[ ooc: long post incoming with all the info Claire's found so far. I've bolded some things for emphasis just for skimming purposes while reading. ]
[ Claire's been a bit of a rare sight after her untimely death and resurrection. Now that she's back, she looks like she's contemplating crawling right back into some grave or other.
Public speaking - what a stupid concept. She was half tempted to just shove her notebooks into someone else's hands, but... no. ]
So, uhm. Anyone else feel like they're back in high school getting graded on some shit? Or maybe this is more like one of those AA meetings they always like on TV...
[ She tucks her hair behind her ear with her left hand. The right is notably bandaged with what looks like torn sheets stained red. After clearing her throat, Claire flicks open her notebook, worries her lower lip a little and then looks into the faces of the gathered people almost defiantly. ]
When we arrived, I hung out in the Anders house. 1306. Scavenged my way through it, found little of note, except the certificate of a baby's baptism. [ She pulls it out of her notebook, folded up as it is, and holds it up for everyone to see. ] Evan Anders, born March 14, baptized in April at the Old Church. It was signed by the parents as well as the officiant, and there's a strange spiral symbol on the certificate as you can see. For those of you old men with squinty eyes: The writing is dark red. I have no idea if it's blood. I found no convenient 'blood rituals and cults 101' books in the house. The year is illegible on the certificate.
Uhm... right, first town exploration I did after the storm, nearly froze to death in this miserable place. Felt like someone was watching us, too. And I don't mean 'oh it's spooky in the dark', listen, I know when someone or something is watching me, and I'm telling you something was.
[ She takes a deep breath, then flips the page and scowls. Her poorly bandaged hand flexes. ]
Next... that fucking door. So... there's a door on the top floor of the boarding house. It's locked. The lock can't be picked. Liberal applications of violence with and without super powers do not open the door. No key to be unearthed for it in the boarding house. Teleporting inside doesn't work. I knocked on it and heard scraping furniture, but it didn't open, and trying to talk at it didn't work either. I shoved a note under the door and it just appeared in my room without response or reaction. I hate this door. Fuck this door.
[ Deep breath. Claire clears her throat, cheeks a little red in embarrassment. Next page. ]
So, ah. You know our Bulletin Bord in town hall? So I put a note on it that maybe contained the letters F and U, and I signed it with my name. The note was just chilling there for like five days, but after that my name was gone from the note. I... took it down then.
[ She looks a little sheepish at this, the tough girl act sliding sideways just a touch for a moment before she straightens her back. ]
Anyway, speaking of town hall... There are no maps there, like at all, which I find strange, and there's also nothing there written before someone invented typewriters or whatever. There was mention of the transfer of older records to the Archive, though.
[ She taps her pen against her notebook, looking uncomfortable. For a moment the pause stretches uncomfortably and she looks like she's gonna abandon her position and stop sharing. ]
So I don't have a lot of information on like... the weird spectres, with the lanterns. I was a little pre-occupied. Well. I died because I didn't answer a phone, and then the windows exploded and I suffocated in my room. Anyway. No big deal, y'know, but. Yeah. Well. Anyway. I followed the spectres. They all just ended up going into the forest, where we can't follow. I tried throwing things at them, too. They didn't react or seem affected.
So, checking out the Historical Society... lots of old newspapers in the archive, but not many from sequential years, and all of them from nearby towns, not from Mathias. Found clippings of Mathias residents who did something worth showing up in papers outside this place, dating back to about the mid-1800s. Biggest of those events I found was a fire in 1831 that destroyed nearly the entire town, leaving only a few buildings intact and only 12 survivors. Cause of the fire reported was a lightning storm. No names for the survivors, no mention of which buildings survived either, but it was specified the fire didn't spread to the forest, so. Go murder forest, good on you for not burning down I guess.
The most recent article I found was from April 7th, 1993. Local student got a scholarship to a fancy school or something.
Also checked out the gallery... I'm not a very artsy person, honestly. There's lots of black and white photographs of Mathias in there. I found a picture of an opening in the cliffside along the beach, but I couldn't tell where that was taken. Maybe like a cave or something under Mathis though. There was also like a creepy old 'The Ring' style well in the forest, and a picture of the light from the lighthouse, and of the school house with children playing near the trees, and just... town square, and people milling about. Oh, I found one picture under the door to the dark room, which I couldn't open by the way. The picture was in colour, it showed the sky all red above a roof, but I have no idea what building that could have been. The roof looked super distinct, but doesn't match any of the buildings I've seen here so far.
