030-035 » a-hunting they will go

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias.
WHEN: Days 030-035
WHAT: Unexpected changes come to Mathias, followed by a Hunt.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here! And shiny new CR meme too.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Marco Beltrami "It Hears You"

DAYS 030-032
A CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCES
The day after the earthquake dawns like any other in Mathias Township. The sky is a light winter grey, clouds obscuring even a hint of true sunlight, and snow falls off and on in dustings that rest atop the piles left from the storm a few days past. The air is bitterly cold, a gentle wind feeling like ice in the sub-freezing temperatures, and residents should be grateful that the earthquake didn't do more damage than just breaking a few household objects.

It seems like business as usual. It will not be until the second day that residents will begin to notice the difference.

The General Store's shelves have not been restocked. Items in kitchens have not replenished in the passing night. Food from the previous day has aged as normal, and as the days continue to pass, things will begin to grow stale or become moldy as they would in the outside world. Two days pass, three, four... Still, the food does not return.

Perhaps rationing should be considered.



NEW ARRIVALS
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake on the snowy beach near the Grey Gull restaurant. They should probably hurry inside and get warmed up before hypothermia sets in or something finds them out in the cold...

---

DAYS 033-034
IN THE NIGHT, IN THE DARK
These days, too, seem to be simply more of the same. The days are cold and grey, the food does not replenish, and they continue to be trapped in this eerie town. But when night falls, the story changes.

An hour after sunset, it begins. Scratching sounds at walls, like something searching for a way inside. The ominous feeling of something out there in the darkness, moving through the town, stalking through the night. The inability to find any sign of something being there at all. It's enough to make anyone feel like they're going mad. To happen just one night, it could be a fluke, a trick of the mind as so many things here seem to be. But to happen a second night, with more intensity... There is something there, or they are going mad.

It's hard to know which to hope for.

DAY 035
THE HUNT
This day is not like the others. There is something in the air, a dreadful anticipation that rises inside them all as the hours pass. Every moment that brings them closer to nightfall brings it closer too — if only they knew what it was.

An hour after sunset, the Hunt begins.

Those who are outside at this time are gripped by such terror that they can do nothing but run and be chased. They are prey and the predators that stalk them with steadfast determination are creatures never meant to be seen by mortal eyes. All lights outside go out, from streetlamps to flashlights, and the world descends into deeper darkness, only the clouded moonlight and curtained glow from illuminated houses lighting their way as they flee.

Those who are inside at this time are trapped in their safe havens. No doors or windows can be opened from within, nothing can be broken or forced, and they can do nothing but wait and listen while their friends and neighbors are pursued by creatures whose very presence they can feel in their bones and whose growls echo in the night, entwined with the screams of their victims.

In the thick darkness, these creatures appear little more than shadows, large and looming, deadly and unknown, but in rare glimpses in scattered pieces of light, the Hunted are met with a sight they cannot comprehend and will never be able to properly describe or fully remember, for these creatures cannot be fathomed within the limits of the human mind.

The Hunt lasts for one hour exactly and then the creatures vanish into the darkness, leaving only fear and death in their wake.


ABOUT THE HUNT
— Players may choose to have their resident be one of the Hunted or a Witness to the Hunt. None are exempt from the the Hunt and all will be affected by it in some way.

— Those who are hunted must flee the creatures or they will die. The Hunted may move throughout the town at any speed, for the creatures may choose to move both quickly or slowly, but the creatures will always inevitably find them. The only escape is to seek shelter — the creatures will not enter a building where living people are, but they will follow the Hunted into buildings where there are no other living people.

— Those who are trapped within buildings at the start of the Hunt are unable to open doors and windows from within, but the Hunted may open them from outside in order to take shelter in these safe havens.

— Those who are hunted are unable to fight back against the creatures until the moments just before their death. This is due the creatures only having physical form in these final moments, rendering any attacks against them useless, whether they be physical, magical, or psychic in nature. Attempts may be made in those moments before death, but by then it is too late — the prey has been caught.

— When one of the Hunted is caught, there is no escaping, there is only screaming in madness as death falls painfully upon them. No one can come to their aid and their body will be found afterward, the bloody remains ripped and torn apart by something that cannot be identified. Large sprays and pools of blood stain the area around the corpse, turning the snow sickening shade of crimson that darkens as the hours pass.

