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

[Ah. That.

The question mark, unfortunately, goes completely over her head, but it ends up not really mattering; she can hear the questioning tone in his voice, and along with the miming, it's not hard to figure out what he's getting at.]

Háidēs.

[She says, pointing down into the pit.]

In Tártaros. The death place.

[He frowned, the scars on the left side of his face that laced out like faint spiderwebs turning down with the expression.]

The death place. Hell? Hades? [A little backwards with his attempts at translations but it was something.]

Jesus, when the hell are you even from.. [It was murmured in a gentle confusion.] How the hell would I even ask that question? Would you even know?

[He doubted that too, and so scrubbed his face, hand pushing his hat back a few inches before he was taking a deep breath and readjusts the hat.]

You challenging him to a fight or something? [He gestured at her, bringing his hands up to faux bob and weave with his shoulders and head before nodding at chasm.]

Hades, yes.

[She says, as if this is perfectly normal - which, to be perfectly fair, it is for her. A slow, sly smile spreads across her face at Raylan's miming.]

This is fight?

[What a useful word to know!]

Yes, I fight Hades.

[Technically, she never has, though not for lack of trying - Hades simply hadn't had the time or the patience to deal with her shenanigans. Her willingness to even want to challenge the god of the Underworld is what had originally attracted Ares' attention to her, however. The god of war is certainly interested in fights.]

[He bobbed his head in a reluctant concession, expression belying the nuance that was not being shared.] Fight. Well, one way of fighting.

[But he couldn't help but squint and tilt his head a little bit. Fighting. An invisible god..]

Uh-huh. [It wasn't patronization. While Raylan hadn't even begun to really wrap his head around the woman in front of him, some questions didn't actually gain him anything.] Well, I hope that skill continues around here. We might have a demi-god to get rid of... somehow..

Why fight him? To fight death?

[Because she's angry. Because she wants out of Tartarus so she can go back to fighting Xena, or failing that, she wants Xena to end up in Tartarus with her. Because--

"The gods have never done anything for me," she snaps in Greek, knowing he won't be able to understand but wanting to say it out loud regardless. "Why should I meekly accept their control over me? Because they're more powerful than me? No. I won't."

She punctuates this by spitting into the chasm, showing Hades what she thinks of him.]

I fight everybody. I fight Tim, Malcolm, Parker - I fight you.

[She has not, in actual fact, fought all these people, but she'd certainly be willing to.]

[The words were lost on him but the tone and the twist of her face as she spits the words before spitting properly made her position fairly clear.]

I don't fight.. [He looked her up and down with a little gesture.] Not women. If I can help it. Very rude.

[But what was rudeness to ancient Greeks? He should have paid attention in history class more.]

[This is another one she's going to have to guess at - he doesn't fight her specifically? Doesn't fight Greeks? Doesn't fight women, or people who wear leather armor, or blondes?

Only one of those really seems likely, and she sneers, not at all unused to that attitude but not a fan of it all the same.]

Women fight you.

[She taunts. And if he doesn't fight back, that just gives them the advantage.]

[His chin lowered a little, eyes darkening with the set of his features. Oh no, he could guess why she sneered.]

No. Better they don't. [Firm. Meant to be inarguable. He could be goaded into a fight, into throwing his fists by nearly any asshole, as long as that asshole didn't come with a vagina. No, as soon as he gave into that, Raylan feared it'd get into his blood. Turn him into Arlo and even the thought of it had his jaw tensing.

He pointed at the chasm without breaking eye contact with her, for the moment far more like a dog with his back hairs up, unwilling to take his eyes off a possible threat.]

I don't do that death, if I can.

I do.

[She spits, her body language tense and threatening even though her tone leans more petulant. She starts to circle him, hands balling into fists.]

I do. And you do.

[He's big, and he looks strong and athletic. None of those things happen by accident. He's clearly a fighter, and in her world, fighters are killers.]

[Shit. He wasn't worried about the fight, only that she seemed dead set on it for some reason. Probably his own fault for trying to have a preference with someone from a culture and time that did not afford that to them so easily.

Instead of circling with her, Raylan shrugged off his jacket and dropped it around him, opting to keep his hat where it was. If she insisted on doing this, knocking it off would be a victory for her and if he could get out of this with it still on his head, he'd call the win for himself. He kept his hands loose at his side, and his head tilting as she circled to keep her in view and the blind spot directly behind him was solved with a half step that allowed him to see it with his own turn.

He danced this dance a little differently.]

Not on women. Not unless you make me. Callisto. Stop this.

[No, he didn't particularly expect her to stop. If she was telling gods to go fuck themselves, he was pretty sure that automatically extended to the lower forms beneath them.]

Edited 2021-05-14 19:12 (UTC)

[Callisto isn't angry at Raylan. She has nothing against him in a personal level. But she, too, is easy to goad into fights, either by another person, by herself, or - as in this particular case - by a complete whim.]

