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]

Eh.

Truthfully the question might never have come up in normal conversation. It was more a case that he needed Malcolm talking and the job was always a safe topic. Tim wasn't entirely uninterested in the art of profiling. Marshals often used their own version when trying to suss out where a fugitive they were tracking would likely to be found.

But Tim would be the first to admit that the fugitives he chased were an entirely different breed of animal from the serial killers Malcolm stalked.

"Power over life, death and all that bullshit?" Tim asked, encouraging Malcolm to talk further as they made their way down the tunnel. He expected they would come up on the mural soon, but his nerves were still jangling and Tim did not want to entertain the risk of a repeat performance of his own bullshit.

[abrightboy]

“Yeah, exactly,” Malcolm told him. “There are different flavours of it, but - essentially - it comes down to the ultimate rush of power over another person. If you take the case of my father, he was a heart surgeon. That was sort of his gateway power rush into serial killing. He pretended it was scientific curiosity, but it was about power. Everything was always about power with him,” Malcolm explained casually.

[walkingtrigger]

Malcolm's response caused Tim's lips to twitch.

"Little wonder you and Raylan get along," he observed. "You were both shaped in your career by the actions of your fathers."

[abrightboy]

“We’re all made by something,” Malcolm pointed out gamely. “What made you choose your careers?” he asked curiously.

[walkingtrigger]

The young sniper initially bristled at the question. He wasn't one for talking about himself in such ways. But he reminded himself that he had kinda opened these doors and it would be a next level of assholishness to slam them back closed in Malcolm's face.

"Enlisted in the Army the day I turned eighteen before my father could throw me out of the house," he said without much emotional inflection. "The Marshal service offers a lot of support to veterans getting settled back into civilian life."

He could still get his mad minute but on the correct side of the law.

[abrightboy]

“Why would he throw you out? You didn’t get along?” Malcolm clarified.

[walkingtrigger]

"We did not," Tim confirmed, but that was all he was going to share on that subject.

"Should we be close to the mural?"

[abrightboy]

“It’s just up ahead,” Malcolm confirmed. “Did you go to the army because you didn’t have anywhere else to go or to prove something?” he asked curiously.

[walkingtrigger]

"It was convenient at the time," Tim confirmed Malcolm's initial assumption, all the while looking for, ah hah!

"Now there's a disturbingly familiar image," he remarked as he moved closer to the mural.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm had seen it more than once, at that point. Examined it with an art expert and everything. He held the lantern up so Tim could see better.

“Did you know what you were getting into?” he asked.

[walkingtrigger]

"Fuck no," Tim responded without hesitation, straightening from where he had been studying the mural and moving to make an investigation of the area around them.

"Anyone who tells you they knew what they were getting into in a war is a lying piece of shit."

[abrightboy]

“Well. That’s not even how the military is sold to people as a career, is it? It’s sold as a free education and technical training for vulnerable people in bad situations so they can get out,” Malcolm mused. “The commercials always show strapping young people repairing jet engines and doing advanced physics, not... shooting a human in the face.”

[walkingtrigger]

"A clean headshot over twelve hundred meters is all advanced physics," the words escaped him before he could call them back and Tim sighed. "It's the atrocities you witness through the scope, while waiting for the green light, that's the nightmare.

Did you explore back the other way as well? More locked gates?"

[abrightboy]

“It’s the bit of advanced physics they don’t advertise,” Malcolm pointed out. He looked back the other way. “I only got as far as one locked gate,” he said. “There were other tunnels, but Raylan caught me coming down here by myself.”

[walkingtrigger]

Tim considered a response to Malcolm's initial comment, but decided it was a subject best let lie.

He pointed at the scribble, then pointed upwards in what would be the direction of the lighthouse, then set his hands on his lean hips and turned thoughtfully.

"It's a kill box," he said with certainty that there was no evidence to support. "Mathias is a kill box penning us in for something that is in the ocean."

[abrightboy]

“Because their town crest is a sea monster?” Malcolm clarified. “So if people really lived here before, what happened? They got sucked out to sea?”

[walkingtrigger]

"I don't think that's a sea monster," Tim said in a pensive tone. "Look, come with me to Lighthouse."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm's interest was certainly piqued.

"Sure." He led Tim back the way they came, scooping up the ladder as they came to it, so they could get out when they got back to the hatch.

[walkingtrigger]

The younger marshal was quiet as they made their way back through the tunnel to the trap door. His brain was ping-ponging between flashbacks and current theory building, but he did not devolve again as he had when they first got down there.

Once they were out of the hatch, Tim suggested Malcolm leave the ladder and lantern in 1307. He wanted to get to the Lighthouse sooner rather than later, his mind busy turning the clues they had over and over again.

When they reached the structure Tim pushed open the door, clearing the space before allowing Malcolm to follow him. He lead the smaller man to the patch of peeling wallpaper with it's mural and it's hashmarks.

"The hash marks read as someone who felt they couldn't trust their own sense of time, was trying to track something."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm examined the marks.

"Time doesn't work right here. Neal did the same thing in the master bedroom at 1306," he told Tim. "We've been keeping it up."

He looked at Tim. "Have you been to the top?"

[walkingtrigger]

Tim shook his head, turning and looking in the direction of the lighthouse itself.

"We were distracted by the wall art," he explained. "Can we get into the lighthouse?"

[abrightboy]

“Getting in has never been a problem,” Malcolm told him. “The first time I got to know Raylan at all, we both woke up in there, trapped inside. I took a picture from the top, but we know how interested you are in second hand views.” He started heading that way. “You can see more of the town from up there. Areas that aren’t accessible.”

[walkingtrigger]

Welp. Malcolm wasn't wrong. Tim did not like second hand views.

With a jog of his eyebrows, the younger marshal made to follow without comment.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm pulled the creaky door open and led Tim through the small apartment and into the base of the lighthouse, looking up the winding staircase.

“Only come here when you’re feeling... well,” he recommended. “Raylan had to stop me from falling.”

He put his hand on the railing and headed upwards.

[walkingtrigger]

"He likes riding to the rescue," Tim observed as he began to follow up the stairs.

Inwardly his mind was split between two points of consideration. First that upon looking up, something had jumped out at him. The staircase was a spiral. The second thing was consideration of Raylan and Malcolm's relationship.

He teased but he also knew just how the older marshal could become attached. The profiler, for all his annoying (to the sniper) quirks, at least seemed to be good at filling the need to be needed that Raylan carried around inside.

Terrorized hamster, trying to build up a nest.