villagelogs | 028-029 » the winds of change

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028-029 » the winds of change

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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The slow smile wasn't bad news and Raylan stepped up the porch to sit down next to Doc, their knees very nearly knocking as he settled down on the bench. Unashamedly, Raylan reached down and grabbed the bottle of moonshine, uncorking it for a drink as Doc spoke.

They built walls not easily scaled or easily seen unless some glint in was given but it wouldn't take long to figure out if Doc was out here out of the urge to sit and relax and smoke, or to chew his liver while he pretended to do so.

"Not much of anything different to report. Some broken plates and glasses to clean up, but nothin' we can't handle. We're lucky the pipes didn't burst.. Haven't burst.. we need to leave them on drip in this cold weather, while I'm thinkin' about it.. How's the still doin'? It hold up? No cracks in our bathtub?"

The bottle was tilted back as he finished, filling his mouth with a faint baring of teeth as he swallowed. Yeah, he was going to hold onto this for a few more minutes, sorry - He'll give it back.

He can take his time with it. Doc's still got half a cigarette left.

"Had to realign the setup but it's still holdin'." A bit of 'redneck ingenuity', as Raylan had called it. Whatever 'redneck' means. As far as he knows they're just using what they have at their disposal, making do with what they've got without bitching and moaning about how this shithole of a town can't provide, and hoping for the best.

"Probably would keep on going long after we're gone," Doc adds with a chuckle. "Our blessing of abundance be upon Mathias," he gestures over the snow laid out in front of them, like a half-sober preacher with a hard-fought and hard-won sense of humour.

"I uh... found sommin' else. Near our towel rack." He glances over at Raylan then, holds eye contact for half a second too long before tearing his gaze away.

The good news here was that Doc's 'all that he knows' is exactly redneck ingenuity - working with what you've got in unconventional means that gets you to your goal point. Safety not always required.

Raylan scoffed a laugh with a lingering glance on the white in front of them. "If they can stand it. If not, they might call it a curse. Not the most welcomin' drink ever made," he joked. Not like bourbon. Damn he missed good bourbon. Good thing another swallow of moonshine helped his brain forget just a little more how comforting good bourbon would have been.

He looked over as Doc continued and his own gaze narrowed a little at the way Doc delivered the news, eye contact and all. Something was Up. "Found somethin' else? What'd you find?"

"Heh. Well there's little to choose from 'round here. With any luck we won't be around long enough to make anything that needs aging in a barrel." But luck, as with a few other commodities, are in short supply lately.

Gesturing over his shoulder with a tip of his head, Doc goes back to looking out over the snow and the house they're staying in across the street.

"Miss Ellie suggested the other day that with all this foul weather, could be that the townsfolk got around some other way. I got to stompin' around after tidying up. There's a hatch in the living room." He flicks the cigarette butt onto the floorboard and steps on it.

"I was gon' go take a look." After the cigarette. And going back to 1306 to grab his torch and knife. With a few sips of moonshine in between. At no point did he really consider telling anyone, at least until he'd gone and had a look for himself first, make sure he'd take care of any problems first. It's not a matter of trust - he just doesn't want to be putting anyone in danger. Especially not after what happened at the museum.

Luck seemed to have left them high and dry after the gift of the copper pipe and goods enough to brew anything that came even close to drinkable. Normally, Raylan tended to have a general bit of personal luck, but that also seemed to have gone. Still, he wasn't going to welcome the trouble he could already feel was coming and grunted a note of acknowledgement with another drink before capping the bottle.

Whatever thoughts Raylan had on the idea of townsfolk getting around any other way were forgotten at the mention of a hatch. His head swiveled over, face tight and eyes starkly more bright and alert than the easy laze they'd embodied and pushed up to his feet as Doc flicked his cigarette butt.

Waiting? No, what was that.

"Bullshit," he half growled as he strode into the house, bottle in hand to stop short at the sight of the overturned rug and hefted door. Great. Mathis taking another turn to stab at and mock his abilities as a veteran backwoods asshole of a Marshal. His jaw worked for a long moment until he was ambling forwards to stare down the hole.

It being there meant a whole host of things, none of which made him feel better or satisfied in anyway.

