villagelogs | 062 » that moment of experience / part i

Entry tags:

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

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Use this space to ask general questions about this log and the circumstances or locations presented within. Players may also use this space to call the mod's attention to a thread to give feedback on the spooky happenings therein.

Use this space when exploring new locations or revisiting older ones, including residential housing locations. This includes asking questions about these explorations as well as simply reporting that the explorations are taking place.

(AP rewards are not needed for basic explorations.)

Reward redemption is not available for this part.

Tim has some feelings about the ocean and the Lighthouse.

What would happen if a pair of dumbasses (Raylan and Tim) upon cottoning on to the fact that the storm is trying to punish them, head for the Lighthouse. Up the lighthouse ... dare we say, out onto the walkway?

Because the only way to access the Lighthouse is by way of the beach and the very precarious path up the side of the cliff, attempts at reaching it during a storm that resembles an apocalyptic hurricane would be unsuccessful and result in the pair of dumbasses being badly injured or even killed. But they are certainly welcome to try and then realize the error of their ways.

LOL!

Yeah okay. They are a pair of dumbasses who might make an attempt but there is at least one functioning brain cell between them and they will retreat while it is still wise to do so.

How close could they get for a close call before a strategic ~~run for their lives~~ retreat?

Night 62 - open to anyone at 1306

Honestly, it's just a bit of rain, and he'd been fine. He's relieved to have gotten Daisy Johnson out of the weather and into Bucky's organic and inorganic arms, even though her current state worries him. He doesn't mind at all, reforging their friendship. But she's been around in Mathias for as long as he had, back when hardly anyone else was in this town and they only had the Grey Gull as the focal gathering point. He doesn't know what Mathias had done to her to make her forget.

Even when he'd run himself off his feet looking for Ellie, having brought some food over and finding her to be gone, he was still fine. He tried not to think of the worst possible scenarios, especially after what happened to Claire. He tried to convince himself that he'd done his best. He was there for Ellie when she needed him. He gave her all the opportunities to talk to him if she wanted to. He had held her as long as she could have tolerated being held. Of course it frustrates him to no end that he keeps losing these girls. But he keeps reminding himself she's smart, and she's good, and if she can survive whatever hell her home world had turned to, she can handle some rain in Mathias. Dead and missing and amnesiac girls are not at all a reflection of his own worthlessness, or what kind of man he is that he can't keep these young ladies out of harm's way.

Well, not that it matters. His own little girl is gone.

By the time he's sitting alone in a puddle of water in the garage in the middle of the night, a dark silhouette indistinguishable from anything else with the light switched off, he's run out of things to tell himself. He's prepared for a number of disasters. The stockpile of food will last them a few days. He's strapped furniture down and kept fragile items properly to save them from the quakes. Unfortunately he didn't think they might be needing sand bags, and water is coming in from under the garage door. He's drenched from running around in the rain looking for Ellie. Water is dripping from his hair. The puddle he's sitting in that is ever so slowly growing larger is soaking into his jeans.

He should maybe get up. He still has the energy left for that. Sacrifice some old towels, stuff it in the gap where the water's coming in. But all he can think about is that maddening drip, drip, drip at the bottom of the well, the futility of everything, the fear gripping and settling in, with the sound of his heavy breathing breaking up the monotony of the water flow.

They could make it halfway down the rocky beach before realizing that it's a Very Bad Idea and still be able to retreat relatively safely.

Should you instead choose the Death Option, the bodies would be washed out to sea and both men would revive the next morning.

[plotting post]

( plotting post )

A - DOWNTIME; OTA

[Since her arrival, Callisto has stubbornly - and perhaps stupidly - insisted on camping outdoors in the woods. She's far more used to roughing it than she is to sleeping in houses, and she stays close to the tree line, well away from the fog, so she hasn't encountered any major problems so far - but today's rainstorm is beyond her limits. This isn't a light summer rain that she can shelter from under a tree: even if she did have the sort of camping gear that she's used to (and she very much does not), a storm of this caliber would rip through even the best-made animal hide tent. Her choices are to resign herself to being utterly soaked for who knows how long, destroying the meager supplies she's gathered and likely doing damage to her leather armor, or heading inside. She chooses the latter.

