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

[walkingtrigger]

"Wouldn't surprise me if that was the point," Tim exhaled and gave a shrug, reaching for the bottle of almost completely consumed moonshine.

"I have no evidence to support the theory, but everything I learn about this place reminds me of fictional writings I've come across in the past. Stories or an entity or entities that give power to a handful in return for that handful supplying them with blood, terror, pop caps off diet sodas."

Which, for a man who lived in a fairly vanilla version of Earth, was a hell of a thing to even admit to believing. He upended the bottle finishing off the contents without sparing a thought to his liver or stomach.

"All of this," he motioned around them. "It reads like that balance got upended somehow and this town suffered it."

[conning]

"'And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.'"

Neal pinches the bridge of his nose. "The spirals all over town--some of them repeat. There's a cave under the lighthouse with walls covered in them. There's no pattern to whether they're open or closed, the openings don't face a specific way, there's no specific pattern, but they repeat. It's like some kind of code I haven't found the key for yet."

He brushes his hand across the table, picking up dust on his fingers. "Doesn't help that it's one of the most universal spiritual symbols in the world. Passage from life to death, connectivity with the divine, the journey from the outer world to inner soul and cosmic awareness. Passage from ignorance to knowledge. Rebirth. It's about evolution, change, and growth, again almost universally, but that does absolutely nothing to narrow down what it might mean here."

[walkingtrigger]

"What if they're representation of an anxiety spiral?" Tim suggested with a pensive look on his face.

"The ones I've seen have been in conjunction with a depiction of a three lobed eye. If someone, or someones were seeing an entity like that hanging around them? Well I believe I'd be inclined to suffer an anxiety spiral of my own."

[conning]

Neal tilts his head, a motion that somehow manages to imply “it’s a theory, but I’m not sure I agree.”

“I wonder how many people have seen that three-lobed eye at this point. It might be time for another town meeting.”

His own expression turns pensive, considering the logistics. He blinks, shaking himself out of it mentally and turning his scrutiny on Tim.

“Can I ask you something?”

[walkingtrigger]

Tim was alright with Neal not immediately buying in to his theory. Honestly the more thoughts they had on what little evidence they had all managed to collection, the better chance that someone might spot something that would otherwise be missed.

As for the question, the young marshal looked up and seemed to consider it for a moment, before he looked back down at the papers he was sorting through.

"You can ask. I reserve the right to refuse to answer."

[conning]

"Fair enough."

He considered how to word things for a moment, then decided to just come out with it.

"What do you have against Malcolm?"

[walkingtrigger]

Tim looked up and his eyebrows knitted.

"Nothing."

[conning]

Neal's eyebrows went up.

"Really? Because he's been trying to be your friend from the jump, and his first attempt made you punch Raylan. Still not sure of the logic behind that one, by the way."

[walkingtrigger]

"He has an intrusive way of going about showing he wishes to be friends," Tim said in a fairly neutral tone. "I don't appreciate complete strangers walking up to me and probing my motivations for the choices I've made in my life."

[conning]

"He has an observant nature, and people don't like being seen," Neal countered, equally mild. "I understand that. How exactly did he probe your motivations?"

[walkingtrigger]

"In that first meeting?" Tim squinted a little as he tried to recall the exact details. "He drew a line between my decision to go into the Marshal Service from my time in the military. As I was not aware that Raylan had shared my military background with anyone, I felt a little blindsided in an encounter where someone knew more about me than I did about them."

It had left him feeling at a disadvantage when Mathias was already one big disadvantage and he was still stinging from a PTSD episode as a result of killing Colton Rhodes.

"Looking back, it was definitely an improvement over our second meeting where he suggested I was a friendless sociopath."

[conning]

"Turnabout is fair play," Neal says, tone going dry. "His only exposure to you was a casual conversation that ended with you punching someone we all care about in the face. Then you took his friendship with Raylan and decided to say they were having sex out of the blue, as though that had anything to do with his concerns."

Neal lifts his shoulders in a prolonged shrug. "I'm just wondering why you seem determined to take the worst from everything he says."

[walkingtrigger]

"Mmm," Tim made a thoughtful noise and reached to put the cap back on the empty bottle.

"That is stepping across the line, of business that is between me and Malcolm and I do not see where it is your business."

[conning]

"It's my business because he's my friend, and you're hurting him," Neal says flatly. "I want to understand why."

He shrugs again. "No one in our house has done anything to you. He keeps trying with you, because that's who he is. You're the one that keeps pushing people away."

[walkingtrigger]

"You ever read Robert Frost?"

[conning]

Neal raises his eyebrows again.

"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."

He braces his hands against the edge of the table. "I might be familiar."

[walkingtrigger]

"He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’"

Tim recites the words without adding to the thought of them as he looks up at Neal.

[conning]

Neal sighs, pushing away from the table. "I'd say he's the apple orchard, personally, and you're the pines. He's not the one suggesting fences. But I guess it's semantics at this point. "

He glances back at the newsletters on the table, gesturing to them. "I'd like to know, if you come across anything else that stands out. The more we share with each other the more likely we are to come up with a theory that holds water."

Neal heads for the door, pausing a moment when he gets there.

"Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’"

Then he steps out into the night and walks away.