059-061 » the place where you stop the story

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Southern Mathias
WHEN: Day 059-061
WHAT: Time returns to "normal" and Mathias grants a reprieve.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here! The next log will be posted the weekend of May 15th May 22nd.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Nathan Johnson "Foul Play"

DAY 059-061
A BRIEF REPRIEVE
“There is no real ending. It’s just
the place where you stop the story.”
— Frank Herbert
Residents awake to a peaceful morning with the sun shining and earth remaining still. There is no unsettling shaking to rouse them at dawn, and time has continued moving onward as they slept. Whatever state they were in the night before, they remain that way now, for good or for bad.

On the surface, there seems to be little lasting effect on the tiny town from that strange series of days, save for the memories of any traumatic experiences residents may have faced — but there are always consequences within Mathias. The perpetrators of acts against the town are tormented by nightmares of those acts being used against them, and those who did not raise a hand to stop those acts of destruction may yet face consequences of their own. For now, however, the unwilling townspeople should do their best to rest and recover from the disturbing ordeals of late, for this reprieve from the madness shall surely be shortlived.




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.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE HISTORY MUSEUM has not fared well with the return of "normal" time. The once esteemed wooden building is now a charred ruin, the recent fire leaving behind little of the contents within for study. The structure is unstable and it is not wise to venture into the ruins for long.

— THE WEATHER conditions remain 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 has retreated from some areas!

— Residents may now wander the southern stretch of the forest surrounding Mathias Township — it is possible to leave the paths but potentially unwise to do so.
— The fog has also retreated farther into the western section of town, now stretching across town between Stine Road and Shelley Drive. This has revealed the Chasm in the earth that stretches from one side of town to the other between Stine and Hill Lane.
— Access to the northern section of the forest is still blocked 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.

— DEATHS & DISAPPEARANCES continue! Max Guevara has vanished into the fog. Claire Novak's body can be spotted on Day 059 facedown at the bottom of the Chasm between Hill and Stine, near Phillips Drive; by the morning of Day 060, her body will be gone. (Attempts may be made to reach her body but will likely not end well for those involved. Such attempts should be reported under Exploration.)

— ALCOHOL is still in Mathias! Just barely. (Supply is running very 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. (Alcohol does not replenish as food does.)

---

OOC NOTES

— PROJECT HELP Your mod needs help with some projects!

— FUTURE PLANNING If you haven't, please answer the questions here for future log planning. I will almost definitely need some of these answers for the log going up the weekend of May 15, so act quickly! Late submissions will not be considered for that log.

— 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 are going to be pretty slow for a while. Apologies in advance, and please don't feel shy about pestering me if you're stuck waiting for something.

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Day 61 - OTA

[thering]

Yesterday was the point in which Doc was certain that the days had stopped resetting themselves. He'd spent much of that day indoors cleaning up the messes from the cyclical week - broken dinnerware, toppled furniture and so on - in 1306, 1307 and 1308 Phillips Drive, and he moved some of his garage stockpile into 1308 in case Raylan were to ever get trapped in that house unable to return to the unofficial little sanctuary they'd built.

Of course, he visited Wynonna's new place as well, but he doesn't seem to have made plans to move in with her. And even if she was asking him to commit to something with her - which he knows she would never do, since they're not that kind of people - he isn't keen on doing so. Not when he still has commitments to 1306. Not when he's still trying to figure shit out.

Today, then, is spent around town. After collecting a couple more non-perishables for his stockpile, he notices the ruins where the history museum once stood. Taking a detour to drop things off into the garage, he brings some salvaged blue tarp sheets back with him. The afternoon is spent stitching the tarp sheets together and securing it down, either weighing the edges down with rocks taken from the beach or trying to drive tent nails through the corners to keep the tarp down over one side of the ruins where the museum once stood. The side of the museum that he's pretty sure he saw that thing in.

It probably wouldn't do anything, now that the place has burned down and hopefully whatever was in it along with, but. Still feels better than leaving it there, should anyone decide to go poking around or end up falling through something.

1308

[walkingtrigger]

The tell tale rattle of glass bottles full of liquid drew the young sniper out of the study where he'd been sitting and reading. He followed the sound until it lead him to Doc at which point he leaned against a doorway and crossed his arms.

"That'll stockpile me well for the coming week," he drawled in a tone that might make it hard to tell if he was genuinely joking. So far he was up to a bottle of shine every twenty-four hours.

[thering]

Doc lifts his head at the sound of the voice and cracks a small smile as he sets the full crate of moonshine down on the kitchen counter. He had been planning on just quietly stocking the house up, going back out over to 1306 to fetch some rice and canned beans to fill an empty pantry shelf in case of emergencies, but since Tim is here, no harm stopping to shelve and chat for a bit.

