028-029 » the winds of change

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias.
WHEN: Days 028-029
WHAT: A town meeting is called.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Ikiryo"

DAY 028
SOMETHING ON THE WIND
Another day dawns in the fair town of Mathias. The sky is a blanket of light grey, tiny specks of snow lightly falling as the hours pass. It makes the town feel almost quaint, the scenery quite peaceful in its winter garb. But beneath the veneer of peace there is a pervasive dread of something approaching. Something inevitable is on the wind, something that has come before and will come again...

Throughout the day, residents will consistently experience feelings of deja vu, that sense of having done or seen or said something before that can never be fully recalled. It happens again and again, tugging at the back of their minds, the memories just frustratingly out of reach.

Residents will also notice a note pinned around town:




The note can be found on the town hall's bulletin board and the front doors of many town establishments, including the Grey Gull, the library, and the boarding house. At the bottom of the note it is specified that the meeting will take place "tomorrow, when the sun is over the town square."


NEW ARRIVALs
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake on the frozen lawn of the town hall atop a snowdrift. They had best hurry inside and get warmed up before hypothermia sets in.

DAY 029
A GATHERING OF MINDS
In the late afternoon when the sun hangs over the town square, residents will converge upon the Town Hall, where a larger meeting room has been filled with rows of chairs. After most people arrive, John Constantine stands and addresses the room... and then sits again. A grand introduction, truly.

Residents are encouraged to share their experiences and information they have gathered in the town while holding questions until the end. Rather than getting tangled in the intricacies of each person's tale, it seems better to absorb the broad strokes and try to connect the puzzle pieces to get a look at the bigger picture that is the mystery of Mathias Township.


THE INEVITABLE
As the meeting comes to an end and residents begin to converse among themselves, the feeling of something approaching and sense of deja vu begin to build, becoming almost oppressive as night falls. An hour after nightfall, residents learn the reason for these sensations that cease immediately as the earth begins to rumble. The buildings shake, furniture tumbles, and breakables crash to the floor as the earthquake sets in without warning.

The tremors last around a minute, far longer than a normal earthquake, and then the town settles again. There are no aftershocks, which many may note is quite unusual. Residents will find quite a bit of mess in their homes and other locations around town, but there is no structural damage to be found despite the intense shaking.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER is fairly typical of a northern winter. The sky is grey, the temperature hovers just below freezing during the day (colder at night), and a light snow falls during both days. Residents should bundle up when going outside and not venture too far into the dark night...

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the northern section of town, beginning just before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be. Venturing into the fog is ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue with Sherlock Holmes being the latest victim of the town's unsettling whims.

---

OOC NOTES

— TOWN MEETING STRUCTURE The town meeting section of the log is designed for characters to share any information they would like to with the other residents in attendance. ICly, characters should "hold questions until the end" with the intent that they can get the Big Picture first and connect any dots they see. OOCly, this means players should post their character's information sharing tag in the Meeting section, but the actual conversation about whatever they share happens after the meeting proper in the Mingle section. That way, these conversations can happen however players prefer, be that one-on-one or in small or large groups.

— HOUSING Please be sure your character's housing arrangements are up to date on our list. We're missing a few people and it really helps to know where everyone is for planning. Frequent updates for wandering characters are perfectly acceptable.

— THE BULLETIN BOARD has been updated. Players should note there is a change to the wall near the board that may be of great interest to some residents.

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Comments

[tinstar]

Staring was weird so Raylan kept his eyes down, lost in the middle of the nothing on his table as he listened, as passive as he'd been in days. It wasn't hard to be small and still; he had a lot of practice.

She stops and so he looks up from under his hat with a little bobbing lift of it in greeting to go with his returned "Hey." He stayed where he was for now, hands coming up to settle on top of the table.

"Hope you don't mind me sneakin' in to listen to you. Figure it was better than lurking outside the doors like a creep.. I was headed to the beach but... You got a good sound to ya. Surprised music's survived into the apocalypse but.. good to see people still learnin' it."

[enduresurvive]

She smiles just a little. "Well, I'm playing in a public place. It feels a little more...I don't know the word. It's just not as lonely, I guess, if I come here and play. So no apology needed."

She shakes her head.

"God, imagine how awful the world would be without music? It's hard to get the stuff that existed before. I have some cassettes and CDs but not a lot. Guitars, though? They survive. Or some people keep making them."

Joel made incredible wood carvings, not just guitars, as some kind of outlet. Ellie's never been able to do that (and never asked him to teach her). She can do other thing. But artistically, she's more of a sketcher or painter than sculptor.

"I think people need music and art to keep going."

[tinstar]

That he could agree with. It made the place a little less dark and less daunting. A little more welcoming. They could all use that. Raylan smiled crookedly.

"I don't do either but still think you're right," he started with a bob of his head. "Never been much good with my hands in that sorta way, but I enjoy 'em both. Especially music. Couldn't imagine a place without someone making one of the two.."

