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

[tinstar]

Raylan hummed shortly and the relay. He already had a second question locked and loaded but her gesturing, the question in it got an amused lift and curl of his expressive eyebrows.

"I don't do all that," he said, face slacking as he wavered back and forth in his chair before righting his features and shaking his head before tapping his temple. "Quiets things in here for a little while."

He looked over at Malcolm. "Do you think she's suicidal then? Tryin' to make a jump like that bein' just.. human."

[myfavoritemurder]

The meaning of the head-tapping gesture is clear - so clear that she zeros in on it, and barely even notices the follow-up question (that she can't understand, anyway).

"Yes, it makes your head go all fuzzy, doesn't it," she says in Greek, tapping her own temple. Her tone shifts to something quieter, almost thoughtful. "I thought about it once, when I was much younger, and still trying to figure out what I was going to do about... well, everything. I even stole a bottle of wine. But then I thought - what happens when the drunkenness is over, and everything comes crashing down on me again?" She pauses, just briefly. "I decided that I'd rather have the pain with me all the time, than forget about it for a little while and experience the agony of having to remember it all over again. It's unbearable enough to begin with. That sounded even worse."

Turning her back to both men, she faces the street. Her voice turns harder again when she says to Malcolm, "Tell him I said all that if you want, or don't bother. I don't care either way."

[abrightboy]

“I will tell him. But he has a question. He wants to know if you tried to die jumping across the hole in the ground,” he says, then looks at Raylan. “She says she doesn’t drink because having her pain all the time feels better than forgetting it at night and having to remember it all over again in the morning.”

[myfavoritemurder]

She gives a dismissive pffff in response to that.

"He's really too fixated on that," she says. "I don't actually want to go back to Tartarus, you know. It was a real drag."

She's just usually willing to randomly risk her life for no real reason. That's completely fine.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at Raylan. “More of a general death wish than actual suicidal ideation,” he reports.

[tinstar]

"Oh joy," he replied with an uneven, unimpressed curl of his eyebrows.

"And if she can escape the weight of her shit while she's drinkin', God bless." His brain did not work like that. It kept things quiet, it didn't wipe them out. More often then not, Raylan was able to just set them down for a little while and breathe. Reconsider the things he wouldn't moving around in the light of day.

"Either way, she's welcome to it if she wants. Judgement or not."

[myfavoritemurder]

"He's not happy about that," Callisto observes, though she's not sure which bit Raylan's expression was in response to. "We're going to have to find a way across someday. He wants to make a bridge, I think."

[abrightboy]

"Yes. But the bridge was destroyed when it touched the other side. You would be destroyed when you touched the other side too, I think. It's protected by magic.

He looks at Raylan. "She still wants to get across the gap somehow. I told her what happened to the bridge."

[tinstar]

"Good, let's put that tendency of hers to use. There's somethin' over there for us, as much as Mathis is fightin' us. So much so as to block us off from seeing it at all?" His eyebrows lifted at Malcolm with the question before he shook his head and then nodded at Callisto.

"I'll take her help on it if she'll take mine. Common Goal. Once we get over, first place I'm headin' for is the woods. The lodge, if I can get there. The heart of this place. If she can stand up to what Mathis throws, I'm willin' to let her have a wide run."

Callisto was useful in a way that not a lot of other people were. Bloody viciousness that came without a question didn't have to be a detriment. Just had to point her in the right direction and watch her go.

[abrightboy]

"I don't doubt her enthusiasm, but she's unarmed. That feels a little bit like sending someone on a suicide mission," Malcolm said gently. "But... we'll see, I guess, how that goes if we can get there."

He looks at Callisto. "He says we should work together to cross. Together.."

[myfavoritemurder]

A toothy, sharklike grin spreads across Callisto's face, and she finally turns back around to face the other two.

"Yes, I want," she says in English, before continuing in Greek. "Sure, why not. It's something to do, and anything protected by magic is worth taking. If the gods in charge of this place want to keep it from us so badly, maybe it's something we can use to escape."

And the fact that it could be something dangerous certainly doesn't deter her - nor does the possibility that they may very well meet the same fate as the bridge.

"He's talking about the forest too, isn't he?" She raises her eyebrows at Raylan. "Woods, yes? You want the woods?"

[tinstar]

Raylan couldn't help but grin back. A few good words was all they'd needed. "Then we'll keep you in the loop."

It was Progress.

At her question, he nodded, chin ending a little higher than it had started in a silent question for elaboration. "Yeah. Big House. It's in the woods." He glanced between her and Malcolm, still not totally sure what words she knew and didn't.

[abrightboy]

"Big house in the woods," Malcolm tells her. "The Lodge." To give her a name for it. "Secrets inside."

[myfavoritemurder]

"I know what he said." This time, at least. "What kinds of secrets?"

[abrightboy]

"We are not certain. About the leaders of this town. About the locked doors under the ground. About why we are here. About why people from the before are not here," Malcolm explains. He looks at Raylan. "She's interested in what sorts of secrets are hidden at the Lodge."

[tinstar]

"Can't know what we don't know but.. Things that well protected hold somethin', traditionally speakin'. But the maps, the keys, the doors and hallways there. The whole house is gonna be a puzzle itself. Somethin' to be solved. Not somethin' to be burnt to the ground."

Despite his firebug antics at the town hall, Fire was Not the answer.

[myfavoritemurder]

"Locked doors under the ground?" That sure isn't something she's heard about yet. "Where?"

[abrightboy]

"Stairs go down in the library. Under some houses. We do not know everywhere. Lots of places to get in," Malcolm explains.

[tinstar]

"Tell her to not go unless she wants ghosts. He's stalkin' the people that go and stay down there. She can't fight her dreams."

Raylan might be willing to use her and her proclivities, but that didn't mean he wanted her to suffer, no matter how much she wants to. It seemed clear that she wanted to. Punishment for not stopping Xena sooner, maybe, but he'd leave the psychology to Malcolm.

[myfavoritemurder]

"I don't know which building is the library." Which seems to be her only real objection to the plan. "Maybe we can use them to go under the pit instead of over it."

[abrightboy]

“I can show you if you want. But Raylan wants you to know that ghosts follow people who sleep down there. Be careful,“ he advises.

He looks at Raylan. “Do you think there’s a tunnel that goes under the Chasm?”

[tinstar]

"Yes. I don't think we're gonna be able to get through it, not with what happened yesterday. Either a cave in or a locked gate.. Somethin' to keep us from that side'a town."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks over at Callisto.

“He’s sure there is a tunnel but they are blocking us on purpose.”

[myfavoritemurder]

"Ghosts followed me in Tartarus, too. I'm not scared of them." This is not entirely true; they'd bothered her a lot. But she doesn't plan on letting that stop her.

"He's not even going to try?"

[abrightboy]

"He tries all the time," Malcolm retorts snappily. Raylan's done more than any of them, as far as he's concerned. And he's worried that she'll be able to goad him into doing something reckless with her 'are you scared' nonsense. "The gods here have a lot of power to keep us where they want us."