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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"And I am not sayin' it don't, but I know when I'm dreamin' and that wasn't a dream." He could not take anymore pressures on his view of reality; he knew it wasn't a dream. Just like their most recent attempt in the Fog wherein John forfeited part of his lung. That was not something that Raylan's brain would have supplied.

"As for you and the dust.. I dunno. At this point, I'm startin' to think that it was just to mess with you. Like it played with me and the door. That was my panic - gettin' stuck and dyin' in a hole in the ground. Any funny shit and we're headin' back. I ain't got time to die today." He wasn't too arrogant to say he never got scared. Nothing wrong with being scared, it was all in how you dealt with it.

"Anything we know about anything isn't quite right here." John shrugged. He wasn't convinced. If anything maybe it had been some form of astral projection - time displacement. Who the hell knew? Mathias played by her own rules, and he didn't really like those rules.

She played hard to get the worst ways.

"Right. No dealing with the ah, bumpy assholes for the Marshal today." He noted with a bit of bristle in his tone. Might of been the cold, his ribs, the town. Who knew? He stopped keeping track for the moment. "I'll keep in mind you've got time to die another day."

Not even the stars, though Raylan hadn't given voice to that notice yet.

Instead of answering, he grunted a non-committal tone and kept moving. One barb would always turn into another with John, so there was no point it batting that one back.

"Looked to be near a mile away, from what I saw from the top. We might have some heavy walkin' to do."

Grumpy banter seemed out of the window. His usual charm must have been rubbing off on the locals.

Shit--did they count as locals now?

"Suppose my ribs could use the bloody exercise. I haven't thrown any rocks at the ocean lately."

As a small town boy, Raylan would tell John that no, they weren't locals. They'd never be locals, not in the way the most severe communities in the states sometimes took it. As serious as Harlan took it.

It took them about a half hour to get all the way up the trail from where they'd been, and Raylan swore loudly as the lighthouse came into view.

"Fuckin' finally," he said of the large rock they'd had to walk up to get back to the Lighthouse door, leaning back a little as he breathed. "I swear that rock looked smaller from the bottom. How'd you say you got outta this place again? You just.. left?"

Edited 2021-01-02 02:47 (UTC)

Thank God, John would never want to be a local to somewhere other than London. Oh, sure, Mathias had a sort of eerie charm about her. But, he wasn't planning on knockin' boots with her any day soon. Or, ever.

He tilted his head back at the state of the lighthouse. There was a click of his tongue. Ah, yes. Not quite the bane of his existence, but enough of a pain in the arse that John wouldn't mind breaking a few things in it. Just to make his point known. He followed right behind Raylan, hands in his pockets, edges of his trenchcoat brushing against the snow.

"Yeah. Walked out the front door, mate."

Walking out of it only seemed to serve the lack of it being a dream but considering how many 'No's Raylan had been given over the past few days, he didn't want to take another one, so he kept it to himself.

Raylan took off his hat to run a hand through his hair as he looked up at the lighthouse. Well, at least it was off. Made sense, being middle of the day. The door they'd both left out of was closed in front of them and Raylan headed up without hesitation to tug it open. Getting no resistance, he looked over at John with a surprised lift of his eyebrows.

"Let's see what she's got huh?"

As soon as he was stepped in, his head was on a swivl towards the desk where he'd smeared his fingerprint across. And now, he could see the note John left.

"Looks like she remembers us."

Dream, astral transference, didn't matter. He was pretty sure his body didn't leave then end up back in the exact same place he would of left it.

John gave a shrug with a glance up at the light that was off. He pressed his lips together with an annoyed determination. He finished his cigarette and threw it down to the ground, putting it out with the toe of his shoe. Inside he slipped behind the Marshal, eyes scanning the familiar room.

Just looked dustier and grimier. Like the bloody town.

His eyes dropped down to the desk that had the Marshal's attention. A few strides and he joined the man, a grin spreading on his face. A small hum left him.

"Looks like it aged about as much as the wards on the damn door frame did." John sighed with a low irritation. "Maybe with a bit of dusting it'd be a nice place to bunker down away from everyone. Fresh coat of paint, bit of plants. Make it home-y."

