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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"Figured you could take your pick. Moonshine or water." John shrugged.

He was still bristled from his conversation the day before. Though, Ellie wasn't at fault for John Henry being a total wanker. No, she came to him wanting to talk, and he'd do his best to keep all that out. John hated drama. It wasn't his scene. Hell, most of Mathias in terms of dealing with people wasn't.

John sat back down, nodding for her to pick as he sat the bottle down. He got himself as comfortable as he could with his injuries, draping one hand over the arm of the couch, the other on the back. He even lifted one leg and crossed it. Just to show he wasn't going anywhere.

Not that he would... it was his and Zed's house.

It sounded vaguely familiar. The dentist might of mentioned something about it, but, John honestly didn't care to hear or much remember what the man shared after--well--it wasn't important really anyways.

"You're talking to someone who doesn't listen too well." He raised his eyebrows. How the fuck was he going to say this without causing a ruckus? "The whole town is dangerous, Ellie. Back home? This is what I would do. I would go into places that were warded off because that's where evil lurks. Evil doesn't care about playing by the right rules, it breaks the rules. Boarding it up isn't going to keep it inside. It'll find a way to leak out regardless."

John sighed and scratched his forehead. Christ. "Did you see anything besides the spores? Anything that they touched, destroyed? Maybe even would of crawled into and took over? I know it's a bloody lot to ask, but, if you want people to keep out? You've got to explain what's in there."

She considers for a second, but then just picks up the water glass.

"I'm not a big drinker, but uh...thanks for the offer. I'm surprised, since half the town thinks I'm a kid." She realises she's young, but she grew up fast. Besides, she is an adult, just a small one who hasn't been able to eat properly for months because of grief.

She takes the glass and sits back, but doesn't drink it yet.

"Yeah, yeah, the whole fucking town is dangerous but we don't have guns and we can't all do magic like you can or whatever. Keeping people out before they breathe spores and walk around controlled by whatever it is, whether it's like what we got at home or not? Seems like a good bet to me."

She doesn't understand magic and evil as concepts, anyway. She doesn't immediately assume the whole town is magical and everything is good or evil. Most things, to her, just are.

"It's...dark in there and the lights don't work. Flashlights, whatever. I tried to go further but I couldn't. I just had to leave. I can't explain it. I wish I could have seen it, but you know what? I don't need to to not want other people to go in there, you know?"

She has a feeling she can't stop John, but the whole fucking town doesn't need to get curious.

"I started smoking, drinking, and magic when I was fourteen. I don't give two shits when you want to pick up a bad habit or four." John raised an eyebrow.

Also, it was when he lost his virginity. Fourteen was a hell of a year.

"Don't know if it controls people. That's the thing. The whole town is so void of weapons as well as information that blinding yourself is as bad as not knowing." Still, he understood her point, and wasn't about to press her. They knew something was in there so they'd take what precautions they could.

He clicked his tongue at her description and nodded. "In my experience? Things that are truly evil block out the light. It's not that they absorb it. It's a darkness that penetrates and is so powerful that light can't pierce through it. Not unless it's got a bit of the divinity behind it. Can't say I'm surprised to hear something like that is muckin' about in this town. There's always a darkness like that in every bit of the world."

In a weird way? It was almost comforting. Something in this town was damn right normal to his life. Huh. He wondered if Feathers would be able to do a thing or two about it.

"Gives me a bit more of an idea of what potentially could be in there. Spores though, that's new. Hell's not really known for gardens." He tried to throw some humor in there to lighten the conversation. "Not everyone is cut out for the dangerous life of knocking boots with evil. You're not wrong for boarding it up and tellin' people to stay out, Ellie. Just we need to know things exactly like what you told me. When people want answers? A few planks of wood aren't going to stop them."

John nodded slowly, obvious that the wheels were turning in his head. Right. He'd need to find out where Feathers was hunkering down. Tell Couslon about what the group had found in the Museum. Give a detailed warning there at that shite bulletin board people seemed to read every few days.

"I don't suppose you saw or felt there? More curious about the second option."

"You like to find shit out the hard way," she says. "I don't." That's not entirely true; she's incredibly stubborn. She certainly bit off more than she could chew going after Abby and the WLF, even before she got pulled into this stupid evil magic town or whatever the fuck it is. She and John are alike in that, that stubborn streak. But fucking around with spores isn't something she'd want anyone else to do. She's aware that her own immunity might not protect her from them here, though she's been fine since, aside from just feeling generally fucked up.

"I think Henry just wrote that it was contaminated or something on the signs we put up," she offers. "And for what it's worth, it was hard as fuck to get in there. So...I guess there's two things, right? Something doesn't want us in there. Which means you wanna know what it is and why, right? But the other thing is, whatever's in there is probably dangerous and fucked up."

She thinks about the fog, how it could literally just kill people. She'd been arbitrarily saved from that, but so many people hadn't. And they still don't know what decides whether someone dies forever or gets to come back. Death isn't something she can fuck around with because it's not reversible in her head. The dead should stay dead. The living should try to avoid becoming the dead. It sounds so simple, but it isn't, even in a place without magic. In this place? Fuck.

"It just felt wrong. I can't explain it."

"I push for my answers," John corrects her gently. "How I do it isn't for most people. I prefer to do it alone, really. Less of a chance of others getting hurt."

Then people join anyways. They insist on following him down paths he shouldn't. Mathias, though? Oh, Mathias. She makes it so how he operates normally is out the window. Everyone gets hit by something sooner or later. They have their reality challenged. Sure, it happens to everyone naturally, but not like in this town. Deep down? He hates the fact that Daisy is right. He can't protect them all--hell he might not be able to save any of them.

He's going to try anyways.