"That is, if you can pry any out of Raylan's cold, dead-drunk hands," he muses as he starts taking the bottles out of the crate one by one.

[walkingtrigger]

"Just means I have to drink faster," Tim observed automatically moving into position to help Doc with transfering the moonshine from the crate to the shelves.

"To what do we owe this convenient generosity?"

[thering]

"Well I had attempted this last week, but everything moved back on their own accord, so it had to wait until now." It was frustrating to say the least, but he only bothered wasting a day before deciding to ride it out.

"It seems Raylan will be spending more time here, and I do believe you are making yourself at home. On the off-chance that we get trapped inside again, you will be needing supplies to tie you over." Of course, they could always try figuring out if there is a usable stretch of tunnel between 1306 and 1308. Like hell Doc's going down there though. And he doubts Raylan would want to, either.

"I will be bringing some rice and beans over. Perhaps you would like to come along with?" Doc suggests in a slow drawl. "See if there's anything else catch your fancy." Doc has stashed away enough in the garage to open his own little mini-mart.

[walkingtrigger]

For a brief breath Tim's shoulders tensed in response to Doc's initial words. It seems Raylan will be spending more time here... had Raylan told his other lover about Tim? The young sniper quickly shook off the stab of paranoia and told himself that the older marshal would have said something and that Doc was just stating a neutral fact.

"I kinda liked the idea of cannibalism," he drawled with dry humor and a quick jog of his eyebrows.

"Sure. I can play pack mule," he offered up easily enough. As a man who had lived in MREs and worse when sitting on a village for days, Tim was pretty laid back about food. He did gravitate towards proteins and healthier fare, but rice and beans were perfectly adequate.

[thering]

"Hnh. Not much meat on those old and weary bones. Cutting through that thick skin ain't worth the trouble," he scoffs. Clearly the reason Raylan bruises easily - well, easily in Doc's opinion - is that he needs to eat more.

They'll finish unpacking the moonshine first, with Doc letting Tim shelve the bottles any way he likes, before he starts back out towards the door with the empty crate in his hands.

"I don't have any canned Kentuckian but maybe I could interest you in some peeled tomatoes. Or this... 'spam'? Canned meatloaf-looking thing. It's probably at least five percent made of real Kentuckian."

[walkingtrigger]

"It's all in the preparation," Tim volleyed back in an easy spirit, his attention on making sure the moonshine was safely stored. "A nice recipe for Coq au Vin, cook low and slow, he'd tender right up."

Sorry, not sorry Raylan.

The last of the shine stored Tim closed the cupboard door and made to follow Doc back out of 1308, to the garage of 1306.

"Tsk," he shook his head. "A good SPAM is almost one hundred percent Floridian. They're a special flavor of stupid you can't find anywhere else."

[thering]

"I beg your pardon?" Are they talking about Raylan's cock? Out here in the open in the middle of the street? That's too scandalous even for Doc Holliday.

"What do you have against Florida?" He doesn't know what the state and its people have become over the past century and a bit; his knowledge of a great many things comes from a rather controversial time and place. But they seem like nice folk, to him.

Once they're in 1306 and moving into the garage through the internal door, Doc veers away from the newly erected bedroom wall to the shelf and the second fridge. There's some frozen dinners, vegetables, chicken, deep fried things and so on in the freezer. The top two shelves are empty in the adjacent shelving unit but the bottom two tiers are full of canned and packaged dried food. He picks up a can of spam and flips it over to inspect the label.

"Apparently it's... pork," Doc discovers with both eyebrows going up and then down again. He doesn't look convinced.

[silentretribution]

She hadn't seen him since she heard her voice. During the day resets, she had kept to herself, needing the time to gather her strength and get her thoughts together. It helped that Liz had been given a book of ASL. She had clutched that to her like a talisman of luck, and thankfully, she had been spared further weirdness, if only for awhile.

Concerned for Doc, and not having forgotten his earlier kindness and worry for her, she wanted to look in on him. Had anything changed for him or gotten better? With this place, that was a genuine question, but with too often a disappointing answer. It seemed at least he was occupied, given his work with the tarp. She didn't follow what it was, but she understood it was important.

She knelt down beside him, scanning the blue sheet curiously then looked back up at him with the obvious question:

'What are you doing?'

[thering]

"Ma'am," he greets when she approaches, flashing Liz a smile as he tips his hat. He don't mind listening to the sound of his own voice all day - he's had plenty of time to do that already - but sometimes he wonders if she gets sick of listening to everyone else talking. Maybe he should write back or learn to use his hands or something. They could both appreciate the silence then.

"It seems the history museum will not be returning to us. I should like to think that is a blessing in disguise. It was a most wretched place." He can't quite describe the abomination he saw when he ventured in there. But it felt dangerous.

