063-064 » no matter how much / part ii (group A)

[villagemod]

WHO: Group A members only.
WHERE: Mathias Township proper
WHEN: Days 063-064
WHAT: Matthias becomes a little larger and a little smaller at the same time.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ DEADLY AVENGER "Raiju"

DAY 063-064
NO MATTER HOW MUCH
“No matter how much suffering you went through,
you never wanted to let go of those memories.”
— Haruki Murakami
At first, in the calm following the storm, nothing seems amiss. When the residents awake, it is to another glorious morning dawning in the unsettling paradise that is Mathias Township. Indeed, it does seem rather glorious that morning, for there is sunshine in a blue sky that has been cleared of any remnant of the angry storm clouds from the day before. But before long, residents will start to notice signs of something being not quite right.

It should be a familiar sensation to most by now.

It begins as just a feeling, a strange hint of something in the air, a nagging voice at the back of the mind. They can't quite put their finger on it but there is something. Something wrong, something that shouldn't be — which is quite a statement in a town where everything shouldn't be. But then the pieces will begin to come together.

A person has gone who ought to be there. This in itself is not a strange occurrence, for many have vanished and then returned, or not. This time, though, it is one person, and then two and three... A dozen people or more have gone, with no trace of their whereabouts to be found.

No resident is alone, thankfully. There are others who also remain: friends, acquaintances, strangers. Others who are just as trapped in this nightmarish place.

As the hours stretch on and residents begin to venture beyond their self-claimed shelters and move about the town, they will find that their fellow captives are not the only things that have vanished. The Chasm is gone as well, the crack in the earth that once stretched across and cut off the western part of town. There is not even the smallest mark to show where it had once been; it has gone so completely that some might wonder if they had merely imagined it.

---

ABOUT THE NEW LOCATIONS
POPPY COTTAGE This bed and breakfast has a sense of casual elegance with the elusive quality of being both sophisticated and comfortable at the same time. Aside from being covered in dust and grime, of course.

PENHEW HOUSE Perhaps familiar to some in Mathias, this grand house is different from any of the others the residents have entered. It looks... new. Fresh. Clean. The usual thick layers of dust and grime that would be caked onto every visible surface are nowhere in sight; this absence may be a relief for some and unsettling to others. There are certainly other unsettling things to be found in this location.

THE OLD CHURCH Barely more than ruins, the property is marked by a crumbled stone outline that has no roof and only partial walls, nothing left inside besides a broken cobblestone floor.

BANEBERRY HALL From the outside, Baneberry Hall seems like your average rich person's house, but one would be mistaken to assume anything of the sort. Even the baneberries that cover the back lawn leading to the forest treeline are deceptive, for they appear harmless but are fatal to any human foolish enough to eat them.

The building is decaying from within. The rooms have begun to rot, from the parlors and libraries still done up in grand and expensive style to the bedrooms that have locks on the doors and bars on the windows. There are restraints in some of those bedrooms, while others are bereft of sharp objects. In the hall closets, there are identical sets of white pajamas of all sizes, and the offices have locked cabinets (that may be picked) full of a rainbow of sedatives (that will not replenish). The names on doors and in logbook lists are all smudged beyond legibility, and all paperwork has been water-damaged and weathered, leaving no indication of who may have been kept in those bedrooms or why. But within each room, there is an item that may be familiar to one of the residents now wandering its halls. As caked in dust and grime as anything else, each item is placed as if it belongs there, as if it might have been there for years. But it couldn't have been... could it?



ABOUT THE ITEMS FROM HOME
Within the unsettling walls of Baneberry Hall, residents may find OBJECTS that are uncomfortably familiar to them. Each item has one singular memory attached to it that, when touched in any way, will be experienced first hand, as if the person receiving it had lived it themselves. This person will endure all of the associated emotions and psychological reactions to the memory that the memory's owner experienced.

