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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Comments

[thering]

"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.

[abrightboy]

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?”

[thering]

"Nothing," Doc replies with furrowed brows and a quiet little huff of a sigh through his nose. "That place is invasive." Of course, he is referring to the few tainted objects scattered about within the asylum. He doesn't approve of that kind of prying.

"There is nothing in the ruins." Not after they removed the body from within it, in any case. "The cloaked figure is gone, although there may still be spectres dwelling in what is called the Penhew House. I do not trust the place, having spent a few nights there. And all the other houses are much the same standard fare as what you can find here."

[abrightboy]

“Penhew House? Is that the one that looks all… new and fancy?” He turns to look at Doc. “Do you think it’s where the Shadow Man was living?”

[thering]

"The house with the photographs and an ever-changing number of mirrors," Doc clarifies. Just in case there are other fancy houses he hadn't yet managed to explore.

"He wa'n't there when I was cooped up in there. But there were phantoms in the mirror. Strange, unsettling things. Never got attacked by one nor received any kind of response when I tried talking to 'em. You could only see them in the mirror, and they liked to move when you weren't looking. Maybe it is some... window into another world, or sommin'." Whatever it is, Doc likes Penhew House even less than Baneberry Hall. The place gives him the heebie-jeebies.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm is so very interested in something other than the asylum suddenly. He straightens up, all but leaning towards Doc.

“Are there still phantoms in the mirrors?” he asks eagerly.

[thering]

"I don't know," Doc answers honestly. He has looked and didn't see any, but he hasn't stood in front of one of the mirrors for an extended period of time and tried to summon one of those things. It seems both a waste of time to him, and frankly stupid in the way it could be dangerous. They know so little about the spectres and the only one that has interacted with them - the one Malcolm calls the Shadow Man - he's been rather rude and violent.

"Why don't you take a seat? Food's almost done." The baking and cooking are wrapping up at approximately the same time. They can discuss the details of the creepy house later.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm slides into his seat, watching Doc move around the kitchen.

“If the Shadow Man was living there, maybe he accidentally left something behind,” Malcolm muses.

[thering]

"He didn't seem like the kind of person to have anything to leave behind," Doc observes quietly as he plates up and puts a small portion of food in front of Malcolm. It's still probably more than what Malcolm can stomach but Doc isn't going to let Malcolm leave the table if he hasn't finished everything on his plate or at least made it look like he's put in his best effort.

"I'm not even sure if he is a person." He could be a thousand year old demon - or some thousand year old demon's attack dog.

[abrightboy]

"Do you think he's more... a guard than the warden?" Malcolm asks curiously. "Maybe he's not even actually on the same... plane of existence as us."

[thering]

"I'd never really thought of this place as a prison, truth be told," Doc replies softly, moving to sit next to Malcolm with his own plate of food. Although he seems a lot more interested in the biscuits if the pile he brought on a sharing plate is anything to go by.

He had known a prison. Known very well how it made him feel, how torturous and laborious each day had been. And while Mathias might push her boundaries, might test the limits of his sanity from time to time, this is... different.

"I have no doubt some people do believe that mirrors are windows into another realm." While they have seen and attempted to interact with spectres in their black, wispy garbs, not everything they have experienced have been... here. The 'Other Mathias', for example, or the forlorn-looking ghosts.

"He might not even know why he is here. So few of us do." Do Shadow Men have existential crises? Doc certainly believes that all men do.

[abrightboy]

“You think he might be in the same situation as us, but years down the road?” Malcolm clarifies. “But he has some role in their game. When Tim bled out in the tunnels, he saw him and his footprints were there in Tim’s blood for days afterwards, going through the locked gate,” Malcolm tells Doc. “And so many people dream about him after an encounter.”

[thering]

"Being trapped, even in a big old birdcage such as this one, can do strange things to the mind." It's definitely enough to warp even the most resilient among them. But whether the so-called Shadow Man is just a misguided old soul - he's not so sure about that.

"He could be a native to Mathias," Doc muses. He doesn't often speculate on the oddities of this town. Now that he's being given some ideas and the freedom to cook up some theories, he realises he doesn't actually know what he thinks. Tearing a biscuit in half to let out the steam, Doc takes a bite out of the smaller half and mulls over the foreboding figure.

"I do believe it is deliberate, perhaps even malicious. No one has had a positive interaction with him. He does not seem to try and help us. He taunts. We cannot know if he is responsible for bringing us all here, nor has he communicated exactly what he wants. But we have seen so many spectres, and ghosts. What makes him so different?"

[abrightboy]

“I guess… the ghosts we saw wandering weren’t interested in us at all. But the Shadow Man? He wants to hurt us. That time we went to the chasm with the Bridge? I was sure he wanted to kill Raylan. I don’t think those dreams just came from my mind,” he muses, taking a bite of beans before reaching for a biscuit.

