villagemod: (sᴛᴏɴᴇ)
The Village Mod ([personal profile] villagemod) wrote in [community profile] villagelogs2021-02-20 07:12 pm

036 » aftermath: the dead

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Mathias Township...?
WHEN: Day 036
WHAT: What happens after death?
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here! And a log for the living.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Kijo 鬼女"





DAY 036
RED SKY AT MORNING

But for the dead, morning does not come. They awake to a frozen world covered in darkness, the night sky above so clear that they make out the stars that are both familiar and strangely not. The moon is full, casting light that reflects upon the snow, but both are covered in a haze of red.

Everything is covered in red. The snow, the ocean, the night sky. It's as if they are seeing through colored glasses, but that filtered hue cannot be removed.

Those who were victims of the Hunt awake where they fell, surrounded by their own blood but curiously unharmed. In fact, their physical state is that of before the Hunt, and the only sign of their injuries are the wild splatters of blood all around them.

There is no sign of anyone in Mathias except for the dead, no matter how much they search. And there is quite a lot now to search — the fog has vanished from the town completely and all paths are clear to be wandered. Time is of the essence, though, for the dead will not remain so for long.

They have only six hours in this place that is Mathias but not.



SAILORS TAKE WARNING

At the fourth hour into their stay, a storm arrives. Perhaps difficult to see at first, before long the clouds can be noticed moving across the sky, at first blocking out only patches of those strange stars but then blotting them out entirely. The moon struggles in vain to shine through their darkness, eventually failing and leaving only artificial light to guide the dead in their journeys.

The storm begins with the fifth hour. The rumbling is like that of a thunderstorm but infinitely more ominous, signaling something approaching that is not meant for the world of man. Within a few minutes, they learn why as lightning arcs across the sky, the cracks of powerful energy echoing through the air. Those branching spikes at first remain in the sky, but then suddenly they crash down to meet the earth, striking the Town Hall. The sound of splintering wood fills the air, followed moments later by the roaring crackle of a fire raging into existence. Those cracks and crashes continue, but no others reach the ground.

The fire spreads with purpose, moving outward from the town's center but never touching the forest. It leaps from building to building, consuming everything in its path. It is a living, breathing thing driven by a need to devour. There is no stopping or controlling it.

As ash begins to fall from the sky like snow and the final hour begins, the earth rumbles like the sky. Like so many of them recently experienced, the ground shakes, sending burning buildings collapsing inward and residents tumbling to the ground. For a full minute, it seems as if the world is truly ending—

And then it stops. The world is silent. No rumbling of the sky, no crackles of fire. For a few moments, there is nothing.

The sound returns with a cacophonous rush, jarring and overwhelming. At first, it seems as if everything is normal, at least as normal as this nightmare world ever is. But residents will quickly begin to notice that the fire is receding, following the same path it took before. Back and back it goes, retreating through the street toward Town Hall. And if residents pay close attention, they will catch glimpses out of the corner of their eye of burned buildings suddenly repaired and standing as they had before the storm — just a glimpse, gone in a flash when faced fully, but enough to have anyone questioning what sanity they still have remaining.

When the sixth hour ends, so too do the dead. They will blink and in one moment be in this empty red hellscape of Mathias and in the next, awakening on Day 037, with only their memories to show for their harrowing experiences.


ABOUT THE FIRE

The fire that spreads through Mathias can be treated as an almost sentient entity. It does not necessarily behave as fire normally does — it can skip buildings, burn when there's nothing to fuel it, and may actively pursue residents. How it behaves in your character's encounter with it is up to you and does not need to match how others perceive it.

Characters may be injured and even killed by the fire. Both will incur sanity loss and may cause your character to gain a Madness (in addition to others they may gain from normal sanity loss).
— All who are injured by the fire lose one sanity point and will wake on day 037 with their burns.

— All who are killed by the fire lose two sanity points and gain the Madness pyrophobia for seven days. The degree of their pyrophobia is up to the individual player.





CONDITIONS UPDATE
THE WEATHER starts off clear, with temperatures well below freezing. The storm begins to move inwards around three hours in, and takes full form an hour after that.

THE FOG has vanished. The dead may wander the whole of Mathias at their leisure, though there is still a chasm in the earth between Hill Lane and Stine Road. The chasm spans from one side of town to the other, each end disappearing into the forest, and effectively blocks passage to the "northern" (actually western) part of town.

DISAPPEARANCES continue. Eliot Waugh has now vanished as well. Though none of them will notice until tomorrow...

THE GREY GULL now has a working bar! The selection is not quite what it once was.





