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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NEAL CAFFREY || WHITE COLLAR

[conning]

Plotting comment here!

This is Neal's memory, and I'm happy to give Emotional Deets if needed!

Day 63 - both open and closed

[conning]

Morning Explorations - OTA
Raylan, somehow, slips away from 1306. Tim was gone when Neal got up, but that was unsurprising. The man seems determined not to know people. The uneasiness Neal woke with doesn't go away when he walks outside and sees the damage from the storm completely undone. It's instinct that drives him toward the town square, and when he sees the chasm... gone, he's pretty damn sure he knows where Raylan went. It's where he's going himself, after popping back to 1306 to get a backpack and duffel for scavenging.

He digs through unoccupied houses, of course, but he's also inevitably drawn to Penhew House, the Bed and Breakfast, and, finally Baneberry Hall. Shenanigans available in all places, naturally. Spoopy mirrors in Penhew, sneezing fits at the dust in the B&B, memories in Baneberry Hall--and anything in between.


Midday - closed to Malcolm
Yeah, it doesn't take that long in Baneberry hall for Neal to realize there are actual medications there. He stuffs his backpack with everything he can reach before realizing that asking Malcolm which of these things he can even use is probably a good idea.

He's just hoping Malcolm is at 1306, or that he spots him on the way there.


Afternoon - OTA
MORE EXPLORING GOES HERE I'm tired and it's late only god can judge me. This is also probably when he'll be seeing NEGAN, CALLISTO, DOC, and possibly some other memories. Delicious trauma. Also a good opportunity for folks to see his own memory!

Also, somewhere in here, when he returns to Baneberry Hall: he discovers Malcolm attacking a locked cupboard. I'm so good at toplevels.


Evening - closed to 1306
Neal is cooking. Which of course bodes well.

What bodes even better is that his right hand is trembling hard enough that he's having trouble even hanging on to the sharpened butter knife he's using to try and cut vegetables. After the third time he drops it, he makes a desperate, furious little noise of frustration and throws the knife across the kitchen and into the living room. Not in a way that it will hit anything.

[abrightboy]

Neal would find Malcolm making his way back towards Baneberry after stashing the supply of sedatives Raylan found there for him that morning back at 1306. He smiles when he sees his friend.

“Neal! What’ve you been up to?”

[conning]

He swings the backpack off his back and holds it out. "I come bearing gifts."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s eyebrows go up.

“Gifts for me?” Did Neal find what Raylan found? He looks at the backpack. “What is it?”

[conning]

"A whole bunch of drugs with names I can't pronounce that I figure you might find useful," he says, tone ironic.

He unzips the backpack, revealing the small treasure trove within.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm stares into the bag. There’s more. There is more. A shaking hand reaches in and takes out a bottle, examines it, takes out another, examines it… he drops them back in and looks at Neal with wide eyes before hesitantly reaching out and taking it from him.

“Raylan found a cupboard of these in Baneberry Hall this morning. Where did you get these ones?” he asks, feeling like he can barely breathe.

[conning]

Neal relinquishes the backpack willingly, before stepping in to give Malcolm a hug.

"Baneberry Hall. I picked a couple of the cabinets open."

afternoon; Baneberry Hall

[myfavoritemurder]

When she's talking to those who are familiar with Greek - either her dialect, or the strange-sounding dialect that a few others are familiar with - Callisto sometimes makes a point of speaking slowly and enunciating her words, in an effort to make herself better understood. Other times, she doesn't bother. Today she takes the first approach as she walks up to Neal - holding Parker's stuffed bunny in her hands, idly running her fingers over the fabric of its ears.

"Seen anything interesting yet?" she asks in Greek, clearly and carefully.

[conning]

Neal looks over at her, very slightly startled. He smiles at her when he sees who it is, though.

"Lots of interesting things, but only a few of them useful." He holds up the backpack he's carrying, making it rattle slightly.

[myfavoritemurder]

"Show me," she says, and the way she drops the toy to reach for the bag makes it clear that it's not a suggestion.

[conning]

Neal takes an instinctive step back, holding the backpack away. Stupid? Probably. That doesn’t make him more willing to share.

“It is medicine. Medicine for my friend.”

[myfavoritemurder]

"You think I want to steal it," she realizes, a playful smile dancing across her face. "Maybe I need medicine, too."

But she's only toying with him, amusing herself in a way that she'll quickly get bored of and move on from, and her next grab for the bag is half-hearted at best.

[conning]

He starts to jerk back, notes how half-assed her assault is, and relaxes. Neal gives her a dry look. "These medicines are very specific."

He gestures at the rabbit on the ground with his backpack. "Where did you find that?"

Evening

[vampirebats]

"Whoa there. You're gonna poke an eye out, throwing that thing like that." Negan picks up the knife when it clatters to the floor, stepping into the kitchen curiously. He idly holds the knife, making a motion with it.

"Why don't you take a breather and let me handle the vegetables, alright?"

lmk if I need to tweak 👌🏻 (cw for gore)

[conning]

He knew. He knew it wouldn’t be long until he saw Negan. Yeah, sometimes the other man spent nights elsewhere, but not as often as Raylan. Neal licks his lips lightly, nods once. Steps back from the cutting board.

