The Village Mod (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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villagelogs2021-06-05 08:09 pm
villagemod) wrote in villagelogs2021-06-05 08:09 pm
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"
CONDITIONS UPDATE
OOC NOTES
navigation | faq | locations | report updates
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.
— 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.
— 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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He quirks a half-smile Doc's direction. "Thieves and shiny things."
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"Perhaps I could make you some tea," he offers. "It might help you feel a little more settled." A bit of fresh air outside of this big building might do Neal some good. It would do both of them some good.
"And if you'd like to talk about the things you have seen - in confidence - I am here for you."
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"Even if... even if one of them was yours?"
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He's not always so forthcoming about his own past. The blend of fact and fiction that the modern man has conjured for Doc and his contemporaries has always served to let him gloss over the ugly details of Frontier life.
But Neal is a friend and friends deserve... more than whatever tall tales they can find in the Wikipedia.
"Yes." He remembers more than he cares to, more than he lets on. "Well. I will try, at least."
i am 100% good with him having seen neal's btw, or not, whatever you want to do!
It doesn't feel right, knowing what he knows about Doc now without sharing something of his own.
"Have you... you didn't find a rubber band ball in one of the rooms, did you?"
I'll let Neal decide if he wants to tell him :P
"Is it yours?" The memory vessel capability of it is implied in the question.
no subject
"It's a ball made of rubber bands," he says, lightly teasing. "You start with one all knotted up and keep wrapping bands around each other until it turns into a ball. Kind of like a yarn ball, only it hurts if you break a band."
More or less, anyway. He goes quiet again. "Yeah, it's mine. It's from the FBI offices. I've had it since we worked our first case."
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"And you throw this ball around or is it a central location to collect all the stray rubber bands?" he asks, falling in step behind Neal.
"How was the case?" Doc can't imagine it would be much different from hunting revenants with Wynonna. Marginally less violent maybe. But sometimes that adds to the thrill.
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He smiles a little, sad and longing at the same time. If he wasn't wary of what would happen if he touched the thing, he would want to find it even more than he does.
His first case. It feels like an age ago, in so many ways. "A counterfeiter. He was trying to fake government bonds, whole boxes of them that disappeared in the 1940s. He wanted to pretend he'd found them, hand them over. It would have been about a hundred and fifty million dollars, if he'd gotten away with it."
A tiny, tiny smirk that flits across Neal's face. "He didn't."
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"You didn't keep one?" Doc asks with a little chuckle. Not a box of fake bonds, he means. Just one bond. Or the original one. "I know I would've." There's enough law-abiding citizens in Mathias and nobody ever said Doc Holliday would be a straight and honest influence on anybody. The only thing straight about him is his shooting. He's not even going to try and dress it up like he'd frame it up for sentimental value.
"I've noticed you... have a bit of a tremor in your hands, sometimes," Doc says, trying to be gentle about it even though he knows how crushing that can be to a man who needs those fine motor skills to be everything he has built himself to be. "You don't draw much anymore. Does it... not make you happy any longer?"
no subject
The grin drops away at Doc's observation, the question that follows. Neal self-consciously wraps his left hand around his right, even though the later isn't shaking right now. He told Malcolm that he couldn't paint like this. Malcolm insisted that he might not be able to paint a Monet, but he could still paint.
No. No, he couldn't.
"I just haven't been in a good place for it."
Even though it's supposed to be the place he retreats to when he needs it most.
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"I recall towards the end of my natural life. I was too ill to even leave the house. Everyone had some kind of well-meant life advice. 'Get some more rest, you'd feel better,' like I'd even left the bed or there was any chance in hell of feeling better. 'Eat this, drink that, go out for a walk, get some fresh air.' All I saw out the window was the truth that I would never ride again. You could be the best artist in Mathias, produce the finest piece of work that has the whole town singing your praises, but your body's given up cooperating with your wants and all you can see is everything you have lost. This I understand." It wouldn't stop Doc from saying nice things if Neal picked up the pencil, the brush, the smudging stick or the chisel. But he also knows it would be falling on deaf ears.
"Eventually I have to come to realise that if you can't make a good place out of doing something you love, for your own sake, it'll be mighty difficult making a good place elsewhere, or for other people. Better to look at what you have, what you can do, rather than what you have lost."
no subject
That's it, isn't it. That's the thing he's been avoiding, the fact he hasn't wanted to touch. If he doesn't try to draw or paint or do anything of the kind, he doesn't have to face the reality of what he can't do any more. Who he can't be any more.
The problem is, he's not sure where that leaves him. He's not sure who's left, when you strip Neal Caffrey of the talent of forgery. That's who he is, it's where his value has always been. Everything he's ever made of himself, he's made through that particular lie via art.
He stares down at his hands, left still wrapped around right.
"What I can do isn't good enough."
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"There may never again come a day where you can put lines with a pencil onto a piece of paper the same way you used to be able to do. You should take the time and space you need to come to terms with this. But there is the rest of your life after that to live. Why don't you consider filling it with facts of your accomplishments?"
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Neal shakes his head as Doc keeps talking, more and more emphatic, until he stops in the middle of the road and snaps on the heels of Doc's question, "Because I won't have any."
There it is. Out in the open, voiced and unavoidable. Neal squeezes his right hand into a fist. "What I do is who I am. It's who I've always been."
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But he knows that he can't dig Neal out of that hole, much as he really wants to. He can only offer the man a rope to think about and pull on and try to start climbing, and he can try to lift Neal up when he's closer to the top.
In the meantime, he resolves to keep a closer eye on Neal. Try to be there for him if he wants to talk, to work things through. Everyone can use a pep talk from time to time.
"You can be something better than what you were before. Something more. You will be."
no subject
What if I'm not?
He's Neal Caffrey, forger, con artist, thief. He can't forge a decent piece like this, a decent anything. A hand tremor is recognizable, distracting, disturbing--not ideal for a con man. And how the hell is he supposed to pick a delicate lock or get around a well-made electronic security system if she can't keep his hands steady? Yeah, he's an FBI consultant, yeah, he still has what he knows, but how long until that knowledge becomes obsolete and he can't practice his particular arts on something new?
He closes his eyes. "I don't know if that's true."
Forgery is what gave him freedom as a kid. Sharking at a pool hall taught him to manipulate. Sleight of hand is what led him to Mozzie, their first big con, through that to Kate. His crimes eventually led him to Peter and a life he might still lose.
Neal takes a deep breath. Exhales quietly. Rolls his head on his shoulders and starts walking again like he didn't snap at Doc at all. "Do you know what it is? Or was, I guess? Your memory?"
It's not an elegant segue in the least, but Neal is too tired to care.
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Doc falls in step behind Neal, following him along.
"Is it too much to hope that it was a riveting two minutes of me staring at a curved brick wall I cannot see in front of me?" He will indulge in Neal changing the subject, for now.
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"It... You and Wyatt Earp had a fight. He left." Neal manages to make the tone of the word left as final as it was.
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"You are referring to the last time I saw him," Doc says quietly, breathing out a sigh through his nose. "I never did get the chance to apologise. Wish we had parted on better terms." But, he's moving on as best he can. The man has been dead too long for Doc to really hold on to anything anymore. There's only so many regrets he can carry with him, and it's not as if he hasn't spent enough time paying penance in the bottom of that well.
"We fought a lot, Neal. I fought a lot. It's alright." It is who he was and he's trying to be better. That's really all he can do now.