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

[hellblaze]

Show me those papers and some wit behind it. Then, I might follow through with those.

[ John pulls his legs off the table and follows after the man. His hands slide into the pockets of his pants, leaning against the door frame to watch Neal. Yelling across Town Hall isn't something he feels up to at the moment. ]

First bit is my guessing, the second bit seems to be what everyone agrees on based with what we've found. Plenty of us come from different times and different realities anyways. I'm fairly sure the place I come from isn't the same as yours.

[conning]

Give me a day, some goatskin, and a raised ink printer. [ He starts fiddling with his borrowed pen again. ]

Not a bad guess given your own apparent experience. The logic of it holds up even from outside examination. [ A huff of amusement. ] And the 'crossroads of reality' thing is the part I'm having the least trouble believing, at this point. Of course, the introduction of multiple realities creates the question of whether any of our apparent experience applies here.

[ He frowns. ] I haven't explored as much as I'd like yet. Is there anything like a town history, census books, anything similar you've found?

[hellblaze]

And where do you plan to find goatskin? [ As, obviously, that's the major question here. ]

Seems like most realities start to dabble with the idea that there might be another version of itself somewhere. Might be the fact we want to run away from what we've done. Imagine a place and time where things might be better than what we've got now. From there? It's just a damn rabbit hole of never ending shit you realize.

[ Meaning he may have done that thought exercise once. Twice. ]

Few books and shit laying around that might help you. Census records seem to be all gone. At least, I haven't found any yet.

[conning]

It's a type of paper. I can improvise. I'm more concerned about the raised ink printer, myself.

[ Neal studies the board, his focus only half on its contents now. ] Running away from what you've done only ever gets it to chase you. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that.

[ Deep inhale, hard exhale. ] None of the photos here say much about the town's history, either.

[hellblaze]

Still doesn't really answer the question as to where you think you're gonna find it, mate.

[ He pulls the lit cigarette from his mouth to give a good exhale. ] More people ought to learn that.

Either whoever ran the town wanted to make sure no one knew the secrets -- or they took them all down to whatever Hell they went to. Or, maybe they skipped town.

[conning]

Point me to someone's office. If they've got a degree...

[SHRUG.

He rubs his lips, irony tinting his tone. ] And learning it doesn't make it easier to stop running. [ Quieter: ] Just makes the impulse easier to fight.

[ He makes a frustrated noise. ] Where haven't people looked yet? For information?

[hellblaze]

No Mayor's Office here. So, unless you've got another idea of someone with a stupid piece of paper that says they can do something.

[ A shrug. People will run even if they know what it is. He's learned that, and he learned it a long time ago. Some people have the stomach for this world. Others don't. He has the feeling Mathias is made up of people who are more of the latter. ]

Bunch of new buildings showed up when the fog pulled back past our lovely Town Hall here. Not sure who has been where, other than the other bloke in the trenchcoat and I went to the school. Stopped by the movie theater...

[conning]

[ Neal is going to make John a fake degree in being a prat. He's come to that decision. Even if he has to pull together the materials from scrap. It won't even be a fake degree, really, because--

Right. Focus. ]

One of the people I showed up with seemed to think the school was staged. Not sure I buy that, myself. [ He shivers. ] Did you and your fellow trench coat notice there were no names inside? They were all smudged out.

[hellblaze]

[ Ah thank God, he would have a proper degree in something. Take that, Dad. ]

Someone other than Harvard Boy thinking that this place is staged? [ He raises an eyebrow at that. ] Names are smudged out all over the town on official documents. Seems like the only ones that are in tact are some of the names on personal notes in houses.

[conning]

Said his name was Sherlock. Who's Harvard Boy? [ Though that information about names is... interesting. In a 'wow that's really disturbing for some reason' kind of way.

Neal frowns. ] Is there some magical significance to that, maybe? The names all being marked out? [ He sighs and rubs the corner of one eye. ] Folklore I know, actual magic, not so much.