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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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.

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.

[plotting post]

( plotting post )

(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)

♔ arrival— closed to The Darkling

[ The cool wind washes over Billy. He pushes himself to roll over on to his back, absently aware of the squish of wet sand beneath his hands, and inhales the damp air. His body hurts. His head hurt. His face hurts, but he feels good under the cold. It smells fresh and salty and not dirty like the docks of New York that he's used to, which is what ultimately coaxes him to open his eyes. He sees the sky above him and watches the sun try to push through the clouds. There's not a single building in his peripheral.

If someone were nearby, he might quote The Wizard of Oz.

Instead, Billy grunts as he sits up. He does a cursory glance of himself. Clothes, the same as he remembers, but now bloodied and ripped where he took a bullet or a knife (no, not a knife, he thinks, and his jaw clenches at the thought of the shard of glass that Frank had used to get the upper hand). He's thankful he still has his vest. The weight of it is more comforting than it's ability to protect him. There are a lot of ways to kill a man who's wearing one.

In an instant, he raises a hand to his face. He's not sure what he expects to feel. A bullet hole in his cheek, yes, but what about the other side of his face? Will there be fragments of mirror, will he feel anything at all or will his touch sting at the exposed flesh? Billy is braced to feel something horrific. Instead, he feels smooth skin, then the raised lines of scarring. He uses both hands to map his face, he counts the scars he can find, and he doesn't stop to question how the hell his face is like this when he should be looking like ground beef. He has no idea how he looks, and a strange panic rises inside him at that.

He needs a mirror. He needs to know where he is.

When Billy stands, he takes a good look of his surroundings. ]

Shit.

♔ the grey gull / the storm— OTA

[ The sky starts to turn.

Billy doesn't need to stand around and wait to see that it's going to be a bad storm. He's smart enough to have clued in that this place is pretty abnormal, and even if that wasn't the case, when the sky starts to turn black that's usually a pretty big tip off. He doesn't have a house to go to (but judging by what he's seen, plenty of the houses look empty, and Billy's not above taking over one), so he makes the decision to go to the first place he saw when he got here.

The building sits near the beach. From the look of it, it's not a residence, and as Billy approaches it he reads the sign. The Grey Gull. Some sort of restaurant, he guesses, by the look of the inside. It must be at least frequented by the others here, because the place seems clean, but Billy doesn't really care about that. He's glad to be under a roof as he hears the rain start to pelt the outside.

He's ready to wait it out. On one hand, it gives him a chance to evaluate what's going on and start to think about what he's going to do. On the other hand, he feels a prickling frustration that he can't get a feel of the township immediately. Billy's never liked being in the dark about things. He can only plan so much on so little information. The flash of light against the darkness and the ground shaking thunder pulls him out of his thoughts with a start.

Just a storm, he tells himself.

Billy shakes off the nervous energy he's suddenly filled with. He decides that, whatever the case, he can't just stand around and try to watch the rain against the windows, so he starts to case the building. His first stop is the kitchen, where he raids the drawers for knives, looking for the sharpest and easiest to tuck away. ]

♔ wildcard— OTA

You know the drill! Choose your own adventure. Billy will be exploring as much as he can before the storm hits, but I'm easy with things. Hit me up at blackspire if you want to plot something.

DAY 062

[ when max wakes, it's with a start in the middle of the woods.

it isn't exactly where she was laid out when she'd died, but that's only a mild relief when she doesn't remember how she got here. even worse, she doesn't know long how it's been that she's been out here. the last thing she remembers is trying to fall asleep in her room at the boarding house, which is far enough away from where she is in the woods that she has to take a few minutes to calm herself down.

methodically, she checks herself over, feeling for any scrapes or bruises or anything there that shouldn't be. nothing seems hurt, but she still feels wrong in the way that one does when they don't know how they've ended up where they are.

she feels a little better as she gets closer to town and recognizes where she is. so she's not dead and she hadn't ended up in another eerie town. that's...

...well, it's not exactly good, but it's something. ]

AFTERNOON/EVENING/NIGHT 062

[ since getting back into town and recognizing the signs of a big storm coming (she is here from seattle, after all), max has been trying to prepare the buildings in case there's a flood. this is also serving to help stop her from thinking about how long she might have been gone and where she could have been. part of her is just grateful she's back, but she hates that she can't remember anything. if she's honest, it terrifies her.

so if you find her, she's probably carting supplies from one place to another, or trying to get items to higher ground in case the buildings flood. she'll be sticking mostly to the boarding house and the grey gull, since she knows people are likely to cluster around there, but she'll gladly trek out to the houses if someone mentions they need help there.

and if they happen to be trying to trick her into taking a break or talking about how visibly not okay she is, well, so be it. ]

[ OOC | her plotting comment is here! ]

Edited 2021-05-24 01:53 (UTC)

Bucky had slept pretty hard after Doc made him get back into bed after finding him on someone's lawn trying to hold himself up. Truth be told, if he had fallen, there was a good chance he would have stayed outside the whole night and probably froze to death.

When he wakes at daybreak, he takes it easy, though his mind is going a mile a minute in regards to Daisy's disappearance. The worst part was knowing that there was only one thing he could do and that was going to be hard enough when Mathias was relentless when it came to playing on people's sanity.

After a hot shower, he realizes he's feeling the best he has physically since before his fall and to celebrate that, he slowly heads down to make enough coffee; enough for three had been the default but decides if Doc comes around then he can at least offer him a cup. He owes the man a great debt for caring to check in on him as much as he has. And to Raylan for helping Daisy and Doctor Carter get him somewhere safe and out of the elements. From what she had told him, he was in pretty rough shape for a few days.