"I'm hoping nothing got out from the fire. And with any luck, this will put people off from digging through the rubble. But anyway, that's enough about me - what are you doing? Do you need any help with anything?" He would drop everything at a moment's notice if she had something to ask of him. Blame it on his soft spot for all the strong-willed ladies in this town.

[silentretribution]

He's always been friendly and willing to speak with her, something that had helped put her at ease in this world. He never made a fuss about having to do all the talking, something that she at times wished she could change, but didn't mind as much as others might think. She was never open to begin with, whether about herself or with her thoughts. This just granted her a convenient excuse to keep to herself.

But being offered the chance to spend time with him, she wasn't going to pass it up. She didn't exactly need him, per say, but she thought he might be interested to see what was found for her. She held out the Sign Language book for him before quickly writing down:

Would you like to learn some sign?

Out of many of the people here, it would be gratifying to communicate with Doc more easily.

[thering]

"Oh. Of course." There's no hesitation when he takes the book, leafing through it briefly for a few seconds just to confirm what she means by 'sign'. Of course he wouldn't start reading it cover to cover in front of her while they're standing around outdoors. He'll be starting with the most common words first, anyway.

"Nothing would please me more than to not have to hear the sound of my own voice, and I'm sure you should like to be spared too," he jokes self-depreciatingly. Sure, his accent gets used as a free and easy flirting token, but it only sounds charming when you're not from the time and place he's from, when it's not as commonplace anymore.

"Where did you learn this?" he asks, resting his palm on the cover of the book. He can't imagine they spared her signing any thought when they put her in shackles.

[silentretribution]

It wouldn't be an easy task and this would require more visits from her. Maybe she should consider making notes for those who were eager to learn? That was something to consider, but it would take a great deal of her time. So long as he was patient, he could at least get a few important signs under his belt.

She smiled at him, amused by his joke. He wasn't at all tedious to listen to, not compared to others she had met in her life. His presence was comforting more than she could explain either in writing or anything else. She would continue to seek him out and never really grow tired of him, though she imagined this would grow dull for him, one sided conversations.

Where did I learn sign first? There is a look on her face as she considers what to share. She hadn't fully adopted Elizabeth's history, only her name and place in marriage, so saying she lost her tongue the way Elizabeth had seemed unwise. But revealing she cut her own...that would raise questions. It was better to err on the side of caution any only steal half of the story.

The doctor who tended to me after I lost my tongue gave me a book. I had to teach my husband and our children.

[thering]

"I see." He doesn't question further, appreciating that she has shared as much as she had already done. Yes, it would be only fair for him to learn how to sign so that they may both communicate in the same language, at the same pace. He would prefer to also learn a few important signs, should there be an emergency sometime and he needs to go find her and make a quick escape, for words like 'danger' or 'fire' or 'attack' or something.

"Perhaps we could make a weekly affair of it," he suggests. "If you have the time, of course." He would like to visit her frequently, check in on her, make sure she's settled and doesn't need anything. "It is an unforgiving place for anyone to be on their own." Especially a woman, but he's stopped saying that since women from the 21st century tend to want to punch him if he even so much as suggests they might not be capable of looking after themselves.

"And uh... well. I will confess to enjoying your company," he adds with a smile that reaches his eyes.

[silentretribution]

It would be useful, though she would always be a disadvantage. All she needed was to think of the fog and remember being lost, unable to make a sound or scream for help. It was the smallest, most vulnerable she had ever felt since her family passed. Where she had come to rely on herself, it was clear that she couldn't survive in this place without someone.

So his sentiment was genuinely touching, though it left her slightly rattled. So many she loved and cared for had been killed. Once again, she was opening a much scabbed over and infected wound, bracing herself for something dark, something horrid to happen. She reached for his hand and squeezed it, looking down at the ground in a mixture of worry and sadness.

I enjoy yours too. Given she couldn't offer as much as others in terms of company, it meant a great deal that he enjoyed seeing her. I worry for you.

lmk if ok!!

[liliowy]

A big blue tarp really does draw attention, even when it doesn't mean to.

Honestly, the fact that someone set a building on fire and several houses were made a veritable mess in the cycle they had found themselves trapped in days earlier was almost fair. At least, she wasn't surprised. How many times were she ready to test those limits much as the rest? But time magic is fragile at best. Or it just doesn't work, at worst, and that's something learned from home. She's just impressed things didn't get blown up much.

Point is, she sees the tarp first, electric blue amidst the charred rubble, and the familiar man's height, topped off with his hat and she drifts towards him. Finally relenting to her curiosity, trading boredom for conversation - she's hardly been able to catch up much the man in the recent weeks.

"What's all this now?"

