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

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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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[plotting post]

[The streets of the tiny village are in chaos, with shouting, terrified people running every which way: in some cases loading up carts with what little valuables they have, and in other cases securing their homes. You turn in a circle, searching the faces, and when you don't see who you're looking for you cry out:]

Mama! Mama!

[You hear your father shouting your name - "Callisto!" - and suddenly he appears, grabbing you by the arm and tugging you along, rattling out assurances in Ancient Greek as you go. Just as you pass the butcher's shop, the army arrives: fearsome men on horseback, carrying swords and cutting down any fighting man who dares stand in their way. At the front of the pack rides their leader, a woman every bit as formidable as the men around her. A man stands in front of his house to prevent them from coming in and ransacking the place, but though he carries a sword of his own (tarnished and dull, but a sword all the same), he's no match for the warriors. You watch as he's run through, and you scream as your father clamps his hand over your eyes and pulls you away.

The barn, when you arrive, is a welcome sight. Your mother and older sister are already there, and you run to them, letting them both wrap their arms around you as you sob. Your father joins the huddle, and for a few minutes, you all just stand there, holding each other and basking in the relief of your safety.

It's your sister who first notices that something is amiss. Lifting her head, she sniffs the air, asking in Greek if the rest of you can smell that. You've buried your face in your mother's tunic, but once you pull back, you can sense it, too: there's the scent of smoke in the air, and the crackle of flames - faint at first, but growing louder and louder by the second. Your father is the first to realize the implications of this, the first to think about how fast the village's wood and thatch buildings will burn. Shouting in alarm, he grabs you and your sister's hands and races for the front door, your mother at his heels - only to abruptly yank you back as the fire reaches the barn you're sheltering in, and the front portion of the roof caves in on itself.

Everything, from that point on, is a blur. There's no back door. There are no windows. There's no way out except through the fire, and in desperation, your father tries it - grabbing up a fallen wooden beam and attempting to use it to break through the debris, hoping he can clear a path for his family to rush through before the flames consume them. Instead, the debris catches fire, and then the beam catches fire, and then your father catches fire. He falls screaming to the ground, beating at the flames, and your mother rushes to help him, and you want to help him too, but your sister pulls you back. Talking hurriedly, tears and terror in her voice, she points out a small rotting section of the back wall. She slams her shoulder into it, creating a hole just big enough to squeeze through. Your mother comes up next to you, and you look back. Your father still lies on the ground, crumpled and still and overwhelmed in flames, but your mother pleads to you not to look and you obey, turning away.

The hole your sister made in the rotted wall is just big enough for you to squeeze through, and just before you try, you panic and try to pull back - because you're small enough to fit, but your sister is almost the size of an adult, and your mother is even bigger. But they're insistent, pressing you forward, repeating "Akolouthoúmen soí, akolouthoúmen soí - we'll follow you" as they shove you through. Jagged wood scrapes your skin and tears at your clothing, but you pop through the other side, back out into the fire-ravaged, warlord-ravaged village, where there are fewer people now but somehow even more screams. You turn back to the barn and the hole, scrambling across the ground, reaching for your mother and your sister, wanting to help pull them through next - but all there is is fire and smoke, stinging your eyes and making you cough. You hear one of them scream your name again, and you scream back - Mama Mama Mama Thalia Thalia Thalia - and then their screams are just screams with no words to them, and so are yours. The rest of the barn collapses in a tangle of wood and thatch and limbs - wood that has sheltered you, limbs that have held and comforted you, and you know deep inside you that none of those things will do anything like that for you ever again.

You don't know how long it takes you to tear your eyes away from the burning wreckage, and the charred, unmoving bodies of your family that you can just make out if you squint. But eventually, you stumble back, and take in the rest of the village again. The ruins of houses, none untouched by the fire. The bodies lying in the streets - some stabbed, and even more burned. The men on horseback, some gathering loot and others just looking over the destruction. The female leader, looking fierce and fearsome and furious. You stare at her. You you don't blink.

You feel like you'll never see anything else, ever again.]

A - EXPLORATION; OTA

[The moment she realizes that the chasm has healed itself, Callisto beelines - not because she's exhausted everything there is to see in the rest of the town, but because this part of it has historically been hidden and off-limits, and things that are off-limits are objectively more interesting than other things. To start with, at least, she has no real goal, so she can be found pretty much anywhere: poking at electronics in Poppy Cottage, kicking through the remains of the old church, and investigating the mysterious happenings in Penhew House. Penhew House in particular gets a lot of attention: she'll try multiple times to enter the makeshift crawlspace on the upper level, she'll examine the display of photographs, and she'll shout at the mysterious mirror figures.

And then she finds Baneberry Hall.

She doesn't think much of the items, at first - she picks one up like she'd pick up anything else, and is therefore completely unprepared for the vision that it gives her. Just as a test, she tries it again, and again - experiencing the same vision three times in a row, each time exactly the same, and each time exactly as if she were living it herself.

After that, she wanders from room to room, picking up every handheld object that she can find to see if it has a gift for her. Most do nothing, but some do, and she'll watch many of the visions multiple times, especially if she's able to figure out that they belong to someone that she knows. And after she's done with each one, she'll drop it carelessly where she found it - to leave for someone else, or to come back to later.]

By the afternoon, Malcolm is opening every cupboard he can find and tearing everything out of it. His pockets rattle with his loot as he moves and there’s an air of desperation to his ransacking. He doesn’t see her come in the room as he drops items on the floor to look behind them.

Ignoring him at first, Callisto drops down to the floor, picking up one of his discarded items (an old dishcloth). She holds it for a moment, staring at it, then drops it to the floor with a soft sound of disgust.

"What are you looking for?" she asks in Greek.

Her voice startles him to an almost comical degree, making him jump and knock over several things in the cabinet, sending several others toppling to the ground as he turns.

“Oh. Hello. Nothing. No. Not nothing…” he pauses, his energy a little on the nervous side. He takes a small bottle out of his pocket and holds it up. “Have you seen anything that looks like this?” he asks.

"No," she says, barely glancing at it. "Will it make you have visions?"

He looks at her oddly.

“Visions? …No.” He puts them back in his pocket. “They kind of stop me having visions, actually. Why, are you having visions?”

"Sometimes." She picks up a pen, then drops that, too. "I saw one where I was your friend Doc having an argument with someone. And I saw..."

She wrinkles her nose, because this one actually hadn't made much sense.

"I was a child who found a dead woman in a chest, and then I was poisoned."

Callisto | Xena: Warrior Princess

MEMORY; cw: family death/fire death

063

Baneberry Hall

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Baneberry Hall - let's say they broke off from each other for like five minutes bc timelines why

sounds good!

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here i thought i would never have cause to use this icon

064

Let me know if this isn't okay and I'll edit!

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