villagelogs | 062 » that moment of experience / part i

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062 » that moment of experience / part i

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Southern/Western Mathias
WHEN: Day 062
WHAT: A storm rains destruction upon the town.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here! Part II details are below.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Creeper"

DAY 062
THAT MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one
chooses that moment of experience from which to
look back or from which to look ahead.”
— Graham Greene
The day begins like any other might. The clouds occasionally part to give glimpses of the sun, offering a bit of hope that the hours might pass without incident. It is a hope that is soon dashed, however, for midday brings with it a suddenly darkening sky. Those near the beach will be able to see the ocean churning as all light seems to be bled from the day, the sky darkening into a purplish-black more quickly than is natural, the process taking a mere ten minutes from start to finish.

And then it begins.

The rain is so heavy and pouring so fast that the ground cannot take it all in, sending rivers down streets and leaving lawns as lakes. The winds blow in gusts so strong that they could knock someone over, and the lightning that arcs brightly through the sky is immediately followed by thunder that shakes the town to its core, the tremors almost reminiscent of the earthquakes that plagued the town only days ago.

For some, the storm will be another nuisance of mother nature, forcing them to remain wherever they were before its sudden approach. But for others, it will be far more than that, for this storm is seeking revenge on those who sought to destroy the town. Destruction will rain down and it will not stop until its vengeance is satisfied.

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. If nothing else, the cowboys' homemade moonshine should do the trick.

ABOUT THE STORM
The storm will begin at midday and last until late into the night, only calming in the early hours of the morning. The heavy rain will flood the streets, though it will not be enough to flood the buildings themselves (except as noted below), and the winds and thunder will shake the town with such strength that it will almost seem as if the town is trying to tear itself apart.

But this is not a simple storm. For those residents who took part in any way in the destruction of the Town Hall, History Museum, or Stoker Park house, they will find the storm will destroy their shelter in some fashion. This can include broken windows, caved-in roofs, flooding from the rain, or even lightning striking the building. The details are up to player choice but something will be damaged by the storm.

— All damage to buildings will be repaired by the dawn of the following day as if it never happened at all. There is no way to witness this process taking place.
— If a resident is sheltering in a shared living space with others who did not take part in the destruction of the town, you may choose to have only your character's section of that location damaged. However...
— The storm's focus will follow the resident if they move to another area or location, meaning that the new location will also suffer damage in some way.
— Only those who took part in the town destruction in some way will be targeted by the storm, but innocent bystanders can be caught up in the situation as well.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— 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.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue! Ellie has vanished while others have returned.

— ALCOHOL supplies have run dry, save for any dregs that have been squirreled away by individual residents. Moonshine can still be acquired by those in desperate need.

OOC NOTES

— NEW MAP Thanks so much to Scy for this amazing new map of Mathias!

— PROJECT HELP Your mod needs help with some projects!

— PART II The next part of the log series will be have characters divided up (by OOC choice, not IC) into groups, so be sure to sign up for one asap. Anyone who doesn't make the deadline will be automatically assigned to an available spot.

— 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. IC events are also helpful to know about in advance so they can be included in the log write-ups.

— 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. (All outstanding matters will be taken care of in the next few days!)

navigation | faq | locations | report updates

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[ Billy figures he doesn't have to answer. If it were him pouring the drinks, he'd automatically pour an extra glass. And, really, it may as well be him, right? Some version of him, anyway.

He takes a seat on one of the stools, acting cool but underneath he's on high alert. This is what he does. This is how he's gotten where he is, by playing calm as a cucumber. Maybe he should have kept himself in better check and Frank might not have gotten the upper hand on him. ]

So, are you going to tell me who the hell you are, or are we just gonna dance around it?

Daisy's quiet for a moment as they walk, thinking over the implications of what Bucky has said — and what he hasn't. The idea of the town having a life of its own brings up far too many memories of Fitz making her watch horror movies like Paranormal Activity, which she's still regretting all these years later.

"You said things happen that can't be explained," she finally says, making her decision of which piece of the puzzle to approach first. "What kind of things?"

A dull blade can be just as good as a sharp one if you know how to use it.

[ Which, of course, Billy does. He doesn't even care if he just more or less advertised that fact, either. Having no idea where he is or what the hell is going on, he's going to allow himself to play at least that one card while keeping the rest close to his chest. ]

And anything can be a weapon if you have a good enough imagination.