"Yeah sure, we can put down throw pillows and a doily where you can set your tea," Raylan replied with no real levity to his voice as he turned his attention to their right and the door that should lead them into the stairwell. His chest gripped again faintly as he was cast back to the building panic he'd first had here. If they went through it, would it vanish again?

"We should find something to prop this open with," he said, leading that way with his finger before turning the handle and opening it up with a the hinges giving a sickening screech that echoed up the stairwell. "Shouldn't let it close behind us."

"Doilies. Y'know, mate, sometimes I just forget how," he dipped his voice down into that one particular accent, "Damn Southern you are."

There was a pat to the man's back as he looked back at the room. Then he grabbed a chair and drug it over to the door the Marshal stood at. With a good kick he put it up against the door to keep it pried open, and then reached into his pocket for his lighter.

"Cowboys first."

Raylan looked over his shoulder at that, eyes narrowing slightly. "I've seen an old British lady or two in my time, don't pretend that ain't a thing over there too," he accused, almost playfully. It didn't quite reach the mark, only because of where they were.

The pat helped though.

With the door propped open and a glance at John, Raylan led the way into the stairwell's end with a heavy sigh that echoed up around him more than he thought it would. "Can't say it might not have been pretty in it's hay day but this place freaks me the hell out," he admitted, looking up at the turning iron of the stairs that made his head and stomach spin just as much as it did before.

"Suppose we oughta go to the top too," he continued, too focused on the rising view than the state of the place around him.

"I don't collect goddamn doilies. Must of been someone's grandmother you ran into." John grinned at him. Oh, taking a few playful jabs? He was only twelve deep down.

He flicked the lighter open, a flame coming from the top. He followed close after Raylan. Just to make sure that he had the back in case something popped up behind them. Or, he needed to run. Whichever happened first.

"Been in worse places, but, it's a bit unnerving. Usually there's signs of someone that lived here. They don't leave lighthouses unmanned unless they want a bloody shipwreck.

He knocked on the wall as they went. Just in case.

"Last one I ran into, I fixed her cable. She wasn't British but she did love doilies" He didn't mind old people, only in part because he was well on his way towards being one of them. Raylan didn't add that he fixed her cable because her son wasn't going to be able to like they both expected. Hard to do when you're in 75 small pieces.

He glanced over his shoulder at the sudden click of a flame he hadn't expected for some reason before starting up the stairs, the creak of their weight on the iron steps echoing up around them to chase the ends of their conversation.

"Somehow I don't think shipwrecks is what Mathis is worried about anymore. I don't know why but this place feels like it's aged differently from the rest of the town. More harshly." They got a few steps up before Raylan lifted his chin a little at the knocking. "What's that about? You expecting an answer back?"

There wasn't any mocking there - shit like that might happen.

He gave a chuckle. Well, John wasn't sure if he even had a grandmother on either end still kicking. His father wasn't much of a family man. His mum? Died in childbirth bringing his sorry arse into the world.

"More exposed to the elements than most the town. Or, our big scary pissed off deity is seaborn." John had an air of humor in his tone then. "They say walls talk."

No, he didn't expect an answer.

For some reason, the Givens didn't talk about the women in the family; Raylan was sure he had grandparents at some point but never while he was alive, so the concept was only a formal one in his head. He fell right into that line without ever having thought about it. At no point would he ever want to talk about his mother.

"Mm. By a barely opened door up top? Can't say it didn't add some speed but iron tends to hold out better than that. Nothin' in this town makes sense, I don't expect this place to. Railing outside, up top. that had no protection is doing better than in here."

Don't look down, don't look down. He didn't say anything but his jaw tensed a little, breath coming in a little more purposefully through his nose. There was no railing to hold onto, not that he would even if there was, having seen it fall out under Malcolm's barest weight last time they were here and he still didn't particularly trust the stairs themselves.

"This place is a death trap waitin' to happen."

John leaned to look over the railing. An eyebrow raised. It was certainly more dangerous than he remembered his dream, out of body, or whatever it was experience to be. Age. Just like the rest of the town. It was hard to gauge how long things had been. If they had been long at all. Time was broken. It was hard to tell anything by that notion.

"The whole town is like that, Raylan. Tell us something we don't know."