Probably the worst shape he's been in since he fell from the train and lost his arm.

He grabs a coffee and heads outside where he can at least get some fresh air and not feel so closed-in inside where he feels he's been caged for weeks instead of days. But it also puts him in a place where he can keep his eyes open for Daisy.

and maybe one day I can forget the past...
arrival → closed to kirigan.

[ Her mind had been whirring, curled into Mal's chest and safe. There were a lot of unknowns, a lot of pieces they needed to figure out. But, they were going to make it. They weren't alone. And she'd thought that was that. Until she washes up on shore, the bag barely still draped over her shoulder as her fingers dig into the sand -- trying to push herself up. Followed by a horrific realization as she tries to untangle herself from her skirts and cloak. Coughing a bit, she uses the back of her hand to wipe the water off of her face and get the strands of hair out of her eyes.

She begins looking for any signs of the wreckage, assuming she'd been knocked out or something. She had to have been, otherwise she'd have remembered anything in between the dock and the beach. Dropping her bag, she begins heading back towards the rough waters, the storm far off on the horizon rolling in fast. A storm that looks too much like the Fold to ignore. She has to hurry. She has to find him, anyone -- other survivors. ]

Mal? Mal!

[ She wasn't leaving him behind, storm of Fold be damned. ]

And be one of those girls of honey and glass.
riding out the storm → open.

[ She still felt like she was in a fog, settled in at the Grey Gull, her mind a thousand miles away after an intensely quiet conversation with Kirigan. Tucked away in as private of a space as they could manage to set the terms of their arrangement while here. A truce, if she could even call it that. She hadn't intended to stay here long, just needing a moment to get warm and give him enough time to go into town before she'd try to follow. Once the man clad all in black is out of sight, her head falls into her hands as she takes a shaky breath. Her hands make themselves busy once she sits back up, loosely braiding her wet hair to get it off her back -- her brown cloak draped over a nearby chair as her burgundy dress slowly dries.

She's fine, really. Don't mind the deer in the headlights expression. It's fine.

Eventually, restlessly, she begins to explore -- finding a bit of paper or a napkin and a writing utensil. Sitting back down, she begins to draw a landscape -- a meadow with a large building in the background as the first cracks of lightning get close and the rain begins to really come down. Something she'll eventually find a spot for to leave behind in case Mal ever washes up on shore. And if the Grey Gull should lose power, she's got a ball of light that looks eerily similiar to a small sun at the ready. ]

wildcard.
anything goes → open.

[ Feel free to hit me up on plurk @ hoopskirts or on discord if you'd like a custom starter or have any questions. ]

Edited 2021-05-25 03:06 (UTC)

Morning 062 - Open

Well, it's a morning. Can't be sure that it's a good one, but it's a morning, all right.

It's doesn't look too bad out there, all things considered, so Eliot ventures out for a bit of exercise. It's an early morning run as the day breaks, and about an hour later, a few moments to close out his exercising with meditation and tai chi on the beach. It's probably the most relaxed he's going to be all day. The time loop wasn't that bad and the general lack of truly dangerous things happening has given him both a chance to breathe, and also an unsettling worry that bad things were going to come back any second now.

He's probably just worrying too much, that's all.

A bit later, he takes a walk around the town to see if there's anything he can scrounge up at the general store, and wanders over to the Grey Gull to enjoy cooking for anyone that might show up and catch up on any local happenings he might have missed.

Midday 062 - closed to Hardison and Parker - cw: references to ptsd likely

The first thing he thinks that this is happening again.

The way the sky starts to get angry and become more than what a storm should ordinarily look like makes him think that fire is going to pour out of the sky and follow him. And this time, it's not just him he's worried about. It's them. He's on edge and watching the sky pour even as it's water, not fire, and the thunder is so great that it seems like the world is coming apart at the seams.

It's different when he's got people to protect.

He was at the Grey Gull when the sky rips open and once he's certain that fire isn't coming down, the next thing he has to do is make sure Hardison and Parker are safe. He's not sure if they're out but getting to home base is his priority, and where they'd most likely head if they're in danger, he figures.

What he doesn't realize, as he dashes from house to house, ducking under eaves and into any unlocked residence, is that the storm seems to be following him. Like a ridiculous cartoon.

It only becomes apparent that this is a thing that's really happening when he makes his final dash into 819 Stoker Park, and the house that he was ducking under which was being dashed to pieces and practically flooded suddenly is fine and then their house, as soon as he gets in, starts rocking and rolling.

A window cracks and water starts leaking as soon as he slams the door closed, the walls rattling but it seems to be concentrated on his side of the house.

"What the hell...?"

...is it really just focusing on him!? He shoots a look out the window and sure enough, his last shelter seems to be experiencing some kind of reprieve.

...fantastic.

Well. He certainly can't stay here. He opens up the door again, ready to bolt at a moment's notice, the wind and rain lashing around him.

[Plotting post here]

[ plotting post! not doing any open starters for this one, so hmu if you want something ]

When things are quiet--inside the house at least--he makes his way down to the living room. There's a lamp on, sending a faint light oozing up the stairs, which means someone is up. The odds are always good that it's Malcolm.

Neal's not disappointed. The other man is on the couch, reading, or seeming to read as the storm wreaks havoc and a stream of water dribbles from the ceiling over the fireplace.

"I think I liked the MoMA's Rain Room a lot more than this one," he remarks mildly, as a way of making himself known over the sounds of the weather.

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Doc Holliday | Wynonna Earp

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