"This was not here before." He looked over his shoulder at Doc. "I turned this house upside down. This was not here before."

"O-oi," Doc stammers, the remnants of this morning's hangover clinging to his limbs as he gets to his feet and follows after Raylan. He doesn't want anyone going down there on account of his own curiosity even if he would rather it be Raylan than Negan.

"Did you look or did you look?" Doc can't help but quip. A book or trinket could possibly have been left behind by a petty thief one night but a whole ass door is something else entirely.

"The coffee table might've been sitting on top of it before. We moved some things around, tidying up. It was not easy to spot either, blended right in with the floorboards." Doc walks right up to the edge of the hatch without actually looking down into it.

"We should toss sommin' down there. See how deep it goes. Or if it wakes up some eight foot flesheating raccoon with coyote teeth."

"I looked," he snapped back, head swiveling back to the hole in the floor, half to spare Doc from the unbridled anger that simmered under his surface, half so he could have it without having to tamp it down under his 'how's the weather' tone and cadence he delivered almost everything else in.

"Spent my life getting taught by people looking to avoid the law in all sorts of way. Grew up in a house with three different empty back panels and been through plenty more got the same type. I know when there's a goddamned hatch in the floor. Went through everything before you got here." No. Don't suggest he somehow doesn't know his job or his skill set anymore. He'd been shown up and kicked around enough by this place.

Raylan took a deep breath and moved as much of his tension as he could into his jaw so that he could bring now dark eyes up to Doc.

"Spoon maybe. I'll be able to tell how deep it is with that. Good thing about minin', you learn to hear how deep a hole is."

"Alright," Doc says with a nod. He doesn't want to argue and what matters now is what they do with this particular revelation, not whether Raylan is good at looking for hidden compartments or how thorough he is. Even the best gunslinger can get outdrawn or miss and it doesn't reflect on his skill or character.

"Well I brought everything over to our- I mean. The house." It's not their house. Not in his mind, anyway. "And I will be needing to grab my flashlight anyway. Come on, quick detour. I'm sure you'll want your own torch." He doesn't want Raylan doing anything on his own. And he should probably walk that frustration off.

He hated these kind of surprises. It was the same bullshit that Mathis pulled in the lighthouse, a ploy to get him to doubt his own reality, his own sanity and Raylan Givens was not going to give up on believing what the hell his eyes and senses told him.

It wasn't their house? The slip of the tongue might argue otherwise but Raylan wouldn't, not with as much as was hiding under the tip of his tongue. He didn't want to turn it on something or someone that didn't deserve it. Raylan nodded and gestured towards the door, following Doc towards it. There were flashlights in this house, spoons too, but the movement that going over to the other house would grant him was probably needed to take the edge off.

"Doesn't make sense. Weather isn't that severe. Gotta be another reason."

Doc needs his gun belt, even if there are no guns in them. He feels better with it on and it would free his hands up from holding the torch and knife anyway.

"What, having a trapdoor? I heard the whole country went dry almost a hundred years ago; maybe the house we ended up making moonshine in used to be occupied by bootleggers, too. Anyway a fog that kills people makes no sense either, but maybe it's safe underground. Hell maybe it's just a grain store or wine cellar." Or a munitions store. They should be so lucky. Doc is willing to entertain a dozen ideas about the hatch.

He's just not that keen on going down there, and the dread of it turns his expression something serious as they return to 1307 and get what they need.

"...maybe we shouldn't go down there," Doc huffs quietly once they have regrouped by the entranceway, curling his fingers under his gun belt and adjusting it to try and mask his fidgeting.

Ah the way holding guns had changed. Raylan used to keep a clip in his back pocket when he knew he was going out into the field and now, he's got neither gun, nor clip nor bullets. The emptiness on his hip was something he took comforting in knowing Doc suffered too.

"Bootleggin' is more realistic. No wine cellar or food stores, that would have an undisguised entrance. This isn't for convenience or legality. This is hidden for a reason.. Maybe some of the town wasn't in on this.. cult thing." Something to chew over, anyway.

Raylan glanced over with a look. "You should stay here. I'll go down. So long as we don't get another earthquake while I'm down there, I'll be fine." There was no sense in traumatizing Doc more; Raylan would take this bullet if he needed to.

