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

[conning]

Neal meets Malcolm's look with one of calm neutrality, like somehow presentation will be enough to convince this man that he is fine.

He's fine.

Neal takes a sip from the mug, feeling the heat of the tea slide all the way down his throat. Briefly, irrationally, his inner ten-year-old waits for it to come dribbling out onto the bandage on his throat.

"No one knows everything." He tries not to let it show, that it bothers him, the thought of Raylan going after the vampire. "What do you think the cowboy will do?"

[abrightboy]

"I... expect he'll identify him and... inform everyone of the threat." A little more quietly he adds "I hope he won't go alone."

[conning]

Neal's never been that great with the question of and then what, but when you've got nothing to do but fake sleep and wonder, certain questions are bound to play themselves out.

Neal covers the bandages with one hand, wincing a little as he puts pressure on the little wounds. "He said thank you."

He's not sure what he meant to say, but it wasn't that.

[abrightboy]

"The vampire thanked you for your blood?" Malcolm clarified. "That puts an angle on it, huh? I'd like to think this place wouldn't bring... a being like that without providing food for him but. It brought me here without any of my medication. Maybe we are the provided food for him."

[conning]

Neal shudders. "I don't think this place considers the wellbeing of anyone it drags here. Just a guess on my part."

He cups his hands around the mug again, blue eyes focused on empty air. His mind is doing what it's been doing all day. Circling back over the past 72 hours of impossibility, trying to tease apart the knots of logic and make anything make sense in a context he knows. Like somehow this entire experience is an optical illusion or a puzzle box, and he hasn't quite got the trick of it down yet.

He takes a deep breath, then a deep drink. Back to the present. He doesn't want to talk about the attack any more, about his own confusion over what justice would be in this case. "I was undercover as a Western Poetry teacher at Manhattan Prep before I woke up here."

[abrightboy]

“Manhattan Prep. I’m familiar with it.” He was a one percenter from the Upper East Side; of course he was. “What sort of crime were you investigating there?”

[conning]

"Embezzlement. One of the students there brought us the case, actually. He works in the bursar's office and found out his scholarship funding was getting pulled--dug up enough numbers to point to the manager of the endowment fund. Smart kid."

Neal makes a soft, amused noise. "I guess they're going to need another sub for the class."

[abrightboy]

“All the kids there are smart,” Malcolm pointed out lightly. “It’s sort of their thing.” He glanced over. “Did you like it? Teaching?”

[conning]

A tiny smile. "Fair enough."

As for the question of whether or not he liked it--yes. He did. He shrugs. "I was only there for a few days."

[abrightboy]

“Is it the kind of thing you can see yourself doing or are you more interested in continuing to work in law enforcement?” Malcolm asked curiously.

[conning]

Neal makes a soft noise of amusement. "I don't think any school would be inclined to hire a high school dropout."

[abrightboy]

“That’s not an obstacle. I bet you could pass an equivalency test easily. You prefer law enforcement. Because of that sense of fulfilment you mentioned before.” He looked at Neal. “I know what you mean by that.”

[conning]

He hides a squirm--tries to--by adjusting the blanket around his shoulders. "Yeah? Can't see yourself doing anything else?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at him sidelong, then down into his cup.

“Have you ever heard of a serial killer they call ‘The Surgeon’?” he asks, glancing over.

[conning]

Neal doesn't have the most extensive knowledge of serial killers. It was never his area of interest, for a lot of reasons. But one apparently prolific enough to get a nickname? That he would remember.

"No." He frowns. "But I'm apparently not the most up-to-date when it comes to the multiversal timeline."

[abrightboy]

“He’s one of the most infamous killers since Jack the Ripper. He was arrested in 1998, convicted of the murders of twenty-three people.” He looked at Neal. “I’m the one that turned him in. I was ten years old. Since that day, I’ve never wanted to do anything else.” He shrugged. “Putting away killers that won’t stop killing saves lives and provides closure and justice for the victims’ families.”

[conning]

That answers the question of whether or not the two of them are from the same world, Neal thinks. He's not sure why he's disappointed.

The nobility of Malcolm's motives doesn't surprise Neal. He seems like Peter's type of person. Less by the book, but the same spirit. There's a part of Neal that entertains, briefly, the idea of admitting he used to want to be a cop.

"I just did what felt fun." He hooks a smile at Malcolm. "Which kind of sums up how we ended up on our respective sides of the law."

[abrightboy]

“You’ve never killed anyone,” Malcolm surmises. “What you did is largely harmless.”

[conning]

"That's what I keep saying."

This time it's his turn to glance at Malcolm, then away. "I don't like violence."

[abrightboy]

"Despite what my career experience would seem to suggest, it's normal not to like violence." He looked at Neal. "I do it because I want to stop violence, not because I revel in it. Did something happen to you?" he asked casually, taking a sip of tea, "Or have you just always felt that way?"

[conning]

Neal shrugs expansively. "Violence is inelegant. Anyone can shoot a guard and snatch a painting. There's no skill to putting people in harm's way to get what you want."

[abrightboy]

“I can’t argue that philosophy, but it doesn’t really answer the question,” Malcolm told him with a little smile. “I like that you take pride in your skills, though. That you care about being good at what you do instead of just wielding physical power at it.”

[conning]

Neal looks down at his tea, smiling wryly. "You should meet Peter. My supervisory agent. He'd like you."

He has to think about it. How to answer Malcolm. How much to say, how much to give. Pondering why violence upsets him has never been a priority--it's violence. It should be upsetting, and he's not one to dwell on the unpleasant. At least he tries not to.

He starts to speak, stops, starts again. "The world isn't fair. It's not just. It's not kind." He takes a drink of the tea to buy himself time to think. He's tired, exposed, and homesick, which makes the honesty feel all the more raw. "It doesn't have to be ugly, too."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm breathes a small laugh at the notion Peter would like him. “That would be a refreshing change of pace. When I was in the FBI, other agents did not like me.”

He called them out on their pretences and solved a lot of high profile cases.

As Neal expends on his view, Malcolm’s expression sobers and he nods.

“I’ve been in the ugly so long, I’m not sure I know what a not ugly world looks like. I like the sound of it, though,” he says softly. “Is that why art matters so much to you?”

[conning]

"Peter likes smart." Peter also likes people who don't put up with Neal's bullshit, much to his occasional chagrin.

As far as the question of art goes-- "It's that. It's also more than that."

This, this is safe ground. There's nothing he can say here--he thinks--to expose more of himself than can be found by anyone with his file and a little imagination. "Art isn't just about beauty. It's about the artist, the viewer, the moment it was created and the moment it's seen or heard. An emotional dialogue. It's about people."

He might not think he's giving himself away, but the way he relaxes, the way his expression softens, makes it clear that art doesn't just matter to him. It's everything.

"I've stood in the Met in front of the Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and watched a day's worth of people go by that painting. It's the only alterpiece by Raphael publicly displayed in the United States. It's older than the United States by almost three hundred years. It's amazing, seeing the ones who just glance at it, the ones who don't even do that. The ones who stop and can't look away. Every moment shared with art is creation all by itself. A construction of meaning, understanding, feeling." Neal shakes his head.

"And the history you can walk past in one gallery. The things those works have seen, the things that have happened around them. Art and artifacts - they give us an emotional connection to history. Someone painted that canvas. Someone carved that bust. They lived, they loved, they walked through a world no one will ever see again. What they left behind is the closest look we'll get."

He takes a long drink of tea, feeling parched. "Art is..." He lifts his shoulders in another shrug. "It's a glimpse of the immortal spirit."

Neal clear clears his throat. "Or something like that."