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

REWARD REDEPEMPTION is on hold for this log. Sorry, friends! It'll be back next round.

HOUSEKEEPING Please be sure to have a look at this post in regards to sanity loss from the Hunt and what is being done with the corpses of the Hunt's victims.

MOD STATUS What will become a regular reminder that 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.


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villagemodama: (ᴡᴀᴛᴇʀ)

QUESTIONS?

[personal profile] villagemodama 2021-02-21 06:09 am (UTC)(link)
Use this space to ask general questions about this log and the circumstances or locations presented within. Players may also use this space to ping a mod to a thread to give feedback on the spooky happenings therein and to ask questions about exploring a residential housing location. (Updates and claims to housing locations should be made here.)
villagemodama: (sᴛᴏɴᴇ)

EXPLORATION

[personal profile] villagemodama 2021-02-21 08:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Comment here if your character is going to explore a usually hidden or inaccessible area of Mathias. This can be treated as the usual question/answer format and is only being separated out for ease of reference later when updating location information.
bestfuneralever: (Default)

obligatory death question >_>

[personal profile] bestfuneralever 2021-02-21 10:26 pm (UTC)(link)
So if anyone dies in the fire.... anything for Klaus to notice?
villagemodama: (ᴡᴀᴛᴇʀ)

[personal profile] villagemodama 2021-02-21 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Nope. His powers seem basically nonexistent in this creepy red-filter place. People might be dying but are they really...
conning: (303)

[personal profile] conning 2021-02-21 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Neal's going to head for the lighthouse, because he wants to get a vantage point where he might be able to map the town. Will he see anything unusual from up there?

Also, while he's up there, what would he see on the opposite side from town?
conning: (Default)

Neal Caffrey || Closed + Open || Graphic Depictions of Violence

[personal profile] conning 2021-02-22 12:34 am (UTC)(link)
Edited 2021-02-23 00:26 (UTC)
likeknives: (Neutral - I don't do that anymore)

[personal profile] likeknives 2021-02-22 12:51 am (UTC)(link)
If a character dies in the fire, will they also wake back up alive on 037?
villagemodama: (ᴡᴀᴛᴇʀ)

[personal profile] villagemodama 2021-02-22 12:59 am (UTC)(link)
They will, yes! Just with extra trauma added. :D
tinstar: (Folded arms)

Re: EXPLORATION

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-02-22 01:24 am (UTC)(link)
Raylan wants to head to the other end of town, the bits he saw from the lighthouse that he knows should be there. What will he find? Far too much to go through in the short span of time but..

Needs must ask

Also, those that die in the fire, will they retain any of the scarring from it?
Edited 2021-02-22 01:25 (UTC)
bestfuneralever: (Default)

[personal profile] bestfuneralever 2021-02-22 01:25 am (UTC)(link)
I love this more than I should. thanks :D
villagemodama: (sᴛᴏɴᴇ)

[personal profile] villagemodama 2021-02-22 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
Do you mean the northern part of town? That section is still inaccessible due to the chasm in the earth between Hill Lane and Stine Road. It spans from one side of town to the other, each end disappearing into the forest. (He's welcome to go wandering in the woods to investigate if there's a way around it, of course.)

Those that die by the fire do not retain any scarring from it. Those that died in the Hunt may be waking up with something on day 37, though...
tinstar: (waiting)

Raylan Givens | Justified

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-02-22 01:46 am (UTC)(link)
tinstar: (bed sitting)

Death - Narration

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-02-22 01:46 am (UTC)(link)
What had started as a quiet evening of coffee on the porch had drastically changed. Raylan had been ignoring the hairs rising on the back of his neck, thinking himself too hyped up, too tired all in the same breath to trust his own instincts. He'd fallen into the lull of security in numbers. It was a terrible mistake.

The crashing sound behind the three men jolted Raylan from his spot, coffee cup dropped to shatter on the porch as he turned around. With what he'd recently suffered, Raylan's first instinct was to get inside and he was right next to Negan and Neal as they shouted and pounded and pushed against the doors of 1306, but it wasn't more than 30 seconds before Raylan realized it would be useless.

"Run," he said to Negan and Neal before breaking for the screen door and out into the cold night, heart beating wildly in his ears. He assumed that Neal and Negan would follow him, but they broke off the other way. Raylan skidded to a halt, looking behind him, already panting with the fear and panic that screamed at him to keep fucking moving. It was the sound of Negan's and Neal's screams that turned the panic into impulse. Raylan felt like throwing up as he scrambled forwards towards the open field, towards the treeline that hoped would hide him. You fuckin' coward.  