— Items may only be found within Baneberry Hall. These items from home are not all in one room or a specific location but instead are scattered throughout the bedrooms. (Only the items on this list are available to this group.)

— Ownership and possession of the item are important elements to this event. While the item is in possession of someone who is not its owner, it will continue to infect all who touch it with the memory that belonged to its owner. The item will also, before long, begin to make the possessor ill, both physically and emotionally uncomfortable and upset. This only occurs until the item is reunited with its owner, or until it is no longer in someone else's possession. (For example, if Person A finds Person B's teddy bear and carries it with them, they will continue to experience the bear's associated memory until they no longer have it in their possession, whether this means they have left it somewhere or it has been returned to Person B.)

— Recipients of memories will retain those memories even after the event has ended.

— When the owner of an item finds their item or has it returned to them, they will also experience the memory once themselves, having it returned to them as if they had just lived those moments again. The memory is only replayed once in their minds and then the memory effect of the object is gone. After this point, the item can be held by the owner or any others without consequence.

— If a person removes an item from its room in Baneberry Hall but does not remove the item from the property entirely, the item will be mysteriously returned to its original location when no one is looking. This is so that people do not have to keep close track of where items are going in the possible changing of hands, so the original owners can still easily locate the item without having to plan in great detail. Once an item is removed from the property, it will not return to its original location even if it is discarded by the possessor before reaching its original owner. Instances such as this should be planned among all involved parties, including the owner of the item.

— Once an item is removed from the property, please comment below so that information may be updated. Items that are not removed by the end of the event may reappear at a later time, so accurate records are essential.

— Before an item's memory is viewed by someone other than the owner, permission must be granted or requested for that memory to be viewed by another character. Because the experience is an uncomfortable one for the other characters, the viewing of memories not their own should ideally be kept to a small number.

---

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 new boundaries.

— 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 from the western section of town entirely.
— 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 AND DEATHS continue! Yennefer, Number Five, and Tony Stark have vanished and Ellie is still missing, though this may be difficult to tell with half the town also seemingly having vanished. Will Graham's body may be found within the ruins of the Old Church; he appears to have been frightened to death. (If someone decides to take care of the body, please report it below. For in-game reasons, this does not need to be coordinated across groups.)

— 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 yet another amazing new map of Mathias!

— 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 For those who don't know, I run a summer program that is set to start in just 2 weeks. We've only recently been given the green light to go ahead in person, so it's a scramble to get everything pulled together in time. My non-RP life is going to be busy and chaotic for the next while and I am thus asking for your forgiveness and understanding as things continue to be slow, as I cannot guarantee timely mod responses beyond weekends, and even that is not guaranteed.

— NEXT LOG Because of the aforementioned real-life chaos, the next log will be more relaxed and free form with everyone coming back together again and having a few chill days. It would be very much appreciated if some of the more intense investigations could be saved to take place in future logs, as the new locations that are opening up in this log will remain open in the next few at least and there will be plenty of time to explore all their mysteries.

— ITEMS FROM HOME The items from home remaining in Baneberry Hall will not be available past this log, at least not in this form, so if you would like to play with these elements, you should not sleep on this opportunity. More things may show up in the future but, for now, this is the main event.

— DW NOTIFS Back at the beginning of the year, the issue of missing email notifs was discussed in a code push plurk by Mark of the DW admin team. For those who missed it, the gist is that the issue with missing notifs is not going to be fixed anytime soon. The issue is so sporadic that the dev team has concluded the only way to possibly fix it is to redo the notification system entirely. This issue does not extend to DW's internal inbox, so short of checking every thread you're involved in, the DW inbox is the best way to make sure you're not missing things.

— ACTIVITY CHECK Beginning with June's AC (posted at the start of July), all tags that consist of only dialogue will count as 0.5 comments, not just those that occur in an inbox thread. This applies to both AC and AP totals.

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Comments

[vampirebats]

"What?" He hesitates, brows furrowing. That's... a question. He continues to chop at the vegetables, taking his time to consider that.