Labels can be hard. She's not sure what to think of that. It seems a simple enough statement on the surface, but at its core...

Her back straightens again and something in her goes stiff, more on the defensive than she had been before. There's nothing relaxed about her now.

"There are a lot of other sides," she informs him, her tone lacking the casual element from earlier. "The Kree call us abominations, mistakes that should have been eradicated thousands of years ago when Kree scientists created the original Inhumans. Terrorist organizations agree that we shouldn't exist and have done everything to convince the public to see it that way too. The government has talked about trying to develop a cure because they see us as weapons, but even if that never happens, anyone with abilities has to register in a government database so we can be monitored and controlled."

It's very clear as she goes on that Daisy is not a fan of any of the aforementioned, the cure and registration in particular. She feels like she's preparing for another of those battles right now, which she knows isn't fair to Raylan, but after the day she's had...

Raylan raised both his hands in a sign of surrender. The change in her posture was hard to miss and while he doesn't understand the root of it, he wasn't looking to cause offence or dismiss anything. Clearly he had.

"Registration sounds a lot like Nazi Germany, if you ask me," he replied. "If the.. The Kree?" His face twisted, head pulling a little bit at how weird that name was but moving on- "Make a mistake, that's on them, but that's no reason for extermination. Everyone's got a right to live, as long as they're not murderin' other folks. Same rules for everyone, in my opinion."

Raylan was sure the law was going to be a more difficult subject, but he wasn't a lawyer and that was a matter for the courts.

"No one's here to tell you anythin' like that, I can promise you. I'm from Kentucky. We got part of the market on phobias, but I'm not one of the herd, in that regard."

[ she knows it, too, and someone who says those things so casually is clearly someone who's also got some sort of combative training under his belt. ordinarily that wouldn't unnerve max and she'd want to know more, but as it is she's feeling drained from doing her best not to panic under her very unique circumstances and isn't looking to fight anyone. her hands go up to show she's unarmed, but her stance makes it clear she's still very much on guard, in case she needs to be. ]

Have at it. I don't know how good it'll be against what you really need to worry about in this place, though.

"He might have a person to give it," Malcolm tells her. "He was with a girl at the town building before."

"You say he's not a cultist, but that sounds like something cults do to me," she retorts. "Some young virgins willingly choose sacrifice."

She slows for a moment as they reach a fork in the tunnel, then randomly picks a direction and surges ahead, though it may or may not be the direction that Malcolm wants. Realizing that his incomplete knowledge of Greek might lead him to not know what a virgin is, she adds in a few synonyms: "Young maidens. Young girls."

[If they don't want The Grey Gull to be at risk of broken windows, caved-in roofs, and lightning strikes, Callisto will need to split off at some point, but for now she's happy to investigate this stranger, storm be damned.]

Callisto. I am not from America.

[Obviously.]

Raylan couldn't help but smirk a little as he came up, at the way that Bucky was getting out of the chair. It was in bad taste, considering how the man got injured, but he was starting move like his age now, at least for a little while.

"Gettin' old ain't for pussys, huh?" he asked as he stepped up and followed Bucky into the house. "I brought breakfast for you too. It's.. not cooked, but nothin' woulda kept warm on the walk over and it only takes a few minutes to do." He set the basket on the kitchen countertop and took to leaning on it. "If you haven't already eaten."

He'd cook, is what he was getting at. Least he could do.

Luckily for Raylan, this old man isn't as crotchety and grumpy as most seem to get. That didn't mean he didn't have his moments and no sooner than the tease comes out of the Marshal's mouth does Bucky swing back with one of his own.

"You can only hope to look as good as me at 106," he retorts with a little smirk, glancing back as he heads towards the kitchen. The house itself looks fairly kept, though Daisy had only been there the afternoon before. "I honestly can't remember when I last ate so breakfast sounds great."

As mentioned, recovery was hard work.

Yeah, I gathered. [ given how she'd been speaking in not only greek, but ancient greek. ] When did you get here?

[ probably during the time she'd been gone. ]

Bucky moves his gaze forward, mulling over how to tell Daisy about all the things they've dealt with in the last thirty days that he's been there. He knows a little about the things that have happened before that but not enough to properly explain.

"Time seems to move and feel different here. Slower, in a way. Before my fall, we went through a time loop," he starts, not knowing where in her timeline Daisy was now and not wanting to break too soon into Thanos or being snapped out of existence. "Avoid the fog, chances are it will either suffocate you or play with your mind."