The fog was there, true, but he knew how far back it normally sat. He could mitigate once he was hidden, weave across the line.

He didn't get that far.

These boots were made for a lot of things; Running was not one of them. They betrayed him, slipping and twisting out from under him to send the lean Marshal face first into the snow with a rough grunt. He could hear the Thing rumbling up onto him with a terrifying speed, a terrifying clop of its weight against the ground and all Raylan could do was try to scramble to his feet.

He managed all of three feet before falling again and rolling onto his back, eyes wild, hat lost somewhere nearby when he fell. All he could do was punch, fight and it did nothing to stop the swings that rent his flesh. He could hear the screaming as he swung as he pushed futilely at the Thing but it wasn't until just before the fatal swing that mutilated his face for him to realize that the sound was coming from his own throat.
tinstar: (my god)

Open + 1 to come for the Storm and fire

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-02-22 01:47 am (UTC)(link)
We all float down here- Waking up

Raylan gasped awake, just as frantic and as panic as when he'd... died? and his hands automatically groped across his stomach before flying to his face. All he could remember was screaming and pain and blood everywhere and- Raylan didn't realize he was hyperventilating or that there was wetness pricking at his eyes that made him look more like a lost ten year old than a forty something plus man who steadfastly refused to cry. That didn't stop the hot wet tears from rolling down his face anyway as he looked around at all the blood. His blood.

Horrified and with a terrified whimper that he didn't recognize, Raylan scrambled back and pushed to his feet to gain any kind of distance he could from his own murder scene. With a panicked glance around, Raylan couldn't see the thing that had killed him, and his next thought was -

"NEAL! NEGAN!" If anyone who heard it could sense the raw terror under the names, they could gather how well Raylan was doing.

Run Rabbit

Once he'd found Neal and Negan, along with some semblance of control and a fractured, barely held together mask, Raylan searched through 1306, calling just as desperately for Henry and Malcolm. He went through each room, checking the closets and bathrooms and screaming at the emptiness of it all in his frustration. The table in the master bedroom was hefted and swung freely at the wall as his back curved with his frustrated fury.

Twenty minutes later, Raylan was back outside and striding towards the town center. Anyone who had ever seen him casually amble across a room would sense the difference in his stride, legs stepping one foot almost in front of the other as he strode with a deadly purpose.

If death wouldn't grant him peace, then he would raise a little hell instead.
tinstar: (Default)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-02-22 01:55 am (UTC)(link)
He would like to, please. What's he going to do, die a second time huehuehuhe

ooooooo
likeknives: (Angry - huff)

[personal profile] likeknives 2021-02-22 02:52 am (UTC)(link)
Eliot's going to pick a random forest path that was once covered up by fog, going vaguely west, and attempt to walk as far as he can get for about forty minutes, and then return back to town and shelter when he starts seeing the storm starting to arrive and clouds gather (so he'll be back before the storm actually hits.) What might he find that far out into the forest?
villagemodama: (sᴛᴏɴᴇ)

[personal profile] villagemodama 2021-02-22 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
Which way would he like to go? North (right) or south (left)?
villagemodama: (sᴛᴏɴᴇ)

[personal profile] villagemodama 2021-02-22 03:09 am (UTC)(link)
Will he be going northwest (right) or southwest (left)? Note that the map is tilted and true west is at the top, because I apparently had to make things complicated.
tinstar: (Autumn)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-02-22 03:19 am (UTC)(link)
North, please. this feels two strokes away from a choose your own adventure and I'm totally here for it
likeknives: (Neutral - Looking up what)

[personal profile] likeknives 2021-02-22 03:26 am (UTC)(link)
Northwest please!
bestfuneralever: (umbrella-s2-e1-75)

Run rabbit

[personal profile] bestfuneralever 2021-02-22 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
Klaus was not doing so great. Everything in this Mathias-that-isn't has him on edge, not least of which started with waking up on the other side of dead, and the blood-soaked version of their creepy fog-hell town. He's gotten some level of bearings a bit after he's woken up, finding nothing useful at the boarding house and setting out to search for someone familiar elsewhere.

The choice of where to go wasn't much of one, not even a real thought in his head, just an automatic obvious thing, made easy as breathing. He just let his feet carry him the familiar path from the boarding house to 1306 Phillips Drive in hopes of being greeted with a familiar face.

What he doesn't expect, as the house comes into view, is to hear so much slamming coming from it. He frowns and picks his speed up to almost a jog as he heads to the front door. "Guys?" He doesn't even bother asking for just one of them, the entire house is full of friends, any of them answering would be better than nothing.

