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

"Malcolm for the love of ..." Tim began and without thinking he twisted at the waist to wheel back around into the room.

At least he got as far as twisted at the waist before pain strong enough to cause his vision to go black at the edges, and toss the contents of his stomach up to his throat hit with a vengeance. Breath was stolen from his lungs and Tim didn't even try to stay upright, letting himself drop to his hands and knees with the instinctive desire to curl in a ball and protect his vulnerable mid-section.

About the only saving grace to the whole situation was the fact that he managed to swallow down the bile, rather than pitching it all over the floor.

Malcolm was confused for a moment as Tim sank to the floor, then realized his injuries were worse than he'd known.

He stepped over, crouching next to him, watching for any sign of losing consciousness or disorientation.

"Did Doc say you could go out today?" Malcolm asked suspiciously. He offered his arm. "Do you need help getting home?"

"I said I could go out today," which really wasn't an answer but Doc hadn't seen Tim since the previous morning before the baby marshal slunk off to 1308 to lick his wounds.

"Just moved awkwardly," Tim growled though it sounded pretty damn pathetic given his curled up position. "It'll subside in a moment."

He hoped. Dear Lord did he hope. Maybe he should have taken Callisto up on her offer to kill him and hope he reverted back to factory settings.

"You should let me help you back to the house," Malcolm said. "And let Doc take another look." He offered his hand again.

Oh he wanted to be hard-headed about this. His instincts were screaming at him to find a deep dark hole and pull the lid closed behind him.

"Trust me when I say these people aren't gonna kick you around or judge you. Neal and Malcolm especially. For all the bite they can be capable of, the New Yorkers are the softest among us. The kindest too, by my bet. Doc's the most hospitable."

Fucking Raylan Givens.

"Yeah, okay." He wouldn't even fight the idea of going to 1306. However... "It's going to take me a minute to get up."

“Take your time,” Malcolm tells him. “Cracked ribs?” he hazards. “I did those a few months ago. Not a fun ride.”

"Definitely," Tim said still curled in the fetal position. "It's the internal organ damage that's starting to prove troublesome."

He took a very careful breath, drawing an arm up to lay his head against for the moment. "Kidneys took the worst of it. Blood in the urine with significant tenderness, widespread bruising, and nausea. The pulmonary contusions... I didn't think they were anything significant but I'm having trouble breathing and my torso is starting to display hematomas in among the bruising."

“You know all that’s wrong with you and you’re out here running around? You could give yourself a full blown pulmonary haemorrhage and we don’t have the equipment here to treat that, even if Dr Carter knows how. And even if he hasn’t disappeared with the other missing people.”

"It didn't seem so bad when the day started," Tim groused, though he would have to admit that he had probably pushed himself out here further and longer than was wise.

Putting his hands to elbows flat on the ground the younger marshal inched himself onto his front and from there pushed up to his knees. Don't mind him while he crouches here like an offended turtle. Drawing one leg forward, he set his foot flat on the ground and started to lever himself upwards, using his leg and arms, while keeping his balance with the back leg.

It wasn't graceful but it was effective and he slowly straightened into a mostly upright hunch.

"Thinking I'd best head for 1308. I get off my feet, I don't think I'm getting back up again and your sofa is not that comfortable."

“I promised I’d take you home and that is where you live,” Malcolm conceded archly. He steadied Tim by his elbow. “I’ll let Raylan know your condition if I see him.”

"Don't." Tim said in a quiet tone as he let Malcolm take his elbow. He didn't lean on the smaller man but he did accept the guiding support. "He'll come by and check later. Let him get the ants out of his pants while he can."

“I won’t go looking for him, but if I see him, I have to let him know,” Malcolm told him. “We don’t lie to each other.”

Tim reached with his other hand to lay it against the hallway wall. "Do whatever you want, Malcolm. I do not give a fuck at this point."

Malcolm looked at him oddly. “Did… I say something… offensive?”

It was a sudden shift in demeanour; he thought they were talking.

Tim paused for a moment his hand braced heavily on the wall. He considered trying to explain why he felt stung by the suggestion that he was asking Malcolm to lie to Raylan for him. But the effort to try to tangle words with the smaller man, combined with the sense that it would just come back to bite him on the ass later, was too much for him to handle at the moment.

"I hurt. It makes me extra difficult, Malcolm. Let's just focus on getting me back to 1308 and I can go lay down."

“Okay.”

As they stepped outside, Malcolm looked over at him.

“Why did you come over here by yourself? Why didn’t you bring someone with you?”

Focused on his footing Tim didn't lift his head to give Malcolm a sidelong glance. But he was thinking it!

"Didn't see anyone here with you," he pointed out.

"I'm not badly injured and potentially bleeding internally," Malcolm pointed out. "And I didn't come out here alone the first time. Raylan brought me yesterday. Because he was injured and probably thought it wasn't a good idea to be out here alone," he noted, giving Tim a sidelong glance.

"Well. If nothing else, this place and his associations with you and other, has proven good for honing his common sense. Back home he's rarely so cautious."

Malcolm huffed a laugh down at the ground ahead of them.

“Well. He was uncautious enough to get his feet ripped up to start with. I saw them up close last night when I changed the dressings. They were worse than I expected. He shouldn’t have been on them all day, but considering how long he’s been trying to cross the chasm, there’s no way we could expect him to sit at home.”

"He didn't want to try to climb the cliff in his cowboy boots. No traction," Tim responded before his brain caught up enough to wonder if the cliff climbing had yet to be shared?

Ah well, Malcolm told him that they didn't lie to each other. Cliff climbing had probably been shared.

"Good. Keep on him about taking care of those cuts. The last thing he needs is to let them get infected and you're right. Missing a limb wouldn't have stopped him from investigating this new development."

"He's not with us tonight," Malcolm said. "He was with us last night, so he's with you tonight."

Raylan always alternated, unless there was a reason not to.

"You'll have to check them before he goes to bed."

"Having two injured people alone in the same house is stupid," Tim said as he kept picking his way towards Phillips street, inwardly cursing the fact that it was so far from the western side of Mathias.

"Between you and Doc he knows better than to be an idiot about such things. If not, I'll set him straight and send him back over to you."

“So the most injured person being alone is smarter?” Malcolm countered. “Except for the bottoms of his feet, Raylan is perfectly able-bodied. I’m sure he’s going to want to make sure you don’t die choking on your blood in the night.”

"It's not a contest," Tim said in a dry drawl. "I am not choking on any blood. He can poke at me in the morning, as he's already doing. I'd say bring me coffee but I guess I need to lay off that for awhile."

Coffee and the moonshine. The younger marshal winced.

"I am not going to be good company for anybody without my coffee," and without his alcohol.

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