[thering]

Doc isn't so convinced. Give it a few days and everyone will want to kill Raylan.

"If there was a hole in the ground and some strange people showed up, start yelling sommin' I don't understand, try to cross it, I'd shoot first too. Ain't anything about Raylan in particular. Or the others who got hurt trying to get across. Maybe it stops him from getting to us. But from his point of view? It's stopping us from getting to him too.

"We have an understanding, you and I, y'know. You know I'd bring a bottle over if I wanted to talk things out. You know that's how we do things, even if it ain't the same in New York. But maybe all ominous magical entities do is kill each other. If he's the last man standing he'd want to keep it that way."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm leans eagerly towards him, biscuit in his hand but already forgotten.

“You think he might not even understand why we’re here. Like we’re invaders to him.”

He has not heard a theory like that from anyone and it’s exciting.

“Like he’s part of the town but not part of the mechanism that’s doing this to us.”

[thering]

Doc purses his lips and shrugs the kind of casual, small, nonchalant shrug a man gives when he's used to it not mattering what he thinks. To him it's just as likely as the conclusion that the Shadow Man has some vendetta and is out to get them. He can't infer any intent based on what he's seen so far, other than the wretched creature being a touch aggressive and hostile.

"I think if he wanted us dead, we would be." Whatever role he has to play in Mathias, that they're still alive is not insignificant.

"This town don't half-ass things." Other than what might or might not have happened to Claire - they don't know who or what was responsible for her death and subsequent disappearance - Doc has read the rebuffing as warnings. Broken bones and scratches and the like. When the gunslinger pulls, he draws to kill. Raylan is the same. They don't half-ass things, neither. So why should the Shadow Man just, quite literally, blow people off rather than break their necks?

"You know what they did in Georgia to the locals, not all that long before I was born? What we did. We killed them. Took their homes. Gathered them up and marched them out, left them to die, all for a few hectares of cotton fields. If I was a Shadow Man and a bunch of settlers showed up one day 'cross the ravine taking the homes and eating the food, started hollerin' and throwin' things my way, well, shit. I 'on't need to tell you how that looks."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm takes a bite of the biscuit and turns that over in his head.

“That’s a good point,” he muses. “That’s a very interesting, brilliant point.” He looks at the biscuit. “These are good,” he adds brightly.

[thering]

"You made them," Doc points out quietly with a small shrug. Considering they've had to stop him from eating dog food, he doesn't think they'd take his word for it if he paid the meals any compliments.

"If you don't mind, I might stay behind, run a few errands." He needs to hunt down the errant Marshals also. They had promised him they would rest. This empty nest don't look much like resting. Sure, the side of Mathias beyond the chasm intrigues him, but he imagines the ravine will be absent for a while longer that they can take their time with it.

Besides, Malcolm doesn't need adult supervision 24/7. He probably wants the alone time too. Doc hasn't yet met a man who doesn't want to be left to his own devices from time to time.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm is going to look for more drugs, once he's had his fill of lunch.

He laughs lightly at the idea that he made them; Doc did the chemistry.

"Can you make sure Raylan gets some biscuits?" he requests. He's sure that he'll like them. "They seem up his culinary street."

[thering]

"Of course. And I can show you a few other things Raylan might like." Of the non-sexual variety of course. "Cornbread and chili beans and a dozen other ways to use up all that buttermilk, a culinary street only slightly older than I," he jests.

"Of course, I do realise this is Neal Caffrey's domain. And the old ways will die with me, I suspect. Still, you might find some use for old traditions. Especially if you find yourself in some circumstance where you don't have all these tools or appliances handy."

[abrightboy]

"I'd love that," Malcolm exclaims. Old culinary ways he might be capable of managing. That Raylan might particularly enjoy. "Let's do that after... we get everyone else back." Because that has to be what's going to happen. He takes one more bite of beans and takes the rest of his biscuit with him as he gets up from the table, planting a kiss on Doc's temple as he passes. Baneberry Hall's medicine cabinets won't loot themselves. "Be careful out there!" he calls as he heads out.

[thering]

Doc somehow manages to resist the urge to call out after Malcolm like a worried parent. Overprotective though he might be, he should probably heed his own advice about getting overinvested and draw some healthy boundaries.

He'll spend a bit more time in 1306 himself, finishing his biscuit and clearing the dining table, doing the dishes, cleaning up a bit. Sometimes the chores do themselves but the other chore fairy is supposed to be currently indisposed.

Speaking of whom. Doc will proceed to hunt the Marshals down once he leaves the house. To say nothing of how much of his time is spent herding cats and minding children.