He lifted his chin at the guitar. "Where'd you learn?"

[enduresurvive]

"Neither can I," she says. "The world is shitty enough without some fun stuff in it." She has comic books, the old trading cards she's found, and art when she can do it. Art is...hard, sometimes, and she doesn't share a lot of what she does. Music is easier to share.

She goes still for a moment when he asks her.

"Someone taught me," she says, trying to play that off as no big deal and failing. "But I taught myself after I learned the basics, I guess."

[tinstar]

Having had the job he had for as long as he had, he knew the tells. He knew when he'd hit a nerve, though not always what kind of nerve he'd hit. Ellie had lost a lot of people; he knew that. How she'd lost them was more of a mystery, but that didn't make losses any less sharp.

"You want to talk about it or should I find something else before I stick one very dusty boot in my mouth?" As he asked, he slid out of the seat he was in, in favor of ambling to a closer booth now that she knew he was there.

"No one in my family plays anythin', though I'm sure a grandmother or two that played organ. Mighta taken to it had I been exposed to it, early enough."

[enduresurvive]

"I don't wanna talk about it," she answers immediately. She'd talked to Malcolm, alone and in the dark, which had sort of worked out. But he's the only one she's really told, though she's aware enough to know that several of the other men have some kind of idea. It's a miracle Doc hasn't pried any of it out of her.

"Organ? What, like those big church things?" She's never seen one in person, but she knows what they are. "That seems hard as hell, all those keys and shit."

[tinstar]

"Those are just the big ones. Small towns have small organs - look like somethin' you'd find in an old house. Bit like a small piano. Haunting all the same."

He took the decline smoothly, not even pausing or doubling back to it. Ellie had a right to keep things to herself. Pushing never helped anyone here - there were different rules to follow than if he was working a case. See? He does have some manners.

"Apparently all that matters is that you know the notes. You know how to read music or is it all just by ear?"

[enduresurvive]

"Huh," she says, trying to imagine a little organ. Like a piano, maybe a keyboard? She's not entirely sure what a little one looks like, but she gets the picture well enough.

"Nah, I can't read music or anything. I can read tab a little bit but there wasn't a lot written down, so I learned by ear. I mean, I know what a lot of the chords are called, but I have to listen to something and pick out the sounds." It takes work; she doesn't have perfect pitch or a perfect ear, but she manages.

"What kind of music do you like? Country?" She might be teasing. Joel listened to some country stuff, too, but mostly he liked rock.

[tinstar]

If he had any kind of hand for drawing, he might draw something out for her but his lack of skills reached out that far too.

He nodded a little at the answer. "Heard a lot of people say that, seems common enough." The question made him smirk and glance down briefly at the table before looking back up at her from under the brim of his hat.

"The cowboy boots give it away? It's not the only thing I like, but it's in there. Southern rock makes the cut too. Little classical if it's nice, somethin' you might hear at a restaurant. I'm not familiar with what you were singin' - what was it?"

[enduresurvive]

"There's probably someone somewhere still alive who can read music." She doesn't think Joel could either, but...well, she's not sure. She never thought to ask, and then she stopped talking to him for a couple years, and now...

"Nah, it's the hat," she tells him, deadpan. But it's a lot of things, the way he talks. Joel and Tommy were from Texas and she learned to sort of recognise their type.

"I've never been to a restaurant, obviously," she says. Well, she's been in them. But only after they were dilapidated and looted out, pretty much.

"That one? Uh...it's a church song, I guess. Weird, because I've never gone to church in my life. But the songs are kind of...haunting, I guess." She learned those from different people. Joel wasn't spiritual at all, but he knew how to play a bunch of things. Maybe he'd grown up hearing them.

She readjusts and goes back to the beginning of Through the Valley, though she just does a few lines.

"There's others like that one. Um. May the Circle Be Unbroken is one. Wayfaring Stranger. But...country, right? Dolly Parton? You know her?

She has no idea just how big Dolly was, of course.

She starts finding the chords from her memory, though she doesn't remember all the words at the moment so she doesn't sing along. Still, he might recognise Jolene.

[tinstar]

How weird it was to consider that the question itself was a completely legitimate one with the hell Ellie's world had been through?

He 'ahh'd softly, face breaking in a small smile, an almost step into levity. "Knew it had to be somethin'." He didn't mind. Raylan lifted his eyebrows at the assertion and nodded softly. "Right. I'm sure you can imagine what it was like.. Sort of."

"They can be," he said of church songs, having gone to plenty of service and more than happy to fall silent again to listen.

"Don't think I've ever heard that one before but.. haunting sounds about right." His smiled lifted, curling at the edges. "Everyone knows Dolly Parton.'

The smile broke into a full grin as Ellie made her way into Jolene. "Now that one, I do know.. I got a record back at the house; nothin' to play it one, Dean's found the only working record player but.. One day I oughta play it for you. Don't suppose you ever heard of a song about a place called Harlan, have you?"