He doesn't bother waiting for an invitation inside, instead he just wrenches the door open and walks inside. Someone's here, he knows because he hears them as he moves through the house. The loud crash of he-doesn't-know-what as he heads toward the bedroom makes him jump, hands racing to cover his ears in an instant, muscle-memorized action that comes to him without thought at any loud noise these days. "Raylan? Doc?"
tinstar: (What?)

Re: Run rabbit

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-02-22 04:07 am (UTC)(link)
The chaos stilled at the sound of his own name echoing through the hall and Raylan dropped the legs of the most recent chair to suffer his wrath. Who was that? His heart jumped in his chest, both in hope and in fear - Did Klaus die with them?

"Klaus?" Raylan nearly sprinted to the door and almost tripped over some debris for his efforts as he stumbled into the door before tearing it open and taking in the sight of Klaus like the wonderful, terrible blessing he was.

"Fuck," he said, moving forward to wrap both his arms around the somehow equally narrow man, wild manic eyes searching his face. "How are you here? Did.." He couldn't form the words, swallowing tightly. Tell him Klaus didn't suffer what he did. What Neal and Negan did.

Out of everyone he'd met, Klaus was the softest of them all, even against all the shit that life had thrown at him. It wasn't fair. He'd been in Nam, hadn't he suffered enough?
conning: (Default)

waking up

[personal profile] conning 2021-02-22 04:38 am (UTC)(link)
He'd pulled himself from the snow, after a while. When it had started melting around him, when he'd stopped feeling the cold of it on his skin and started to feel numb instead.

His coat was half-soaked by the time he got up, which he registered was bad, on some level. It was freezing out here. Worse than freezing. He would need to change or get inside--

1306. He whipped around, toward the house, expecting to see the front door smashed in, expecting chaos, carnage--

But no, everything was intact. It was intact, and it was quiet, and Doc and Malcolm weren't crashing through the front door to come and get them. Panic hit him, and he started to run for the house, but the sound of Raylan screaming his name and Negan's made him stop. Change direction. Almost with relief. He didn't want to face whatever was in that building alone.

The panic in Raylan's voice made him sprint. Was that thing still after him? It killed you, his shocked mind said. It killed him already, too.

He ignored it.

"Raylan! Raylan!"
tinstar: (What?)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-02-23 12:32 am (UTC)(link)
Raylan started moving back towards 1306, ducking only long enough to pick up his hat out of habit, legs restlessly tingling until he burst into a run. He had to get back to the house, he had to get away from here, he had-

"Raylan!" Neal.

The slow of his legs that came with the call back broke into a harder run, the Marshal suddenly feeling like he could take a race on with a steam train, heart clawing its way up his throat. He was smart enough to save his breath, not bothering to yell back. The kick up of snow and the sound of him charging should be enough. Within a few seconds of Neal coming into view, the same thing that caused him to fall happens again - boots sliding across the snow and sending the Marshal face first into the ground, hat rolling off to the side.

"Goddamnit," he swore out of gritted teeth into the unforgiving snow. No ABC's to be found here today, it seemed. But it wasn't going to stop him and after only a second he was pushing himself back up and looking at where he'd seen Neal, half expecting him to be gone. Breathing out a heavy sigh at the sight of the New Yorker coming towards him, he snapped up his hat and jogged at a more reasonable pace.

"Neal," he greeted breathlessly, shamelessly grabbing and pulling him closer to look him over. It was two seconds away from a hug, to be perfectly honest, but Raylan was too worried about the state of Neal than validating his lack of mirage-ness. "Jesus Christ, are you okay? I'm sorry, I thought you guys were right behind me and then y'all were screamin' and I couldn't-" Stop the thing or turn around or even pretend like he'd helped them and not run like a chicken shit. He swallowed the rest of his seemingly pathetic explanation down and waited to be mocked for it all.
conning: (34uXwQq7Dm3nEcSm2oibap)

[personal profile] conning 2021-02-23 01:08 am (UTC)(link)
Neal finishes the hug, practically throws himself into it, clinging to Raylan. He presses his face against the taller man's shoulder, and does what he's been on the edge of doing for days. He starts to sob.

He's shivering. He's not sure if it's from lying in the snow waiting for something to happen, or if it's from what already happened, or if it's from the air that chisels into his soaked coat and clothes like a handful of blunted knives.

He tries to speak, tries to explain himself, tries to tell Raylan what happened, the way he felt himself come apart. The screaming he lived long enough to hear. The pants-shitting terror of coming face to void with what chased them. It comes out as a wail, and he doesn't have the presence of mind just yet to feel ashamed.

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