👍

[thering]

"Yennefer," he greets with a tip of his hat. Yes, it has been a while. With Ellie now keeping company at 1304, he hasn't felt the need to visit as often as he used to. And while he has been keeping an eye on her tomatoes, he visits the greenhouse at odd hours, so they haven't met there either. He hasn't forgotten about her though, if the way he keeps the bauble she gave him tucked away in his waistcoat pocket is anything to go by. There's just a little bit of string visible from where he's attached it to his pocket watch chain.

"This was the history museum," he gestures to the nothingness that lay to their side. "There was... something unsettling here. I'm hoping the fire that razed it to the ground was the end of it, but. I cannot be sure." And he doesn't have enough tarp to cover the entire premises, so. The corner of the museum where he remembers the thing to be will have to suffice. There was a hole in the roof so whatever was growing in there and the snow-like spores were likely to have escaped already, but this futile gesture just feels somewhat comforting for himself.

MUSEUM.... after he's got the tarp secure

[conning]

"You can ask for help with this kind of thing, you know," Neal says, softly amused.

He hasn't shaved since just before the time loop ended, figuring it would reset anyway so it wasn't worth the time. Even after things stopped, it's like he broke some kind of momentum and can't get it back again.

Neal studies the tarp with a frown and a long silence. "I went in. During the loop. To the museum, I mean."

[thering]

Doc turns to greet Neal and he looks surprised. Either to see him out here, or to see that scruff.

"And interrupt your transition to adulthood?" Doc jokes. "You look mighty distinguished, if I do say so myself." Apparently someone approves of the facial hair, even if it's not as formidable as it could be.

He tries not to snap at Neal even though the temptation is there. Very few things get Doc riled up the way he used to lose his temper at every little thing, but going into the museum is a deliberate act of betrayal that Doc takes a little personally. He can grit his teeth and take a deep breath but he can't keep the disappointment off his face.

For all the times that people tell Doc he's taking on too much, for all their offers to help him, they can't seem to understand that not putting themselves in danger is the best way to help him. But it seems to him, nobody in this town is actually genuine in wanting to help him.

"So you burned it down?" he asks, lowering his head, crouching down to secure a tent nail that's already been secure.

[conning]

That deep breath, that look of disappointment, it knots Neal up more than any loss of temper could. He looks away from Doc, even though the other man isn't looking his way at all.

"I wasn't... in the best place. When I went in." Softer he adds, "I'm sorry."

A pause, then he crouches to help Doc, or try to, even though he has no idea what he's doing. "I didn't set it on fire, though. I didn't even know it was the museum that went up. I didn't... want to get near another community bonfire."

[thering]

Doc might not be prone to recklessness when he 'isn't in the best place' himself, but he understands that sentiment intimately. It doesn't soften the blow much, regardless. It still feels like a slap in the face, from someone who did not and possibly could not understand the toll it had taken to make the man standing in front of him gather up his mangled pieces and try to arrange them in any sort of logical manner he could possibly find and lay his shreds in the burial plot. Much as Neal might not have wanted to put Doc or anyone else in that position, the position happened anyway.

The sting of that slap keeps his head down, even when the hot and angry bite across his cheek must have flared up and over and dissipated into the late morning chill. If he had any words of comfort to offer, any fire-retardant reassurances that could withstand the trauma of what had happened to them, that too turned to chalky ash on his tongue.

"Someone did," Doc says quietly, opting to fill the silence with a quiet but obvious observation while he moves a few bigger rocks within reach into place to help keep the tarp down. "Don't think anyone got hurt, or we might've heard."

[conning]

Neal hefts one of the rocks, pinning the tarp and placing his hand on top of the stone. "It stuck. Whoever that someone was..."

He's not sure he needs to add to that. Mathias won't let this stand.

[thering]

"Hasn't yet turned up dead." Small blessings. Doc will take the paltry few blessings Mathias deigns worthy to give him. Table scraps are better than nothing. Although, of course, he hadn't scoured the town this morning, so he can't be sure if there's just one or several bodies he hasn't stumbled across yet.

"Maybe burning the museum down had something to do with freeing us from the dreary cycle of that neverending day," Doc offers, trying hard to put an optimistic spin on events and it probably shows, too. But the Town Hall had been restored and he was there to watch it be reduced to cinders. What happened here was definitely different.

[conning]

"Maybe." It would make sense. It's the only thing Neal knows of that's actually changed in the past twenty-four hours. But he's not confident in the idea, the way he might have been when he first got here. There's too much that's been senseless, pointless, disconnected. Too much that feels like it's just been someone pulling a lever on a lotto machine of horrors to see what lines up and spills out.

Neal studies the tarp for a moment. "It must be a relief, that it's gone."