"Evil never wants people where it sleeps. Human born or demon born." He bites on the inside of his cheek for now. "I'll throw up a couple of wards around the place for now. May not do much good, but, might help contain whatever is in there till we figure a better way of dealing with it."

That is his offer. Go along with her containment and lockdown of the building until he can think of something better. Which means some long nights and conversations with a few people in town.

"Most the things I deal with, luv, are fucked up and dangerous." He gives her a bit of a smile. "Usually that feeling is because something's disturbed a natural order of how you know reality to work. Even if you haven't got magic in your world? Your soul knows how things should be. When it encounters something that goes against that deep inherit knowledge of what it is? Hair on the neck stands up. Prickly feelings go up and down the spine. You know it's wrong and not sure how or why it's the way it is."

"My soul," Ellie says with a snort. "Man, I don't even really believe in souls. Or god. Heaven, Hell, all that. I don't believe in anything. I still barely believe in magic even after being here. I grew up in a shitty place where shitty things happen and people die. Sure, I'd like to believe I'm going to someday see them again, but...I'm not. They're dead. And it doesn't matter about souls or any of it."

Also, it has occurred to her that if people have souls, what if they're still trapped in their bodies after the infection takes over? What kind of fucked up god would even allow that? Maybe she's just bitter.

"But you're right. This whole fucking place is messed up and wrong. I don't know how or why we're here and I don't know how to get out but I do know that people shouldn't go in the fucking museum."

"Most people don't." John shrugs. "Doesn't mean they don't believe in you."

That's the thing about belief. It's a personal thing. How one sees the world and reality. Thing is, you can ignore facts or truths about it because of it. John's experience? That's when things get bad. Even if whatever is in the Museum isn't a Hellspawn, and instead man made? The people who made it were evil. What happened to the town was evil

He just knows better than to think everyone is going to agree.

"Might come to a point where we have to go in there. Not now, but maybe someday. Either way? We need to know what happened down in there... meaning that there's more digging to do."

Ellie laughs a little at that comment. "That's so fucking corny, wow," she says. It is, too. It sounds like a line from a book or movie to her. Point taken, sure, but it's still corny. She's just not a believer in much of anything, not magic, or fate, or the inherent goodness of humanity. That last one, she used to try harder. These days? Well.

"Yeah, maybe. I mean, do we have any answers to anything so far? Seems like everything is fucked and more people show up and nothing really makes sense. You're a magic guy. Any of it add up for you?"

"Just because it's corny doesn't make it any less true." His eyebrows perk up, as if daring to get her to think about it. Just food for thought. No one can blame him if he didn't warn them when the world continues to go tits up and make them wonder what's really deep and scary in the belly of the earth.

Well, a Earth.

"Seems like this town has some secrets that need unearthing. Been doing some digging in the Library, so, it's a matter of finding what they were trying to hide." He gives a casual shrug. "People filtering in? Been knocking the idea around with a few others. Might be whatever happened to this town ripped a hole in the multiverse. Maybe we just all fall through it into here. Or, maybe, we've being summoned here by something."

"Yeah, whatever," Ellie says, but more amused than dismissive. She really can't fathom John's belief in magic, simply because she's never really seen magic. Not growing up with it makes being confronted with all this weird shit hard for her, even after other adversity.

"You really think you're gonna figure out what happened here?" she asks, tentative, not daring to be hopeful. Hope hasn't served her well recently. "If you figure that out, do you...think we could go back home?"

He chuckles and gives her a wry grin. Right, right. Crazy Old Uncle John. It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

"Might take some time, but, I generally always figure out what is going on. I'm an occult detective, Ellie. Being an exorcist, demonologist, magic? That all just means it's tools to figure out what's knocking deep in the dark. What might be scaring the local folks who can't handle this side of the world. I, ah, don't see Heaven lifting a hand to do it. So, might as well be a bastard like me." John leans forward and raises his eyebrows at her. "I'm hoping that if we can find what brought us here and how? We can reverse it. Get all of us back where we belong with the people we belong with."

Edited 2021-01-13 02:14 (UTC)

Some of his words don't really register to her. Demonologist, what the fuck even is that? Ellie is smart and she's read a lot but occult stuff just isn't her bag. Mythology, sure. She's read some. She doesn't really read or watch horror things because when you live in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, scaring yourself isn't fun.

"Did you find anything out so far, then?" she asks.

"Only bits and pieces about the town... and that this town isn't too fond of my magic. Doesn't really like communicating the ways I know how. Which means? It either doesn't want to talk, or, I haven't found the right language yet." John hasn't written either possibility off the table yet. "And that at least one household wasn't aware of whatever was going to happen happened."

Ellie's not sure she follows exactly what John's saying, but that's all right. Magic stuff just eludes her, but she's sort of getting used to that part.

"Wait, so you think that people here knew whatever was coming was coming, but some of them didn't know? What makes you think only some of them knew?"

A breath.

"Malcolm thinks this whole place is fake, like...like a zoo or something. Like no one actually ever lived here and it's just set up for our benefit."

"When you deal with dark magic, and magic in general? It's not bloody public knowledge. Only certain people go off into the sort of thing I do, Ellie. Mages? We live double lives or we life our life with kindred souls. Your average bloke isn't going to know about that. I presume something similar happened here."

He shrugs. "Harvard has his own theories. My spell showed there were people living here at one point. Unless, he would like to think that they were actors."

"So you're like a spy, but with magic?" she asks, half-teasing. She can't possibly understand what he does or why or how, but she believes him. Her joking is how she deals with stress.

"I don't know, ask him," she answers. "But you really found people lived here? Did you find out anything about any of them?"

She hadn't been sure about Malcolm's theory either, though who the fuck knows? Anything seems possible here.

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021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

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