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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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citharede: (bh252)

Day 63 - both open and closed

[personal profile] citharede 2021-06-28 12:48 am (UTC)(link)
MORNING - CLOSED TO JEFF
It took ages for her to finally fall asleep. She was busy listening to the slowly quieting storm and the sounds of the house and worrying about whether or not Raylan and Tim were okay. Jeff had promised to stay up for a while, wake her when they came back--if, her viciously cynical self says--but when she does wake up, the sun is filtering in through the window. Which means either Jeff went to bed and missed them coming back. Or they didn't.

She looks in Raylan's bedroom first. It's empty, the bed made. Same story with Tim's. Real panic is starting to hit as she comes crashing down the stairs in her pajamas.

"Jeff? Jeff! Raylan, Tim, anybody?"

If she had a little more presence of mind she would smell the coffee and the food Jeff made, but she doesn't just now.


Midday - OTA
When Athena goes out to look for Raylan and Tim, her first stop is 1306. It's empty. Entirely empty, totally quiet. No leftovers on display in the kitchen for anyone who drops in hungry, no coffee in Malcolm's stupid french press. No one home. There's never no one home. And now she's worried about Malcolm and Negan and Doc and even Ainsley and Neal, too.

It's not until she finds the chasm gone--just gone--that she feels a surge of relief. Of course. Raylan was obsessed with that thing, she didn't even have to have been here long to see that. Of course he would want to look at the other side of town, first chance he got. Tim probably went with him. And... all the others.

She wanders the new neighborhood a little, shouting the names of the missing periodically, her yells getting more and more frantic as no one answers.


Afternoon/Evening - OTA, cw a dead body, 2 threads max pls
She's not sure why she decides to take a look at the burned-out church, as the day starts winding down. She has the vague idea that she'd like to spit on the ashes and leave again. Athena doesn't want to think about what it means that she hasn't found most of her friends. Raylan, Tim, the others at 1306, Will, Hardison, Parker... Even Callisto is gone.

She's scared. Even more scared than the first time she woke up in this stupid fucking town. She shouldn't be as glad as she is that she still has Jeff and Kirigan here. Klaus is nice, but he's... well, himself, and John is a kind and awkward noodle who she'd probably have to protect in a pinch.

She climbs one of the remaining low walls into the church, rather than going through the front door like a normal person. It's why she doesn't see the body in the middle of the empty floor right away. Not until she drops down the other side and turns around.

She recognizes who it is too fast to bolt away. Instead she runs toward it--him, dropping to her knees next to Will and fumbling to find a pulse even though the way he's staring, the way his features are twisted and frozen, she already knows she won't. Still, she presses a hand against his chest--his cold chest, his cold chest--panicking wildly for a breath, two, three. She doesn't know CPR. Would it even matter if she did?

She knows it wouldn't.

Athena wrenches her focus away from the corpse to scream at the top of her lungs toward the silence of Mathias. "Help! I need help, fucking someone, please!

Maybe someone else can tell her that he's not dead. That she's made some kind of mistake. She's not a doctor. She doesn't know shit. Will can't be dead, can't really be dead, that's not how it goes here. It's not.
Edited 2021-06-28 00:48 (UTC)
bardish: 40s; SCD (scd423)

morning!

[personal profile] bardish 2021-06-28 08:20 am (UTC)(link)
Jeff can hear the panic in Athena's voice as she comes barreling down the stairs. He abandons the pan of eggs he'd been scrambling (still on the burner, still turned on), rushing out to intercept the kid before that panic escalates into anything worse.

"Hey-- hey! I'm here." He's still got a spatula in his hands as he holds them up to, like, prove he's really here or something? "You're not alone."
citharede: (bh16)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-06-28 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
She sags against the wall as soon as she hears his voice, sees his dumb face. She shouldn't be relieved, she should have been happy if the others were gone, because maybe it meant they went home. But maybe it didn't. And even if it did. It meant she would be by herself.

Athena flashes him a shaky smile. "Oh good. I'd hate to think everyone in this house was a secret Christian and I missed out on the fucking Rapture or something."
bardish: 40s; SCD (scd451)

[personal profile] bardish 2021-07-08 03:15 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeaaah, I never was any good at tests. Totally would've failed whatever Jesus drummed up for the Rapture." Can you tell that Jeff really knows nothing about Christianity, based on his assumptions about the Rapture? His parents had happily raised him in a non-denominational, spiritual hodgepodge.

(It was the 70s. And they carried the 70s well into the 80s and beyond.)

"But, um..." He wrings his hands on the spatula nervously. "Something did happen. I don't know what, but... Next door. The house is totally empty."
citharede: (bh57)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-07-24 09:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Athena makes a choked little noise of amusement at Jeff's religious knowledge, such as it is.

That, though. The revelation that 1306 is totally empty, that scares her.

"What?" Her voice is small and worried, and the question is pointless, she knows that, but... "Was there any like. Fighting or anything? Any. Did it look like people got hurt?"
setthetone: (working - in the field)

afternoon/evening

[personal profile] setthetone 2021-06-30 04:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Things have been quiet.

Well.

Except for invasive, intrusive and traumatizing walks down several memory lanes, of course, but Carter handles them like he handles anything in Mathias - trying not to think of it too much. Pretend it didn't happen. Focus on what's ahead.

At least nobody died... nobody that he knows of. Yes, people are missing but he can't fret about that. Not yet. Not until it's certain. Too much has happened for that. People getting viciously slaughtered only to return from the dead. Then others, like Dr. Magnus, just silently vanishing. He just... can't bring himself to worry about that, keeps pushing it away.

But that cry is very real and very definite. When it reaches him on his way home he moves immediately, running over to the ruined building.

"Athena?!"

He climbs into the rubble, trying not to cause a landslide, and jumps down. He's focused on her so he doesn't see the body right away, instead stepping in to place his hands on her shoulders.

"Hey! Hey, I'm here. Are you hurt? What's going on?"
citharede: (bh320)

[personal profile] citharede 2021-07-06 05:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Athena looks back and up at him, lip trembling, eyes spilling over. She's not sure what to say, how to answer, how to even get words out.

She just looks back down at Will's body and the twisted, horrified expression on his face.
Edited 2021-07-06 17:12 (UTC)