She picks 1302 Phillips Drive at random, and though she's already explored most of the empty houses, she gives it another look-through just for something to do. The papers she's been using for Pictionary-style communication, already tattered and ripped from spending most of their time crinkled up in her knife sheath, have not fared well in the storm; she spreads them out on the dining room table as well as she can, but any ink drawings have run beyond recognition, and some of the soaked pages come apart in her hands. This is also one of the rare times she can be found out of her armor, as she carefully sets all the leather pieces out to dry, takes a hot shower, and then spends the next several hours barefoot and wearing a floral nightgown. She probably looks ridiculous. She absolutely does not care.]

B - DAMAGE DONE; OTA

[It starts small, with a tree branch crashing through one of the front windows, and Callisto barely pays it any attention at all - property damage is not high on her list of concerns. Her tune quickly changes, however, when the roof springs a leak right over the table that she's set her papers on, instantly negating the past few hours of drying time. That would be annoying enough on its own, but it's followed up not half an hour later by a portion of the roof caving in: a small portion, all things considered, but a portion that just happens to be directly over the bed that she's laid out her armor on.

The resulting shriek of rage is loud enough to be heard from the street.]

hold on, don't give up the fight, ’cause heroes never die (♫)

Daisy awakes with a gasp that is immediately followed by a choking cough forcing the water out of her lungs. Pure instinct has her pulling herself up off the wet sand, though her body takes far longer to respond to her commands than it should. That chill in the air is nothing compared to the one in her bones, an aching cold that leaves her shaking as she heaves herself up the beach, slowly stumbling upright as she moves further away from the water that almost seems to chase her with each incoming wave.

It's only when her boots finally click onto pavement that she stops, sand clinging everywhere: her suit, her hair, even to the cuts and scrapes on her face. She doesn't notice any of it, though. How could some pesky sand getting into her gauntlets possibly compare with the sudden realization that she's on a planet when, last she remembered, she had been in space. Literally in space. Daisy can still remember those last moments when the Chronicom ship had been torn apart all around her, only the strength of her quakes shielding her from the sudden loss of pressure and oxygen. The sight of the other ships exploding had been the sign for her to let go, that it was time, and she can remember the cold beginning to sink in...

There is no way she could have survived that. And while it's certainly not unheard of for a member of her team to face death and still come out standing on the other side, this was different.

So then how the hell is she here? And where is here, for that matter?

He's known about her disappearance since Bucky tried clambering out of bed to look for her despite being in the shape he was in. Doc has been on at least a half dozen wild geese chases since he came to Mathias. By now he has planned the most efficient route to cover every single accessible building in Mathias, before venturing into the trees, and down around the beach. It is probably sheer luck that he chances upon her that morning and when he spots her staggering silhouette struggling up the footpath he hurries down to meet her halfway.

"Oh, thank Christ. You are a sight for sore eyes," he greets as he comes up to Daisy. He takes one look at her before shedding out of his coat, moving in a little closer to drape it over her shoulders.

"Next time you feel like dipping your toes in the ocean, maybe you oughta leave a note for your man?" Doc chides.

Despite some very Earth-like architecture being in sight, Daisy is still fully expecting to see an alien walking up to meet her. Hopefully not one with blue skin, but at this point, she might even welcome the old familiar nuisance of a Kree sticking their nose where it doesn't belong. What she finds when she looks up, however, leaves her reeling.

A cowboy. The facial hair is the first hint, but then there's the way he speaks. It's enough to make her glance over at the restaurant on the beach again, confirming that the style doesn't match the Old West. (Look, she's been traveling through time and parallel universes, anything feels possible right now.)

The gesture of the coat is a nice one, even if she doesn't have a clue who he is, but the words that follow shake off any goodwill she'd been feeling toward the stranger. Straightening her spine, her expression turns irritated as she continues shivering.

"My man?" she questions with something close to hostility, not appreciating his tone one damn bit. "And who the hell are you again?"

"Mister Barnes?" Doc answers automatically even though it sounds like a question. Her hostility, wariness and ambivalence has him recoiling a bit, uncertain about why she doesn't recognise him. Maybe she hasn't officially announced to the town that she is Bucky's woman, or maybe nobody says that anymore, but Doc has known Daisy for two months. Maybe he's a little vain. Maybe he thinks himself fairly hot shit, fairly unforgettable. But whatever the case, Doc is certainly not 'who the hell are you again?' territory.

