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

Entry tags:

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

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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

“Biscuits,” Malcolm says, eyebrows shooting up. “I’ve never had biscuits; I’m intrigued.”

They do always look fluffy on tv.

"You've never had biscuits? Well we certainly cannot have that," Doc drawls. He won't survive even a roadtrip to Harlan with that attitude.

They probably make biscuits much nicer these days. They've had a century and a half advantage of tweaking the old recipe on him. But Malcolm wouldn't know the difference anyway and Raylan and Tim can shut up and eat because idiots can't be choosers.

"What have you had, anyway? Is it a Neal Caffrey affair every night?" New York life seems complicated.

Malcolm breathes out a laugh.

"At my mother's house, yes. Pretty much. Um. At home, it's mostly licorice and yogurt and fruit and sparkling water and take-out."

Sparkling water. He is familiar with the concept. Soda was fairly commonplace even in his time, but the flavours were fairly limited. Rarely was it simply gassy water.

"Sarsaparilla was wildly popular. I remember being told it would help wean me off my uh, so-called 'opium problem'," he muses ruefully. "Coca-cola was a guaranteed hangover cure, too. Sparkling water sounds comparatively plain."

“I like it with a little lemon in it,” Malcolm informs him with a sidelong smirk. “Wasn’t Coca-Cola the original cocaine recipe at that time?”

"Well. I suppose that would explain a few things," Doc notes with a tip of his head and a purse of his lips. He was too busy getting drunk to really buy into the soda craze.

"There won't be any of that in today's biscuits. Sorry to disappoint." Drugs do go a long way to making anything more tolerable but sometimes a warm and fluffy biscuit can bring a few moments of bliss too.

Malcolm grins at him. “I don’t take uppers. I’m too up as it is. I’m on therapeutic downers.”

Well, one might be able to argue that nobody needs to be any more 'down' than they already are, with Mathias regularly bringing them to their knees. But he's not going to try and tell Malcolm what he does and does not need.

When they get back to 1306, it feels a lot more at home than western side of Mathias. He's not sure how exactly he should feel about that, that level of comfort they find in all this that has become familiar. Maybe it isn't such a good thing. Predictably, the two wayward Marshals are nowhere to be found. Neither of them seem capable of sitting still for longer than a few minutes. Doc's still going to bake enough to feed the house regardless, should they decide to return. With any luck they'll still be in one piece.

"I will come get you once everything is ready, should you like to get some rest." He'll take looking after a less recalcitrant young man anyday over losing sleep over the Marshals.

Malcolm makes a fidgety gesture towards the kitchen.

"I would... like to help, actually. If you need... help."

Doc raises one eyebrow and then the other before nodding, ducking his head as he rolls his sleeves up and ambles deeper into the kitchen to wash his hands and get the oven tray out.

He is no Neal Caffrey so this won't be too complicated or require too many steps from too many components.

"I've oft found baking and kneading to be quite the stress relief," he comments offhandedly as he starts putting the ingredients on the countertop. Which might or might not explain why Raylan sometimes has bruises in his soft bits... "Although I don't believe biscuits should be kneaded too much."

“Over-kneading dough causes the gluten molecules to break and then it won’t stretch anymore. The finished product becomes hard and dense instead of soft or flaky or fluffy,” Malcolm informs him helpfully as he imitates Doc and rolls up his own sleeves.

"I see." There is something of a science to baking, the right amounts of this and that facilitating the chemical reactions required to produce something special, but with Doc there's not really anything precise. He simply just pours some flour into a big mixing bowl and stops when it looks to be enough, and does the same for the other ingredients. He then offers it over to Malcolm to combine everything together, except for the cold sticks of butter that he's slowly cutting into the corner of the bowl and gradually introducing into the mix.

When that's done he tosses just a bit of flour onto the counter to ensure their dough won't stick. He's wearing a most serious and stoic expression when he flicks a little bit of flour at Malcolm. Doc could probably leave an angry red welt by cracking a tea towel like a whip but he seems to have decided that flour is more entertaining.

Malcolm blinks in surprise at the flour flicked at him, standing by with his mixing spoon still in hand. And then he laughs delightedly.

“Is that a baking good luck ritual?” he teases. “May your crusts be golden and your insides be flaky,” he suggests, flicking some flour at Doc’s shoulder to complete the blessing.

That is Doc being twelve in a space where he allows himself to be twelve. And it seems to have gotten a laugh out of Malcolm, so. That is all the better. Sometimes there is no use wallowing in the lot that life or Mathias or whoever else is giving to them.