He can’t make himself look at Negan’s face, suddenly afraid of what he might see there. Remembering the triumphant satisfaction of a point well-made. Brining the bat down again and again as the resistance of bone slowly gave way to a crunchy kind of slush. Neal closes his eyes, fighting another rise of bile as his own horror wars with the languid good humor of Negan executing a man whose name Neal will never know.

Maybe.

Unless he asks.

He wraps his left hand around his trembling right and squeezes hard.

[vampirebats]

"You wanna talk about it?" He offers after a moment, watching Neal warily before he turns his attention to washing the knife off and getting to cutting the vegetables. He's not sure what Neal was in here making, but-- he's still fairly sure he doesn't need to be handling sharp anything right now.

"You look pretty shaken there. You and Malcolm didn't get into it again, did you?" But fuck it, there are a lot of reasons to be shaken right now, huh?

[conning]

"Me and--oh. No, we're fine. We're good."

Neal manages a small smile. "Besides, I would be in a sling if Malcolm and I got into it again."

He watches the knife slide cleanly through celery and carrots, held in the same hand that brought that barbed-wire bat down on a stranger's head.

"Can I ask you something?"

He says it softly, but in the same way he said it to Tim. He's going to ask, one way or another.

[vampirebats]

He huffs out a laugh at that. "Probably. That little fucker is surprisingly strong."

He pauses at the question, looking back over his shoulder curiously. "Uh, yeah. Sure. Go ahead."

He sounds like he's going to anyway, so might as well get it over with, right?

Day 64 - open and closed - CW for violence etc in the closed prompt

[conning]

Most of the Day - OTA
Look there's only so many ways to say EXPLORATION AND MEMORY SHENANIGANS.


Afternoon - OTA
Neal is back at Baneberry Hall. It took him a while to work himself up to it. Even walking through the front doors was an unpleasant adrenaline rush. He's got a freshly empty backpack, hoping he can scare up a few more medications to loot for Malcolm and John Carter, should Malcolm not want some of what he brings back.

Really, though, he's here looking for something. He's figured it out, the connections between the objects and the memories. And he's going to rip this place apart until he finds whatever it is that belongs to him.


Night - closed to Malcolm
Neal's glad to have night duty, if only because he won't be sleeping in a room by himself. Or attempting to sleep, anyway. He didn't last night. That's probably the only reason he actually falls asleep this time, practically mid-sentence as he's talking quietly with Malcolm.

He's barely unconscious before he's dreaming. He's in Callisto's village--his village--both feeling and watching as Negan strolls down a line of faces Neal knows from Mathias and elsewhere, swinging a barbed-wire bat with the casual ease of someone who knows how to use it. (He definitely knows how to use it, oh god, oh god, no.)

Behind Negan, the town hall burns, and somehow even though they're in the line with him too, Raylan and Doc and Eliot and Hardison and Parker are all inside, screaming. Negan hefts the bat, and then it's Neal, not Negan, pointing it squarely at Malcolm's chest, while Ainsley sobs next to him.

"First one's free," Neal says, before settling his hands on the grip of the bat and bringing it down hard on his best friend's head.

He screams awake, confused by the sudden darkness, listening desperately for the flames and trying, trying, trying to forget the feeling of bone crunching through the length of his bat as Malcolm went face-first into the dirt.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm hears so much screaming in his sleep that - at first - he thinks it isn’t real. But as he sits up, he realizes… it didn’t come from him. He places his hand on his own throat, like he can somehow confirm that. But. If it didn’t come out of him… he looks over the side of the bed.

“Neal? Are you okay?” he asked, blinking at him in the dark.

[conning]

Neal's sitting up, gripping propped on his hands, gripping at the mattress like he can tear it open all on his own. Breathing fast. Soaked in sweat. He keeps his eyes locked on the far wall for a moment, still half-caught in the sick pleasure of that bat balanced his hands.

A belated flinch at Malcolm's words, and he shifts enough to stare at the other man instead. It takes him a second to get his words together. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm..."

Fine. He makes a soft noise that couldn't be called amusement even if it wanted to be. "Nightmare," he says instead.

He shifts until he's sitting up properly, rubbing the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Did I wake you up?"

[abrightboy]

“Yeah, it was refreshing, for once,” Malcolm teases lightly, shifting towards Neal only to be halted by his far restraint. He sighs at himself and unbuckles both wrists, slipping down to sit crosslegged in front of Neal on his mattress.

“What was it?”

Neal’s slept here many times and this has never happened before.

[conning]

Neal studies Malcolm's face, trying to guess what parts of their friends lives he's been through. Whether he's lived Callisto's memory. Negan's.

God, Negan's.

He looks down. "Just. Everything adding up, I guess."

It's not a lie. Not an outright one, at least.

[abrightboy]

“Everything since you got to Mathias or everything you saw in the asylum?” Malcolm asks. He’s just going to call it that; that’s what it is.