"No," and Doc can't be firmer than that. "We don't know what's down there. It could be like the museum. What am I gonna tell Malcolm? I sent you down there to die? I should go. Just- need a drink, and I'll be fine." A small one, not like Last Night. Besides, he has confronted worse things than a hole in the floor. It shouldn't bother him as much as it does.

Two guys arguing over a hole. Typical.

"Then I'll come back up. Or yell it up. No one's gonna die down there, that's far too mundane for this place. I haven't spend a hundred plus years down a well; you'll tell Malcolm that it's better that someone was left up top in case somethin' does happen. We don't know if those tunnels are enforced or not, or how they've been weakened by the earthquake. 'Sides, you don't know shit about mines, do you?"

They were two guys arguing over a shaft; felt like a throwback to his younger days.

"Raylan Givens. Do not use that wretched well against me. This ain't no ordinary mine shaft and you know it. We buried some folks for mundane reasons. You are not going down there alone."

Clenching his teeth, Doc growls and takes a couple of steps towards the moonshine house, turning his back to the door.

"We can both go down." It's shaping up to be either both or neither of the stubborn mules, at this point.

"We buried folk for fog reasons," Raylan said, fully blocking the path back. Pointing back at 1306, Raylan explained his stopping. "The flashlights, Henry. Your drink. I ain't runnin' anywhere, you'll be fine, go on."

It wasn't often that Raylan dug in his heels but the revelation under 1307 pissed him off and that made him ornery.

"I ain't going to stop you but you don't have to strongman through this."

It is not his way, to sit around and do nothing as other man puts his life on the line. Even if he does not fancy himself dropping into a dark, potentially bottomless pit.

"Give me that damn spoon," he gripes, snatching it out of Raylan's grasp and sighing exaggeratedly before taking long, brisk strides over to 1307. Their footsteps in the snow back and forth tell a tale of detours and indecision, but the heavier, more set steps are more determined as he marches into 1307.

Grabbing a fresh bottle of moonshine from the kitchen counter, Doc drinks a few big gulps straight out of the bottle before setting it back down and walking up to the edge of the hole. He waits until Raylan is by his side before he drops the spoon down and counts the seconds that pass before they hear an ominous little clink.

It would have been smarter. It would have been safer. But Raylan wasn't going to punch out Doc to keep him from going down. The man had his door out; him choosing not to take it wasn't something Raylan would bear responsibility for. But neither of them would be going down there alone, apparently.

Raylan stalked along behind Doc until he got to the hole, stopping there while his fellow hat took on some more liquid courage. He looked up from under his hat as Doc joins him and juts his chin towards the hole. Go on. Drop it.

One. dink

He couldn't help the huff of a laugh that fell into him tonguing his teeth thoughtfully. "Maybe 16 foot deep... We got a ladder at least that, don't we? I'm sure we do," he said, striding off to look for the rack they'd been hanging their laundry on in one of the bathrooms. He came back a few minutes later with an old ladder they'd found out in the patio.

"Help me drop it in so I don't drop and shatter it. I don't trust this wood but it should hold us up and down once. We can reinforce it later."

Well step aside kids, the shaft whisperer is in town.

Doc wrinkles his nose. 16 feet deep is still 12 feet too deep for his liking. He hangs around the trapdoor while Raylan fetches the ladder, waiting for someone or something to come crawling out, right hand halfway across his back ready to pull his butter knife.

"Alright," he agrees, tension easing out of his stance as he takes hold of one side of the ladder. When Raylan's ready they edge it to the hole and Doc swallows that too-big lump in his throat as they slowly lower it into the abyss.

It feels a lot deeper than 16 feet at the rate they're going and he can't help but breathe a sigh of relief when they seem to hit the bottom. Doc spends an inordinate amount of time feeling up his torch before he pulls it out of his gun holster, clicking it on and shining it down the hole.

"Well." Deep breath in. Deep breath out. "She looks alright."

It always felt like forever til they hit bottom, but bottom always came. If Raylan could siphon some of his chill and knowhow about it to the other cowboy he would. Since he couldn't, once they straightened from dropping the ladder, he looked over. He could see the gears working towards bravery, towards the stones enough to tuck Doc's biggest fear into that now empty gunbelt.

