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The Village Mod ([personal profile] villagemod) wrote in [community profile] villagelogs2021-05-08 12:54 pm

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.


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tinstar: (Oh please)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-05-31 07:36 pm (UTC)(link)
"The cleanin' up will come later," he promised with a faint lift of his eyebrows. Anything to keep his hands moving and give him a reason to not be stuck up on the wall, watching people play games while he twiddled his thumbs.

He clucked at her ending statement. "You're not a shitty person. It's a relief to have someone from home that knows you. Even if they've gotta suffer here. Shit, Tim and Malcolm would be the first two I send on a train home, but.. I'm glad they're here too. I told him the same thing. You bein' here on your own without your own.. kind.. Gotta be hard. You talk to him about your Thing yet?"

Raylan hadn't gotten to say much to Jeff before delivering him to Athena, and it was largely because of everything he'd just said. There would be time, but what time he did have, he spent relaying his concern about Athena and her gift. The last thing he wanted was her blowing herself or anyone else off the maps.
citharede: (bh35)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-05-31 08:16 pm (UTC)(link)
She bites her lip. Her Thing. Athena nods a little.

"He can feel it too. The way things are just... off here. I told Kirigan it was like trying to listen to a song through static on the radio."
Edited 2021-05-31 20:16 (UTC)
tinstar: (wtf)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-06-03 01:48 am (UTC)(link)
"Kirigan?" The name was echoed with a note of interest, of intellectual concern as he sat up, ashing the cigarette on the side, one arm leaned onto the chair.

"Mr. Shadow and Jaw?" Apparently yes, that's what he was going with. "How'd y'all get on?"

He knew Athena had been through some shit; he was interested what her gut said.
citharede: (bh152)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-06-22 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
She ducks her head a little, grinning at the title Shadow and Jaw. "So you know what he can do too?"

Athena goes quiet a moment, considering the question. Considering how much she should tell Raylan. She mentally shrugs. It's Raylan. She's not going to demand he tell her the truth then keep things from him.

"He makes me nervous," she admits. "But like... I don't know. Not... scared nervous. Like 'you can do so much more than you're gonna show anyone until you have to' nervous. He reminds me of my aunt's boss a little, Cam. Except Cam is a teddy bear until you piss him off and Kirigan is like a bear-bear."
tinstar: (Look here)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-06-26 12:41 am (UTC)(link)
"He decided to.. put on a show." Yeah, that's what we'll call it. But Athena was used to shows like that, displays of power - she expected them of people.

"Bear-bear is a little too much bear, if you ask me, but.." His frown was telling enough. "I-.. I ain't gonna lie to you Athena. This shit scares me. All this crap y'all can do that I've never heard anyone doin' before. I'm sure I ain't gotta explain why. So I can't claim to know shit about shit but... You gotta be careful with him. You know that right? He might play nice enough, but there's hell under all that calm. I don't trust him. He's.." Big. In a way Raylan couldn't quite explain. Kirigan didn't fill a room with his presence until he did. Raylan knew what flexing that muscle entailed.
citharede: (bh166-1)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-06-26 04:13 am (UTC)(link)
She hesitates another moment, but again--if she had to choose between Kirigan and Raylan, it would be no contest.

"He fixed my Gift. I mean, not exactly, but when we held hands he did this thing, he said he could amplify other peoples' powers, and it worked. It was like he brought it all into focus. Tuned in to the right station, you know? But it hurt him to do it. He said it wasn't supposed to. It..."

She frowns, rubbing her arms a little. "He was angry. Really angry. He got himself under control pretty fast but that... that did scare me. Before that, when I said one of the basic things you could do with the Gift was call light, he got... weird. He said only one person can do that where he's from."

Athena's voice goes a little quieter, one part worry and sadness, the rest of her not wanting someone else to overhear. "Whoever that person is, they did something to him. I don't know what or how bad it was or anything like that, but he got this look. I could just tell."
tinstar: (biting down)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-06-27 01:59 am (UTC)(link)
"So he's useful. Dangerous, but useful. Lemme tell you about Anger, Athena. It can lead a man to doin' terrible things. Don't trust him. Not.. not really, not in the way it matters." Not with your life.

Kirigan was the second person to hit that button of his - Will Graham was the first but ultimately proved to not be any danger. Raylan's eyebrows pinched, head shaking back and forth at the tone in her voice. He didn't like that look on her. The fear. The uncertainty. He still didn't know what had happened, not really, but something had.

"That's no reason for anythin' else. We've all had somethin' done to us." He turned his face down to the floor and nodded again, stuffing all that away. "I trust you to know your own limits. Just promise me you won't let him push you to yours."
citharede: (bh133)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-06-27 02:30 am (UTC)(link)
She watches Raylan with a wariness that has nothing to do with him. It's a studying expression, a quiet worry that drums up the fact that alone, even without his powers, Kirigan could overpower her pretty easily. She doesn't think he would--not to do anything sexual, anyway--but the possibility is very much there.

"Why did he put on a show for you?" She sits down on the arm of his chair, plucking his hat off his head so she can lean her cheek against his hair.
tinstar: (sleepin)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-06-27 04:05 am (UTC)(link)
There's a saying. Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. Kirigan didn't feel like a man that suffered being laughed at. Raylan glanced up as Athena sat down next to him and smirked at the theft of his hat, the lean of her head on his and he leaned back gently in kind.

