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

[conning]

Neal shook his head. "I've..."

He smiled faintly, glancing at Malcolm's face then away. "Not the first time this has happened. It'll go away eventually. It did then."

[abrightboy]

"Mine did the first time, too," he said, running his thumb back and forth across Neal's hand. "But... then something really bad happened and it came back worse and never went away."

[conning]

The thought made Neal feel queasy. He needed steady hands to do what he did. "That's..."

Not an option.

He kept his voice light. "I hope it does, because otherwise that's going to make forgery tricky once I get home."

Neal felt his fingers starting to still, and the rest of him relaxed along with them.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nodded. "Well. At home they don't shake nonstop. My anxiety medication keeps me pretty level. The shake starts when I get too anxious or stressed out."

But Mathias was a different story.

"Are you sure you're okay?" He gestured around at the kitchen. "You still want to do this?"

[conning]

"Doing this helps," he admitted. "It. Helped this morning, before I got up, to just plan the prep order for everything."

He unfolded his fingers enough to take Malcolm's hand in his own, giving it a little squeeze. After a moment, he said, "I feel like Rey is following me."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nodded.

"If you're not used to seeing.... corpses, that can have a profound effect but... I think it's more than that. This place almost seems to.... to prey on our minds. I always have... horrific nightmares. Everything I see when I close my minds is unrelentingly awful but... a little while ago there was this... being. A shadowy man that we could see across a chasm in the ground. And he's gone now but ever since then... I keep seeing him."

[conning]

Neal shuddered. "When you're asleep? Or..."

He gestured at their surroundings.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked at him with hesitation, like he wasn't sure he should say it.

"....Mostly when I'm asleep."

[conning]

He nodded, the hair on the back of his neck prickling uncomfortably. It wasn't so much at the idea that Malcolm had hallucinations--it was more at the thought that it would be hard to tell, in this place, whether it was a hallucination or not.

Neal glanced over at the cutting board, unable to meet Malcolm's eyes again. "I thought I saw her face reflected on the knife," he said, voice quiet.

[abrightboy]

He couldn't always tell right away whether it was an hallucination or not.

"Behind you or instead of you?" he asked.

[conning]

He hadn't noticed in the moment, but: "Instead of me."

[abrightboy]

"Has that kind of thing happened to you before?" he asked.

[conning]

"Never." His throat felt squeezed around the word. "Nightmares, I've had."

It was like dragging each word out of a tar pit. "Moments where I just... disconnected. But only for a second, and it got better."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nodded.

"If you're better more than you're not, you can stay better," he said quietly. "But you have to work on it. Better doesn't happen by itself."

[conning]

He laughed in a faintly hysterical way. "You mean just ignoring it until it goes away isn't an option?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiled wryly. "You know it isn't. You don't want to end up like me by leaving your trauma unprocessed," he said with a tilt of his head.

[conning]

Neal cleared his throat. "I'm not sure I... know how to do that."

He took a deep breath, then barreled on. "About a year ago, my girlfriend, Kate, was murdered."

It took his breath away just to say the words out loud. "I almost. If things had been a little different, I would have died too. For a while, after, I..."

He hadn't even talked to Peter about any of this. It was only I'm fine, until Neal had been fine enough for Peter to stop asking. "I had all of it, the shakes, the nightmares, the... moments where the world just."

He shrugged.

"I honestly don't know why it all went away. I'm good now. My life is good, now. But I don't know what I did for it to be okay."

[abrightboy]

"The mind can... recover from trauma. A certain amount of trauma to a certain degree. What you're describing is post traumatic stress, but it doesn't have to be a permanent condition, as long as you're given room and time to heal. This place? Time we have, but no room. It rides our trauma. I know I look like a mess now, but.... I've come miles from where I was and at home, with my meds and my routine, I can function day to day for the most part. If... you want to talk about what's hurting you, I'm willing to listen," Malcolm told him. "That's the only type of medicine we have for mental health here."

[conning]

Neal turned back to the celery, carefully picking up the knife. He half-expected his hand to start shaking again, but it stayed steady as he went to work.

"Yesterday I went to the library," he said. "I just wanted to explore a little, see what kind of books they had."

He brought the knife down a little harder than necessary. "There's this tunnel, stairs. I heard voices. It felt like... they were pulling at me."

Neal stopped. "Anyway, after I went down, I... It's like I haven't been able to shake the feeling of it since."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm took that in.

“Back when I was staying in the library, I avoided the part that... felt weird,” he confessed.

Yep. That was what the cowboys salvaged him from. Being a tiny, sleep-deprived madman muttering to himself in a corner of the library.

[conning]

"I didn't even mean to go there," Neal said softly. He glanced over at Malcolm. "I'm glad they pulled you out of that place."

[abrightboy]

"Me too. This place is so much better," he said.

Plus he got to spend time hanging around Raylan. Shh.

"It's nice to have a social group."

[conning]

Neal smiled a little at that. "It is. ...I'm willing to listen, too. For the record. If you want to talk about things."

[abrightboy]

“Do I seem like a man with burdens on my mind? I used to be decent at hiding that,” he joked weakly.

[conning]

"So was I." Neal smiled crookedly. "You people know more about me than even Peter does, at this point."

He made a softly amused sound, scraping the celery to one side of the board now that it was properly cut. "I wonder what he'd think about that."

Neal set the knife down, turning to look at Malcolm. "I mean it. If... I know you've known Raylan and Doc longer, but if you want to talk to someone who isn't a cowboy..."

He shrugged.