"I am crusty and flaky already," he points out. "Comes naturally with age. No flour blessings required." He tugs the mixing bowl over and dumps the dough out onto the floured surface.

"Would you like to do the honours?" While Doc looks for something to cut round biscuits with. "Seven or eight kneads should be enough."

Malcolm brightens a little. "Really?" He moves to the dough, reaching for it almost cautiously, squishing it between his fingers as he folds it over and pushes it into a ball. "The last time I touched dough like this was when I used to go to the kitchen to watch my mother's housekeeper make bread. I asked if I could try it - the kneading - and she let me. But my mother came in after, like, one turn and told me to get out of the kitchen before someone mistook me for a short order cook."

He folds it and pushes it again.

"It feels nice. It's... warmer than I expected."

"I will confess to knowing very little about working in an office." He's been in the BBD section in the sheriff's office, although he's never lingered for too long, and it's more of a crime lab than a building of cubicles with office drones slaving away doing honest work to pass the time.

"But there are merits to working with your hands. Making things of your own that you can enjoy, the fruits of your own tangible labour." That is maybe a little old-fashioned. But Doc won't ever be new-fashioned.

He preps the baking tray and the oven while Malcolm kneads, laying everything they need out.

"You won't want it too flat before you start cutting," Doc advises, unable to help the occasional supervising dad comment from slipping out, but for the most part he does leave Malcolm be to manage on his own. He must be tired of everyone trying to help him all the time.

In some ways, he is. But… at least in this place the people who want to help him do it out of care for him. He’d take them all home if he could. He’s never had friends like this and he never expected to ever have so many.

“How’s this?” he asks as he gets it spread out.

"Lookin' good." Doc is not the resident chef but it's clearly not his first time making biscuits and he approves. "Here, you can lay 'em out on this tray. They'll rise quite a bit so you don't wanna crowd all your biscuits together."

He isn't ambitious enough to make an attempt on fried chicken but there will be something probably left over from last night or coming straight out of a can into a pot to be heated that they can have the biscuits with.

Malcolm is pleased by the praise. Look at him making a thing with his hands and not ruining it.

He arranges them very carefully on the tray and then, once Doc sticks it in the oven, he looks over.

"Want me to go get the beans?"

"Sure." He won't kick Malcolm out of the kitchen since he seems keen to linger. There will be extra biscuits to go around whoever happens to show up first, but he'll make just enough in a pot for the two of them to get through the afternoon.

For a man who does spend much of his time roaming outside and tends to prefer subjecting himself to the whims of mother nature, he does pull off the domesticated in the kitchen look and feel just fine. While the pot is heating up on the stove, Doc raids the fridge looking for anything else they can make do with.

"Seems as if we do have yoghurt, but. Hasn't been any fruits around here. Beyond what is in the cans." The toxic baneberries clearly don't count.

“Canned peaches are very good in yogurt,” Malcolm tells him, setting the beans on the counter. “The texture works.”

"I shall take your word for it." Doc's not really a peaches and yoghurt kind of guy. It was not really the kind of food you would want to take with you on the saddle.

Taking the can and dragging it over, Doc rinses off any fine specks of dust that might have gathered over the past couple of days before retrieving his filed down butter knife. Most people probably use a can opener but Doc stabs through the top of the can, sawing a big enough opening to pour the contents out onto the pot. It's a lot quicker and less fiddly.

He puts some leftover ground beef into the pot as well and gives it a few stirs before leaving it to heat up. It'll take a while, but unlikely to be longer than the biscuits.

"Headed back across town after lunch?" Doc enquires.

“To the asylum? Yeah. I have to find all the medicine before the chasm comes back,” he replies, crouching to look in the oven window at the baking biscuits. He’s been very single minded in his pursuit since Raylan found that first cabinet.

"I'm glad you found something you could use." That it's coming from an asylum or that Malcolm is so hyperfixated on it is definitely noticeable, but not something Doc is going to point out. A man needs what a man needs. Where he finds it, how relentlessly he chases and how intensely he hungers for it - he's not sure if these things are worth the censure, as long as Malcolm isn't hurting anyone in his pursuit.

"If I find any sort of medication I will be sure to bring it for you," Doc promises. Although he's not entirely keen himself on going back that way. With so many of the town gone, he has thought it to be a good time to circle the usual old avenues, hoard more supplies for an inevitable and likely imminent rainy day. They would just go to waste otherwise.

Malcolm grins up at him. “Thank you.” He straightens up, peering into the bean pot. “What else do you think is worth looking at over there?”

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