— After the creatures have vanished, there are no signs of them to be found in the snow. There are no tracks or marks of any kind save for the carnage of the fresh kill.

— Those who have been sacrificed to the Hunt will revive two days later on Day 037. The conditions in which they revive will be detailed later, but there will be only minor lasting physical damage from the Hunt.

— The Hunted will lose 5 points of sanity. Those Witnesses who find the corpses will lose 2 points of sanity, or 3 points if they are not unaccustomed to this type of sight. Others who are merely Witnesses to the sounds of Hunt may choose to lose 1 point of sanity as a result of the experience.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER is fairly typical of a northern winter. The sky is almost always grey, the temperature is below freezing during the day (and colder at night), and a light snow falls intermittently. The sun sets early in the evening. 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 beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the northern section of town, beginning just past Hill Lane, before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be between Hill and Stine Road. Venturing into the fog is ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue. Sherlock Holmes is still missing, and Phil Coulson, John Constantine, Zed Martin, and Helen Magnus have vanished as well.

---

OOC NOTES

— FOOD will be restocked in some fashion in the next full log, don't worry. We aren't going full survival mode yet.

— DAY 036 The next log will cover Day 36 only and will include the locations of deaths and any corpse burials that occur the night of Day 35 or are planned for Day 36. (There will be prompts included for both the "living" and the "dead" in this single day log.) Please submit all information by Wednesday, Feb 17.

— MOD STATUS It's mostly just Amy steering this ship for now, so things will probably be pretty slow for a while. Apologies in advance, and please don't feel shy about pinging me if you're stuck waiting for something.

navigation | faq | setting | mod contact

Comments

[tinstar]

[Amazingly that.. kinda was what he meant and for that alone, if nothing else, the bottle was given up willingly. All the better that he didn't drink whatever Neal would, if his gut had anything to say about it.]

It's good. Better than the pb and j's I throw together in my motel room when I'm not out to get somethin' better. Soup if it's cold on my portable burner. [On top of the TV he didn't use. Oh yeah, grand living.]

Most times, when I eat fancy shit, it's on the government's dime.

[conning]

"You know." Neal held up one finger of the hand holding his glass as he poured a small amount of moonshine into it. He wasn't quite eager for a repeat of the headache he'd gotten after their dinner the other night. "One of the most expensive coffees in the world is actually made up of beans gathered from the excrement of the palm civet. Something about the digestive acids doing something to the coffee cherries."

[tinstar]

Raylan barked a short laugh. "I thought it was out of Kohala asses or somethin'. No, thank you. I'll just take Maxwell if it's all the same."

Maxwell coffee, Neal.

"Best coffee I had was in a layover during a prison transfer in Paris. I miss it here, but not as much as I did in my office. Worst coffee ever made, I don't know how."

It was a light topic, a safe, easy one. A welcome one, wherein he could pretend that everything was still fine.

[conning]

Maxwell. Neal can't help it. He actually mouths the word as he shakes his head.

"Pretty sure 'worst coffee ever made' is a requirement of any government-established office building. Did you get to see any of it? Paris?"

[tinstar]

"Pretty sure you're right," he agreed easily with a curl of his features. "But I was only in Paris for the layover. Always wanted to go back. I work too much to travel for pleasure. Furthest I ever got for that has always been Miami."

[conning]

"Where would you go? If you could? Anywhere. With anyone."

He knocked back a little more of the moonshine, settling a little more comfortably into the chair.

[tinstar]

"Anywhere?" He lifted his eyebrows with the question, lips twisting down in the equivalent of a facial shrug. "Never really thought about it. Cuba, maybe. Plenty of beaches, apparently a snapshot of the 1950's.."

With anyone was a much more difficult part of the question, so Raylan opted to ignore it. Even Cuba was Winona's place to Go, not his. There'd never been any reason to. Why would he go by himself?

[conning]

That was the answer of someone going along with someone else's vacation destination choice. Neal made a thoughtful little noise, very much noting the fact that Raylan hadn't mentioned anyone he'd go with. "Well, think about it, though. Really think about it. There has to be somewhere in the world you think you'll never get to see. Somewhere you would, if you had the chance."

[tinstar]

Raylan stared into his mug for a long moment, brow pinching into a thoughtful furrow. Most people took his 'Never thought about it' on any particular topic, letting him slip away from actually answering or putting for that effort of thought.

