villagelogs | 051-058 » the past increases, the future recedes

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias
WHEN: Day 051-058
WHAT: Time is a funny thing. It likes to repeat itself.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here! The next log will be posted the weekend of May 8th.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Marco Beltrami "The Dinner Table"

DAY 051-058
THE REPEATING
“Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by.
The past increases, the future recedes.”
— Haruki Murakami
With the dawn of this new day comes an unsettling experience that many longer-term residents will find unfortunately familiar. As the sun begins to rise over the ocean's horizon, an earthquake arrives with it. The vibrations are strong enough to shake buildings but not damage them; items may be broken and nerves will certainly be rattled, but after a full minute of wondering when it will decide to finally end, calm will return to Mathias.

This first day will seem otherwise like any other. The rain has stopped but the skies remain a gloomy grey, providing no sense of escape from the horrible situation they've all found themselves in. And as the day stretches on, each of them going about the lives the routines they have made for themselves here, they will each of them have a feeling of being stuck, as if in the end today has been no different than yesterday.

But when tomorrow becomes today, they will find that it truly is no different than yesterday.

The earthquake arrives again as the sun rises, and they are in the exact places they were the day before. Any broken items they may have cleaned up will break again. Their clothes are the same as the day before, the food they prepared will be unmade, and the only certainty that they are not crazy will be found in the knowledge that everyone else is experiencing the same thing as well.

Memories are the only things that remain intact as the day resets. Again again, residents will relive the same day, every physical thing resetting to the state it was in at dawn. Patience will be tried as these days stretch onward, and the most enterprising of the group will use this as the opportunity it is to experiment without consequence.

(But all things have consequences in Mathias.)

THE NEW ARRIVALS
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake up on the beach near The Grey Gull. It's a bit chilly out with their wet clothes, but surely there's something to help warm them inside the restaurant. They may even find some alcohol within — and not just the cowboys' homemade moonshine.

ABOUT THE RESETS
— The earthquake happens again each morning at sunrise, signaling the day resetting and beginning again.

— Everything physical resets to how it was at the beginning of Day 051. Food will be uncooked with no leftovers in the fridge from the day before. Items that were broken or moved will be returned to their original locations. Anything that was built or modified will be undone and returned to its original state.

— Everything resets except for the memories of residents, which remain intact from one day to the next.

— It doesn't matter if your character tries to stay awake in order to watch the reset. Exhaustion will overtake them just before the earthquake happens at dawn, and when they wake, they will be in the exact same location and in the exact same physical condition as on the morning of Day 051. Their clothes, their health, the state of disarray of their hair — all of it will be exactly the same. This includes new arrivals waking again on the beach each day.

— Resets includes the death of any character. The new day will reset their body just like on any other, and for this log only there will be no corpses left behind. Sanity may still be lost depending on the nature of their deaths.

— If a resident has wanted to burn down a building or take other drastic measures to test the limits of what Mathias Township will allow, now is the time. Everything will be returned to as it was the day before... Though there may still be consequences. The resets will cease after Day 058, so anything done on that day will remain in effect in the next log.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER conditions are fairly typical for early fall: warm days and cool nights. It feels almost like spring arriving except that there fewer red and orange leaves on the ground and more of them oddly returning to the trees and slowly fading to green. It's like watching one of those nature documentaries that have a timelapse of the seasons, only it's going in reverse.

— THE FOG continues to block the paths in the forest. Beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline, this section of fog will urge residents to stay huddled within the town proper by inducing a physical reaction of panic and fear. This type of fog also blocks the western section of town, beginning just past Hill Lane, shortly before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be between Hill and Stine Road. Venturing into the fog blocking these areas is ill-advised; residents who enter it will be gripped by a panic so strong that they must retreat the way they came.

— DISAPPEARANCES are occurring again, with Helen Magnus and Alex Millar vanishing. Thankfully, a few residents have also returned. Welcome back!

— ALCOHOL is still in Mathias! Maybe. (Supply is definitely running low after recent town events.) A small stock of beer and cheap wine may be found at the General Store, and some homes may have a small store of alcohol in the fridge or pantry. The Grey Gull was also restocked with its lower-end offerings of a variety of alcohol types. For this log only, alcohol is replenishing in the same way food does due to the time resets.

OOC NOTES

— BIG CHANGES If your character is planning on making any big changes to the town (ie setting something on fire or other major destruction of property), please comment below ASAP and plan for these changes to take place in the second half of the log so that everyone is able to react to them in their own threads.

— THE GIFTS Before the next log, please comment over here with details of what your character did with their "gift" from the last log, if they found one of their personal items out in the rain. This information may be used for future logs.

— UPDATES Don't forget to report updates as they come up! Changes to locations (like toppling a few bookshelves in the library), big plots you have coming up that will affect the game (parties, major property destruction, etc), or exciting discoveries that may tie into the game's mythology (even the things provided by the mod) are very helpful to have in one place so relevant page updates can be made.

— MOD STATUS The usual reminder that it's just Amy steering this ship, 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 | locations | report updates

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ It's close enough, and Parker can follow the structure, though she's no more clear on the specifics of where than Callisto is.

She tilts her head, frowning, concerned. ]

It's gone?

Your home?

[Talking about this always hurts, but not much more than she always hurts at any given moment - and besides, she's always willing to do all kinds of self-harm in the name of furthering a goal she cares about. And telling people about Cirra, telling people what happened to Cirra, is absolutely one of her primary goals.]