Yes.

[She says, with a vicious smile. And then she charges, fists raised and ready to collide with something.]

[Runners were easy - don't let them get their hands around you and redirect all that delicious forward momentum. He takes a half step back for it, intent on using his rightmost leg as soon as he's got his hands on her, wrists or shoulders, whatever he needed to turn her and turn with her to sweep her closest leg, sending her back downwards.]

Stop it.

[Teeth half bared, the words were pushed through them with a tone that most people tended to listen to. He didn't have to hit her to fight.]

[Most people have respect for themselves, if not for others. Callisto has neither, and fear of disapproval or retaliation is not a deterrent here. He catches her and turns her, sending her tumbling - but she turns that tumble into a flip, arching through the air and landing on her feet again. After that, she wastes no time before striking out with both a hand and a foot, aiming to chop his arm with the former at the same time as she aims for his kneecap with the latter.]

[That was... Impressive as fuck and if he hadn't been in the middle of trying to get her to quit being all fighty, he would have stared longer. But there was no time for that with the way she came back at him.

Not trained like this, Raylan can only do his best - Blocking the chop and aiming to grab her leg, even if he has to step into the kick to do it. It left him a little twisted, but the best way it seemed to sort that out was back up and let his arms realign, hopefully pulling her with him and back off her feet.

It wasn't graceful or elegant, but then again, not much about Raylan was.]

[He grabs her leg, but she's very strong, and so she attempts to destabilize his footing by giving it a good yank back. But whether or not that trick works, he does manage to get her down... where she uses her new position on the ground to deliver a powerful kick towards his ankles. The fact that they're doing this rather close to a gaping chasm in the earth does not appear to scare her in the least.]

[ Had Tim been watching them for awhile?

Quite possibly.

Had he considered interfering before now? Nope. It was like being a referee at an ice hockey game. You just let the players hash it out until they hit the ice, and then step in. Actually Tim had been willing to just let them continue on with it but they were getting concerningly close to that chasm and ... yeah.

He jogged out of the shadows he'd been lurking within, dodging Raylan's falling body but then stepping over him and holding one hand out in her direction, the other towards Raylan. ]

[ Callisto earned a solid look from the young sniper. ENOUGH. Without taking his eyes off her face, he spoke to Raylan. ] What is it with you and leggy blondes?

[The yank worked more in her favor than his but he wasn't stupid enough to hold on while being pulled. For all the good it did him - her kick at his ankles had his already shit at traction cowboy boots sliding out from under him with an almost comical pinwheeling of his arms. He only barely missed hitting Tim as he rushed in but his brain didn't register it, too busy with him hitting the ground, hat rolling off to settle dangerously close to the chasms edge, saved by a mere half inch.

That didn't register either as he rolled himself back up to his feet, breathing only fractionally heavily as he kept himself ready for Callisto to wholeheartedly ignore Tim too.]

Talent. I didn't do anything to cause this that I'm aware of, didn't insult the goat she doesn't have or nothin'. she started it, [He said, just as evenly as he'd been speaking before all this happened, and he pointed at Callisto as he said it, eyebrows lifting with his emphasis.

Felt like he was telling Teacher and that this was the third grade or something.]

[Callisto is pretty terrible at recognizing positive emotions within herself, but by any objective measurement, she does like Tim well enough. Is that going to stop her from widening her sights and attempting to include him in this impromptu battle? Of course not. She's having a grand old time, thank you very much.]

Women are too death for him.

[She taunts, that vicious grin still on her face. The word she's looking for is too deadly, or maybe too scary, but she has an extremely limited vocabulary at the moment and she has to work with what she's been given. She knows they're talking about her too, even though she can't understand what they're saying, and that just makes the grin widen.

"You'll have to kill me to make me stop," she says in Greek, before going in for another charge - aiming for both of them, this time. Really, though, the situation isn't actually that dire; she has no serious investment in this fight, and so distracting her with something ~~shiny~~ interesting should work just as well.]

Working with a goddamn eighth grader. [ The younger marshal said with a long suffering glance sent Raylan's way. Then her movement caught his eye and Tim turned back towards her, shifting to keep himself between her and Raylan.

He's seen her flips and he's seen her knife work. It's not that he doesn't also have confidence in Raylan's ability to be a scrappy sonofabitch, but Tim would like to avoid the two of them doing damage to each other. Possibly damage that would knock them out of being there to deal with the next round of Mathias' shit. ]

You are not wrong. [ Tim lamented using his hands to point towards her and then a thumbs up for 'not wrong'. Trying to turn them so as to buy him time to keep talking to her with voice and hands. ] He [ Tim pointed back at Raylan ] has a weakness [ using hand gestures he's used in the past to indicate weakness ] for leggy [ yep, he was going to look like an absolute idiot just then, patting his legs ] blondes. [ This last bit came with a hand touch to his hair.