"Hard to imagine me takin' the time off to go anywhere.. I've heard Spain is pretty.. More beaches-" Two steps away from being a beach bum. "Wouldn't mind going to see bits of Africa too. Morocco or Cairo. Places totally different from the states."

[conning]

"Spain is beautiful," Neal agrees quietly. "Morocco too, and Cairo. Can't recommend Uganda or Rwanda, unfortunately, but Tanzania or Namibia--stunning."

He studies his own glass, making a small, amused sound. "God. Listen to me. I talk like I've been anywhere outside of the states in the past seven years. Anywhere outside of New York."

He shakes his head. "You like beaches? I've heard the Seychelles are beautiful. Actual pink sand."

[tinstar]

"Only way to escape the inescapable," he lamented with a studious look over. "It's probably better to have real places that you've actually seen to escape to."

He knew what it was to want to escape a place and being stuck there, locked into a reality he couldn't fully control. Just like they were locked here - chattel for whatever the hell was toying with them.

"Love 'em. Can't decide if it's the sand or the sun or the clothing options or the way you can look out over it all and not see anything but endless sky.. Unobstructed, untainted by half dead willow and magnolia trees. Part of the reason I ended up in Miami, food aside. Too much Miami Vice and all I wanted was somethin' that was different from Georgia or Kentucky. I've been assigned a few different places - LA was the shortest though, I don't think I get along with that coast terribly well." He was one good summer away from turning into a beach bum.

"I actually like flipflops, ya know. Not just boots."

[conning]

He listens to Raylan talk, smiling a little. "Horizons will not come to you; you must go to the horizons."

A pause. He takes a drink of his moonshine, managing just to wrinkle his nose and cough a little instead of giving way to the out-and-out gag he did the first time he drank some. "It doesn't surprise me, that you and LA didn't get along. It's... You're too real for that place. Plus, even their cheap gift shop flipflops are probably at least twenty dollars."

[tinstar]

"I got to plenty.. For work." Did that count? He doubted it but he was going to argue it anyway if he could get away with it. He didn't have anything else but his work. Raylan couldn't and didn't bother to stop the smirk curling on his lips at the little cough Neal gave. Attaboy. He'd get there.

"I know better than to buy anythin' other than ice cream and boardwalk teddy-bears, but I can afford the twenty bucks if I need to." He was raised poor but that didn't mean that he still was. The savings he gained by not really living anywhere, paying cheap motel rates, were fairly significant. Not to mention he was thinking of taking up some side jobs to sock a few grand more away.

"I bet you got a mask that's shallow enough to pass with those kinda people and even if you don't, you got a smile that's good enough to open most doors, so I imagine you did well. I get to ask what brought you so far out west? Europe I understand, that's where everyone goes, but L.A?"

[conning]

"You don't get to explore a place when it's for work. You don't get to know it, get to really dig in to what it's like there." No, it does not count.

Neal toasts him with his little tumbler of moonshine. "Never said you couldn't. But I just don't see the point in paying twenty dollars for a fifty cent pair of shoes when it's easier to lift them."

He huffs out a breath of amusement, looking down. "I'm joking," he says.

It's only around Raylan that he feels the need to clarify that kind of thing, he realizes. He wouldn't correct himself if it were Peter. Peter expects that kind of thinking from him, so Neal leans into it. It's part of who Neal is to Peter, who he is to the FBI. A reformed con man, sure, but it's still a part of him.

Raylan... expects better.

Which is why answering his question is hard.

"The LACMA. I don't usually do contemporary or pop art, but... it was a paid job for a friend."

[tinstar]

He knew Neal was right; there was more depth and color to a place that a brief run through it's middle street wouldn't pick up, no matter how attentive Raylan was. But that was all Raylan had ever really been able to afford. Even on his pay, he'd had to save up a few years before taking Winona anywhere and after Miami.. Well, didn't seem much point in going anywhere by himself.

Raylan opted to not think about it and focus on the rest of it all instead. He huffed a breath, lips curling faintly over his cup before he looked over sidelong with it. Pragmatically, Neal wasn't wrong, but lifting anything wasn't Raylan's idea of a good time. Was Neal joking? He wasn't sure.

"You hang around in places after jobs? Take in the city?" He could see Neal hitting bars, picking up beautiful women and generally living the best high life he could while he was out there with the chance to do it.

