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The Village Mod ([personal profile] villagemod) wrote in [community profile] villagelogs2021-06-05 08:19 pm

063-064 » no matter how much / part ii (group B)

WHO: Group B 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.




THE NEW ARRIVALS

The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake up on the lawn of Town Hall, at the center of the little town square. There are shops all around them, with houses just beyond, and at first glance, everything seems almost picturesque. Except for the silence that is at times so complete as to be maddening... Welcome to Mathias.






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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setthetone: (neutral - chart)

petty theft

[personal profile] setthetone 2021-06-14 03:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Baneberry Hall.

Maybe he shouldn't spend so much time here. Maybe he shouldn't roam these hallways as if in search for something to do, in wait for someone to call out his name. What does it say about his mental state that he almost likes it here? Just because of the mere idea of this being a place where they once practiced medicine? Maybe bad medicine. Maybe awful death and torture village medicine. Horror movie medicine. Whatever.

For some reason, he'll take it.

Carter takes his time exploring every room, grabbing whatever he can use for the clinic - empty charts, a portable stretcher, other items that the rot hasn't claimed yet. It's good. Moving. Keeping busy.

When he sees Jeff, he's in full on work mode and the associations are like flashes. How to spot drug seeking behavior in the ER, 101. Or maybe that's just him and maybe that's just this place and maybe that's just wanting to be home so badly he almost rolls up on one of the old stretchers to close his eyes and pretend he's in Exam 1 for a nap.

"Mr. Givens?"

There is a puzzled look on his face when he stops in the doorway and takes in the scene.

"What are you doing?"

It's a stupid question, for more than one reason. One, you didn't have to be a genius to understand what was happening and two, well. Carter has had the very same idea. If maybe for less recreational reasons. Unless Mr. Givens had planned on bringing them to the clinic?
bardish: 40s; SCD (920-03)

[personal profile] bardish 2021-06-14 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)
The lock gives just before Jeff realizes he's not alone, and thank fuck for that timing, because he's pretty sure he would've flinched and snapped the paperclip off in the damn thing if Carter had arrived just fifteen seconds earlier.

Of course, there's no time to pat himself on the back for his successful attempt at breaking into a cabinet full of drugs-- a feat that would've made his younger self very proud-- because now that he's got an audience, all he can feel is a sinking feeling of shame.

...it doesn't help that his audience thinks he's Raylan. Or that, for a moment, Jeff feels this terrible fucking impulse to just try to roll with it, like he can foist the consequences of his actions off on a man who doesn't deserve it. The fact that he even considers it for a second is enough to send guilt sinking down in his stomach like a stone.

Besides. There's not a chance in hell Jeff could pull off a remotely convincing Kentucky accent.

"Oh, uh... I'm not... Raylan. And I thought..." He gestures vaguely at the now-opened cabinet. "Medicine! Could be helpful, you know? For, um... people, in an emergency?" Well, he's not lying, exactly. It's mostly the truth! He's just omitting one important detail, is all.
setthetone: (neutral - wake up room)

[personal profile] setthetone 2021-06-19 03:56 pm (UTC)(link)
"What?"

For a moment he's dumbfounded. Not Raylan? That's right, the accent is different as are the mannerisms. A brother then? ... But wouldn't a brother have the same accent unless this is some weird parent trap bizarro event, Mathias style? Huh.

"Uh. Okay. Hi? John Carter, I guess we haven't... met then?"

It's just a lot of information at the same time and Carter's mouth opens, closes, while he's processing all this.

"Are you a doctor?"

He sounds almost hopeful. He was so happy about Caitlyn's arrival, having yet another doctor would be such a relief...
bardish: 40s; JUSTIFIED (rg152)

[personal profile] bardish 2021-06-23 08:16 am (UTC)(link)
There's still some teeny tiny part of Jeff that's convinced this is absolutely a weird, cosmic parent trap situation, so he and Carter are at least on the same page where that's concerned.

"I'm J--" He drags the 'j' out for a moment, like he's debating giving some fake name just in case this goes south. But then, that would be totally stupid-- and pointless-- considering there's only about twenty people in this town, and he already looks like Raylan, so, how would an alias go, exactly? Best case, people just assume they're a set of mysterious triplets. "Jeff. Hi."

As for the question... God, he wishes he could say yes. There's a note of optimism in Carter's voice that he'd hate to dash. But here he goes, dashing it anyway.

"And, ah... No. More like--" He moves in front of the cabinet, peering at the bottles, before taking one and setting it on the desk behind him. Then another. "--a concerned citizen." He picks up a third and gestures with it, vaguely, as he looks back at Carter with a totally casual smile. "And former juvenile delinquent. So the lock was a piece of cake."

He sets that third bottle down with the other two. And if the other man takes a moment to get a closer look at the meds on the desk, Jeff's just going to suuuuper subtly slip another bottle of pills into his pocket with his free hand.
setthetone: (salt - eyebrow raise)

[personal profile] setthetone 2021-06-26 11:25 am (UTC)(link)
"Right."

It's a very special kind of right. It's polite but it's also an unmistakably looking-through-your-bullshit right. Carter's eyes dart down to the bottle, up to his face again, clearly pondering his next steps, words.

"You know, there's no real way of telling if they're actually safe. Or how long they've been sitting here."

Look at that. He picked the appealing to reason approach. But he's already bracing himself for potential defensiveness or rationalization.

"I really think these should be for emergencies only."
bardish: 40s; MD (to022)

[personal profile] bardish 2021-06-27 04:20 pm (UTC)(link)
...okay, that's a fair point. Jeff can't even find any dates past the 90s on any document here, and there's no telling what year it is, considering.... timelines and time travel and shit. For all he knows, these pills are decades expired.

Or they're still good. It's kind of a crap shoot.

Jeff hums thoughtfully, and nods. "Yeah. Emergencies..." he repeats, mild and agreeable. It's not like he has any plans on taking any pills recreationally, himself, so he'd like to think he sounds pretty sincere right now. The bottle of pills Jeff just slipped into his pocket? It's just... security. For a rainy day. He doesn't want to take it, but... "You never know when heavy narcotics might come in handy. Especially in a place like this."
setthetone: (124)

[personal profile] setthetone 2021-06-30 07:02 pm (UTC)(link)
"Uh huh."

He doesn't look too convinced but he doesn't press the point for now. Instead, Carter steps closer and actually takes one of the bottles to look at them. 1996, it reads. Perfectly normal to him.

"I mean, this one's from my year so I'd say they're good. Then again, who knows what year it actually is. Most of you are from the future."

There's a beat.

"Are you from the future? I just, it's just this thing, it always comes up, I don't know..."
bardish: 40s; SCD (scd572)

[personal profile] bardish 2021-07-08 03:02 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah..." Jeff wrinkles his nose. "I mean for all we know, it's the year 2050."

Unsettling as the question of when they are is, he's at least eager to move on from the scrutiny of being looked at like he's some drug-seeking thief. Which, admittedly, he is, sort of, but he's still not planning on imbibing, so that's got to count for something.

"I'm-- Huh." It's an interesting thing to consider, being from the future, when it's all so relative. "I guess I am. It's 2018 for me. So I've got, what... twenty-some years on you?"

Weird to think about. In 1996, he might as well have been a different person entirely.