He would have run his hand through her hair, checked for any head injuries, but there's only enough tools and spare parts in Mathias for one man to maintain his detachable metal arm, and Doc would quite like to keep his intact in its socket.

"My... name is John Henry." There's a sinking feeling as he reintroduces himself, a tightening in his chest as he struggles with the dilemma of whether to tell her about how she was here, about Phil Coulson, Neal Caffrey, Bucky Barnes. The things she has been doing. In the end he decides that maybe all of that isn't important. He needs to get her someplace warm, and dry, and the rest of it can maybe come a little later.

"Do you mind telling me what was the last thing that happened to you, D-- ma'am?"

It's a damn good thing that Doc doesn't try to check her for a head injury. Nevermind that she probably does have one after the fight she'd just gone through, but he most certainly would have ended up with his own set of injuries when she quaked his ass for touching her uninvited.

Barnes. She doesn't know anyone personally by that name. In fact, the only person who comes to mind is Bucky Barnes, and no way is that who this guy is talking about. Even after (nearly?) dying in space, she would remember meeting the Howling Commando turned Winter Soldier.

"Well, John Henry," she starts, her tone evening out as her hands reach up to grasp the edges of his coat around her shoulders, "I was on a mission with SHIELD. In space. So if you have any idea how I ended up on this planet, I'm all ears."

If he's a cowboy, then this has to be Earth, right? It's the only thing that makes sense. Really, the only thing.

He remembers her mentioning SHIELD but the space thing is new. Ellie would be absolutely thrilled and want to ask Daisy a hundred questions if she'd known.

"Nobody knows, I'm afraid." Doc glances up at the sky. He recognises those angry clouds. That smell in the air. It has him lowering his head and keeping his hands hanging around his belt loops, over the tops of his thighs as they walk. He would have walked more briskly but he keeps to her pace, hovering just a little close to and behind her.

"There are people here from all over." As evidenced by the girl from space meeting the cowboy from the Frontier.

"I am taking you to see Bucky. There is a storm coming. If you... if you'd rather not stay with him, I would take you somewhere else to shelter from the storm. But he was rather seriously injured, his left arm has been damaged, and he has been inquiring about you."

Nobody knows? How can nobody know how they got here? If there are people here from all over, like he said, then someone has to have some idea of...

The idea crosses her mind and she feels a different kind of chill in her veins. What if this is the Framework? Radcliffe's version had been shut down years ago, but Deke knew how to make his own and he wasn't always the most secure with his tech. What if whoever was behind this had gotten a scan of her brain and uploaded her to the system?

At least she's certain she's not an LMD. Her powers are still buzzing in her bones, thank goodness. But the relief is short-lived. Stopping suddenly, Daisy turns to Doc with an incredulous look on her face.

"Wait, you're saying that Bucky Barnes is here?" she asks him, fully confused and not handling it very well. "And he's been asking about me?"

She feels entirely off-balance, like the world is rotating too fast on its axis and she's going to go flying at any second. So, she turns to her old standby: humor. "I'd be flattered, but somehow I don't think he wants me to autograph a poster he's got on his wall."

Oh. So she remembers Bucky but not Doc. He hadn't realised they are from the same place. Maybe he wouldn't feel so miffed if he'd known.

"Iiii... do not believe that 'signing posters' are what you two were doing in his bedroom." And that's as crass as Doc is going to get before clearing his throat and changing the subject.

"Bucky Barnes is here. And he is very eager to see you." And perhaps Doc is chickening out of explaining all the details but he'd like to also think that Bucky will end up doing a lot of explaining himself. It's not necessary to rehash the same topic twice.

"I had to tuck him into bed or he would have fallen on his face looking for you. Rest assured, he did look."

Sorry, Doc. Even if he wasn't being all secretive about his identity, his part of history wasn't her forte, so the chance of her recognizing Doc Holliday was next to zilch. Maybe if the SSR had existed during the Wild West, Coulson would have waxed poetic about Doc the same way he had Bucky and the other Howling Commandos.

It's a good thing that Daisy's comprehension and critical thinking skills are beginning to suffer from something like shock, because instead of short-circuiting at the idea of actually doing anything in Bucky Barnes' bedroom, her mind keeps skipping back to the fact that the legend of a man knows her at all.

