villagelogs | 059-061 » the place where you stop the story

Entry tags:

059-061 » the place where you stop the story

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.

navigation | faq | locations | report updates

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tim did not announce his presence. It would be hard to tell which way he came from or what he had been doing before he arrived. He didn't ask Raylan what he was doing, or why he was doing it. After the display with Callisto near the chasm, the way Raylan had been grinding himself over the girl's body in the chasm?

Well grave digging was more productive than lighting the Town Hall on fire.

As was a signature of their partnership Tim simply walked over and claimed a shovel. He rolled the sleeves of his shirt three quarters up his forearms and considered joining Raylan in the hole he was working on. The sniper didn't, not because he didn't want to but Raylan seemed to be in a bit of a zone and really they didn't need to be fussing with throwing dirt at one another.

Instead Tim paced off ten feet from the grave the older marshal was working on. He marked all four corners with military precision and only then did he start digging.

Considering that the field around their makeshift graveyard was fairly open, announcing one's presence wasn't particularly necessary. Not with the way Raylan's shoulders stopped for a half second when his senses tingled, head turning a bare fraction before his well tuned body went back to work.

Claire's body was gone. Nothing to bury. That didn't mean seeing her down there hadn't made him acutely aware of how lacking in graves they were. Tim hadn't been here for the cold. Digging hadn't been an option and if Raylan could help it, they weren't going to be storing bodies in houses or under rocks. People belonged in the earth, though having thought it over, he blamed the religious upbringing that he had venomously rejected without going too far over the line.

It took Raylan about twenty minutes before he stopped, shovel propped into the hole he'd gotten to his knees, hand propped over the handle as he looked over to see how far Tim had gotten. He wasn't really surprised that Tim showed up, but..

"Didn't think diggin' graves would be how you'd choose to spend your day. Nothin' better to do?" Because that was why Tim was here, right? It had nothing to do with everything he'd told Raylan a few days before in bed, no not at all.

They were in public, not behind a closed door so Tim's response came wrapped in his habitual verbal barbed wire.

"I see someone took his asshole vitamins this morning," he spoke on an exhale as he shoveled dirt up over the lip he's gotten started. He risked a quick glance at the older man, one that said dumbass but was quick and careful. It could easily be mistaken for dismissal if anyone was watching.

It wasn't. He was here because he was Raylan's partner, and he wasn't going to leave the man out here with his demons on his own. Maybe they couldn't do anything traditionally supportive about those demons, but that didn't mean Tim wouldn't find a way to ... to be there.

Public to a degree; they weren't far from the tree line that no one could hide in and there was enough open space to see anyone coming for a half mile if all the buildings weren't in the way. They'd be able to see nearby ears. Maybe he should have expected the sharp reply for all the outside air they were in, but he hadn't.

"Right along with my brittle old man bone medication, you know it," he said with a deep breath before going back to it.

No, he didn't want to figure out how to navigate a new set of barbed wire fences without any clues. He'd thought that Tim might have been able to take that down even.. half a notch so that they could have anything close to a real conversation.

Tim felt the awkwardness move under his skin, as if there were bugs between flesh, muscle and bone. It made it hard to breath and he set his teeth hard against the battering wave of over stimulated negative emotion and insecurity.

They were still figuring things out and there was going to be awkwardness and that was alright. It was not a need for an immediate fight or flight response, an immediate spin of potential damage control, or any of the number of actions his nerves were screeching at Tim to take.

Dig your hole, Gutterson. Shovel down, push into earth, feel resistance, more resistance, that was a rock ... okay now lift, turn and heave. Back to the dirt, find the rock, dig around it...

He kept his focus on the input from the shovel head, up the handle into his hands and arms.

Maybe it was habit that brought Tim here. Or maybe it was inexplicable desire to be next to Raylan like Tim had mentioned that afternoon before. Maybe Tim was pissed at him for slinking off the morning before. Regardless the reason, if he wasn't getting bitched at, he appreciated the company and the help. Confused, but grateful.

The best part about manual labor for Raylan was that it allowed him to let go. There was no woolgathering unless he was furious, just a steady need to do something until his body and brain were too tired to focus on anything else. He couldn't figure shit out with Tim. He couldn't get across the goddamned chasm or get to the goddamned Lodge across it. He couldn't leave or punch out whatever was keeping them here.

But he could dig like he was mining coal again. Idly, he missed the comradery of it. The whole job of it. Miners knew miners, the specific purpose that any man would choose to put himself three hundred feet under the earth.

Maybe Raylan was working on his own grave. The idea should have disturbed him more than it did.

