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]

Raylan scoffed at the answer, the chuckle behind it apparent. There was no way to make this just a joking matter anymore, not with the way he could still feel Henry's weight and grip and almost furiously needy kiss. It scared the hell out of him, how easily it had wrapped and whipped everything in him up. It scared the hell of him that he wanted more, to feel it unfettered by their situation. There was nothing monstrous about Henry and Raylan doesn't believe they'd be where they were with it if the man didn't want to be loved and held and worried over. The latter was true, regardless of anything else anyway.

Wasn't that what they all wanted, no matter the fronts they hoisted to the rest of the world?

"Yeah, but I bet it only comes easy after you burn some of that fire out," he replied, a smile quirking in the dark. Road they were on, if they could stay on it, Raylan intended on finding out. Raylan had gentle. Tended towards gentle. But Henry wasn't wrong. Not a lot of people would risk getting rough with him. Henry, apparently, wasn't any of that sort.

"Shuddup." But the smile had turned into a grin that seeped into the word and Raylan stopped his pacing to focus up where he knew the hatch was. Right. Their doom and peril. Of course that meant he had to focus on the fact that their survival depended on either the New Yorkers finding them or them finding a way out through the tunnels.

"Assumin' they come lookin' for us.. We do have a good bit of debris from this ladder. Might not hold weight but It should throw fine, right?" He'd prefer the first option, if God was taking requests today.

[thering]

If he's honest, he can't be sure how it works. Usually there are outlets. There are guns. There are women. There is a whiskey. There is a car. Here he can only hope to not subject the housemates to whatever it is he needs to burn out.

He wants to tell Raylan that they might not come looking, but he isn't cruel enough for that. Perhaps it is too early to give up on others. Doc just thinks he knows better from experience. God don't take requests from poor old country boys. They've been making home in places where angels fear to tread.

"Won't work well if it's too light." They can ignore all the small fragments and salvage some big ones. And then... what? Keep throwing and hoping? He doesn't know. Maybe they just need to be doing something to keep themselves busy, even if it is something as futile as that.

"Let's gather everything up anyway." Maybe they'll need to burn the smaller pieces to start a fire if it gets too cold, in which case they'll need to use the bigger pieces they can salvage as firewood and figure something else out.

[tinstar]

If anyone in the house was able to take it, it would be Raylan.. Or Negan, no matter how Henry may not like the idea. That was something else on the internal itinerary, however futile it seemed on it's face.

"For once, I'm not gonna suggest a stress test." With the way their luck was going, the bits would pass the test but not the actual attempt at the floor. He couldn't handle bringing on their failure in that for wanting to be 'through'. He'd like to get out of here, thank you very much - preferably before the panic that had plagued them before returned it's grip full force.

"But we should probably sort it," he said as he moved forward to turn on the light before using his boots to scuff lightly and kick everything towards a central point where they could sort it out without reaching too far.

[abrightboy]

After finding Raylan’s hat on their second pass of the house, they started looking around with a more scrutinizing gaze. Malcolm noticed the corner where the furniture had been moved. He waved Neal over to help pull the trap door open. He peered down into the dark.

“....Hello?” he called.

[conning]

Neal hovered at Malcolm's shoulder, trying uselessly to see deeper into the darkness. He wasn't sure what to do next, if they weren't here. If this was just a coincidence. Start searching the snow banks, maybe, or ask if anyone had seen them near the woods...

He bit his lip. "Raylan? Doc! Are you down there?"

[thering]

Sorting was easy with the light on, much faster when everything was heaped together in a pile. All that was left to do was to take pieces from the middle pile and throw. Leave the smallest pieces for kindling and the biggest pieces for firewood. And maybe save that one that snapped like a stake for anything that might attack them down in the tunnels.

A piece of wood comes flying out the trapdoor when they open it at a speed that an expert knifethrower can muster, nearly taking their eyes out as it hits the ceiling and leaves a faint mark before clattering to the floor.

"...shit," came a voice from down the shaft. Did Doc just take the help out?

l o l whoops

[tinstar]

Raylan had stepped back a little as Doc cocked his arm and while it had been for safety, clearly he was on the wrong side to be in any real danger. With no screams to follow the accidently careless chucking, Raylan assumed all the eyes survived.

"Nice timing." Stepping forwards, he peered up at the hatch door and the worried faces over them. "We were startin' to think maybe y'all weren't comin'," he said, hiding the very real concern that was behind a dryly teasing tone.

"We ain't dead yet but if you don't find some rope or a ladder, it's still on the table."

[abrightboy]

Thank god.

Malcolm looked at Neal. "There's a big ladder in our garage across the street," he said. "Can you grab it?"

He needed to stay and make sure Raylan and Doc didn't just... disappear or get dragged off somewhere.

He looked down in the hole again. "We're gonna get you out! Hold tight!"

[conning]

"Yeah--yeah. I'll be right back."

He bolted from the room, practically sprinting across the street. At least if Malcolm was there, they had some insurance against... Neal didn't know what. Something.

[thering]

It will sink in later that someone had actually come looking, sometime after he's done processing the relief. He must have known these people for a few weeks, and they had come looking. Maybe they weren't worth being looked for, looked after. It didn't seem to matter.

Doc unconsciously tugs the hem of his shirt down just in case there is some residual awkwardness that needs to stay concealed. There is little that can be done about his tight pants. Raylan is anything but a dirty little secret, but what happened in the shaft might need to stay in the shaft for a good long while to come.

"...'preciate it," is all Doc can manage to say for now. With that little bit of light hanging up in their black sky, even though it doesn't shine all the way through, it is reassuring enough to have Henry lowering his head, checking the floor for anything they might have left behind.

[tinstar]

Now that the New Yorkers were very nearly within arms reach, freedom from this goddamned pit so painfully close, Raylan was antsy for them to get on. For the singular perk of having been down here, the cons were still chewing on his bones, working under his fingernails in an urge to claw his way up and out to the fresh air. The only tell of it was the way he fidgeted with the horseshoe ring, off hand resting on cocked hips, eyes locked up at the hatch.

Everything else was forgotten - the sexual tension, the damage it would do to Malcolm, what he was going to say about it; Raylan didn't care what they left so long as they left.

"You think he'll be able to find it?" The question was for whoever wanted to take it.

[abrightboy]

“The ladder? He’ll find it. It’s not small. Are you guys okay? You’re not hurt?”

He didn’t know how they got down there. Had they fallen?

[conning]

He did find it. It took some inelegant wrestling to get it into a position where he could carry it, and he had to open the garage door to get it out, all the while battling the panicked feeling that he would get there and there would be nothing left of his housemates somehow. That Raylan and Doc would have been dragged off into the tunnel, and Malcolm would have gone after them, and Neal...

He hauled the ladder in to the still room, sagging with relief to see Malcolm there and not any more panicked than he was when Neal left. That was one bit of paranoia released, at least. "Got it. Malcolm, can you help me with it?"