Clutching the borrowed coat more tightly around her shivering body, she tries to force herself to walk faster, though she only manages a slightly slower than brisk pace. She can already feel the stiffness from after the fight setting in, and it occurs to her again to wonder about this place.

"So this is Earth then?"

She doesn't remember hearing about Barnes leaving the planet, and that sort of thing definitely would have triggered one of her dozens of automatic SHIELD searches.

Ooo options!!

Thank you, Modly one for the options. After considerations the pair of dumbasses will have a close call but will retreat to safety. Live to annoy Mathias another day!

"...I think so." No one has suggested and attempted to convince him otherwise. "I know of no other place. We are somewhere in New England, or so the theories go. Time is-... a little abormal here, but we might be somewhen in the tail end of the 20th century."

There is a lot more he can explain to her about the town, but it is mostly what buildings are there, and some of the do's and don'ts that have gotten some of them through surviving Mathias this far.

"There are no native townsfolk here. I arrived on the beach myself, several moons ago." He keeps the 'several' deliberately vague. "There was no one here and we have had to make our way and figure things out on our own."

Edited 2021-05-23 16:35 (UTC)

Wonky time, huh? Well, at least that's something she's more than a little familiar with now. After traveling decades into the past and future, getting stuck in a time loop for who knows how long, and creating a parallel universe, messed up time is just another Tuesday for Daisy Johnson. It's almost comforting, even.

Well, that's what she's going to tell herself. In reality, she's suddenly missing Fitz, of all people; he knows more about how time works than anyone.

"So it's a weird ghost town," she surmises, noting how quiet it is. Even with her powers, she can barely feel any kinetic energy in the immediate area, just the normal vibration of stationary objects. "And, I'm guessing, since you've been here so long, that no one has been able to leave?"

Her powers of observation might be dulled from her recent ordeal, but she's not completely hopeless yet.

smoke in the distance, blind and tryin' to see the light to guide us (♫)

Some part of her hadn't quite believed the cowboy when he'd claimed that Bucky Barnes was in this strange ghost town out of time. Add in that the hero had been looking for her and— Surely, there's a mistake. It just doesn't make any sense, and while she's used to that in her life, this was sending up all the red flags.

Until she saw him sitting there in the distance.

Holy shit.

Approaching the house alone, sand still clinging in patches to her suit and finally beginning to itch under her gauntlets, she finds that she can barely breathe as her boots quietly click along the pavement. It's true. That's Bucky Barnes sitting on that porch. Even with all the bruising, she'd recognize him anywhere.

So if this is true, what else is?

(1) OUT

( there's a lot of things that elijah wishes he had in this town: a variety of suits, his family, an endless supply of good booze and, right now, an umbrella.

elijah hasn't seen rain like this in...well, he doesn't know. new orleans can definitely kick up rain like no others but this is even more than he's seen in new orleans.

he's tucked up underneath the awning of a business, trying to stay dry in the hopes that the rain ends so he can get back to the boarding house without getting soaking wet. across the way, he watches as the rain actually destroys a window, shattering it as if it were made of paper.

he squints, stepping out and catching some rain with his hand. while it's pelting down, it's still just water. hail, he thinks, could damage a window but water? that's strange. )

But what isn't?

( elijah doesn't realize that he's answered a question that he himself had posed in his mind. he also doesn't care that much. )

(2) IN

( it hasn't stopped raining so when elijah steps into his room at the boarding house, he's dripping wet, clothes clinging to him, and hair plastered to his head.

in the simplest of terms, he looks like a drowned rat and he doesn't like it at all. immediately, he starts for a towel and tries to dry his face before anyone sees him looking like he is.

(really, he just doesn't want elena seeing him because he knows the jokes will never end.)

he can still hear the rain hitting the building outside and, after a moment, he steps over to the window and watches puddles form on the street in front of the boarding house. it doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon.

he really needs an umbrella. )

(3) WILDCARD

( if you'd like to do something else, feel free to toss it at me. )

Edited 2021-05-23 17:39 (UTC)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 24

062 » that moment of experience / part i

QUESTIONS?

EXPLORATION

REWARDS

no subject

no subject

no subject

Doc Holliday | Wynonna Earp

no subject

Callisto | Xena: Warrior Princess

daisy johnson | marvel

Day 062

— closed; for doc

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

— closed; for bucky

elijah mikaelson — the originals