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

[notanemptymotto]

Hm. Or easily excitable?

[ It's all teasing of course. ]

It would seem that way. [ Helen nods to Neal's judgement of the area. She steps into the living room further, looking at the walls and state of the knickknacks all over the place. ] I'm surprised the electricity still works. Obviously, they haven't paid their bill in some time.

[conning]

I prefer to think of it as childlike wonder.

[ He likes it, the teasing. It's reassuring in spite of all of this. It gives him stable ground to strike out from. ]

Yeah... Doesn't make sense. But what else has, so far?

[ He makes his way through to the kitchen, turning the water on and off in the sink. ] Municipal systems in general seem to be operating, which hopefully means authorities of some kind.

[ He turns around, finally getting a good look at Helen's face, and pulls up short. ] ...Are you okay?

[notanemptymotto]

Ah. Awestruck then.

[ Her head tilts side to side at his statement. True. Very little of their twenty minutes in town has made sense. Or at least, her twenty minutes. She's not sure how long Neal has been there from her awakening.

She lingers in the living room before following after him. ]

Authorities or someone left the power on. [ She blinks then and smiles. ] I'm fine. Just a bit of a beating before I arrived.

[conning]

In this case I think it's just 'creeped out'.

[ If she says she's fine, he's not going to press--god knows Diana would kick his ass for going white knight on her, and he has no reason to expect this woman is any different.

Neal shakes his head, checking the dish washer. There are plates inside, clean. Somehow that's even more unsettling than the dust. ] I really don't want to look in the bedrooms, but I think we should look in the bedrooms.

this notif got lost somehow -- sorry!

[notanemptymotto]

Creeped Out Neal. It has a rather catchy tune.

[ The teasing can definitely continue all it needs to. She turns her head to look at the stairs and motions for him to follow.

Up they go, the stairs creaking as one might expect with a house and age. The banister is firm. There's two bedrooms upstairs... and Helen suddenly feels as if she's barging in even more than she already has been. ]

HOW DARE

[conning]

Ah, but Creeped Out Caffrey has alliteration.

[ Neal, fortunately(?), has no real compunctions about being in someone else's space. Not right now, anyway. For him, it's worse to think that this family might be dead and undiscovered, like that girl out in the snow.

He picks the nearest door, braces himself for bodies, and shoves it open--

--to reveal a child's bedroom. Chaotic with the signs of a life lived with enthusiasm. An inch thick in dust on every surface.

Neal really wishes he'd managed to pick an adult's bedroom.

He steps inside, going to what he assumes are the clothing drawers, and slides one open. ] Wherever they went... it doesn't look like they took anything.

[notanemptymotto]

Caffrey. That's quite the interesting last name.

[ Helen stops at the sight of the child's room. Her body stills. She frowns.

She steps inside of it, gently moving around him to take in all the small things. Some form of a normal family then. It looked as if they were about to have a normal day.. before whatever happened happened. ]

I doubt they were planning to leave. Perhaps a state of emergency?

[conning]

Is it?

[ He can't help himself. He reaches into the drawer, running his fingers over one of the little shirts with its cartoon designs. He's upset, and it's clear on his face.

Neal closes the drawer quickly and steps back. ]

It had to be. Evacuation of some kind. Something fast.

[notanemptymotto]

I can't say I've run into it before. That alone makes it interesting.

[ There is a perk of her eyebrows then. ]

Which means that there are roads that lead out of this town... somewhere.

[conning]

Fair. It's Irish, if you were wondering.

[ When he decided to take his mother's maiden name, he might have researched it obsessively for a little while. ]

Want to go look for them? Because I kind of want to get out of this house.