He looks at her, letting her absorb that before continuing.

"I think the strangest thing I've been here for was a bunch of people were attacked and killed by some kind of animal. The ones who survived buried them, but they came back, even though their bodies were still here."

“I think she’s his.... bride?”

Did they have a word for ‘girlfriend’ in ancient Greek? It never came up in his studies, but ‘bride’ sounded more savoury than ‘concubine’.

"Killer fog, killer wildlife, duplicate bodies..." She quietly notes the various big picture things he's mentioned, trying to shuffle them around into the puzzle that's already forming from this place. The next one gets a tired but resigned tone. "Time loops I can handle. I went through a hundred loops just a few days ago."

Maybe a couple hundred, it was impossible to tell when her memory reset whenever she'd died. Coulson had a better count than she did, but as he'd often lamented, she hadn't powered him up every time.

Lifting a hand to rub at her forehead, she winces slightly as her fingers contact one of the many scrapes from her fight with Malick.

"Do you know what happened to the Other Me while she was here? As far as weird town stuff goes."

Raylan's snort of amusement was lost in the wind but clearly he didn't take any offence. This kind of back and forth was natural for them and one of the things he enjoyed about their working relationship. Being able to give each other some friendly shit kept things fun and kept them from going too soft into their own thoughts while they were on a case.

No room for breakdowns or ego trips or any of that other bullshit when they were on the job.

The beat of the wind was more than enough for Raylan to fall in line behind Tim, one hand still fisted into the fabric at the back of his shoulder so that he couldn't lose him. Raylan didn't know where they were going but he trusted Tim and that's all he needed. It was only as they got to the rock that Raylan really started to think about this idea.

"Strong gust'll knock us off, you think we got enough room?" he said, stepping forwards again to get his voice closer to Tim's ear.

The Marshal grinned at the response. Humor of any kind was a good thing - it meant that Bucky might be okay, at the end of it all. That was what was important.

"I don't think hope or prayers would get me back to lookin' as good as you," Raylan readily replied with a curl of his eyebrows as he nodded again and started looking around.

"Where's Daisy? Enough for her too." If he was going to be cooking though, it wasn't going to be in the jacket and hat, both of which are off loaded somewhere safe before he starts poking around for pans.

"Sure," Tim responded, perhaps a little too quickly.

Usually he was the level-headed one in this partnership and his gut was starting to twist in ways that suggested this might not be a good idea. But he was feeling particularly stubborn and the Ranger in him was loath to call a retreat.

Steading himself and very much aware of Raylan's grip at his shoulder Tim began to carefully set his feet and climb. The first few steps gave him hope, but as they picked their way higher, the wind seemed to become even more determined to blow them over towards where the waves were crashing higher and higher up the shore line.

[ Her welcome hasn't exactly been the warmest -- both literally and emotionally. Seeing Aleksander... or rather General Kirigan if she was going to play along with his requests to keep the peace, it had been too soon. Alina shifts a bit in her chair, suddenly a bit self-conscious with how stupid this may sound. ]

A meadow. [ She quickly follows it up with an explanation, trying to give context without divulging too much -- making a point to not describe the building as home. Because it wasn't home... He'd been. And for a moment, she'd thought she'd found that same sense of safety in Kirigan. Saints, she'd been so wrong. ] Something to leave here should my friend wash up. [ An innocuous sketch that wouldn't mean much to literally anyone else. ]

[ It's such a loaded question, the Darkling thinks, and his gaze remains passive as the other all but seizes up, moving backwards, panic clear on her face, wariness a close second. Let her get it out. He looks bored, the barest hint of an eyeroll though his eyes don't move save to scan the horizon. ]

Your friends aren't here. [ And, his gaze sliding back to Alina, tone flat: ] Neither are my men. [ His hand moves back to his side. If Alina isn't going to take what's offered to her, she can get up herself. ] How fortuitous.

[ And convenient. Still, it's the two of them and only the two of them, and the Darkling feels a surge of anticipation moving through him, watching Alina carefully. ] There's a place to take shelter not far from here. You must be cold.

'Sure', he says, Raylan thought to himself but they were already pressing up onto the rocks and the older Marshal was forced to let go of Tim to grip slick fingers onto the rough surface. It seemed fine for about a minute, Raylan blinking the water out from his eyes as he tried to find similar handholds that had let Tim go before him without issue.

