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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Comments

[myfavoritemurder]

"Yes, I do," she insists, sharp and vehement and completely truthfully. "Of course I want everyone to suffer what I suffered! Why shouldn't I? Why should everyone get to live and not my family? Why should everyone get to keep their families and not me? Why shouldn't I make everyone - everyone - hurt, so that they know exactly how it feels?"

She hops down off the railing, not to leave but just to move, pacing back and forth across the deck.

"Everything I do, everything I am, is because of Xena. Every time I hurt someone, she's really the one hurting them, because she made me who I am today. Don't you see? It's all her fault. All of it."

[abrightboy]

"I do see," Malcolm told her honestly. "You're the thing she made you. We are not born broken. A person breaks us. And you can continue her work of killing or you can make killing her to end her work. Hurt People hurt people, but you could save them instead. Save them from Xena. Protect the families. You have a choice to be another Xena or to end what Xena made."

[myfavoritemurder]

Xena, in actual fact, has already pretty solidly reformed herself, and is now completely dedicated to helping innocents rather than hurting them, but Callisto won't share that tidbit of information right now. It's a big part of her anger, as well as the catalyst for her starting to waste villages using Xena's name: she despises the idea that people now celebrate and approve of the woman who caused her family's death, and she wants to do all she can to make people associate her with pain and suffering rather than heroism. But if Malcolm believes that Xena is still a bloodthirsty killer, then so much the better, even if it makes some of Callisto's own motives look a little muddy. She cares intensely about making Xena look bad, and doesn't care a bit about looking bad (or illogical, or contradictory) herself.

So all she says is, "What Xena made will end when Xena ends. When I destroy everything that she has to live for."

[abrightboy]

“I guess things were very revenge in your times.” Kindness was a revolutionary idea by the time Jesus was preaching. “But you have friends here and friends are useful.”

[myfavoritemurder]

"But I don't." She stamps her foot, like a seven-year-old. "I told you I'd kill everyone you love. You can't actually want to be my friend."

[abrightboy]

"I know you could kill everyone I love. You are very able to killing. But being a friend is to trust you will not," he tells her. He looks her in the face. "I trust you to not kill the people I love here."

[myfavoritemurder]

"You shouldn't trust that, Malcolm. I'm telling you not to."

[abrightboy]

"If nobody ever takes a risk of you, then you will never understand that there's anything good left in the world," he says.

cw: minor/accidental self-harm

[myfavoritemurder]

"And you're a fool," she spits, lips curling into a snarl. "'We're not born broken, a person breaks us' - that's what you said, isn't it? But I haven't just been broken, I've been shattered."

On impulse, she grabs the now-empty glass that Tim had brought out to her earlier, slamming it into the railing, making it, too, shatter completely. Shards of glass cut into her hand, drawing blood, but she seems to neither notice nor care.

[abrightboy]

"Maybe I'm a fool. But I know what it's like to be broken and to feel like you'll never get even two pieces together again."

He reaches for her injured hand, but he's watching her face.

[myfavoritemurder]

"Don't touch me." She draws her hand back, blood and bits of broken glass and all.

"Can you put that back together?"

Parts of it are in teeny shards, but there are several larger pieces, too. She brings the heel of her boot down on one of them, grinding it into glass powder.

[abrightboy]

"No. But a glass has no life. No healing. There are ways to help a person that is broken. If they permission," he tells her. "But they have to permission."

[myfavoritemurder]

"I don't!" she yells, stamping her foot again, completely not caring that she might be disturbing the happy party going on inside. "I don't give you permission!"

[abrightboy]

"Understood," he tells her, stepping back, leaning against the wall of the house, casual. He gestures towards her hand. "Can I help with your hand so you don't get blood poison?"

cw: threats of self-harm

[myfavoritemurder]

"No, you can't," she says furiously. "Ask again and I'll make it even worse."

[abrightboy]

He holds his hands up. “I surrender.”

[myfavoritemurder]

And that gets her to back down, if only a little. She doesn't pick up a piece of glass and dig it into her palm, at any rate. Breathing heavily, she looks down and examines her hand for the first time, wiping some of it away with the thumb of her other hand.

"I mean it," she says. "My pieces are too broken. Xena's destruction is the only thing that will heal me. Making her like me - just like me. And then I'll be..."

She fades off here, not actually knowing how to complete that sentence.

[abrightboy]

He watches her a moment.

“Free?”

[myfavoritemurder]

"Yes."

But the word is hollow. A big part of her does truly believe the story she's peddling, does believe that Xena's destruction will mean her own rebirth - but at the same time, she can't actually envision it. She can't imagine what being whole again would be like, and has no idea what she'll do with herself after that happens.

For a moment, she just stands there, glowering. And then she says, dully and without emotion, "Is this also your home. Do you have cloth."

For making bandages.

[abrightboy]

"I live there," he says, pointing to the house next door. "I have some. I can bring it, or you can come," he offers, moving down the steps to head there.

[myfavoritemurder]

Instead of answering, she shoves past him on the stairs and makes for the house, trailing blood as she goes.

[abrightboy]

He doesn't point out that she doesn't know where to look for the supplies; he just follows her there, to show her if required. Doc and Raylan would not like it if she got blood everywhere.

[myfavoritemurder]

She really doesn't know where to look for supplies. Her first guess would be the kitchen, rather than the bathroom. It doesn't end up mattering much, though, because once they reach the door she deigns to step aside and let him go in first.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm does, in fact, lead her into the kitchen. Between his psychogenic tremor and his psychoses, Malcolm has a propensity for breaking crockery and, even though Doc has now found a melamine camping mug for him, there is still a first aid kit under the sink where the cowboy stashed it for those occasions.

He pulls it out and puts it on the counter, opening up and then leaving it for her to use. If she wants help, he'll give it, but she seemed pretty adamant about him not touching her.

He pulls a small bottle out of it and taps the top of it.

"Put this first, before cloth. For clean. No disease."

[myfavoritemurder]

Anger gives way to absolute bafflement when he brings out the first aid kit, which is, of course, filled with things she's never seen before in her life.

"You think I haven't cleaned hundreds of wounds worse than this before? I just need water and cloth."

And unless he stops her, she'll make a grab for a dishrag.