He still wasn't used to this. This affection, this trust. Not without questions, without checkpoints that he had to go through to prove that he wasn't a fucking scumbag. But regardless, he appreciated it. Treasured what it was. Would it be like this with his own daughter, once she was older?

God he hoped so.

"I asked him what his Gift was. No point in beatin' around it once I knew. He.. Have you seen it? What he can do?"

He didn't want to waste his breath expressing what she already might know. The way he sucked all the light out of a room, the way he made Raylan's heart and senses race and scream that something was wrong, that he had to get away.
citharede: (bh178)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-06-27 04:22 am (UTC)(link)
"I know he does stuff with shadows. When I spotted him in the field, he was... I'm not sure how to explain it. It's like he was making a blade out of darkness, like a scythe blade, or he was trying to. Not with a handle or anything, but."

She sighs, irritated by her own inability to articulate what Kirigan was doing. "Anyway, it looked like it would have ended badly for anyone on the other side of it. And the shadows in the trees, they moved toward him. It was like he had the dark shining around him. Not shining, but."

She hesitates for a second before admitting, "It was kind of beautiful. But he wasn't doing it to spook me. He wasn't doing it for anyone but himself until I showed up. He turned the screws on you though, didn't he?"

Raylan isn't a dumbass teenager shouting at Kirigan from half-way across the field, interrupting his focus. He's one of the centers of Mathias, as far as Athena is concerned. He carries himself like a threat, though not one that's aimed at her. Never one that's aimed at her.
tinstar: (Porch Thinkin)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-06-27 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
Athena may or may not feel the slight tension that corded through Raylan's shoulders, a subtle stilling of his everything. A scythe. Raylan had seen them used in fields, on grass, wheat.. He knew what other purposes they could be put to and it sent his blood running cold.

"Shows of power for the sake of show can't be anythin' but. He.. he sucked the light from their sources. Like they were.. struggling to get a lick of breath, like he'd.. sucked all the oxygen from the room. It was.." He frowned and shook his head a little, gaze lost in his lap.

"Like hope was getting pulled away with it." He shook his head again, a faint motion that didn't dislodge her from her post. "It was the correct answer to the question posed."

He took a deep breath in, dislodging her then as his head tilted to the other side. "I didn't flinch. Didn't let him know, as best I could. Never can, with those types. Fear is a tool to be used against us." And Raylan wasn't into giving anyone that satisfaction. No one that could catch a bullet and bleed out like the rest of them.

He hoped it wouldn't come to anything like that. He hoped that if it did, that theory proved true.
citharede: (bh51)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-06-27 05:29 pm (UTC)(link)
She feels it, the way he tenses up. She can understand why, too. They've all been left pretty much defenseless. If Kirigan can figure out how to use that particular weapon here--if it even is a weapon, but she has to think...

At Raylan's description of Kirigan's display, she feels a little prickle of goosebumps across her arms and neck. Athena sits up again when Raylan tilts his head in the other direction, focus on him, trying not to be too worried. "Well... the good thing is he's as mad about being brought here as the rest of us."
tinstar: (sitting)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-06-27 08:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"That's true," he admitted with a sigh and a nod. "I'm hopin' more pissed at this place for fucking with him than us for being in it and useless to helping him get out. We can use it against Mathis."

Did that make him an asshole? He was sure it did but the realities of life didn't afford everyone to make friends and hold hands in a circle.
citharede: (bh39)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-06-28 02:10 am (UTC)(link)
Athena nods, no judgment in her expression. Raylan isn't wrong. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," she says quietly.

It's what got her through more than a few dangerous moments out on the street, with frat boys and fellow homeless.

A pause, then, "You get. Um. You get why I can't just stay away from him though, right?"
Edited 2021-06-28 04:14 (UTC)
tinstar: (Eyeballin)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-06-28 01:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Exactly right.

Raylan looked up at her and nodded. "I do. He's.. your kind." That felt.. wrong to say, for some reason. Awkward. "He fixed you, even if it was for a second. Just.. Do me a favor and be careful around him, okay? I don't wanna see you get hurt."

At least, he assumed that's why Athena couldn't leave the man be. Mages will mage, Raylan had learned that much and telling her to ignore part of herself wasn't an option.
citharede: (bh79)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-06-28 05:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Somehow, the way he puts it hurts. Again, he's not wrong. And she knows he doesn't mean to make her sound like some kind of other species. It's just a sharp reminder of one of the things about her that he's never going to get. Maybe one of the things about her that will always scare him.

She shoves that thought aside, putting Raylan's hat on her own head to hide any hesitation. "I'll be careful, I promise."
tinstar: (Soft)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-06-30 02:54 am (UTC)(link)
He smiled crookedly, softly at her wearing his hat.

"You could get you one of those sometime you know. I think you'd look pretty cute in onn'a those flat drivin' cap things too. Maybe suspenders. Like you're some gangster from the 30's in doc martens."
citharede: (bh31)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-07-13 02:14 am (UTC)(link)
Athena grins. "I could rock that aesthetic. I'm kinda too lazy for it though."
tinstar: (Real Smile)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-07-14 12:12 am (UTC)(link)
"It's a hat and suspenders, what's to be lazy about? You could wear big ol' Doc Marten's and sing old timey songs. Barbershop quartet?"

Now he was just teasing.