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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Do you want to know what that fog is? What it does? Do want to see if something's on the other side?

( elijah admits that he doesn't know a lot about the fog but he can move far, far distances over the course of three minutes. he thinks he can get to the other side of the fog with time to spare.

but, he still has to move past five to do it. )

Even if I were to die, apparently I would come back.

( it's nearly a foolproof plan in elijah's mind. )

And if the fog is the barrier that keeps us in, we need to figure out how to traverse it.

[ the thing is, of course five does. he wants to know all of that, distinctly so, as elijah voices the burning questions. his expression is as schooled as can be, but beneath that veil of annoyance, there's a curiosity. there's agreement, too. ]

Coming back one time isn't enough to be a pattern. Some people didn't. [ he sighs, looking back behind him and out into the thick blanket of fog, washing the distance in milky-white obscurity. ] But, your logic is difficult to argue - and we do need to figure out how to traverse it.

[ nearly foolproof except for the fact that most people can't cover large distances in 3 minutes. but there's plenty with tricks up their sleeves here, so that isn't entirely out of the question.

he still thinks this is kind of stupid, but it's hard to pretend elijah isn't making a good point. ] But I'm guessing that's a lot of distance to cover. What's your plan?

( telling five how he plans on moving across a possibly vast distance so quickly means telling five what he actually is. it's been quite some time since he's been uncertain of the reaction that particular piece of news will bring.

he sighs, sliding his hands into the pockets of his slacks. )

I'm very fast.

( which isn't an answer. )

Tell me, how old do you think I am?

( stick with him, five, he's going somewhere with this. )

[ good for you he almost says, but decides against being an outright asshole, giving elijah a look of suspicion instead, head tilted and eyes narrowed.

alright, he'll bite. (no pun intended there elijah)]

Since you're asking, I'm going to guess not late thirties.

( don't worry, five, he's used to assholes. his brothers are often asshole kings when they want to be. and elijah's sometimes capable of being an asshole himself. )

Oh, it's been quite some time since my thirties though I did live through them.

( he'd lived through a few different thirties, actually. )

I'm over a thousand years old. I've survived numerous things that are more concerning than a fog.

[ oh good, they can be assholes together. watch out, mathias.

there's a moment when five just blinks, his face a deadpan mask, before he throws his head back and groans, shoulders slouching with exasperation. ] Shit. I really got the short end of the stick here.

[ a thousand years old and not stuck in the body of a thirteen year old going through second puberty sounded like a big win.

even if, beneath all of that, is the implication of the lifetimes elijah must have lived through. a curious, curious thing that the commission would have undoubtedly been all over, had they known.

maybe five ought to stop thinking in commission terms. he's past that, now, but it's still distinctly interesting. ] Alright, fine. Touche, you asshole.

[ as it were, longetivity and hyper-speed aren't dead give-aways to what elijah is, but he doesn't press. everyone has their secrets, and his clearly have nothing to do with figuring out the details of time travel. ] If you think you can get through the fog and back in under three minutes, far be it for me to stop you. Hell, maybe it won't choke the hell out of you. [ he sweeps throws up his arms, even as the gesture startles another ache through his injuries. he angles himself away from elijah's path, though there's no indication that he'll leave. ] I'll count the time.

( far be it for elijah to disagree because he's not sure what he'd do if he'd been turned at the young age of thirteen and been stuck that way forever. it would have been...difficult. )

Has anyone told you you're just the tiniest bit angry?

( except take out the tiniest bit. but, he thinks he understands. long life does tend to make you very jaded and very cynical. )

Have you experienced the fog yourself?

( now that five seems to be willing to let him go, elijah starts walking again. )

I'm reasonably angry. Give it a couple of more days and get back to me. [ he has! every right! to be angry! although no doubt everything about his disposition suggests he's been like this long before mathias.

he will fall into step with elijah, until they get closer to the fog. ] Yeah, I have. [ he says so conversationally, with a purposeful sort of detachment. ] I made a shit call.

Before, the fog wasn't anything other than a regular pain in the ass. [ he isn't sure how much elijah knows about it, so he decides that pragmatism is the right solution - it's laying out the fact, even as unclear as they are to try and explain. ] It's like it turned lethal overnight. With a phone call, no less.

You're right about one thing. It does feel like it's keeping us in. And yeah, I sure as hell want to figure out why.

[ it looks like he's fully resigned to whatever stupid, half-baked plan elijah seems to have. he doesn't like it, doesn't like that he can't even predict the outcome. but curiosity is getting the better of him. ]

( though elijah doesn't stop walking, he does slow his pace because this is the first time he's spoken to someone who's actually experienced the fog. he's talked to many that know someone's who's been in the fog but never actually to someone.

he's still set on going into the fog but maybe he can learn a little more before he does so. )

Tell me what you remember about your time in the fog. Do you remember anything?

( please give him all the gorey details, five, because he wants to know. )

Did you notice any aftereffects when you returned?

[ that's a surprising detail. ]

Yeah, I remember all of it. [ the facts, broken down step by step, and he chooses to stare at a point in the milky white ahead of them. ]

The asphyxiation started immediately, though it didn't get to be a serious problem until a minute in. [ his mind had long gotten into the habit of thinking in terms of time. of seconds and minutes and years and its the one thing that managed to keep the panic of death at bay until the very last moments. ] I don't know if it improves once you manage to get out. [ a dry smirk. ] Didn't get that far. I don't remember what happened between dying and waking back up on the beach, but — I know it wasn't just loss of consciousness. That would have been my first thought, but. There's a difference.

And - no side effects that I noticed. Not in anyone else, either.

( interesting. elijah hms quietly to himself. it doesn't sound pleasant but also doesn't sound all that dangerous either. he's died before, he'll died again but he always comes back and knowing there's no strange side effects is good.

still, he is curious when five mentions that death wasn't just a loss of consciousness. he doesn't mention anything else though. )

Were you aware of how much time had passed from when you went in to when you awoke again?

No. I lost maybe a day? It isn't the easiest thing to keep track of when you're dead. [ plainly put.

as far as deaths are concerned, maybe this was a surprisingly generous way to go. a long, drawn out way, but the lack of side effects was a suspicious blessing. and if you discount the trauma, you came back entirely fine! ]

Long enough for the bodies to be buried. [ he thinks of the hollow look his brother gave him, thinking him a ghost. or how long it took to convince him he was real, klaus' fingernails still smeared with dirt. ]

They buried you?

( not that gives him pause. he's been buried before and despite that familiarity with the whole concept, he still doesn't like it. he still hates the feeling of being trapped and enclosed like that. )

And then you came back so hopefully they don't decide to bury anyone else now?

( he hopes so. he guesses that if the person doesn't come back after a day or so, then they can be buried. )

Oh, no. [ that certainly was how he made it sound, now that he thinks about it. not like he clarified entirely. he shakes his head.

not that the reality of the situation made a lot more sense, but it was definitely better than elijah's interpretation. ] No, they buried the bodies, and they're still there. No one was trapped underground. [ a beat, as he considers it. ] Not this time, anyway, but my point is, I don't know with this place.

Actually, come to think of it, I think a few people dug themselves up. [ he shrugs, not entirely sure what else to add to that, because all of this felt a little too much like the Twilight zone. ]

Unpleasant.

( to say the very least. he's been buried alive before, certainly, considering his brother spent so much time sticking daggers in his chest but it was never quite like what five's describing. )

Well, I do plan on not ending up like that. I've had some experience with burials like that and I would like to avoid them if at all possible. But you are in agreement we need to figure out a way through this fog?

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021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

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