[ Another deep breath, then a longer pause. Claire casts her eyes through the room again. ]
So, remember there was that day that we all just sort of... lost, right? Our 11th day here, if I tracked right and time didn't get its panties in a twist? So, I actually woke up in a mansion. I'll get to why that's important later. It was just rows upon rows of identical looking, super tidy, elegant and sparse rooms, and feeling like something was watching me through the mirrors, just at the edge of my vision. Through the windows in the corridors I could see a large forest. Found a skeleton key, haven't found what it unlocks. Doesn't work on the stupid boarding house door, that much is certain, or the dark room in the gallery. The hallways had doors with weird snake engravings. I went through a metric shit ton of identical corridors, until I found the landing of a staircase. Upstairs was dusty and derelict. I found a room, the doors locked behind me. There was a large pile of luggage, and a pile of burnt paper with a circle of soot under it. And when I mean circle, I don't mean vaguely circular, I mean it was a super precise circle, so definitely not naturally occuring. In the burnt paper I found fragments of maps, one piece containing a legend and the words "Mathias, established 1693". There was also a stretch of forest with a large building in it, and then I woke up.
I mention this 'cause... remember how some of us were in a mansion a few days ago? Same place. Just... couldn't find the dusty upstairs. There were more skeleton keys there, much larger than the one I found but otherwise similar. Maps of Mathias that don't match up the layout of the place we're in. Here, I noted down the dates for them... 1702, 1754, 1783, 1801. And... well, I got that same weird sensation of seeing something at the edge of my vision through the mirrors, so I smashed one. [ She raises her hand with the bloody, improvised bandage and shrugs. ] The scratching from the floor boards downstairs and from the ceiling upstairs was, uhm... new. So... well.
Yeah. That's... that's about it, I think. I got some notes on people, too, but like... I mean, on what people can do. 'cause we got all sorts of people there, but honestly... I'm not here to rat shit out, so. Yeah.... next?
[ And she sits back down, cheeks reddened - and oh so very done. ]
— claire novak
[ Claire's been a bit of a rare sight after her untimely death and resurrection. Now that she's back, she looks like she's contemplating crawling right back into some grave or other.
Public speaking - what a stupid concept. She was half tempted to just shove her notebooks into someone else's hands, but... no. ]
So, uhm. Anyone else feel like they're back in high school getting graded on some shit? Or maybe this is more like one of those AA meetings they always like on TV...
[ She tucks her hair behind her ear with her left hand. The right is notably bandaged with what looks like torn sheets stained red. After clearing her throat, Claire flicks open her notebook, worries her lower lip a little and then looks into the faces of the gathered people almost defiantly. ]
When we arrived, I hung out in the Anders house. 1306. Scavenged my way through it, found little of note, except the certificate of a baby's baptism. [ She pulls it out of her notebook, folded up as it is, and holds it up for everyone to see. ] Evan Anders, born March 14, baptized in April at the Old Church. It was signed by the parents as well as the officiant, and there's a strange spiral symbol on the certificate as you can see. For those of you old men with squinty eyes: The writing is dark red. I have no idea if it's blood. I found no convenient 'blood rituals and cults 101' books in the house. The year is illegible on the certificate.
Uhm... right, first town exploration I did after the storm, nearly froze to death in this miserable place. Felt like someone was watching us, too. And I don't mean 'oh it's spooky in the dark', listen, I know when someone or something is watching me, and I'm telling you something was.
[ She takes a deep breath, then flips the page and scowls. Her poorly bandaged hand flexes. ]
Next... that fucking door. So... there's a door on the top floor of the boarding house. It's locked. The lock can't be picked. Liberal applications of violence with and without super powers do not open the door. No key to be unearthed for it in the boarding house. Teleporting inside doesn't work. I knocked on it and heard scraping furniture, but it didn't open, and trying to talk at it didn't work either. I shoved a note under the door and it just appeared in my room without response or reaction. I hate this door. Fuck this door.