He let the silence stretch for about twenty minutes. When it was clear Tim wasn't going to leave, he tried again. "You seemed to handle that blond pretty well the other day. I'as surprised to see you there. She try to fight you too?"

Edited 2021-05-19 00:22 (UTC)

Merely having Raylan close was settling for Tim's nerves. He was fully prepared to stay outside and dig for as long as he could soak up the comfort of the other man's presence. He wasn't racing to start a conversation, focusing instead of his physical feedback and anchoring himself to the present moment, rather than sliding along to past or future. But when Raylan spoke up, Tim paused for a moment to lean on his shovel and answer.

"I met her, I believe, when she first arrived. On the beach. She was pretty pissed off but hell, Raylan you and I both learned how to manage people who are just pissed off at the world. Figuring out how to communicate took a bit of sorting. Think I was a bit disappointing when I couldn't point her in the direction of a sword but other than that, she didn't seem to interested in fighting with me."

Raylan was more than happy to give him the excuse to do so. He wanted to talk to Tim, had for days but their different business projects had set them off track somehow. They hadn't manage to have any kind of conversation and it felt wrong. Like there was something they hadn't hashed out yet.

He didn't like that feeling.

"Maybe it's just my face that makes people wanna do that then.. Any idea where or when she comes from? I've never heard language like that." And Tim knew that Raylan, however country he was, was well traveled enough to have some awareness about languages, even if he couldn't speak them.

A lot of their disconnect could be laid at the younger marshal's feet. Tim was still working on figuring out a good balance between his desire to be Raylan's permanent shadow verse the professional, tactical approach of divide and conquer. With a side of trying to take some of the weight Raylan was carrying as he tried to protect everybody. Some of the emotional weight that came with the reality when the older marshal couldn't protect everybody.

"Usually your face has the opposite effect," Tim pointed out. "It's when you open your mouth, that your words get you in trouble." There was a lack of the typical sharp bite that Tim would have used at home with such words. He allowed more of the gentle fondness that he, and most of the office, genuinely felt when it came to Raylan Givens.

"Greek I suspect. Ancient Greek." He'd heard it a couple of times when multi-national forces had mingled and as they both knew, Tim was pretty good at holding on to anything he read, heard or saw. "Angry, ancient Greek. As a friend of mine once said; she's in a world of hurt."

"That remains to be the case, apparently." Considering how it had been his words that started the issue, though he was sure that his face helped things along to physicality. There was always a part of Raylan's personality that dared people to fuck around and find out and Callisto had taken him up on the offer.

Raylan's face screwed up, dirt and sweat streaked forehead all the more detailed in it's wrinkles for it.

"Really?" Tim would know better; he trusted the answer but goddamn. "Shit. It was hard enough gettin' Mister 1800's used to sleepin' inside two outta the seven days of the week. Can't imagine she's taken up a house or nothin' either. These must be mansions comparatively." He shook his head and pulled his shovel out of the mound to dig a little more as he spoke.

"Modernization on top of Mathis's bullshit - hell I'm angry too," he breathed as he tossed another shovelful of dirt into the pile.

"What'd you tell her? With all those hand gestures. Pretty quick pick up on both y'alls part, I gotta say."

Since they were talking and briefly pausing, Tim used the time to climb out of the significant hole he'd dug. Grabbing the back of his shirt he pulled it up over his head and off his body, tossing it over towards where Raylan's hat sat safe from dirt. Shirtless he turned and hopped back into the hole.

"She sleeps outside," he confirmed. "I've shown her where 1308 is and told her sometimes it is important to be inside, but ... that might be a lesson she has to learn herself." Which no doubt suggested that Tim might be digging Callisto's grave here.

"I told her that I understood you were both frustrated, but that if you went over the edge you'd be dead. Told her that if you two kill or hurt each other the rest of us are in deep shit. That the enemy is the town, that chasm and you were both hard heads." It was said with affection!

"Then I just reiterated that I cared about what happens to her." He lifted his hand in one of those graceful gestures he often used when Tim suspected he was tilting at windmills but he tilted regardless.

As for the last bit Raylan stated the young Ranger gave a small accepting shrug.

"She's angry, and more than a little left of center, but she's quick as a whip. Common sense, link words to items or actions, and we've 'talked' a couple of times since she arrived. I've picked up a couple of words from her, tried to always give her reference for words I use and then we makeup what goes in between."

Raylan's eyebrows lifted a little bit at the show but on a more fundamental level, his own undershirt seemed to be sticking more aggressively to his back for the viewing of it. Shit, he bet Tim felt better without that shirt.

The more Tim talked, the more Raylan was glad that he had opted to start digging graves today. He knew they were going to need them; they always needed them, but knowing ahead of time who he was going to be helping to lower into it was helpful. Of sorts.