"Uh, well, Neal... In my experience, it's when supplies start dwindling, when people start feeling scared and helpless, more than usual. Brings out that selfish asshole in all of us. People start wanting to claim shit and fight to protect their own. They divide into groups."

He pauses, shrugging his shoulders. "But most the folks here so far seem willing to work together, so maybe I'm wrong on that."

[conning]

He rubs his palm back and forth across the edge of the counter, fidgeting for the sake of motion.

When the food stopped restocking, Doc had shared his hoarded supplies. He knows more than one person started putting their own stashes away since then. He has himself, though mostly just adding to Doc’s caches. Neal stares at nothing in particular, his thoughts petering out into a static kind of buzz that’s become more and more familiar over the past week and a half.

It takes him a moment to realize the distorted reflection of himself in the metal of the fridge isn’t him. He thinks, for a moment, it’s Rey. He hasn’t seen her in a long while.

But it’s not. He can barely tell, but it’s that other man, one eye half-popped free, face intact enough still to show the surprise of dying.

Neal closes his eyes. “I don’t know if I could do it.”

He focuses on the feeling of his palm sliding back and forth over that edge. “I don’t know if it would be worth it, staying alive in a place where people treat each other that way.”

[vampirebats]

"Alright--" He's got zero idea what Neal is zoning out on, what's going through his head, but for now, the knife is put to the side and he turns to face the man.

"Look at me." He reaches out to rest his hands on Neal's shoulders. Guy's spooked for-- whatever reason. Not doing okay, and that's got Negan more than a little concerned... but shit, he gets it. This place is dicking with them again and everybody's-- worried.

Everybody's not doing well for one reason or another.

"You fight because you want to keep people safe. Lives are precious fucking things, Neal, and no death is ever a good thing. Killing's no walk in the park, even if you can shove down the horror and not think about it for a while. But sometimes you gotta fight. Look at history, man. It's full of blood and people having to do shit to keep what's theirs safe."

That said-- "We'll try to make sure what we're fighting here isn't each other, but whatever assholes put us here. People get outta line, we just got to remind them of that, yeah?"

[conning]

Get outta line--

Back to it.

That satisfying crack, that little bit of give.

Neal studies Negan's face, trying to find the good-humored executioner behind concerned hazel eyes.

Buddy, you still there? I just don't know.

That eye, that eye, fixed on a crying woman in line as the eeny-meanie tries to force words through damaged human machinery.

The world goes a little blurry as Neal fights tears.

"Why did you name the bat after your wife?"

[vampirebats]

He frowns at that question, at the tears. He's pretty goddamn sure he never told Neal that. His hands tighten on reflex. Feels like he just got a punch to the gut for a moment.

"... To keep me safe. Felt like she was still there with me. Without Lucille, I was-- I am absolutely nothing... and I'm talking about my wife, not a stupid goddamn bat." A bat he'd gladly take back in a heart beat, like a fucking embarrassing security blanket if he could.

"How'd you know, Neal?"

[conning]

"I... saw it," he says quietly. "Not saw. Not exactly. I. There was a line of people on their knees. One them was already..."

Neal closes his eyes again, swallows tightly. "We told them we wanted them to know us. The one we picked, his eye--"

He's not going to throw up, he's not going to puke. He did that once already, and he doesn't want the kitchen to smell. Neal breathes. Forces himself to focus on that, only on that, the way Malcolm has been showing him. Slowly pulls himself back from the edge. "We--you--called Lucille a vampire bat."

[vampirebats]

"You--" He wants to ask how or why or when, but he can't do that. He can't force a word out when shame is already twisting inside him. He takes a step away from Neal, his hands balling into fists at his sides as panic gnaws at him.

Fuck. And here he'd been hoping no one would have to see that side of him. "Neal, I..."

What the fuck can he say?

"Don't say we." It was Negan who did it. Negan who laughed and joked about it.