[ Deep breath. Claire clears her throat, cheeks a little red in embarrassment. Next page. ]
So, ah. You know our Bulletin Bord in town hall? So I put a note on it that maybe contained the letters F and U, and I signed it with my name. The note was just chilling there for like five days, but after that my name was gone from the note. I... took it down then.
[ She looks a little sheepish at this, the tough girl act sliding sideways just a touch for a moment before she straightens her back. ]
Anyway, speaking of town hall... There are no maps there, like at all, which I find strange, and there's also nothing there written before someone invented typewriters or whatever. There was mention of the transfer of older records to the Archive, though.
[ She taps her pen against her notebook, looking uncomfortable. For a moment the pause stretches uncomfortably and she looks like she's gonna abandon her position and stop sharing. ]
So I don't have a lot of information on like... the weird spectres, with the lanterns. I was a little pre-occupied. Well. I died because I didn't answer a phone, and then the windows exploded and I suffocated in my room. Anyway. No big deal, y'know, but. Yeah. Well. Anyway. I followed the spectres. They all just ended up going into the forest, where we can't follow. I tried throwing things at them, too. They didn't react or seem affected.
So, checking out the Historical Society... lots of old newspapers in the archive, but not many from sequential years, and all of them from nearby towns, not from Mathias. Found clippings of Mathias residents who did something worth showing up in papers outside this place, dating back to about the mid-1800s. Biggest of those events I found was a fire in 1831 that destroyed nearly the entire town, leaving only a few buildings intact and only 12 survivors. Cause of the fire reported was a lightning storm. No names for the survivors, no mention of which buildings survived either, but it was specified the fire didn't spread to the forest, so. Go murder forest, good on you for not burning down I guess.
The most recent article I found was from April 7th, 1993. Local student got a scholarship to a fancy school or something.
Also checked out the gallery... I'm not a very artsy person, honestly. There's lots of black and white photographs of Mathias in there. I found a picture of an opening in the cliffside along the beach, but I couldn't tell where that was taken. Maybe like a cave or something under Mathis though. There was also like a creepy old 'The Ring' style well in the forest, and a picture of the light from the lighthouse, and of the school house with children playing near the trees, and just... town square, and people milling about. Oh, I found one picture under the door to the dark room, which I couldn't open by the way. The picture was in colour, it showed the sky all red above a roof, but I have no idea what building that could have been. The roof looked super distinct, but doesn't match any of the buildings I've seen here so far.
[ Another deep breath, then a longer pause. Claire casts her eyes through the room again. ]
So, remember there was that day that we all just sort of... lost, right? Our 11th day here, if I tracked right and time didn't get its panties in a twist? So, I actually woke up in a mansion. I'll get to why that's important later. It was just rows upon rows of identical looking, super tidy, elegant and sparse rooms, and feeling like something was watching me through the mirrors, just at the edge of my vision. Through the windows in the corridors I could see a large forest. Found a skeleton key, haven't found what it unlocks. Doesn't work on the stupid boarding house door, that much is certain, or the dark room in the gallery. The hallways had doors with weird snake engravings. I went through a metric shit ton of identical corridors, until I found the landing of a staircase. Upstairs was dusty and derelict. I found a room, the doors locked behind me. There was a large pile of luggage, and a pile of burnt paper with a circle of soot under it. And when I mean circle, I don't mean vaguely circular, I mean it was a super precise circle, so definitely not naturally occuring. In the burnt paper I found fragments of maps, one piece containing a legend and the words "Mathias, established 1693". There was also a stretch of forest with a large building in it, and then I woke up.
I mention this 'cause... remember how some of us were in a mansion a few days ago? Same place. Just... couldn't find the dusty upstairs. There were more skeleton keys there, much larger than the one I found but otherwise similar. Maps of Mathias that don't match up the layout of the place we're in. Here, I noted down the dates for them... 1702, 1754, 1783, 1801. And... well, I got that same weird sensation of seeing something at the edge of my vision through the mirrors, so I smashed one. [ She raises her hand with the bloody, improvised bandage and shrugs. ] The scratching from the floor boards downstairs and from the ceiling upstairs was, uhm... new. So... well.
Yeah. That's... that's about it, I think. I got some notes on people, too, but like... I mean, on what people can do. 'cause we got all sorts of people there, but honestly... I'm not here to rat shit out, so. Yeah.... next?
[ And she sits back down, cheeks reddened - and oh so very done. ]