[conning]

"Sometimes. It depends on how much heat whatever's missing is going to bring." A pause, another clarification. "Depended. Was."

He shakes his head. "Still have to get used to that."

The past tense. Neal studies his glass.

"Most of the time I do--I did my sightseeing beforehand. Visited the best restaurants, toured the art galleries, crashed any particularly interesting looking parties. Sometimes hit the gambling tables if there were any high-stakes games in town. That's actually how I met the single biggest mistake of my life, in fact."

Up to and including the move that got him arrested.

[tinstar]

"I don't know that I could mind tenses, were it my badge I was leavin' behind." Even if it was by choice.

Neal didn't have to worry about it. Raylan wasn't going to assume that tense meant intent, not in a casual conversation like this. No matter the depths of the topics they decided to touch to define 'casual'.

"Gamblin', huh?" Raylan liked a bit of cards, any challenge to it was welcome. His head tilted a little as he studied Neal's face. "Old girlfriend?"

It was a guess but a gently spoken one - the Marshal was the last person to throw barbs about choices in women.

[conning]

Neal smiles into his glass at the assumption. It's not an unreasonable one to make. It isn't as though Neal has broadcast any interest in other directions, and when he kissed Malcolm--well, Malcolm doesn't seem the type to kiss and tell. Even if he is terrible at hiding when he cares about someone.

"Matthew Keller," he says, enunciating first and last name with a careful distaste that makes it clear what his current opinion is. "I wouldn't exactly call him a... boyfriend. I don't know what I would call him."

[tinstar]

Raylan wouldn't have given him shit about it, had he known, but it was something of a surprise. Maybe not, considering how little he knew of that kind of lifestyle.

"That complicated? Can't say I found one that ain't.. You love him?"

[conning]

The question hits hard, and the blow is unexpected.

"No," Neal says, without hesitation. Does he love Keller now? No. He hates him, if he feels anything at all.

"No," Neal says again, as he goes from studying his glass to studying the cloudy sky beyond the back deck. Something he's not sure how to name presses hard against his chest, a sadness and a rage and a relief and a regret he can't frame with words.

Love was never something he and Keller had.

"We were in the same trade. Ran in a lot of the same circles. And he was good at what he did. As good as me. We worked together a few times, and then a job went bad, and we didn't any more. He never stopped trying to compete with me, though."

[tinstar]

His brow furrowed a little at the strength of Neal's first response. 'Boyfriend' had thrown Raylan off; he assumed anyone using that term would have some kind of affection. There was a lot of different types of relationships that he'd never encountered - he kept his mind open.

Open but curious.

"So you left the.. partnership and he was sour about it? Or is this more of-" Of what he related more to- "The game with you specifically?"

[conning]

"It's... complicated," Neal said softly. "We--"

He cut himself off. "I don't know," he admitted, still quiet. "Maybe I loved him. It's been long enough, enough has happened... I don't know what I felt back then any more."

Neal took a drink from his glass, squinting and coughing a little. He huffs out a breath of amusement.

"I talk too much around you people."

[tinstar]

'Complicated' Raylan could understand, even without details. The nuance of relationships and intimate feelings, those deep connections not unlike one he shared with Boyd, were hard to explain in a way that would be satisfactory to most people.

He smirked softly at the cough and sputter, turning his own a little and resisting the urge to sip the moonshine himself.

"That's what you get for saddlin' yourself with Cop-types. Malcolm started this one though, this.. A willingness to make it okay to ask a personal question now and then. Still haven't decided if it's for the better or not, jury's still out."

[conning]

"I'm with the jury," Neal says, faintly amused. "He's... good at that. Malcolm is."

He leans his head back against the chair. "I guess it's hard not to be, when you have to have your feelings in the open all the time. Well. That, and I guess the years of training in understanding the human condition helps too."

[tinstar]

"I don't know how he makes it through a day, much less thirty plus years," Raylan admitted. "What he has to suffer." Clucking softly, Raylan shook his head, looking down into his lap.

"He's stronger than he thinks he is. You are too, you know. Both out here darin' to be fully yourselves. His case, he can't help it, I know but.. Could go poorly for him if he ever decided to be different. I think we're all better this way. With him, the way he is. I know he grates some people but.. those people ain't looked inside and accepted what they are yet. I'm glad he's with us, if any of us got to be here at all."