"It's clever... Think you're just as soft as I am sometimes with these people," he said, lips curling fondly before he nodded and caved, peeling off his own shirt and tossing it up onto the side before hefting his shovel again and stopping the rude staring he was indulging in..

"I tried to cross it yesterday.. The Chasm."

It was a lot more comfortable with the shirt off. Tim hadn't consciously meant to put on a show but he would have to admit to enjoying the staring going on from the other hole. He shot Raylan a quick glance with a small smirk and then got back to digging and talking.

"I expect I would have already heard if you had made it across?" It was a statement but also a question, in case he was assuming incorrectly. As for being labeled 'soft'? Tim was pretending he hadn't heard such blasphemy. Just an asshole over here digging a hole, durn it!

"You would'ave," he confirms with a nod and another shovelful of dirt tossed up. "We didn't make it. Bridge Ellie and I built started deacyin' the further across we got it. Mathis is gettin' agressive - Last time, she let me get an end over there.. You think it's possible to get on a Town's nerves?"

If anyone could do it.. It was gonna be Raylan.

Raylan Givens could teach a Master Class for getting on the nerves. That statement did not need to be confirmed. Instead Tim shrugged as he leveraged more dirt out of the hole.

"Hasn't that been your goal?"

"Pissin' it off til it gives me somethin' I can kill is better than sittin' in my house waitin' for her to drop the goddamned sky on me."

Doc went and handed out gift baskets, the social butterfly he was, to keep himself busy. Tim walked the parameter, Negan was out in these streets (he assumed), Neal was fretting over dinner menus and Malcolm was probably writing a dissertation on the whole social experiment as he worked through the pieces of the puzzle he had. Raylan kept the Gull clean, minding the fog line and tried to be the biggest pain in the ass to whatever was controlling the place as he could.

No bad guys days to ruin here. So he'd taken up something else.

"It's my way of askin' to see Mathis's manager."

"Have an idea of what you're going to do if the manager appears?"

He knows better than to point out that poking a thing you don't understand is not considered the wisest action. Raylan wouldn't be Raylan if he wasn't poking a stick in a hornets' nest to see what kind of reaction he'd get.

"Learn somethin' if I can, kick its ass, probably die tryin'." But what was his alternative?

"Hopefully not alone."

Shoveling up dirt, the younger marshal frowned pensively as he worked on a corner of the grave he was digging. His mind was turning over the image that Malcolm had shown him in the tunnel. The image he and Dr. Carter had found in the lighthouse, the tall and shadowy man.

"You think about what you're going to do if this turns out to be something we're not meant to fight?" Tim paused already anticipating that he might need to expand on that a bit.

"I had Malcolm show me a mural he found in the tunnels. There was a scribbling, a three lobed eye. There is a similar set of scribbles in the Lighthouse, that same eye figure. It's a type of image that pops up in various supernatural stories, often ones that investigate the idea of things that frighten us at an instinctive level."

Just thinking about it caused Tim to reach up and rub at the back of his neck, as if settling the hairs back there.

"You realize we're in a kill box, right?"

Edited 2021-05-23 22:41 (UTC)

"Not really," He admitted shortly. Sitting still wasn't an option. Laying down and giving up wasn't an option. What other options did he have? He welcomed any suggestions that he could get. If dying wasn't permanent, it was something in their favor, as ugly as it was.

Raylan stopped again and looked over at Tim as he talked about the image that was everywhere. "Negan and I saw the same image on a movie at the Theater. When we restarted the reel, it was fine but.. It was there.."

He shook his head. "What can we do about it except die? I keep lookin for a way outta this box canyon, a ladder or somethin'. Just dyin' can't be the option, can it?"

Tim's expression said it all. Two instances might just be coincidence, but three? That was starting to feel like a pattern that shouldn't be ignored.

"You're not going to like the other obvious possibilities," the younger marshal began in a sober tone. "Think about Athena's nightmare. Think about what many civilizations practiced when they felt the environment had turned against them. What lengths will man go to in order to secure favor with that which holds power over them is a universal trope, explored in a lot of literature; both fictional and not."

Tim bounced the handle of the shovel between his hands and looked out across the graveyard.

"It might not be about dying, but about belief."

It washed over him like a tsunami.

"No. We're not-" His head pulled back, shaking a little as his face tried to process it all and failed mightly. "You're not suggestin' that we start doin' what we suspected them of doing, are you? Ritual sacrifice, Tim?"

He was right; Raylan didn't like those options.