Yes, my home. Everybody--

[She does that same hand-whisking motion again. Everybody is dead, everybody is gone - except for her, and a scant few others.]

[ She doesn't need to say anything more. Parker nods, looking gravely down at the floor. ]

I'm sorry.

[ But she can't not ask, so after a moment, she does, glancing cautiously up at Callisto to see if asking is...okay. ]

What happened?

[ If she even has the words to tell her. That might be a problem. ]

[It is a problem, but one Callisto is prepared to try to solve. She's tense and agitated, but in a very generalized way, with none of those feelings directed at Parker herself; there's certainly no signs of her taking offense at being asked.

She has a pen and some thin, folded-up cardboard - remnants of a destroyed tissue box - stashed away in her knife holster, and she immediately gets to work sketching out the scene, starting with some quickly-drawn flames.]

This, the hot--

[But she doesn't know what they're called. Next she draws a small grouping of houses, small and powerless next to the flames. Stick figure people, running. More stick figure people, lying on the ground.

Tapping the pen against the paper agitatedly, she asks:]

And this. Yes? You understand this?

[ Parker hangs back, not wanting to intrude, but when Callisto taps her pen against the paper, she moves forward, peering at the drawing. ]

A fire?

[ The rest is just as easy to interpret, much as she may not want to. She stares at the little horizontal stick figures, trying not to imagine in too much detail what they represent. ]

It burned down?

["No one ever thinks about how fast fire can move until they see it in action," she says in Greek, her tone quieter and more thoughtful. She knows Parker won't understand, but she doesn't have the words to say this in English, and she wants to say it regardless. "It's an amazing thing, really. Awful and awesome. Fire and smoke takes the breath from your lungs--"

She draws a stick figure family - two large figures, and two small figures - and crosses out all of them but the smallest.

"-- and then it takes everything else, too."]

Do. You. Understand.

[She asks in English, voice suddenly sharp as she taps the paper agitatedly.]

Yes.

[ It's impossible not to; she doesn't need to understand any of the words. She looks down at it, at the little lost family, the one left all alone.

Callisto. ]

You lost your family.

You were...[ Her finger drifts forward, rests on the one figure Callisto hadn't crossed out. ]

Young. A child.

[Callisto considers Parker - looking for signs of cloying pity, or of shocked, surprised horror, and seeing neither. She's often not the best at recognizing emotions in either herself or others, but still, she makes a guess:]

You?

[If this woman isn't surprised or pitying, then maybe it's because she understands on some level. Maybe her family died awful deaths that she needs to avenge, too.]

[ She doesn't react for a moment, still looking down at the drawing. Then she nods, just once, a quick jerk of her head. ]

[Callisto is, on the whole, bad at sympathy. She's too self-absorbed to really feel it most of the time, and not good enough at handling her emotions to show it even when she does feel it. She's hurt many people in the exact same way that she herself was hurt, and she buries the guilt she carries over that so deeply inside herself that usually she doesn't even realize it's there at all. So offering Parker a comforting word or gesture isn't on the table, really. She wouldn't know how to even if it would occur to her to try.

"I hope you slaughtered everyone who was responsible," she says in Greek, her voice sure and firm. "I hope their blood ran in the streets."

She can't really translate that entire sentiment into English yet, but she gives it a go, tapping on the paper with a finger.]

You make death on-- on everybody, everybody do this.

[She touches the little family image.]

Everybody do this, to you - you make death on. Yes?

[ It's a little harder to follow Callisto's meaning this time, not least because Parker's still wrapped up in her own dark thoughts.

When she realizes what the other woman's asking, though, she jerks back as if burned, staring at Callisto with wide, stricken eyes. But she's not horrified at the concept of murderous, bloody vengeance in itself; that will come later, maybe. For now, it's awful enough just being reminded of her own responsibility. Her own miserable guilt. ]

I did it.

It was my fault.

[I did it. The slightly different verb form trips her up a bit, but she thinks she gets what's being said here, and it's certainly not what she'd expected.]

Why?

[She's picturing something done purposefully - murderous, bloody vengeance taken against family, rather than on behalf of them.]

[ She can feel the guilt clawing at her throat, the memories threatening to paralyze her the same way they had when Rand was questioning her in that TV studio. She quickly looks away, eyes bright, wrapping her arms around herself and hugging her elbows defensively. ]

It was an accident.

But it was my fault.

[That is not the look of someone who gleefully murdered her family in a fit of anger or spite. It must have been something else, then: something that she didn't do on purpose, but that led to their deaths all the same.

"Then make the world pay for it," Callisto says, a sudden solemnity to her tone. She has no idea how to begin to translate that, so she doesn't try.]

[ She doesn't understand that either, of course, and Parker likewise doesn't try to interpret. She's still hunched in on herself, feeling small and empty and cold.

There's a moment of silence, where she doesn't look at Callisto at all, and then she shakes her head, pushing the memories away. It had been a good day, before this. Well, as good as they get here. ]

I'm sorry about your family.

[ But she doesn't want to talk about her own anymore. She stands up, a little awkwardly, still avoiding eye contact. ]

Um. I... [ Her gaze sweeps the kitchen, looking for an excuse, not finding one. ] I should...go.

[Callisto won't try to stop her, nor will she acknowledge the expression of sympathy. And when Parker heads out, she won't try to follow, but she'll watch her go with sharp, interested eyes.]

051-058 » the past increases, the future recedes

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