But the harder the wind blew, the harder it was to stay clinging desperately to the rock face and the first slip of Tim's boot had Raylan shouting at him, slapping at his arm with a one handed desperation that went right back to clinging to the rocks. This was too much. The storm following them was going to tear them off and cast them into the sea like Bucky had done.

"We gotta go back! It's too windy, we're gonna get killed." The only reason Raylan hadn't fallen off yet was the way his toes were gripping at the rock too, providing him more grip than his boots could have ever afforded him.

If you're not a fan of the weather in Mathias, just wait ten minutes and it'll change. The storm that's moving in is going to be a big one, and Klaus is stubbornly just... waiting it out. It has to pass eventually, they've been pretty solid about keeping a store of non-perishables since the last time they lost access to food. As long as it doesn't knock them totally off grid for too long, they should be fine here.

He's fussing around in the kitchen, more for something to do than really needing anything from it. People deserved to have a pot of coffee waiting for them, he told himself, it was a nice thing to come into the kitchen to.

He almost doesn't hear the footfalls as someone wanders in. He glances up to greet whoever may be joining him when his breath catches first, instead. "Max?" His eyes immediately start scanning over her, looking for any obvious injuries she may have, but he barely restrains himself from reach for her. She was gone for awhile, what if she doesn't remember?

Raylan's cowboy boots couldn't provide grip on a level surface. By that was beside the point.

Both of them were good at their job because they were dogged, stubborn, persistent assholes who did not know the meaning of the word quit until it had punched them in the face twenty or thirty times. Tack that on to Tim's Ranger levels of stubborn, the training that said go forward! when all he wanted to do was retreat and the younger marshal was still hell bent on his climb.

"Wait here!" He shouted back, muscles straining as he purposefully forced himself higher and slightly off to the side, out of reach. "I'll find a safe route for you to follow!"

That was his job after all and damn it he was not quitting in the face of this asshole town! Gritting his teeth Tim went further still, growling under his breath as he cursed Mathias roundly. It was after he had put together a particularly graphic string of physical impossibilities that the storm surge crashed upwards and the wind whipped up to an almost unnatural strength.

Like a hand reaching down to spank Tim specifically, the wind gust caught him in the chest and threw him back down towards the reach of the tide below. Sit.Down.Son.

Training kicked in when Tim hit the water. He breathed out through his nose to keep water from rushing up into his sinuses and immediately opened his eyes to orient himself upwards. Beneath the surface it was strangely quiet, compared to above and a small part of Tim thought it wouldn't be the worst thing to stay in the quiet. He quickly decided that was Mathias talking and with an inward growl he kicked and pulled with powerful motions.

His head broke the surface well before he felt a burn in his lungs but Tim took a quick breath all the same. His eyes burned from the salt but a push from the tide, threw him forward far enough that his feet brushed rocky bottom. Good, he hadn't fallen too far out, he could do this.

Snarling through clenched teeth, the younger marshal pitted his body against the tide, fighting his way back to land. It was touch and go, Tim refusing to admit that he was tiring with a quickness, when a wave came in behind him. The wave was powerful enough to throw him towards the shore. That was the good news. The bad news was the power also slammed him into the rocks, hard enough to steal his breath as he was briefly pinned.

Tim felt his body start to tumble back into the water when a second surge lifted him up like a ragdoll and then pummeled him down into the shoreline. Like an unfortunate sock in the wash, the water pounded down across his body with bruising force, before the tide rolled him across the rough bottom, eventually spitting him out on the beach close to the Gull.

She remembers, at least everything about this place. She can't remember when she left or where she's been, but she does recognize Klaus as she comes to stand in the doorway of the kitchen, and seeing him and realizing he still recognizes her floods her with relief. She sags a little, steeling herself so she doesn't land on the floor, and runs up to him instead, wrapping her arms tightly around him.

[ He's correct. A second glass is poured, and he doesn't have to hazard a guess. The quiet, the calmness the two of them have, it's anything but: there's something circling them, an energy he's positive the other can pick up. Tension in the surface, like a storm on the horizon, culminating, electricity in the air.

He gives the other the glass, nodding. There's no point. Though he does linger, looking at the other's right eye. Even underneath it, there's a small beauty mark.

He's an exact copy. His own eyes narrow. ]

Kirigan. [ It's not quite a fake name, though he cants his head to the side, cautious. ] Unless the Darkling holds any meaning to you. I'd welcome you to this place, but I'm afraid it's far from welcoming.

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062 » that moment of experience / part i

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Boarding house

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