"They slaughtered people in their sleep, my people. I had to make a point." That's just an excuse though, isn't it? He always had a choice. People always fucking do.

"I'm sorry you had to see that."

[conning]

"I'm sorry you had to do it," Neal says, throat still tight. "I'm sorry they did... that."

He tries again to steady his breathing. It's harder, thinking about it all. Thinking about Lucille coming down over and over again on that man's head until it was smashed watermelon framed by twitching hands.

Neal wraps his left hand around his right, the tremor there more pronounced than ever. He and Malcolm will be two of a kind at this rate. He looks up suddenly, meeting Negan's eyes, or trying to. He's scared. He's more scared than he's been since he faced down the nameless, shapeless thing that cut him in half. Maybe even more scared now than he was then. Neal barely speaks loud enough for it to carry.

"What if people start going that way? What if that happens here? We know everyone. We know everyone. Maybe we're not all close, but--"

[vampirebats]

"You don't have to be sorry for shit." He knows that look. Neal's scared. Hell, he used to relish that look... meant he was in charge. Meant people knew not to cross him. He doesn't like it anymore, even if he gets it. His jaw tightens briefly as he considers what to say next.

Fuck. "I'm hoping it doesn't, Neal. I don't think you guys are that type at all." That's the honest fucking truth. Things here run different to what they do back home. People aren't desperate to stake their claim, haven't been fucked over by each other time and again.

"The idea is to always minimize deaths... Hell, even back home. I never wanted to kill." He tilts his head.

"I'm sorry you had to see that shit, feel it. I know what you've got to be thinking and I-- I'm not gonna hurt you or anyone else in this house. You got that?"

[conning]

Neal searches Negan’s face in brief confusion. “I know,” he says softly. “I know.”

He shudders, shakes his head, and takes a step forward to close the distance between the two of them, hugging Negan hard. “I don’t want you to have to be that person for us, either.”

[vampirebats]

"Hey--" He huffs out a laugh that doesn't sound all that amused as he settles his arms around Neal.

"I would be, if I had to be. If I have to keep everybody safe. And I'd damn sure be that person before I let you be, Neal. You can't do it, can't be a person like that, you don't have to." He brings up a hand, pushing it through Neal's hair as he pulls back enough to try to meet his eyes.

"But don't think like that. People here are willing to get along for the most part... that's more than I can say about back home." A pause.

[conning]

He nods. Pauses. Nods again. Tries to convince himself that the people here would close ranks before they ever turned on each other.

"You're not going back there," he says, vicious conviction in his tone. "I don't care what it takes, we'll figure it out. You're not going back there. You can come with me, or with Malcolm, or maybe someone else if we have to do it that way, but we won't let you get pulled back into that."

[vampirebats]

"We'll see how it goes..." They might not have a choice in the matter. Who the fuck knows how this shit will go, right? He doesn't want to get his hopes up he's going anywhere except back to a shithole.

"Believe me, I'd love to nothing see another dead asshole again."

[conning]

Neal won't press him about it. He knows how Raylan reacted when Malcolm proposed changing the order of their returns. But there has to be a way. They were all brought here from disparate places. There has to be a way to get sent back somewhere else. He's going to find it, even if it means making himself more like the person he felt in that memory.

Neal presses his face against Negan's shoulder. "Does anyone else know?"

[vampirebats]

Negan's arms settle around Neal a little more comfortable when he presses his face in, seemingly content to stay there for as long as Neal wants. He's quiet for a moment at the question.

"Well, not yet."

[conning]

"They won't hear it from me," Neal says firmly. His voice sounds steadier than he feels. More tentatively, he asks, "Do you know what his name was?"

[vampirebats]

"Thanks, man..." Seeing and hearing are two different things after all. The fact Neal feels safe enough to lean on him is pretty fucking impressive in all honesty. "Glenn. Learned it after. His wife's name is Maggie. Two names I'm never forgetting."