Raylan didn't answer for a long moment, jaw tensing. He wasn't making the statement like John didn't know; it was called small talk to distract him. But no. No weaknesses around John Constantine, lest one be left in the middle of the desert.

"Vanilla ice cream is my favorite. What'd'ya mean walls talk?"

At that, John had a proper laugh. He hadn't expected the ice cream comment. Noted though. For, ah, future reasons. Ones that were not to be disclosed at the moment.

"Oh, I'll be sure to remember that one. Never know when we'll find the local ice cream parlor." John had a teasing grin in his tone. Oh, that would be fun. "Walls hold secrets, mate. Usually buried inside of them. Skeletons, hidden messages, diaries."

"I do just about as terrible things for whiskey as I would for ice cream, you got no idea," he lamented as their feet carried them further up the Lighthouse, the stairs seeming to yawn against the small backdrop of the turning stairwell.

"You're talkin' false walls, false floors, shit hidden away behind the panelling and drywall. If all of this ain't stone, I'll trade my hat in for a drivers cap. But I know what you're talkin' about. More than half of Harlan's old houses got some form of it. Few places here too."

"Maybe if you ask nice enough? Good ol' Mathias will hear your pleas and open up a parlor. Or, see if they've got some tucked away in that general store freezer."

Why the hell not? They had cigarettes.

"Don't bet that. It'd be a fucking shame if you lost that hat, mate."

John kept tapping along the wall as they climbed. Right up until they got to the landing. A few more taps and his fingers came to a stop. He turned his head, looking at the bit of chipped brick. Then, a head tilt.

"Looks like more than my love note has faded and taken some damage."

"General Store Freezer is better than any other option - don't get me started," he said, forcing in a frayed sense of humor that didn't reach far. But the smile he gave over to John at the statement was a little better; he'd take the compliment.

Raylan stopped with him, chin lifting as he narrowed his focus back to the wall.

"Ain't that the way love goes?" Taking a deep breath, Raylan stepped outside, letting his breath out slowly as it was snatched away by the wind, and worked his way around to the back, to where he could see the town.

"You oughta take another mental snapshot. Let Zed know. Update our maps. I hope you've gotten her to do some of it - it'll be important for all of us."

"Oh, I'm surprised, Marshal! I thought you would of looked in that freezer section to procure some icecream already."

He was a bit serious about that.

The comment about love made him huff sadly. Oh, it was certainly the way it went. In all forms of love too. It'd just be a matter of time before Zed was on her way out. Chas was the only one stupid enough to stick around him this long.

"Once I get her home? I plan on it." John glanced up at Raylan before picking more at the brick. He handed the lighter over to the Marshal before trying to give it a good pull.

Then his ribs twinged. A sharp pain went up his sides and he hissed loudly, wincing.

"Fuck."

"Haven't stopped in at all yet," Raylan said with a note of pride before stepping out, like an addict holding off from indulging. His words about map making may have not made it back inside to John and since he didn't have any company out, he took the mental snapshot himself and turned back around.

Once he came back in, he took the lighter and held it, eyeing John sidelong as he started to pick away at it. The wince had him rolling his eyes and pulling John back by the cuff, handing him his lighter back.

"Here, let me." Grinding the pads of his fingers in, Raylan starts tugging and pulling at the stone, bricks falling one after the other onto the landing floor. "What the fuck is that," he muttered as they started uncovering a symbol.

John had the thought of the map rumbling in the back of his head. It'd be something to revisit. For now, his attention was on the wall. He hadn't even properly noticed that Raylan stepped out for a quick picture before coming back in. Namely because he was focused on the bloody wall.

"Shit," John muttered under his breath as Raylan pulled him away. Nothing worse than being caught with a kick to the pride and bollocks.

After a moment he stepped up beside Raylan to look at what he had found. His head tilted.

"That, mate, is a spooky scribble."

He didn't think anything of John for having broken ribs and not being able to tear the brick away as he might want to. It was the thought and the fire that counts.

"Spooky scribble," Raylan echoed with a pinch of confusion before turning back to pull off a few more blocks, dusting off the edges here and there and testing the firmness of the markings. It didn't come off on his fingertips. "You recognize it? Mister Master of Spooky Scribble?"

021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

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sorry if this reads oddly, he actually went outside onto the landing so

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Shit, I'm sorry, I never got a notif for this

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