"I'm going down first. I'd rather you stay up here so I know I got a way out. It's only a hole." He paused a beat, hoping that Doc would look over at him. "I won't tell anyone that you didn't go down if you don't." He set a hand on Doc's shoulder, squeezing gently before he dropped down to sit, legs dangling in the hole for a second. "Once I'm on the ladder, hand me a flashlight, would ya?"

This wasn't a mine; it was just a hole and Raylan could handle a hole. He shifted out until his boot could catch on a rung, gently pulling his weight out as he started working his way down, pausing long enough to take the flashlight from Doc.

"It's not about that," Doc grunts, standing with his hands on his hips watching Raylan get ready to go. His shoulders are clearly still tense if Raylan's grip is anything to go by. His image is the last thing on his mind right now. If there are spores or something else down there and he'd just sent Raylan off on his own, he wouldn't be able to live with himself.

"Here," he offers, crouching down and reaching behind himself to pick up and give Raylan another torch. So far so good. "Raylan, I--"

Don't be a chicken shit, Doc. Or just a shit in general.

"Be careful," he finishes weakly.

No, it wasn't about his image. It was about his wellbeing. Raylan had only offered to help soothe whatever edges he could of the issue plaguing his friend. He knew it wasn't much other than going first, other than putting himself out there ahead of Doc.

Before taking the torch, Raylan takes off his hat and flips it up onto the floor, gathering the flashlight with look up at Doc and a firm nod. "It's just a hole, just a ladder. It'll be okay." The words were gentle and he put a point on them with a fraction of a nod and a lift of his eyebrows. It would be okay. He would be okay.

Down he went, the flashlight against the foundation and soil the only indication to match the soft sounds of his boots working their way down the rungs. Raylan focused on moving his hands and feet instead of how long it might take him to hit the ground. Deep breaths, in and out. One foot in front of the other, just keep moving. Eventually, in what seemed like forever but was likely only half a minute, Raylan hit paydirt and stepped off the ladder with a deep breath. The torchlight was turned down the other way, the beam bending into nothingness. No back wall.

"It's a tunnel," he hollered back up at Doc. "Can't tell how far it goes. Seems.. long."

A tunnel? Doc averts his gaze, scratching his jaw. He picks up Raylan's hat and moves it under the table where it's less likely to get trodden on should they need to hurry out of the hole.

"Alright. Give me a minute." Shit. Breathing out a sigh, he holsters his torch and starts on the ladder.

"You see a mirror down there?" He asks, seemingly out of the blue. Chatting helps him with the descent and the dread that fills him, telling him over and over again that this is a terrible idea. The creaking of the ladder doesn't help settle his nerves at all.

He'd wait. There was no way he was going to forge on without company, without Heney. There was a deep seated need to not be alone down here but going into holes like this alone was not something he was skilled at. Mining was not a solo adventure.

"A mirror? Not.. Not so far as I ca-" Before he got any further, the creak of that wood gave way to a fracture and a break, sending Doc tumbling down right on top of Raylan with a half breathed swear, only half turning before he crumpled under the momentum and cracked his head on the ground.

He and his brain were just gonna take a second, thanks.

This was not the ill-fated end he had anticipated from Two Cowboys One Shaft. Doc's grip tightened on the ladder and he inadvertently brought some of it down on top of them. In the dark he gropes around some wood and some Marshal jeans until he finds some ground beneath his hands and knees.

"Raylan?" Doc reaches over to give him a little shake, the echo of his voice cutting through the commotion. "Are you okay?" He can't hear much beyond the sound of his own heartbeat thumping away but potentially knocking Raylan out is taking his attention away from the sheer panic of being stuck down here.

It wasn't the first time Raylan had been knocked out, but the fall hadn't been hard enough to make the blackout last more than a minute. It was more than disorienting to open his eyes from darkness to... darkness, the shaking from his leg drawing his blurry feeling attention with a throaty breath that was answer enough.

He wasn't dead, that was for sure.

Reaching up to touch his head, he was glad to not feel anything slick or sticky. "Are you okay?" First things first. Then they could worry about the open door above them.

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