in this god forsaken town. Oh, so, they escaped and ran away. Not everyone has the stomach for what he does. John accepted that a long time ago.

Then, well, there was two of them in the doorway.

He pulled himself from his thoughts enough to look at the man that was more or less his height. John looked him up and down. Then, tilted his head.

"Doesn't have the same effect without the hat, Henry. Might want to try again when you wrestle it back from Negan." He clicked his tongue and gave a wink. Then, he took a few steps into the house.

[thering]

"Do not go to the museum, John Constantine. I implore you." He along with Ellie had spent some hours boarding up all the access points, trying to cover the roof as best they could with what limited supplies they had.

He takes two steps inside without asking to come in because he wants to grab John by the arm, yank him back. Because this is important. And though Zed is not around in their immediate vicinity Doc keeps his voice low, deathly serious, a complete 180 from the fun, flirty, laid back cowboy persona he makes people buy into.

"I have killed more people than you can count on your two hands before I turned the age you are now. I would not put Miss Ellie through killing anyone else and I would put you down with my bare hands if I have to if you are tainted, before you have the chance to hurt anyone else. Do you understand me?"

[hellblaze]

John looked Doc over again. An eyebrow raised. "Yeah, I'm not getting much of why you turned tail and buggered off from the museum. Tainted by what? You might of killed more men than you can count. And yeah, sure, you've got a crazier life than me because of how old you are. But, let me let you in on a secret, mate."

He raised a finger and pressed it into Doc's chest.

"Going into places like this? Figuring out what's wrong? Banishing it or getting the bastard responsible for it? That's my job. It's what I do. So, you either give me one good bloody reason not to go there and find out something that might give me a clue as to what happened in this town... or you continue the vague threats and I'd like to see you try to get me with your bare hands."

[thering]

"And let me tell you something, John Constantine. You are not very good at your job at all. You have learnt nothing we can use, we are all still stuck here, and all you have been good at is getting yourself hurt." It is the most impolite Doc has been and he will come to regret it later but he does hate that John is trying to push his buttons and get a rise out of him.

"You will get infected at the museum. You will lose all your mental faculties within hours. Then you will attack Miss Zed and you will pass the disease you got from the museum onto her before you kill her. And the two of you will come over to our house and infect Raylan, Malcolm, and myself. Kill us. And by this time tomorrow we will all be infected, and dead. Now I have almost died once from living with tuberculosis for over twenty years so do you want all the details of how an infection works as well or will that vague threat suffice?"

[hellblaze]

A rise? No. All he wanted was information. As far as he could tell? John Henry wasn't the sort of man that would run off scared shitless. Neither was Negan. That stuck out as odd to him - unusual. Worth getting information on, because it could come back to the rest of them. Maybe he would of explained that if Doc hadn't gone and pressed him.

Whatever explanation Doc gave almost bounced off. Maybe he'd get bits of it once he calmed down, but for now? None of it was sticking. It wasn't a blinding rage of fury that over took him. No, it was an eerie sort of calming anger. The sort that meant he had no care what John Henry could of told him now - or maybe ever in the future.

John didn't truly pride himself on much. He knew he was a shitstaine, he knew he ruined everything he touched. If it wasn't soon it was later. So little things remained good in his life. His self-given job? The duty he gave himself, because he saw Heaven unable to act and do it? Oh, that was the one thing he took pride in. The one thing he felt made him not a useless pile of shit.

He invited John Henry into "his" house. Friends. He asked because running away scared wasn't something he'd pin the man to do. He saw him as having more of a backbone - Negan too. Which meant that the two men saw something. Suppose this is what he got for caring. Getting involved in people's lives. An attack on the one thing he prided himself on all because he bloody dared to care.

If he cared to listen? He would of asked if they knew that for sure. If they saw bodies - evidence of that. He didn't care at the moment.

"Must be nice to sit on that high horse and look down at all us from that shining example you've got. All the ones that make the mistakes because, oh, you know so much better." He said coolly, voice dipped in just enough venom to give the feeling that maybe he wasn't as even as he portrayed. "Take your bag and get the hell out of my house. Cheers."

[thering]

Oh, he is most certainly happy to take his leave. Doc has known for a while that they do not see eye to eye on this. That their approaches to their sojourn here are fundamentally different, that their priorities are not aligned and will never be aligned, that he will always see John Constantine as selfish and reckless and John no doubt sees him in an equally negative light. This is not a friendship he wants to be investing in, because he has been through this rigmarole before - so he does know better - and he knows that someone's going to get hurt. It won't be John Constantine - it's never the asshole who does the stupid thing. It will be someone else. Someone innocent. Someone who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. And Doc will not be the one who needs to clean up after an impulsive man's mistakes, the one who gets left behind, who needs to put his life on the line picking up the pieces. Never again.

There are people here who appreciate what Doc does, who he is, what he believes in, who would take him at his word and trust in him enough to let him protect them. There are more fruitful endeavours to be investing in. If John wants to be a self-sabotaging lost cause then Doc doesn't want to be any part of it, or whatever horseshit he thinks he's running at the Town Hall. They have ninety nine other problems they need to be dealing with in Mathias, like the impending snowstorm for starters. John Constantine is not going to be one.

"Good day, sir." Which is the greatest 'fuck you' John will get from any gentleman from Doc Holliday's time, said much more calmly and evenly than the irate Willy Wonka. Once he is out of the house, with supply parcels to be dropped off elsewhere, he would not be returning to 1387 for the foreseeable future.