"Fuck God. Ours and this place - belief? We meant to become those.. those fuckin' hieroglyphs they found in Egypt or something, huddling in bunches while we mutter some.. prayer to somethin' we can't see?"

It.. made sense. It did. And he hated it. What had faith ever brought him? What had God for that matter

The younger marshal stayed quiet and gave the older man his head to process the theory he'd just proposed. Did some digging and even letting a bit of quiet settle over them after Raylan's final outburst, before he continued.

"I don't think we're talking about the Judeo-Christian 'God'." Just wanted to clarify that because he understood the idea of struggling with THE FAITH of Harlan County. The struggle for lawmen to face down the worst of humanity day in and day out and the belief in an almighty being who would let such things happen.

"Do you remember the story I was reading, the Indian Princess and the invisible forest...wait, that's later on your timeline," Tim paused in his digging and leaned on the shovel. "Since the beginning of time humanity has tried to explain the inexplicable by building mythology around supernatural forces, usually in the form of a worshipped deity or deities.

Even when it begins from a place of good, worship is all too easily corrupted because it becomes about power. The greatest man made atrocities in history are rooted in the idea of communication with an 'other'."

Tim reached up and rubbed his arm over his forehead, spreading dirt.

"You're already talking about this town like it's a sentient being. Not saying you're wrong, Raylan but if that's how you feel about it after only a few months, how do you think the people who were actually trying to make their lives here, came to think of it? How desperate were they to make this shit stop?"

Picking up the shovel the Ranger began to dig again, speaking his next comment over his shoulder.

"It really approved of the bleeding I was doing down in the tunnel. That was part of why I ... kept going. Whatever was down there with me wanted more and more."

Edited (better werds) 2021-05-24 02:18 (UTC)

"I don't think we are either, but there's been a few here that say they know Him," Raylan readily agreed. Harlan's God, his grandfathers God, Boyd's God wouldn't be doing this, he was sure. The sentiment still stood.

He frowned faintly as he tried to recall any book and then- Something else he'd missed. He knew it wasn't half fair to ask, what with his request of no spoilers, but part of him wanted to. To have a full run down of all the shit he'd missed. To be properly on the same page as Tim. He wasn't sure he was going to enjoy it. There wasn't much in his life that he did.

That idle thought aside, Tim painted a picture he hadn't given much thought to. There was no helping the people that had lived here and the way things were left, on the surface, it didn't look like much room for suffering. But if they were driven.. If the town wanted to consume them.

"You think that the blood she's already taken from us ain't enough? That's she's.. tryin' to push us to snappin' and goin' primitive on each other?" He tried not to sound upset by it and while he mostly succeeded, with Tim knowing his tones so well, he knew the sniper would pick it up.

Irritated by their situation, Raylan shoved his shovel away propped his hands on his hips. When all else failed, Southern Problem solving.

"This can't be a viable option for resolution. It can't be." Except now that the seed was planted, he couldn't help but water it.

Tim liked to make the impression that he was an idiot. It served him well when dealing with Feebs, other law enforcement agencies and most of all with the fugitives they chased. The baby marshal did not fool himself into believing that his co-workers were hoodwinked by the act, but he also rarely took steps to prove them right.

Aware that Raylan had adopted the Southern Problem solving stance Tim levered out one additional scoop of dirt before he buried the shovel in the dirt so it stood up on its own. He then turned and adopted a mirror stance, his expression sliding into the serious expression that seemed to put years on his otherwise youthful countenance.

"You dig deep enough into literature, art, philosophy you come to realize something," his voice was the quiet tone he'd used when he caught Raylan ditching him to drag Gary to Wynn Duffy. It wasn't in a scolding manner, as it had been that night, but was rather an indicator of intensity of thought.

"'Good' and 'Evil' are Biblical concepts. There is no evidence in nature, the planet, the universe that supports the idea that an action is 'Good' or 'Evil'. We assign those motivations to help explain the inexplicable to ourselves."

Tim looked around the town once again before coming back to Raylan.

"Think instead in terms of 'Order' and 'Chaos', where Order represents manifested reality and Chaos represents unmanifested reality. The stories I mentioned, they often center on the subject of a chaotic being as an unmanifested reality that doesn't have the parameters of an Ordered reality to contain it. It grows in power through sowing more chaos, more unmanifested reality to harness."

Suspecting he might be losing Raylan -at least given the older man's current temper- Tim stopped, took a minute and then tried to shove his idea into a nutshell.

"It's not just about blood. It's about the power to be found in chaos, in unmanifested reality: manifested. What is a greater example of disorder, than paranoia in a community until that community begins to turn on itself?"

059-061 » the place where you stop the story

Graveyard

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: creepy crawly imagry

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)