He pauses. "I didn't kill for the hell of it, you know. I only killed when I had to make a statement... take one or two out, others fall in line real quick. Seen other groups who'd slaughter everyone and laugh about it without giving a shit that life's too fucking precious to waste." He just doesn't always get a choice in the matter.

[conning]

"I know," he says, still quiet. He can't help the tiny shiver that rolls through him, though, both at the idea of killing people that way and at the idea that there are whole groups who would laugh about it.

No. They're not letting Negan get pulled back into a place like that.

"I'm going to make a memorial," he says, still to Negan's shoulder. "To put in the graveyard. Way back when I got here, I told Ellie I was going to make a headstone for Rey. But I want to make something bigger. So we can write down the names of people who disappear, too. The ones who don't come back."

He hesitates, "We could put his name on there. I know he didn't die here. I know it was different. But we could."

[vampirebats]

"Yeah?" Negan doesn't seem to have any intention of pushing Neal off anytime soon, letting him lean on him as he listens to that little plan of his. Not a bad idea. Sometimes people need that closure, those memories.

Maybe it'll keep them all in touch with their humanity a bit longer.

"... We could, yeah." It's a name he can't forget, but a name he shouldn't either. Having the reminder there might at least remind him why he's trying to keep doign this-- why he's trying to be better.

"I don't know if the guy ever even got buried or by who."

[conning]

"We'll do something for him," Neal says quietly. He tightens his grip on Negan, the motion driven in part by a sudden little spike of fear. "You're not leaving, right?"

Maybe Negan wouldn't go far, couldn't even go far, but still. Neal liked knowing people were close by. As safe as they could get in this town. It occurs to him with faint and pained amusement that his question is the kind of thing that Malcolm would ask and so often does. A little accidental reminder to have patience in the moments when Malcolm needs that reassurance.

Neal draws back enough to look Negan in the eye. "I don't want you to."

[vampirebats]

"Hey-- I know you'd be sad, losing all that Negan time." HE's trying for light, for joking. Truth is, he's not sure what'd be best... people start seeing him for what he is, he can't just stay, right? He's surprised that Neal even wants him to.

He meets his eyes, manages a tired smile. "I'm not gonna leave, Neal. Not unless you all get together and boot my ass out."

[conning]

Neal manages a small smile in return. "Good."

He bites his lip a moment, glancing down before he makes himself meets Negan's eyes again. "You're not nothing, you know. Without Lucille. You're not who you were, maybe, but that's not nothing."

[vampirebats]

"Maybe not nothing, but-- I'm nothing good without her. Hell, I wasn't anything good with her. She was more than I ever deserved... and in the end, even though I tried, I couldn't fucking save her. Hell, pretty sure she just gave up on me." Or maybe she thought she was sparing him watching her die, or maybe she thought he'd run out on her, abandoned her.

He'll never get to know, not really. "But anyway, I am sorry you had to see all that shit. It was... a real bad time. Wouldn't have wished it on my worse enemy."

[conning]

"You're wrong," Neal says quietly. "Maybe you couldn't save her, maybe we can never really save anyone--"

He can't help thinking about turning to face that monster the first time he died, how irrelevant the action was. Running back into the fire after Raylan. Neal shifts his grip on Negan so he can squeeze the other man's upper arms lightly. "Maybe you can't save anyone. But you can try. And you want to try. You keep trying."

His smile is small and worried and fades fast as he relives the impact of the bat against Glenn's skull again. "You're not nothing until you stop trying."

[vampirebats]

"... We can save some, or at least keep them alive a little longer. That's what I was doing back home, you know?" He shifts his weight a bit, eyes dropping for a second.

"Maybe not always in the best way, but I became what they needed me to be. What I needed me to be to get the job done. It doesn't-- excuse it, I know." But it's all he can offer Neal, as far as why he beat a guy's fucking skull in without a wince of disgust in himself.

He lets out a sigh and reaches out to rest a hand on Neal's shoulder. "Hey, you wanna get back to-- whatever we're cooking here?"