Last but most importantly. ]

He [ Raylan. ] is my friend. [ He puts his hands together, shaking them in friendship. ]

Edited 2021-05-14 23:25 (UTC)

I told her I didn't fight women. Or kill 'em if given the choice. Seems to have given her something to prove.

[His reasoning was given without his eyes being pulled off Callisto, form hunching a little as he expected her to skirt past or under Tim and come at him again.

Tim's comment got a sharp look and 'You're an asshole' was on the tip of his tongue but what Tim ended with knocked it off. Despite their entanglement, deep down, Raylan wasn't sure that was the case. But his insecurities was neither here nor there, not with Callisto on the other side of the current situation.]

I haven't hit her yet and I don't plan to but if she wants a wrestle enough to put down an idea, I'm willin'.

[Callisto can talk and fight at the same time, but she can't follow charades and fight at the same time - and so, though she's still circling the men like a hungry lioness, the bulk of her attention is very much on whatever Tim is trying to say. Unfortunately a lot of this is difficult to convey using hand gestures, but she mostly picks up on the basic meaning, if not all the nuances behind it. The "leggy blonde" bit gets a derisive snort, at least.]

"You're all weak and afraid," she says in Greek - pointing to the pit, putting on an exaggerated (and entirely feigned) expression of fear, and then snorting derisively again to show just what she thinks about it. "He thinks women are too weak to fight him, but he's afraid of that."

Perífovos.

[She reiterates, flicking a finger back and forth between the two of them, applying it to them both.]

Her every waking breath gives her something to prove. [ Tim said with a deep sigh. ] Why she deserves to be alive.

[ He listened to the Greek, particularly the word that she applied to both of them and set his hands on his hips with a sigh. ]

I doubt that was a compliment. [ Said with the air of a man who is used to slurs flying at his head. Tim took a thoughtful moment and then deliberately stepped out from between Callisto and Raylan. He walked over to the edge of the chasm to collect the hat before bad luck saw it going over the edge.

Brushing it off he walked back towards the other two. He was expecting that his movements would offer enough distraction to keep Callisto from jumping Raylan until Tim got a chance to 'talk' again. He handed the hat towards the cowboy then turned towards her. The expression on his face was the no nonsense one he'd used a time or two when out in the desert with over eager recruits.

His hands began to move.

He pointed at the chasm and then used the hand signal they had hit upon the other day for 'death'. Then he pointed between the pair of them and made a tussling motion, before bringing his hand up to his next to smack the underside of his chin.

Tim sighed and touched his finger to himself, then to his head then to both of them. Then he turned back towards the chasm and pointed at it again. Then back at them, reaching with his right hand to make a breaking motion of his left arm, quickly followed by the death hand gesture and then back to the chasm. Next the spinny finger followed by his fingers sinking into his curled hand with a turn and motion of his hand away from his ass.

His gestures became more animated as he went through the motions. Definitely scolding. Bringing his hand up to smack the side of his head, pointing at them again, he smacked his hands and then gestured at the chasm.

TL DR: You two go over that edge, you're dead. You want to fight because you're both frustrated. I understand. But if you two hurt or kill each other, the rest of us are in deep shit.

The enemy is that chasm, this town. Not each other. You hard heads.

Got somethin' to prove to someone, to everyone, [he muttered darkly. No, there was no fear in him. Exactly the opposite.

But someone with a cooler head had taken the reigns and while Raylan's eyes didn't move from Callisto, he took the hat without breaking that eye contact and slipped it on his head where it belonged.

Let Tim mime out his message. Raylan would restrain the urge to ask what the motions for shove it up your ass was.]

[Raylan's grumpiness only serves to amuse her - she mouths BOO in his direction, and at least that's pretty universal. But then Tim grabs her attention back, and she squints hard at him, watching as he acts out death and pain and danger and--]

No.

[She snaps, gritting her teeth and shaking her head hard.]

No, I not-- I don't--

[She does the signal for death, her hand movements jagged and sharp; just like that, her easy, loose amusement has evaporated. She follows it up with a feigned shrug of nonchalance.]

You understand? Yes? What is this?

[How does she tell him that she doesn't care about danger, about death, about any of it?]

[ The pair of them with their lack of concern for their own well being, were going to drive him into an early grave.

Tim rubbed at his eyes then began to sign again.

Towards himself, towards her and then he made a circle with his thumb above his chest over his sternum.

No don't worry he's not saying he loves you Callisto. He's saying he cares about her in danger and death. He makes the gesture again and points towards Raylan. He motions towards Raylan again, before drawing the hand back towards himself.

Raylan was his. ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Let me know if this doesn't work!

totally fine!

Sweet! If that ever changes, please feel free to just nudge me, I'm always happy to adjust or clarif

same here!

Hello! Same as above, if I do anything that doesn't jive, let me know and I am happy to edit!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject